“My son, you fancy yourself a hero like the monarchs of old, who forged this kingdom in the shadows of cataclysmic evil, but those days are now but shadows themselves. Perhaps a king who does as he should instead of what he wants is as much a hero, for does his virtue not then inspire greatness in his subjects? My reign as sovereign monarch of Ermoc has endured for five hundred years, I can assure you with confidence, a king is only as great as his subjects,” declaimed King Elgonast.

“Maybe so, but a king is still mortal, and mortals are too oft mistaken. Yourself included,” argued Prince Elmorand.

Elgonast’s usual expression of stone-cold temperance was marred by wrinkles of consternation. “Yes, and when the burden of that reality is yours to assume, you will better understand my ruling on this matter.”

“You gamble the altar’s wellbeing on pretty rhetoric. Where is the prudence in that?” demanded Elmorand.

“I wager nothing where the gods are concerned. The prophecy has remained consistent for thousands of years. Why should any of us question the will of the gods? They wrested us from the ruinous ways of our ancestors. Our entire existence is owed to their mercy. We honour that debt with faith.”

“Blind faith!” scoffed Elmorand.

The king responded to his son’s predictable retort with unassuming patience, “Yes, even when that faith is blind.”

“That’s a fine romance if all goes well, but if not, I should like to know that I did something more than cushion my backside on a cloud of hope!” said Elmorand.

“Noted…and commendable…and even heroic…but unnecessary. Your application to search The Scar for the living altar is denied forthwith and formally. That desert is no place for mortals, least of all my only son,” declared Elgonast.

Elmorand fumed with angst but to no avail. He turned on a heel and exited his father’s chamber with an impatient flourish, but the argument persisted in his head. If the desert was no place for a company of soldiers, it was even less a place for the living altar of the gods. The seers proclaimed her return to the mortal reality would signal the gods’ vigilance against an imminent evil, but what if that evil found her first?

There was too much at stake to rely on faith alone. The prince committed himself to finding and shielding the living altar of the gods, with or without the king’s consent, and no matter the peril to himself. His rucksack was already packed accordingly. It had been sitting in the back of his closet for weeks. Stories bred by the desert were many and dreadful. This quest was going to test every pound of Elmorand’s constitution, and every wisp of his cunning.

A farewell note which disclosed his intentions was found the next day. Careless handwriting betrayed a severe impatience. The royal guard was dispatched at once, but it was too late, Elmorand was gone.

The Scar was aptly named for its fractured plateaus and ragged canyons, but more so for the indelible aches it left on anyone foolish enough to enter. For Elmorand—whose fair, elven skin was ill-adapted to the oppressive radiation of the desert sun—the first mile in this barren wasteland was more painful than all four hundred that preceded it. Not entirely for the blistering heat, the skin-paring wind, nor the arduous footing—though these were terrible blights in their own right—but for the sudden recognition that he might never again see the verdant canopies of his woodland country. Worse still, it seemed doubtful he could achieve a sustainable afterlife in so arid a setting if he were to die—elven spirits persisted in trees that sprouted from their remains.

Skilled with swords, and a capable mage, the young prince would overcome many hazards, but he was unequipped for the psychological stresses caused by unstinting loneliness, frequent indecision, and unsettled feuds. Nighttime in The Scar was even less appealing. Flocks of wailing spectres emerged from the dust and migrated across the sandy plains like a rising tide. Their decayed forms of neon vapor were dressed in archaic vestments, tattered remnants from a forgotten age, and their eyes were chilling fissures. Stare too long at those loveless voids and you might stare at them forever more, or so cautioned elvish folklore. Taking no chance at all, Elmorand warded himself with circles of magic, but these required an exact mixture of spell components, most of which could not be foraged from the desert. It was only a matter of time before he ran out.

Having little else to do while trudging across the desolate wasteland, Elmorand questioned his own judgement. The bitter sting of irony would spawn a half-hearted smile on the prince’s face. He had spurned his father for acting on blind faith, but was that not what he himself was doing? There was no reason or knowledge to guide his feet. No, he assured himself…his was not blind faith…it was mad faith! What hope was there in locating the living altar of the gods in so vast a setting without even a hint of direction? The passage of time became a sharpened edge of obsidian that whittled his confidence, his belief in the possibility for success. There was just one device by which he might yet achieve his goal. Destiny. Fate would choose the outcome of his noble intent.

By the end of the second month, there was little to distinguish Elmorand from the restless ghosts that haunted his progress. The omnipresent cacophony of lament was too piercing to ignore, and altogether too depressing to abide. Thoughts of home, friends, comfort, and joy were confiscated by misery just as quick as they formed. Even so, Elmorand continued the search, though he would often forget the object of his toil.

Venturing deeper in The Scar, a lone voice emerged from the usual raucous, barely perceptible at first, but growing steadily night after night. Unlike the others, this one was cheery, youthful, and feminine—a sound sweeter than bliss, and calmer than heaven. Elmorand pursued her voice with rediscovered vigor. This was surely the living altar of the gods calling him forth.

Six months more and Elmorand’s robes were all but disintegrated, and he was surrounded by an entourage of imaginary courtiers. They bickered and bantered about the chef’s cooking, the weather, the minstrel’s garish clothes, and the guard’s poor posture.

It was lunchtime. The sun’s incessant rays felt especially hellish that day. Whirlwinds of dust and tumbleweed were dancing on the dunes. Elmorand’s skin was scarred with blisters; his joints were painfully chafed; and there was nothing to eat or drink.

