SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Memory's Deeping: Chapter 1

            The flame flickered into life with a burst. 

            Slowly, the tiny glow grew into a larger fire, illuminating the face of the elf as he leaned over it, stoking it into life gently.  The red-orange glow grew brighter, the light reflecting off of the gray-eyed gaze of the elf as he leaned away from the fire, satisfied that it could grow into a welcoming blaze without his assistance. 

            Ayrin Harktree glanced over his shoulder turned, half-rising to his feet all in one swift, fluid motion.  His companion, the stoic priestess Kiyralynn was moving closer to the growing fire, carrying two packs which she dropped down in the snow near Ayrin’s feet.  Without a word, she turned again and went back to their horses, pulling the beasts closer to the fire’s light and warmth.  Ayrin looked upwards at Kiyralynn as he bent over the packs, but she did not meet his gaze, only went about her business as she bedded the horses down for the night.  He in turn began erecting their meager shelter for the night.  It was not much, a small tent only, but it would keep them out of the harsh winter winds until daybreak, when they moved on again.  

            Above them, the sky was darkening as dusk fell.  To the west, where the sun was disappearing behind far-distant mountains, rays of the last remaining sunlight shot up into the sky creating a yellow glow that competed with fading light that stretched east into clouds that hung heavy over the horizon.  The purple darkness that was growing across the sky looked ominous, no doubt carrying the snow and cold weather that had previously stalled the traveling elves to the plains farther east.   

            The storm had moved on, but the chill of the night set in quickly with the disappearance of daylight. 

            By the time Ayrin had finished the tent and moved nearer to Kiyralynn to help prepare their meal, it was wholly night.  The two elves worked in relative silence, listening only to the fire and the wind as it howled above their heads, whistling through the tops of the leafless trees.  Every so often, a branch would snap and send a puff of snow cascading to the ground silently.  Occasionally the silence would be broken by a hoarse cough from Kiyralynn, muffled by her scarf.

            The elf was a high priestess of the god Arvoreen, the volatile deity devoted to vengeance and war.  She was also an albino, and had extremely pale skin and stark white hair that hung down over her shoulders.  Her eyes appeared colorless in the right light, but really had a very subtle ring of pale blue where a fully-colored iris should have been.  But the defining feature of the elf was the thick scar that traveled up the right side of her face, a mark of where Kiyralynn’s face had nearly been cut in half by a bloodthirsty mercenary.  The attempt on her life had nearly killed her, but Arvoreen had intervened, saved her life, and had made her his disciple, though not without taking her memory from her first.  The elf had no memories of anything that had happened before being saved by Arvoreen. 

            Sitting opposite her, Ayrin had a much darker complexion than his companion.  Black hair that had previously been cut short but had grown out in the last weeks seemed to fall every which way around his face, nearly hiding his silver-grey eyes.  He was a native of the isle of Evinmoore and had only recently immigrated to Cairndale to join the Wingéd Riders, the elite cavalry brigade that protected the King.  He had previously been a Bladesinger, one of the prestigious and talented warriors of Evinmoore, part of the military group that had fallen in a bloody coup nearly two decades before.  The eradication of the Bladesingers had forced Ayrin to flee the Islands, and had also resulted in the murder of his wife and young son.  The only thing that remained upon Ayrin as a reminder of his days as a Bladesinger was a tattoo that wrapped around his arm in the design of a panther, the mark that had been that of his guild.  The same design was featured on the hilt of his weapon, a sword made of fine, dark Elven steel.

            The two of them had come together rather haphazardly several weeks before, when the Wingéd Riders had traveled to nearby Brooks Dell on the request of the Captain of the Guard, a lanky and mistrustful elf named Iaarnen.  Kaelimine, the Captain of the Wingéd Riders and Kiyralynn’s close friend, had known Iaarnen, when they had trained together years earlier.  Iaarnen had claimed Brooks Dell to be under attack, needing the assistance of the riders from Cairndale. 

