Preface:
This story takes place midivalish, sometime after or during the crusades but well before the height of the renaissance. Trade is becoming more prevalent, along with the new middle class, and Europe is slowly coming out of the dark ages.
The story takes place over a span of around two decades, so each chapter title is prefaced by the main character's age at the time.
Author's note:
This is the first real story I've written. It has actual plot and things. I have notes. It's also the longest I've ever written by a factor of three(and I'm only a third of the way done as of right now... probably less). So if it's boring, if the writing sucks, if it's just plain bad... please don't hurt me. And if you decide to give up before chapter three, give me the benefit of the doubt. It starts slow out of necessity.
Questions or comments, contact me as Another Aurelia on AIM.
Oneiros
Part one - formative years
Chapter four - nineteen - murder
The boy in the bed tossed restlessly, half-muttering nonsense words in his delerium. A sheen of sweat covered his pallid face, giving his now-gaunt countanance an unearthly look when it caught the light. Sylvie stayed by the bed waiting for the fever to break, occasionally replacing the damp cloth on his forehead or feeding him from a jar containing a mixture meant to mitigate his symptoms. Between ministrations she worked over a candle. It wasn't meant to provide light, for daylight streamed in through a pair of broad windows. She used it to heat a spoon containing a small piece of gnarled root. Liquid bubbled out its' ends and colleted in the bottom of the spoon. At regular intervals, she poured the drops into a small jar half full of water, which she then stirred thoroughly with a second spoon. Two piles of the root segments lay on the table, one blackened and the other fresh.
The roots were poisonous. Eaten in sufficient quantity, they would send a person to sleep, and kill them shortly afterwards. The extract contained the poison but none of the root's flavor. It could likely only be tasted in pure water.
It was midafternoon when the boy's fever broke and he lapsed into sleep. She had long since finished with the roots, and had burned the remains in the kitchen stove downstairs. Tightly stoppering the bottle and concealing it, she called the mother upstairs and spent several minutes giving her detailed instructions on how to care for the boy. After politely refusing the wonan's oppers of hospitality, she set out.
It was harvest time, and the village reflected that in its' happy bustly. A light breeze made dry leaves skitter across the hard-packed dirt road that lead through town. She found the normality... comforting, she realised. Was she truly so afraid to leave this behind, so frightened of the uinknown that she would even cling to what she hated? Normally she would be tense and irritable with so many people around, but today even annoyance had been pushed aside by a feeling of nervous forboding.
Maybe she ought to stay, then. Now that she knew the uncertanties of leaving, parhaps she could live here without such hatred of the place. No, she thought, dismissing the idea with a shake of her head. If she stayed she would would doubtlessly return to normal shortly. She had decided what she wanted to do with her life, and wouldn't let her confince herself otherwise.
She reached the middle of the town and turned right, onto a narrower road that ran north for only a few hundred feet before ending in the north woods. None of the townspeople tried to speak with her, for which she was grateful; she had developed a reputation for being uncoversational, but people sometimes tried anyway.
She turned onto a side path, cleared of trees to either side but curving into the woods so that no buildings of the town here visible from its' end, the healer's house.
Her pulse quickened as the opened the door, and her chest was tight with anticipation and fear. The interior of the house was gloomy, patches of sunlight from the windows casting the rest into shadow.
"Celina?" she called, though the house felt empty. She expected no answer and recieved none. She entered the kitchen, placing her bag on the small shelf by the door. With unsteady hands, she stoked the fire and put the soup pot - soup again, she thought, but perhaps never again - on the stove to heat.
Unable to stay still, she paced back and forth across the kitchen, her apprehension growing by the minute. When at lsat the soup was ready to be eaten, she served herself a small bown and forced herself to eat it. When she had finished, she stood and looked out one window then the other for anyone who might be watching. Satisfied that she wasn't being observed, she unstoppered the small jar and tipped halfd its' contents into the soup pot, the mixed it in thoroughly. When she fdinished, she checked the windows again then restoppered the jar and put it into a pocket.
After cleaning her bowl she went upstairs and lay down on her bed, trembling slightly. It was done. She watched dust moted floating in the sunlight streaming through the window above her bed. It wasn;t too late to go back, though, discard the soup and continue with life. She had plenty of time to think of a reason to tell Celina whe she had discarded it, time to decide whether or not she wanted to do this.
