2. The Name That Is Forgotten¶
Giko stared at the cloaked man who walked through the gates. It was almost midnight. The Ahvansh Guard kept the roads safe but no man could be fool enough to walk around at night alone.
At forty seven, Giko had served the Terian army back in the days of its rule. He had cast down the sword like so many others once Krono-Kroman took over Straasfore. Now the night guard of Murrey-El, the largest village in Masto Lage, he was more than happy, and besides, it was always a pleasure to serve the people of Masto Lage, and to serve the mayor, Gawin Oreille.
He watched as the black cloaked stranger walked towards the Oreille inn and wondered who the man was. If he meant trouble, the Ahvansh Guard who were stationed at Murrey-El would be more than enough to deal with him.
Gawin Oreille did not look like he was nearing sixty. In fact, some people claimed that he was still young enough to father four more daughters. He didn’t think his wife Tyna would have been up to the job though. Sitting with his feet on the serving table, he raised a clear mug of his best ale to his lips and sipped it. It was sweet and sour at once, just the way he had learnt to make it in the ten years that he had run this inn, and fortune favoured him. Most people deemed it a sin to come into the Westlands and not taste Oreille Ale.
The inn was not too crowded today. He put that down to the fact that most of the people had gone to Emansun to see the King: that had become a monthly ritual of late. He smiled as he took another sip. He’d been the Master of Arms under the Overlord when Teria still ruled over Straasfore, and he’d seen Krono-Kroman grow. He had always known that the boy was worth something more.
Thinking about his days in the army made him look at the curved scimitar that hung over the fireplace. He had used many swords in his life, earning him the title of Blademaster even, but that one was always special. When his grandfather gave it to him, he had said that blade could not be notched, and in the twelve years that he had used it, Gawin Oreille had discovered that there was no truer fact than that.
Cold night air burst into the inn, making some of the customers glance at the door. Oreille raised his head from his tankard and watched as a black-cloaked hooded man, taller than anyone he had seen in his entire life, walked in.
The man turned his head from side to side and studied the people in the inn as though searching for someone. His face was shrouded in shadow but when he looked in Oreille’s direction; the innkeeper was sure that the man’s eyes were trying to burn holes through him.
Gawin Oreille had seen scarier things than a black-cloaked man with an air of death around him, and he was not interested in him. It was almost time for him to go sleep.
The man walked towards him. He walked in a fashion that betrayed the fact that a longsword hung at his hip. Oreille looked up at him as the man stood next to him.
“It’s late, stranger,” he said, speaking Worish, “I hope you’re not here to ask for a room. Ale is available, but I’m afraid we just filled our last room about two hours ago.”
He didn’t expect what happened next, the hooded stranger grabbed him by his collar and hauled him to his feet. The tankard of ale dropped to the floor, spilling the contents on the carpet. He winced at the thought of a stain and immediately looked at the man who was now dangling him several inches off the ground.
“Calm down, stranger. There’s always Sal’s place. He doesn’t stock my ale though. But he’s a good man. His rooms are a bit cheaper as well.” If nothing else, his years as the Master of Arms had taught him that calm was often the best way to solve any situation. Though, as an afterthought, his eyes darted at the scimitar.
The man raised his head and, from beneath the hood, his lower jaw became visible as he snarled. Gawin Oreille’s eyes narrowed. Bluish grey skin. What is he? Only then did Oreille notice the man’s long-lobed ears. Yet there was one thing different from his own long-lobed ears. The man’s lobes were split in halves.
Is he an Elwash?
The other people in the inn were shouting now. Gasto, the large usher was staggering towards the tall man clearly wondering if he stood a chance. A few others began approaching behind him and that gave him the courage to put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
With a grunt, the man hurled Gawin Oreille at the table beside the fireplace and spun to punch Gasto in the ribs. The usher fell to his knees almost immediately. Oreille coughed as he clambered to his knees. He blinked once at his daughters who were screaming now. Calm.
The man looked down at him and moved his right hand to the black hilt of his sword.
Gawin Oreille whirled around and drew the scimitar from the wall. The leathery hilt felt right in his hand. He hadn’t used it in several years but he hadn’t forgotten one bit.
As an afterthought, he realised that it would be better to take this outside.
“What do you say we go outside, stranger?” he said, pushing the table aside to clear space in case the man disagreed.
The man drew his sword. It was completely black. The blade shone in the firelight, reflecting the dancing flames on its oily, lucid surface. The blade was single-edged and long. The hilt was meant to be used with two hands, but the man wielded it with just one. No sooner had he drawn the sword, the man appeared a hundred times more dangerous than before.
Gawin Oreille heard his daughters shriek. He drowned the words in his stance. There was only the blade and the circle in which his movements were limited. Only the blade.
Thankfully, the man began walking towards the door with his sword at his side.
