Flash Fiction #3: Mar-Kryn
Árd-Shagar’s gravelly voice interrupted her reverie. “You seem troubled, Mar-Kryn.” He peered at her with obsidian-dark eyes, one gnarled hand wrapped around his wooden staff.
Mar-Kryn lifted her head, gazing at him through half-lidded eyes. Among the Forest Prophets, she alone stood tall enough to look the Árd in the eye.
“It was a memory, Shagar, of an era long past.” Her fingers tightened in a painful spasm around the bonemask in her hand. “Before the Desert Spirits set their teeth against Leaf and Branch.”
Wall-mounted torches lit the Árd’s face with a flickering pattern of light and shadow. His head dipped in a solemn nod, and the lines in his weathered face seemed to deepen. “And what did the Forest reveal to you, Bearer of Memories?”
Mar-Kryn swallowed with difficulty, battered by a sudden desire to be back in the Forest’s central glade. Not in this accursed cellar. Not near the venomous black mist hovering just above the earthen floor.
“I stood upon the slopes above Caorran,” she said, her husky contralto raising a faint echo. She closed her eyes, recalling the vision’s details. “Long before it became the capital city. Caorran, then only a small village on the shores of Saogal Bay.” She inhaled deeply, scenting the malodorous rot emanating from the mist. “I heard a voice behind me. I was powerless to turn and see who spoke, but the words …” A tremor ran down her spine, like one of the quick-footed desert lizards. “It was the ancient war rune,” she said hoarsely. “The ‘Eve of Battle,’ proclaimed aloud for the first time.”
Her face hardened. It was all she could do to restrain herself from spitting at the writhing mist. “The dark portal of What Lurks Below was there, as well. The ancient battle was won …” The words caught in her throat.
The Árd donned his bonemask, peering at her through the carved eye slits. “And yet the mist has reappeared.” He clutched his staff, the veins in his hand standing out in sharp relief. “Caorran’s contempt for the ways of the Forest has invited its return.”
Mar-Kryn glared at the mist, resisting its hypnotic appeal, its attempt to lure her into its flesh-eating embrace. She spoke, her voice tinged with resolve and bitterness. “The Caorranians shrug and say it is ‘only climate change.’ The fools have no idea what they’ve unleashed.”
She met Shagar’s gaze and slipped her bonemask on. “I will not yield our Realm without a fight.”
Árd-Shagar smiled grimly. “All of Dilleag-Lusán stands with you, Bearer of Memories.”
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