She lost herself in dust motes and consideration, and was surprised to hear the door open and realise it was evening. Impulsively, she rose and stood at the partially open door, leaning on the doorframe and listening. There was still time, if she truly wanted to stop it. She stood paralyzed by indecision, as she she heard Celina put her bag next to Sylvie's own. A few moments passed, then she ehard the clink of cutlery, the sound of a ladle. She wanted to cry out to Celina, tell her to stop, but didn't. She heard Celina move a chair, then silence. She was eating it; too late to go back now. Surely it was too late.
After two long minutes, she heard Celina rise and go to the living room, heard her sit in the chair before the unlit fireplace, more heavily than normal, Sylvie thought. She made herself count to three hundred, then went downstairs to check, ready to enter the kitchen and search for something in her bag if Celina was somehow still awake.
She glanced at the living room as she descended and saw that Celina was indeed asleep. She approached the chair cautiously andsay what the woman was barely breating. She wouldn't last more than a few minutes.
No longer bothering with caution, Sylvie climbed the stairs again, excitement and terror making her movements quick and unsteady, and took the lamp from her room. She touched the wick and cast fire into it, a slight trickle of mana which caused it to flare abruptly into life. She entered the storeroom and retrieved the two hidden books from the top of the roofbeam then left, leaving the lantern where it was.
Back downstairs, a loose stone in the floor under the stairs yeilded a wooden box containing the first Oneiros book and the dictionary. She took them and went to the kitchen. Opening her bag, she dumped the contents unceremoniously on the ground. Instruments scatters across the floor and jars smashed, leaving a pool of spreading liquid. She put all four books into the bag, and from a drawer took a knife. It was black handled, with a thin blade nearly a foot long and extremely sharp. She concealed the knife ina deep pocket and hefted the bag containing the books.
She went to the fiving room and approached Calina. The woman was certanly dead now, and Sylvie could feel her life force beginning to diffuse and fade. She approached the chair and was surprised to find a lump in her throat. She was sorry now that she had killed Calina; she would have gone back and changed what she had done, if she could. Never in her planning had she thought that she would feel regert. She had hated the woman for years, but missed her now that she was gone.
Angry with herself, she drew deeply from Celina's life force. All thoughts of regret vanished as power filled her and she had to focus on controlling the excess mana, keeping it from discarging. She drew all that she could, absorbing much of Celina's life force into her mana pool. She held far more than she had drawn from the baby, perhaps three halves more than what she could hold normally, and it was harder to control. She was fully awake this time though, and had been ready for it.
Dreamlike, she walked towards the front door. As she did so, she ran her fingertips along the wall which divided the kitched from the rest of the house, casting dire into it with a tiny fraction of the power she held, leaving five trails of flame licking across the woodwork. She opened the door with telekinesis, and stepped out into the dusk. The sun was down, and the sky low above the western horison was light yellow fading quickly to blue and black. Sylvie started west toward the woods, but paused and turned back. She stepped to the wall and put her hand on it, then cast fire with all the excess mana she held into the spell at once.
For an instant the wall glowed pure white near her hand, fading to yellow and red further away. Then the wall became a roading inferno. Sylvie lept away from the sudden, searing heat and stared. The flames rose twenty feet into the air, illuminating the clearing and nearby forest clearly. Realising that the blaze would be seen in the village and for miles around, she hurried into the woods.
She was well out of sight before she heard the shouting, and she kept on until it had faded. She stopped then, breating heavily, and sat to rest for a moment, letting the flame she had been using for illumination wink out. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she became aware of the red glow in the sky over the house. Though not enough to see by, it made a hellish backdrop to the black, twisted shapes of leafless trees.
She realised that her hands were trembling. The tremors spread, until she lay huddled on the ground shaking uncontrollably and crying while the events of the evening flashed through her mind over and over.
Slowly, the shaking subsided and finally vanished. She stood slowly. She felt calm and clear minded, reconciled to what she had done and ready to continue. She looked to the sky, and saw that the glow was much fainter than it had been. She cast flame into the air around her hand and held it down and behind her so that it provided illumination without blinding her. A flame for illumination took so little mana that would only drain her very slowly. Lifting the bag with her other hand, she set off in the direction opposite the glow in the sky, nearly due west.