Simultaneously as the Riders—Kaelimine, his second-in-command Ti’lan, and Ayrin—were leaving, Kiyralynn was contacted by her god, who bequeathed a holy quest upon her, one that was to protect Kaelimine’s wife, Analaeia.  By the time Kiyralynn reached Cairndale, Analaeia had already been kidnapped.  When she caught up with Kaelimine, they realized that it had been Iaarnen who had arranged the whole debacle, and had set a trap for the Riders.  Now on a mission to rescue Analaeia, the four elves met up with Iaarnen in Brooks Dell, and were also introduced to possibly the most sinister man Kiyralynn had ever seen—a powerful psionicist named Dhaerow.  It was the priestess who first did battle with him, one that did not involve weapons but sheer mind power and spellwork.  She was stunned by his power, for it rivaled her own, and knew immediately that he was not a man to be trifled with.

After retrieving Analaeia, the group fled from Dhaerow and Iaarnen and took shelter in the woods nearby.  The following morning, the psionicist and his cronies ambushed them.  They were aided by a surprising arrival from the Winged Riders, and it was only their intervention that kept them from all being killed.  Even with their help, however, Dhaerow still managed to enact a killing blow upon Analaeia before the priestess veritably cut his face in half.  Kiyralynn had been forced to throw all of her being into one powerful life-saving spell in order to swiftly bring Analaeia—and, as she discovered, her unborn child—back to life and keep from failing her holy quest.

It was that very spell that had Kiyralynn traveling north, to a small shrine devoted to Arvoreen.  The life-giving spell she had performed had been much too powerful, and she had been forced to contact her god to help her complete it, something that even as his high priestess she should not have done.  After that fateful casting, she had grown weak and unable to keep her health intact.  The priestess believed making a pilgrimage to the shrine would help regain her strength.

            Ayrin and Kiyralynn had been on the road five weeks since leaving Cairndale.  Their journey, though still in its infancy, had been greatly hindered by early, and heavy, snows.  Their destination was still weeks away—a time frame that Kiyralynn feared would lengthen with the onset of deep winter.  Of the five weeks they had been on the road, one of them had been spent locked away inside an inn in a tiny town called Wildmarsh.  They had been lucky enough to pass through the town right at the onset of a blizzard, and had been forced to take shelter at the inn for the sake of their own survival. 

            Though she would not say it out loud, Kiyralynn had been disheartened by their lack of progress toward the shrine.  She had known from the onset that traveling through the winter was an unwise decision, but she had not anticipated it to be as bad as it had been.  The thought of turning back to Cairndale and waiting until spring had occurred to her more than once.  But she was swayed by the idea that every day passed was a day closer to spring.

            And she was not sure how long her health would hold out without pressing onwards to the shrine, which was, of course, her very reason for pressing on despite the wicked winter.  Every day that passed was one less day of suffering. 

            But Kiyralynn knew also, though she could never bring herself to actually say the words, that the real reason she had driven herself from Cairndale was because she was secretly terrified that she had failed her quest to Arvoreen, and would need to go to the shrine in order to be nearer to him, to apologize and pray that he would accept her back into his service.  She considered her deteriorating health to be a sort of punishment from her god, angry that she had failed him.  She had not attempted to cast any spells since the battle in Brooks Dell, too afraid that they would be unsuccessful.

As the thought occurred to her, a bout of coughing came over her, racking her entire body. 

            When it had finished, she held her bowl tight in her hands, allowing the heat of the stew to warm her fingers.  Ayrin sat opposite her, similarly leaning over his meal.  He had raised his eyes to her during her coughing fit, but looked away again when she recovered.  The elf had not yet said one word of protest since their journey began.  It was somewhat surprising to her, knowing that Ayrin had not volunteered to the task.  Kaelimine had made the suggestion when he learned of her plan to journey to the shrine.  The priestess had initially been opposed to the idea, preferring to travel alone.  She also knew that it was simply because he, Kaelimine, believed the two of them to be drawing nearer to each other romantically.  To presume such a thing was a bit of an overstatement to Kiyralynn. 

