General Art The Ruin of Souls (An Original Novel, Uncomplete)

[Vivaereth]

The Ruin of Souls (An Original Novel, Incomplete)

I've been working on this novel for a couple years, and I'm rather proud of it so far. I'm not going to post all of it right now, due in part to the fact that I have about 17 handwritten pages that I still need to type, but I've decided to post the beginning. Let me know what you think.

Wait a minute, I'm farther behind on my typing than I thought. I hope this is the most recent addition.



The Ruin of Souls

“Daughter Karah!” screeched the raspy voice once more from the small room set in a recess in the wall at the far end of the long stone corridor. Small, flickering lamps hung by thin, gold chains at even intervals along the ceiling. The burning oil lent the hall a sweet aroma, a scent that did not suit the cold, stale feeling emanating from the monotonous gray stone walls.
This was the second time the voice had called her. After years of training, Karah was wise enough to know not to make the Mother call a third time. She had been punished for it once as a child, one of her most unpleasant memories, and one she knew would never be forgotten. At least then she had had her best friend Valerie to keep her company. Now, as far as she was in her extensive training, she knew better than to think she would be given that luxury again.
Karah ran her hands down her white silk dress, smoothing out the few wrinkles that had somehow managed to set in the fabric. The dress was plain, a white that betrayed a sense of innocence, without any designs or other embellishments. It marked her rank – a Daughter, a helpless child that must be guided on the path to righteousness. As humbling as it was, Karah knew it would not last much longer. Today she became twenty years of age, the proper age at which one could advance from a Daughter to a Sister, if she be deemed worthy.
“How do I look, Valerie?” Karah asked hurriedly, anxiously waiting the life-changing moment that hung just before her. She looked at her friend’s blood-red dress. Valerie had finished her training just a few weeks ago. Now, it was Karah’s turn to earn a red dress – the mark of a Sister.
“Karah, keep your voice down! You know what would happen if Sister Lucinda caught you speaking to me so informally. Nothing good can come of that.” Karah flinched at the thought of the various punishments Sister Lucinda would subject her to. She remembered when Sister Lucinda had recruited Valerie and herself fourteen years ago. The sour woman had not taken well to the girls then, and had not warmed even the slightest over the course of their training. “Besides, you look fine. But I think you’ll look better in red,” Valerie added with a grin. Her features quickly grew serious. “Do you think it is a coincidence?”
Karah didn’t need to be reminded; the thought had been nagging at her mind all day. Today was not just her birthday; it was mid-autumn’s day, just as it had been on her sixth birthday when she was recruited. It had to be a coincidence, or else… She shook off the thought. It was definitely a coincidence. “I hope so,” was all she could manage to say.
The two girls stopped walking. They had reached their destination. The sound of their footsteps echoed down the hall like bells tolling before a funeral until it, too, stopped. “Karah, you know I can’t go in there with you. I’ll just wait here until you’re finished.”
Karah was too intimidated to answer. The double doors, carved ages ago from a darkenwood tree, lay open before her like a yawning maw. There were no lamps inside, only more cold stone tiles lining the short path to a second set of doors. As Karah approached them, the closed doors, being made of black bronze, seemed to siphon the little light that reached them out of the world. Gargoyles and demons carved into the bronze millennia ago seemed to stare voraciously at the unfortunate soul who approached them.
Karah swallowed her growing anxiety as she reminded herself of the training she had undergone to bypass fear.
She breathed a deep breath as she tried to convince herself that everything would be fine.
With her hands squeezing the door handles tight enough to make her knuckles crack, Karah opened the doors.
