Once again, Eric found himself keeping watch over a campfire, and
several wards.
Not only was there his sister - he had to watch over Alexis as
well. Not to mention the newest three - Eileis, Jon, and the still unconscious
Cain - which he had taken into his protection.
He wondered briefly why he felt responsible for the lives of the
others. Chrystle was the only one that he had specifically been tasked to
protect - the others were merely passers-by who he had extended his protection
to... but why? Eric shook his head. He supposed that he was simply making up
for his earlier crimes against people.... It seemed a reasonable enough thing
to do.
Then there was the miracle he had performed - the tiny bit of the
Goddess' power that had flown through him for the moment when he had healed
Cain. He shivered slightly, remembering it. It wasn't the first time he had
been given special abilities. It was rare, but on occasion Chrystle would tell
him to accomplish something, and he would need some extraordinary ability to do
so. Each time this had happened, he had found that he possessed it.
It wasn't permanent, though. The only special power that never
left him was the power of his speech. If he were to try to heal someone now,
for instance, he would fail. Such was the way of things, and it was not that
which bothered him.
It was his instincts, again. Every time he had been given a quest,
he had never known in advance. Always, it had been Chrystle who had told him.
But ever since the day where he had added Alexis to his travels, he'd had an
eerie feeling that he was supposed to be accomplishing something. This time,
he knew he had a quest - and this quest was something bigger than anything he
had undertaken before. This was the culmination of everything that he had
done, and it frightened him to the core
A sudden noise from outside of the camp made him spin around. A
man was standing there, half-cloaked by the shadows. Eric felt every nerve in
his body come alive, and suddenly wished very badly that he had a sword. That
he wanted a weapon spoke volumes to him about the strength of this
newcomer.
"Who are you?" Eric demanded strongly, raising himself up.
The man said nothing for a moment, then spoke up, his voice barely
audible even in the silence of the night. "You know me, Andrews. It is you
who I've wanted to see, all this time. Do us both a favor, and send all this
extra baggage back home where they came from." he waved to indicate the people
of the camp. "It is you who must face me."
"I don't know what you're saying - but it sounds like a threat to
me. Get away from this camp!" he said it commandingly, but only felt a small
fraction of the usual effect.
The man smiled, his face wrinkling. "You will learn. Your Goddess
does not control all - this is the realm of the Nemesis. Soon you will
meet." With that enigmatic statement, the old man turned, and was gone into
the night.
Eric shuddered uncontrollably. Sitting down, he tried to compose
what had just happened to him. He had been warned - by this 'Nemesis' that his
three new companions had come to battle. But why? He didn't know anything
about the being, whatever it was. He had nothing to do with it. Unless -
Eric closed his eyes as realization came over him. Had he been
capable of doing so, he may have passed out from shock. As it were, his world
seemed to grey a little. He knew, now, what it was that he had to
accomplish.
He had to defeat the Nemesis.
Eileis looked over at him strangely. "Excuse me?"
"I need you to tell me everything that you know about the
Nemesis." Andrews repeated, struggling to conceal his nervousness. He had
asked Eileis to speak to him as soon as she had awakened, and they were
currently a decent distance away from the camp where the rest of the group was
waking up.
"But you're a healer.... Surely you know."
Eric shook his head. "I'm not a healer. I'm merely a traveler....
I've been - " he pondered a moment on how best to express it, without saying
too much " - gifted."
"Ahhh...," Eileis nodded understandingly. "You're not from
anywhere near where we are, are you? You didn't know that the Healers from my
lands were their own organization."
"That's correct. And that's why I need to know everything I can
about this Nemesis."
"You're going to fight it?" Eileis looked nonplussed. "I thank you
for your offer, I really do, but we don't need any more people along. It's a
very dangerous road that we travel. A healer would be well-used, but what of
your other two companions, your sister, and the slave? You don't want to
subject them to what we're going to have to fight. A beast of the Nemesis'
making is what did that to Cain, and I barely managed to keep it from killing
him outright. Something like that could come back at any moment. I'm sorry,
Andrews, but I can't let you come along."
Eric sighed. He reflected on how he could disarm the woman,
without even hurting her, to prove his point. But no, that simply would not be
the proper way. "I assure you, neither I nor any of my companions are in any
danger" he said, instead. This wasn't quite the truth.... Ever since the
half-failure of his commands the night before, he had feared that he was losing
the only non-violent means he had of protecting his charges.