The main road ran east-west here, and once away from the town she walked in the fringe of the woods, near the fields that bordered the road for miles in either direction from the town. She saw farm buildings occasionally, most of which were dark, but some still had lit windows. When at last the glow of the burning housewas no longer visible in the sky behind her, she emerged from the forset and, letting her illumination flame go out, approached one of the farm houses. The one she had picked out was one of those with lit wondows, so its' occupants were likely still awake. Which, she reflected, was just as well.
She picked her was slowly across the firld in the darkess, coming eventually to the back door. It was a square two-story house, made of wood except for the foundation. She opened the back door quietly. It opened to the kitchenm which was faintly lit by a recently banked fire. She stepped in and closed the door behind her with a faint thud. Putting her bag down on the kitchen table, she made her way quietly toward the front of the house. She found an entry hall and a flight of stairs. Light shone down the stairs, illuminating a second door off the hallway and, faintly, the front door. Opening the second door, she setpped into the room and made out the shapes of furniture in the low light. She began methodically checking each for occupants.
She was checking a large chair, her back to the door, when light flooded the room. She straightened quickly, turning. A large man filled the doorway with a nervous-looking woman holding a lantern looking over his shoulder. Before either could speak, Sylvie stepped towards them.
"Excuse me, sir. but I was wonder if you could-"
On the last word, she drew the knife from her pocket and thrust upwards with one smooth, precise motion. The knife entered just below the man's sternum, punching up into his heart with a sickening crunch. She yanked the knife out, how blood from the wound flowing over her hand, and took a swift step backwards even as the woman began to scream.
The man stood motionless, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. Then, slowly, he fell forward, hitting the floow with a loud thump. As though struck, the woman abruptly stopped screaming. She stared from the fallen body to Sylvie and raised her right hand, which was holding a rolling pin.
Not waiting for the woman to attack, Sylvie used telekinesis to jerk the rolling pin out of her hand. It flew backwards, hitting the stairs with a crash of splintering wood. Stunned, the woman looked at her now-empty hand, and at that moment Sylvie lept at her, knife ready.
The woman reacted with surprising swiftness, knocking Sylvie's knife hand away and grasping for her throat as she was knocked over. They fell into the hall, Sylvie atop the other woman but unable to stab, knife arm twisted awkwardly to one side. Her other arm was trapped beneath the woman, hand at the back of her head. Realising this, Sylvie cast fire through her trapped hand and into the woman's head. Immediately, the woman emitted a piercing scream. Her back arched and her limps thrashed as she desperately tried to escape. After only a few seconds, her scream trailed off and she subsided to the floor, dead.
Sylvie stood, breathing heavily. The air smelled of burnt hair and cooking meat, and her hand was covered with greasy, seared flesh. She leaned down and wiped it clean on the woman's dress, not even flinching when the body twitched. In the silence, she heard a soft creak from upstairs. She straightened and mounted the stairs cautiously.
They led to a small landing, from which doors opened to two rooms. One, empty, was lit by a lantern. The other was dark, and in it she found a boy of about ten huddled in a corner. He stared at her fearfully and she looked back at him, deciding what to do. She saw his gase move to her knife hand, which was still covered in blood.
She switched her knife to her other hand and brought the first up to her mouth. Still watching the boy, she began licking the blood off. Pausing for a moment, she smiled at himn reassuringly then telekinetically flicked the knife at him, hitting his head with the handle and knocking him unconcious.
She dragged him downstairs to the hall and retrieved four knives from the kitchen. Lifting him to the wall with some difficulty, she crucified him with three of the knives and put the fourth through the side of his kneck, through the artery, to keep his head upright. Standing back, she watched his blood begin to soak his clothing and run down the white walls. If he was lucky, he would be dead before he regained conciousness. Either way, whoever found the bodies would be confronted by a truly macrabe sight.
She went outside and washed her hands and the knife in the rain barrel, then returned to the house and gathered all the lamps. She placed them around the kitchen and lit them all, then locked both doors. She wasn't afraid of the bodies, she told herself, but one could never be too careful.
She sat at the table and took the Oneiros book of death magic from the bag. In the depth of the night, she opened it and began to read.