Accustomed to the darkness imposed on her from the eerily black doors, Karah found herself shielding her eyes against the measly light that glowed from two candles resting in black bronze stands on opposite corners of a huge mahogany desk. Using skills drilled into her mind for fourteen years until they had become little more than a primordial instinct, she appraised the scene laid out in front of her. Behind the desk, a small ornate chair supported a frail, old woman busily scratching out portions of a scroll that dangled to the floor. Snow white hair curled thinly below her ears. Wearing a long black dress, it was hard to mistake her for anyone other than the Mother. The old crone bent over the desk, studying what Karah believed to be the largest black book she had ever seen.
“Daughter Karah.” She spoke in a dry, raspy voice without glancing up from the book. “You certainly took your time.” She stopped, looking up with dark, stormy eyes that seemed to stare directly into Karah’s soul.
“I apologize for my shortcomings, Mother Richa. I did not intend to arrive so late. I sought support from Sister Valerie before I came because I was both excited and anxious for our meeting. I am sorry for making you wait.” Karah stopped and took a deep breath. She needed to calm down, or she would be perceived as unready. Then she would have to wait another year before she could become a Sister.
“Very well, Daughter. I suppose that today is a rather important day for you; I can see why you would be nervous.” Although the words that she used were gentle in nature, the tone did not seem quite so. But then, with her crackling voice, it would be difficult for anything she could say to sound gentle.
Mother Richa’s face grew more serious, if it could. The wrinkles that made up her face barely shifted. “Daughter Karah,” she said in a voice that echoed with all the times she had said those words in the past, “Are you prepared and willing to dedicate your life and soul to the service and solitude associated with the responsibilities of a Sister of Twilight, and are you willing to accept whatever the Reaper of Souls so chooses you to do in the life you have?”
Karah stood straighter now that the moment had finally come to begin her destiny. “Yes, Mother Richa. I swear my loyalty and eternal service to the Reaper of Souls in order to rid the world of the Forsaker’s influence. I ask only what I may do now to aid in this sure victory, for the forces of good are always stronger than those of the evil Forsaker.” The vow rolled easily off her tongue, memorized years ago for when the moment would finally arrive.
The Mother of the Night smiled, a feature that wickedly lit up her face. “Then by the power bestowed upon me by the almighty Reaper, I pronounce you a true Sister of Twilight. May the blessing of Him go with you always.” As she spoke, a gust of wind blew ripples down Karah’s dress. As the ripples slowed to a stop from the top of the dress to the bottom, the fabric gradually acquired a bloody red coloration. Karah stood stock still, speechless, awestruck by the magic she had witnessed. She vaguely noticed a large mirror behind Mother Richa before she found herself unwillingly turning around to leave through the jet black doors. It felt as though her mind no longer controlled her body.
“Sister Karah, I haven’t finished with you yet.”
Suddenly she could move freely again. Karah turned around to face her superior. “My apologies again, Mother. What else do you have in store for me?”
The Mother of the Night looked directly through Karah into her soul. “Since you are now a Sister of Twilight, the restrictions we had placed on your power have been removed. You are one of the most powerful sorceresses that I have ever seen, and now that your power is at its fullest, you may perform spells that rival even mine.”
Karah wondered what this could mean for her. She never wanted to be set apart from the other Sisters, but what would they think of her if they knew she was more powerful than them? She silently pondered what this newfound revelation could mean for her future as Mother Richa continued.
“Because you are such a valuable ally, the Reaper of Souls has requested an audience with you in the Kyrian Palace. Not even I know what will be discussed there.”
Karah nearly lost her balance. “The Reaper? The Reaper wants to speak to me?” She paused only long enough for Mother Richa to nod. “Why the Kyrian Palace? That is in the underworld! I’m such a valuable ally that He wants me to die? This doesn’t make any sense.” She broke down into body-convulsing sobs.
“Come now, child. You know that because of the Forsaker’s vile curse the Reaper is prevented from leaving the underworld. I never said that there was only one way to go there.