Eileis seemed about to object, but then reconsidered. "All right.
I suppose you wouldn't have been able to come this far if you didn't know a
thing or two about staying alive. Sit down, and I'll tell you what I know.
"Long ago, when the world was young, and humans had only barely
established civilization upon their Goddess' world, there came a great plague
from the skies. Nobody knew the nature of the thing then, and nobody does to
this day - only to say, it came screaming of fire and destruction as it crashed
into this poor planet. There was a city nearby, which was destroyed, the
legends tell - the chaos had been sufficient to destroy the structures, but not
kill all of the people. And so there was a rebuilding.
"But the plague from the skies had survived its collision. Whatever
its nature, it was anathema to the life of this world. The survivors found
that their new city would not thrive - farmers could not grow food in the
ever-increasingly arid soil, the water from the ground tasted of oil and
sulphur, and the children were stunted. Those women unfortunate enough to
attempt to bear children during these times of trouble gave birth to horrors -
horrors which even the ancient writings do not describe in depth, as their
forms were too terrible for the mind to know completely. The city fell into
ruin, and its inhabitants were never heard from again.
"It was a remote town - perhaps something could have been done had
it been near the center of a kingdom. Perhaps it could have been stopped while
still in its infancy. But, of all of humanity, few took note of the
disappearance. Fewer still even cared. The people who began the Healers had
scribed all of this, which is how we know today, but they were too few to
attempt to fight it on their own.
"Other towns began to fall, in the same manner as the first. A slow
sickening of the land and its people, and the eventual downfall of civilization
in that area. The Nemesis - as it had come to be known - was spreading, and if
not stopped, then it would take all life on this world.
"The Healers organized the Crusade. They had grown in numbers and
prestige since the years when the first town had been destroyed. They gathered
the strength of untold men, and marched East to the heart of the Nemesis.
"This was the great evil, which we all fought - the ways of ancient
magic were lost in this conflict, as many of its greatest practitioners died
fighting the nameless evil.
"Perhaps the most frightening thing of all was that, even though
the Nemesis had a few creatures that it called upon to fight us, they were
easily defeated. It was the Nemesis itself that killed so many. The scribes
describe it as emptiness, but more than that. A black shape, towering above
all the armies sent to dispatch it. The ancient scribes witnessed it tearing
apart entire batallions of soldiers. Still more warriors could not even fight
it. While its form simply appeared to be blackness, that was merely because
one's mind would not comprehend what it truly was. The eye instinctively
avoided it. It was written that, if one gazed too hard into the darkness, one
could see what the Nemesis truly was - one would witness the essence of the
Plague from the skies, and forever lose one's soul.
"So it is told.
"In the end, fully one tenth of humanity had been extinguished.
The world was not then as full as it is today, but it was still just as
dreadful a number. The Healers had won, or so they thought, as the Nemesis had
retreated far underground. From that day forward, they appointed one man to
act as a Guardian. It was this person's duty to keep the Nemesis from
regaining its power, and destroying humankind again.
"But they had underestimated the Nemesis. It was powerful still,
even while it dwelt under the earth. It slowly began working its way into the
mind of the Guardian. Chosen by the Goddess, the Guardian was afforded a great
deal of power. But the Nemesis was subtle, and slowly turned the Guardian
away.
"It was then that the Healers, who keep constant watch over the
balance of power, sent out a group to destroy the former Guardian, and become
the new one. This cycle has repeated since those days, long ago. Always, the
Guardian is subverted, and always, someone comes to replace him."
Eileis looked up at Eric. "So, you see, the Healers sent us to
fight the former Guardian. If we are successful, even just one of us, then
that person shall become the new Guardian. It is a difficult life to life, and
one that invariably ends with death at the hands of one's replacement, but it
is a task we eagerly take up."
Eric didn't say anything for a while. The story was spinning in
his head - it all made sense to him. The dawning realization threatened to
overwhelm him again. The creature who had visited the night before... was the
guardian that the three had come to battle? Andrews shuddered. But the
guardian hadn't talked to them. He had spoken to Eric himself.
"Soon, you shall meet...."
Eric shuddered again. It was he who was destined to become the
next....
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