True, she and Ayrin had shared some scant moments of tenderness after the battle at Brooks Dell, but all the same, she would never admit that Kaelimine had been right, especially since she was still unsure how she felt.  She was also doubtful that Ayrin held any feelings toward her romantically.

            Nevertheless, the stoic priestess could not deny that she had been immensely grateful—and indeed, comforted—by Ayrin’s companionship. 

            “We will need to be careful to stay on the path in the next days,” Kiyralynn said presently, feeling the need to break the silence that had fallen.  Ayrin raised his head to look at her.  “We have entered the Rakenmoors, and this area is inhabited by rather unsavory creatures…orcs, goblinkin.  They are territorial, and those who stray from the road often meet much more trouble than they were anticipating.” 

            Ayrin nodded his head.  He trusted Kiyralynn’s knowledge of the area—he had only been in that area of the Mainland a few months and the time that had not been spent in Cairndale or Brooks Dell had been spent on the road, traveling north to the shrine.  He had lived along the coast in the northwest for many years previously, but it was far away and quite different from where they were now.

            As if spurred by the idea of possible conflict in the next days, or perhaps more to give herself something to do, Kiyralynn reached down for her pack at her feet and dug through it briefly, pulling forth a thick, leather-bound book.  Just at first glance Ayrin could tell that it was extremely aged.  Kiyralynn flipped it open and began glancing through its yellowed and oft-turned pages. 

            “Is it true you’ve served Arvoreen for over a century?” Ayrin asked, glancing at the book in the priestess’s hands.  Kiyralynn raised her eyes to him, not lifting her head.  “You made a comment about it in Brooks Dell,” he added.

            “It’s true,” she said as she looked down again.  “Nearly one hundred and a score years, now.”

            Ayrin detected a strange tone in her voice, though he could not tell what it was.  He pressed on.  “All spent in the woods outside Cairndale?”

            Kiyralynn shook her head absently as she paged through the book.  “Only the last thirty years.  I was in Keriban when I was attacked, though of course I don’t remember why.  That was when I came in contact with Arvoreen.  After that I travelled north and spent considerable time near the shrine we’re travelling to now.  I devoted many years spending considerable time in studying spellwork and attending to the shrine.”

            “And in between?” Ayrin asked.

            “I just travelled,” Kiyralynn said quietly.  “It was difficult for me to settle within towns for very long…” she paused and looked up from her book, a reflective expression on her pale face.  “Fear seemed to follow me anywhere I went,” she mused.  Ayrin frowned.  She looked up at him and gave an almost amused grin.

            “Priestess or no, I am still the White Ghost,” she said, referring to the title Kaelimine had bestowed upon her several years before that referenced her pale skin, stark white hair, and most of all, her colorless eyes.  “No parent wants their child to be frightened by one such as I, and indeed they are frightened, and therefore I am not welcome.”

            “Ignorance,” Ayrin said.

            “Fear,” Kiyralynn corrected.  “In any case that was why I settled near Cairndale, secluded and alone.”

            “Lucky for Kaelimine, perhaps, but I can imagine it would have been a lonely existence,” Ayrin remarked.  Years earlier, Kaelimine had been attacked and left for dead in the woods near Kiyralynn’s home.  She had, upon the will of some miracle, come upon him in the middle of a blizzard and saved his life.  It seemed both he and his wife owed the priestess a considerable debt for keeping both of them alive at one point.

            “Nothing different than that which I have always known,” Kiyralynn replied shortly.

            Ayrin fell silent, realizing he was fighting a losing battle.  The priestess was a stubborn one and was not likely to concede his point no matter how rational it was.  Kiyralynn regarded him for a moment, her opaque eyes reflecting oddly in the firelight. 

            “The first time you saw me,” she said quietly, “there was fear in your eyes.”

            The dark-haired elf looked up, eyebrows raised.  Kiyralynn was looking back at him knowingly.  He thought back to the first time they had met—the priestess had come upon their camp in the dark during the middle of the night and had, truthfully, startled him.  He had all but forgotten the event.

            “Not fear,” he said defensively.  Kiyralynn raised an eyebrow, as if challenging him.  “I was just startled.”