 

[Vivaereth]

(Note: There is a slight gap here, because I had left the only copy of it in school, and I had an urge to write at home. This picks up again a few paragraphs after the above post ended. I will eventually finish this section as well.)

When Karah looked into the mirror, the image of the small, candle-lit room clouded as though a thick, blue-green fog had filled the room. The swirling fingers of the fog darkened gradually to a deep, empty black. Standing there before the mirrored abysm, Karah found herself falling without her body ever moving. It felt as though her mind and soul were spiraling out of control, out of the constraint of her body. Every dimensionless instant she fell seemed to be an eternity; every second her mind burned as with an unquenchable flame, her soul surged with a bolt of ungrounded lightning.
Almost as soon as it had begun, infinite eternities later, it ended. Karah looked around as she stood up, unsure when she had fallen to the ground. When she came to her feet, her scan of the small room passed over her crumpled body. Alarmed, Karah bent to her body, and, in an attempt to somehow pick herself up, gasped as her hand passed through her own body.
She noticed her superior sitting at her desk again, bent once more over the large book. “Mother Richa! I think something went wrong. I’m not in my body anymore. What do I do now?”
Mother Richa ignored her as she began to write in a smaller ledger book.
“It is of no use,” said an unfamiliar voice from the shadows beyond the double doors. As Karah turned to look, a figure stepped out into the candlelight. The man was about her age, with bleached, ear length hair. He wore a gold and black tunic, white trousers, and tall, brown leather boots.
“Who are you?” Karah asked, surprised and worried. The Palace of Darkness did not permit any males within its walls.
“Karah, Karah. The real question is how are you? You don’t look so good lying there on the floor.” The man smiled. It seemed to be genuine. Karah still didn’t trust this stranger who somehow knew her name. “I know you are wondering about that. Let me explain it to you.
“Humans are similar to the sun. The sun contains three essences: light, warmth, and energy. Without one of these essences, the sun would not be the sun. Human life would cease to exist, because life requires a certain measure of all three of these essences, which the sun gives to us.
“Humans also have three essences: body, soul, and mind. Without any of them, life would cease, because all three are required for a human life to function. If even one were destroyed, the human would be erased from existence. Not dead, not gone, but never existing in the first place.”
Karah understood what he was saying, but could not understand what it had to do with her current condition.
“Each human essence occupies a different plane of space. The primary plane is the plane you are most used to. You are in the primary plane when your mind, body, and soul are all combined. In the primary plane, only the bodies are visible.
“The secondary plane is the space that you occupy when your body is separated from your mind and soul. Your body is left behind, and your consciousness is moved to your mind. This is what happened to you. Some people call it dying, but that phrase is not entirely accurate. Take you, for instance. Your body is still alive, your heart is still beating, but your consciousness has been removed from it. If you know how, you can return to your body.
“Some call the secondary plane the underworld, and some call it by its proper name, Kyria. The Reaper of Souls rules this plane.
“Since you are in the secondary plane, you can see both bodies and minds. Do you understand now?”
Karah nodded. “You’re saying that I can see my body and Mother Richa, but Mother Richa can only see my body.”
His face lit up. “Exactly! Now I must tell you why I have come here. I have been watching you for a long time, Karah. You will be faced with many important decisions. The fate of the world, on all planes, rests on your shoulders.”
So it wasn’t all just a coincidence. Mid-autumn’s day, her birthday, her initiation as a Sister of Twilight, the day the Forsaker banished the Reaper to Kyria. The sign of the Chosen One, she who bore the responsibility of freeing the Reaper. Only then could the wrongs of the Forsaker be undone.
The sound of him speaking again roused Karah from her thoughts. “I must be going. It is never safe to stay in one place for very long in Kyria. Before I go, I have something for you.” He reached his hand into a deep pocket, rummaging for some unseen object. “Consider it a token of my hospitality.”
He handed her two small glass vials, one of colorless glass, and the other black. Both contained a small amount of a fine, white powder. “These will help you travel between the primary and secondary planes, allowing you to return to your body. If you consume but a few granules of the powder in the clear vial, your body will return to you. Be careful that nobody is able to see you appear back in your plane; you would not want people to start wondering if you are some kind of necromancer, appearing at will in random places. The black vial will bring you back here to Kyria. Now I really must be on my way.” He turned to the doors and began to walk out of the room.
“Wait!” Karah started after him. “Can you at least tell me your name before you go?” When he didn’t slow, she followed him into the corridor.
He spoke without turning to her or slowing his pace. “Names are important pieces of knowledge. They bestow a special kind of power to those who know them. Such power can be dangerous if in the wrong hands. You have yet to prove yourself worthy of possessing my name, Karah Hayes. But that is of no consequence. Just know that we will meet again, but never in the primary plane.” With that, he rounded a bend and disappeared into the shadows.