“Lay back, noble prince. Close your eyes. Rest…at least you tried,” whispered the courtiers.

They had been saying it for weeks, but this time, Elmorand was ready. He was alone now; the courtiers were gone. It was going to be a peaceful end, though not without regret. There was time enough to reminisce all those he had left behind without so much as a wave. They were the real victims of his brazen arrogance, a sin for which he could not now atone. He could well imagine his mother’s devastating grief, and his father’s unquenchable confusion.

Dying on the warm, desert sand felt inebriating. All sentience was blurred by a perceived acceleration of time. There was a lulling detachment between mind, body, and spirit. The world was still there, but incomprehensible. Nothing mattered anymore. Peace eternal.

“Please help me!” someone whimpered.

It was the same voice Elmorand had been chasing all those months, but closer than ever.

“Help me!” he shouted back with a hiss of ire.

The only response was the scratch of sand drifting across the empty plains. Elmorand rolled onto his flank and glared at the wafting haze. A frown cracked his burnt forehead, but he was too distracted to register the pain. The smooth contours of the wavy dunes were pockmarked with artificial shapes, right angles, and straight lines. These could be none other than the lost ruins of Toronomoc, where lived the altar of the gods. The site was shrouded by a mysterious nimbus of smog, a dense shadow, a foreboding presence.

Elmorand clawed his way to the top of a mound, the tallest in sight. It seemed like some sort of dais. There was a broken sarcophagus surrounded by the footings of giant pillars. His bare feet detected subtle vibrations in the stone platform, and a mild buzzing drew his attention to the opposite side of the mound. Floating at the base of a sheltered depression was a disk of utter blackness. Or was it a hole? Elmorand repositioned himself to get a better look, but no matter where he moved, the phenomenon retained the properties of a two-dimensional circle.

What could this be if not the final punctuation of existence? An obnoxious period that marked the end of Elmorand’s verse. Without earth and water to nourish his afterlife tree, his spirit was rootless. He slid down the sandy slope to gain a tighter perspective. Rhythmic oscillations pervaded his flesh and instilled a lingering sense of doom that doused the warmth of his being.

“Help me,” pleaded the voice.

Her voice quivered with loneliness, a sentiment to which Elmorand could well relate. Even so, the latter was not so foolish to ignore the possibility of trickery—a sleight of heart meant to lure his soul into oblivion. It took but a single breath of contemplation to resolve his worry. If it was the living altar of the gods, there was no danger too great to excuse reluctance, but if it was death, should he not meet it with the same dignity and courage as he had in life?

Since both cases required Elmorand to enter the disk of shadow, there was really no choice at all. The elven prince brandished his sword and stepped into the blackness. It felt like walking through a wall of molasses, and the air was colder than ice, reducing the speed of his motions and the strength of his limbs. This was a dimension of existence far removed from the mortal reality. There was nothing but darkness and fear in every direction. The ground—if it could be described as such—was a hodgepodge of spongy resistance booby-trapped with moments of nothingness. Regardless of intended bearing, each step was a step down. These jarring, unpredictable drops caused Elmorand’s gut to churn with motion sickness. A few stumbles more and he found his first moment of nothingness. Panic expelled the air from his lungs, and his muscles were stiff as stone. The fall was as much a spiritual collapse as it was physical; and arriving at the bottom was less a material collision than it was a gradual braking of time. Expecting to see a glimpse of the desert through the gate above, Elmorand squinted through the shadows, but saw nothing.

“Altar!” he hollered. “Where are you? Can you hear me?”

No answer.

Elmorand continued onward. Something like stray spiderwebs brushed against his cheeks in passing. Heavy breathing, not his own, followed closely behind. He could feel it on the nape of his neck, the hunger, the hatred. The prince was dizzy with fear. Every sensation became an omen of ruin amplified tenfold. Hope was an empty promise, and safety—an obvious lie. It was only by virtue that Elmorand pressed on, etching his vector with sharp steel and righteous persistence. The living altar of the gods was owed his breath and blood, to the very last, and so he continued.

A lone instance of light lured the elf’s attention deeper in the void. He indulged a brief notion of salvation, but this would prove to be an unwise distraction. Unseen tendrils of malice coiled around his ankles, pulled him to the ground, and dragged him away. Elmorand screamed as the light dwindled in the distance. A throng of whispering entities groped his flesh with callous hands as he shrank farther into darkness. The demons would fight each other to claim his body and soul, but so would the elf.

Words of magic surfaced in Elmorand’s mind. An explosion of glittering sparks dazed his foes, weakening their grapple. The prince liberated his ankles with a well-aimed sword chop, and then sprinted back towards the light, hacking and slashing at anything that came between.

The diabolical whispers became a symphony of maddening shrieks. Elmorand was fast approaching the source of radiance. Something shiny was laying at the center of the illuminated space —a golden scepter molded with figures of gods and spirits. The prince recognized it from drawings passed down through the ages. This was the Rod of Communion, a holy implement of worship wielded by the Arch-Clerics of Toronomoc. It was lost, same as the living altar, during the cataclysm of old.

Elmorand swung his sword in wide arcs, desperate, heart pounding, lungs heaving, terrified. A final daring dash brought him safely inside the pocket of light. The ominous entities crowded around, attacking the radiance with horns and claws, but Elmorand beat them back, teeth gritting, mind racing, and fingers grasping at the scepter.

The rod’s light died at the touch of his hand and all was quiet.

When Elmorand opened his eyes, the altar was at his feet, living no more.

The post The Scar That Lingers appeared first on The Glayd Scrolls.