Sighing, Oreille followed him into the cold night. The moon was half-full today. The eerie moonlight illuminated everything the street-lamps did not. The street in front of his inn was wide enough for ten horses to walk abreast.
On the other side of the street, the wooden wall separated them from the sparse thickets of the woods surrounding the village. Murrey-El was an old village, but it was still modest.
The man looked at Oreille and for an instant his eyes seemed to gleam through the shadows that hid his face.
“Where is Elvindore?” the man said.
For a moment, the strangeness of that didn’t strike Oreille. He blinked when he realised what the man had said. Entaney il Elvindore?
“You speak Amanian?” Only the near-immortal Elwash, and very few Humans, spoke that language now.
The man darted at him with an incredible speed. The amount of power with which he was wielding his black blade was phenomenal. Gawin Oreille fell back a little before he drove his feet against the ground and stopped himself.
The man lunged again, slashing the sword sideways. Oreille defended with a backhanded slash. The curved blade pushed back the black long-sword with ease. The way the man moved was shocking.
He can’t be an Elwash. What is he?
The man disappeared.
By instinct, Oreille’s blade swung upwards to protect himself from the man’s attack. For a slight instant, he’d appeared in the air above him. The circle in which the opponent moved became a sphere now.
«He can use the Jokann?» Gawin Oreille’s thoughts rushed as he stepped onto the plane of Energy that the Elwash called the Teyan-mass. It was like a realm where time had no meaning. Direction and distance made no sense. It was used to move long distances in a split second by Elwash in their battles.
Again their blades clashed. This time, Oreille attacked with fervour. He hadn’t fought like this in decades. The man wasn’t an Elwash, but he wasn’t a Human either. The Jokann, the method of using the Teyan-mass and its lesser equivalent, the Te-lan, was something only Elwash could use. He had never used this against a Human opponent. In fact he had never used it after finishing his training at Elvindore, under his grandfather.
The sound of steel against steel echoed through the street. The people were watching on, trying to make sense out of what was happening.
Oreille let his senses take control. Nothing existed in the Teyan-mass. Not even air. Which was why no one used it for long periods. Overuse could rip apart flesh from even an Elwash’s body, and he was only half Elwash.
I can’t let this drag on.
He stepped out of the Teyan-mass and stood on firm ground, taking slow and deep breaths. Whoever this person was, he was strong enough to use the plane like an Elwash. That meant there was no fighting him there like an equal.
Calm. Be the blade that dances in the circle.
He closed his eyes and let his senses govern his movements. At once, he could see the man darting towards him on the Elwash plane. He was a fool to try a straight attack.
Gawin Oreille held the scimitar with both hands and put one foot in front of another. Bracing himself, he spun just as the man stepped out of the Teyan-mass to attack him. This time there was no sound of steel against steel. Only that of blood dripping to the ground.
After his father had died, he’d been taken to Elvindore to study there. He didn’t like living there, he felt so different compared to the others. He wasn’t an Elwash. He was a Human. But his grandfather had tried his best to change that. Although he could use the Elwash techniques, the Jokann, he was still not an Elwash. He was not.
He looked at the black blade that was in his ribs. Blood rushed to his mouth. He spat, coughing for air. His eyes watered as he stared into his opponent’s face. The blue-skinned being had black, cold eyes.
“Why?” he asked.
The being pulled out his sword and raised Oreille off the ground by the neck. His vision began to dim. He could still make out the man’s shape but the world flickered.
He remembered his mother’s touch. She had been an Elwash, and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He wondered if she really had died like his father had claimed. After all, Elwash were almost immortal.
The man pulled him close and whispered into his long-lobed ears.
“Enas Raeil.”
Before the world faded to black, Gawin Oreille heard another voice. It did not speak as all other beings spoke, but it somehow wordlessly asked him a question.
What do you choose, Elwash?
Gawin Oreille’s last thought was that he wished he could have told his grandfather Esanara just how indebted he was to him.
There was no body to claim of Gawin Oreille, the next day. Villagers began spreading the tale of what happened, though they saw little in the darkness. They said a man who wielded a blade of black fire cut down Oreille who’d cried like a helpless babe. Some said Oreille and the man ran into the forest and killed each other there. Others claimed that there had been no fight and that Oreille had run away with the man to find his way back into his old blade-master life.
But one thing remained the same in all the accounts. His clothes were found in front of the inn, cut in several places and soaked in his blood, and his daughters and wife had them buried assuming him dead as the stone that marked the spot.
Some wondered if it meant the end was coming. Others whether the man was some dark lord who would kill them all in one day, and others merely wondered if the price of the last caskets of Oreille Ale would skyrocket. But none of them knew the truth.
The world quivered for the Name That Is Forgotten was spoken once again. So it began. From the precipice of a dream.