            “You see?”

            “Being startled and being afraid is not the same thing,” Ayrin said.  “I was startled by your presence, not fearful of it.  The same reaction would have occurred if it were Kaelimine coming toward me in the darkness.”  He paused and thought for a moment.  “You are quick to assume.”

            “A century of prejudice and I am to distinguish the two reactions?”  Kiyralynn snapped.

            Ayrin held up his hands dismissively, not wishing to rile up the volatile priestess.  “Of course not,” he said quietly. 

            Kiyralynn looked away and sighed, almost as if annoyed at her own reaction to his innocent remark.  For a minute or two, there was silence.  Finally she looked up at her companion. 

            “What of you, Ayrin Harktree?” she said.  He raised his gaze to her.  “Where have you been since the fall of the Bladesingers?” 

            It was a subject she had hesitated to bring up since first hearing of it, as she was not sure how comfortable Ayrin was with speaking of it.  As she looked upon her companion, a wistful expression crossed his face. 

            “Near the coast, mostly,” Ayrin replied with a clearing of his throat.  “I am thankful my first officer Nassinil was with me and kept me in good company for some months after the whole disaster, else it is altogether likely I would have drowned myself long before the ship ever reached land.” 

            His words were dark, but there was a slight upturn of his intonation at the end, almost a short laugh.  Kiyralynn regarded him for some time, somewhat surprised by his words.  She knew that he had lost everything in the deadly raids, namely his family, but she did not know how he had carried on afterwards.    

            “Those were dark days, indeed,” Ayrin added with a slight nod.  “Try as I might to forget them all, I have since been unable to, but at least now I am able to put them behind me easier than before.  For several years I took up residence in a small town called Deep Falls, near the coast.  Those years were spent simply trying to regain everything I had lost in Evinmoore, namely my own sanity.  Those Bladesingers who had survived the riots spread out and disappeared, with the exception of Nassinil…he and I travelled together for a number of years before we went our separate ways.

            “Once I was alone again I tried to start anew, settle into a home somewhere and try to live again.  After several years I found myself restless.  Still I was haunted by everything that had happened…I thought at last that perhaps it would be time to try going home again and putting my mind to rest.”  He paused and sighed, shaking his head.  Kiyralynn watched him intently.  “But what I found was less than comforting, and in fact I was greeted upon arrival at the point of a sword.”

            “The new regime?” Kiyralynn guessed.

            Ayrin nodded.  “Apparently the Bladesingers are still unwelcome.  I was given enough time to complete my affairs and be off the island immediately, or be killed.  I had barely enough time to go to my home, at last give my final farewell to my family, and leave again.  It was when I returned to Deep Falls that I began my correspondence with Kaelimine, and within the year I was in Cairndale.” 

            “Did it put your mind to rest?” Kiyralynn asked. 

            Ayrin hesitated, and pulled in a deep breath.  A very serious look crossed his face and for an instant he saw before his eyes the memory of his dying wife’s hollow eyes.  He suppressed a chill that was tempting to run down his spine. 

“Hardly.” 

            The priestess did not reply.  There was an awkward silence for a minute, and then, needing to escape the moment, Ayrin rose to his feet, shaking off the stray snow that had settled on his shoulders from above.  He walked over to his pack and started pulling out his blankets.  Kiyralynn watched him.  She did truly feel sympathy towards him.  It was an emotion that had crossed her mind very seldom in the last century, but she did feel it now. 

            Truly, she envied the fact that her companion had such memories of a previous life, even if it ended in tragedy, for she had no memories of any kind, good or bad.  All she had known in her life had been centered around her service to Arvoreen and everything that had passed since then, but her entire life before that was an empty void.  Nevertheless, she did also understand his feeling of remorse, of desiring to let go of those memories for all the pain they held. 

            “My sympathies, Ayrin,” she said finally. 

            The Bladesinger sent her a glance over his shoulder, but did not linger on her gaze long.  “Every day is a new one,” he replied simply. 

            It was a statement Kiyralynn had a hard time disagreeing with.