The sun was low in the sky, having only just peeked over the horizon. Black night became dusty dawn, dusty dawn became hazy morning as the increasing sunlight baked the sand to a bronze gold. Hastened by the expectation of another scorching day, the caravan quickened their pace, eager to gain precious miles before the heat forced them to shelter for the remainder of the day.
Ortin Hertner shifted uneasily in his seat, the sweat from a humid night soaking his clothes well enough without the extra heat from the morning rays. His armour was in a pile behind him, and he was resting on it – this far out into the desert, the caravan would likely see anything with enough time for him to put his armour on. Not that there much worth stealing, he thought ruefully to himself, with the caravan consisting mainly of passenger carts and waggons. Iafha had variety, but whatever valuables he could get there were sold at a premium. But that didn’t matter – he wasn’t intending to sell at Learis, but rather to buy. His chests were full of steel, and his prized possession, a single gold piece, lay in a bag tied around his neck. Smiling to himself, he wondered at his sudden realisation – wasn’t he trading steel for steel anyway? But Iafha paid double steel for steel weapons, so Ortin thought it wasn’t such a terrible trade.
A dry wind blew from the south, picking up half the sand that spanned as far as the eye could see between Luet and Iafha. Tumbling, rolling across the barren land, the sandstorm resembled thunderclouds, yet it brought merely blistering heat, not refreshing water.
And it brought bandits along with it as well. Appearing suddenly, the dust storm masking their movements until they were a mere few hundreds metres away, a hearty, yet desperate warcry came from forty throats as they charged, some on horseback, some not as fortunate. Ortin yelled back to the rest of the caravan, urging them to cluster closer together, the menfolk to ready their weapons. But like the time he had to re-don his armour, it was not enough before the bandits were upon them.
Lukar the Red, leader of the bandits rode right up to the convoy, slashing left and right with his bronze sabre. His orders were no prisoners if they put up a fight – and the single arrow shot by a frightened merchant had damned the rest of them. With his warriors scything through the guards, enjoying superiority of numbers, surprise, and being mounted, he reared his horse, appraising in a single glance the worth of the convoy.
“Passengers, curses!” he spat, his saliva evaporating quickly as the morning sun was now a quarter of the way above the horizon. Except for the water that they would be carrying with them, passenger convoys hardly ever had any items of value in bulk. They would pay for that, one way or another. Spurring his steed to the head of the convoy, Lukar charged in, attacking what seemed to be the most heavily defended wagon. The hint of chests beneath a leather cover told him the reason why. Another pass by him, and all the armed defenders were dead, the last one, half dressed in his armour, taking one last bandit with him as he toppled from his seat, a deep cut from Lukar adorning his chest, neck, and arms. A half dozen of the bandits lay dead – a fair trade to Lukar, he would get a greater share for himself.
The survivors were now all lined up, minus most of the women present, who by now had been claimed for a grim future. One or two, Lukar noted, had chosen suicide. He neither felt sympathy nor remorse. Neither did he feel remorseful when he ordered the rest to be cut down, in turn. For Lukar, killing came easily, but he was smart enough to know that to be excessive would be destructive to himself and his men. It was merely for show, a show of his ruthlessness that in later days would keep his band from dethroning him – if he could casually order men to death as they begged for their lives, then who was to say he wouldn’t do that to anyone else, within an instant? Lukar wanted to keep them all guessing.
His face an unmoving block of granite, he listened to each captive’s pleas in turn without listening – whatever reasons they had he had heard all before and they couldn’t compared to the single reason why he had them slain: they served no better purpose alive. Soon the sands were red with blood, the flies had gathered and seemingly out of nowhere, carrion crows and vultures had began to feast. There was but one last prisoner left. Clad in robes that were more like rags, the scraps that lay across his face were pulled away to reveal a young man – face tanned but nowhere as tanned as anyone from these parts of Vlacian would be.
But what struck Lukar the Red most was the boy’s eyes. Cold, grey like lead dust they stared intensely into Lukar’s. They weren’t aggressive or full of despair, to Lukar they were…certain, calm, almost looking into his mind, his heart, his soul. He supposed the boy had come to grips with the fact that his life would end soon. Yet still the bandit leader felt uncomfortable. Raising his hand, a henchman came up behind the young man, drawing a short, jagged dagger. Lukar saw no reason to speak any words to the other prisoners, and neither would this boy be given the privilege – confident or not. Suddenly, the boy waved his hand in front of him, a signal, it seemed for parlay.
“Kawe dimn, Gorst Lilw. Stop your man, Lukar, I will not die here.”
Lukar paused a moment, forgetting to admonish the bandit who had stopped behind the boy as he spoke. Bold was good, he thought to himself, he had seen bold before. And he had cut it down.
But something in the boy’s eyes…
“And why not?” Lukar replied. It was the first words Lukar had ever uttered to a mere prisoner.
“I will die, but in the desert. A long slow death – one worse than you would inflict upon me. The elements will claim me, the sun will scorch my body, thirst will ravage my mind, the sand will irritate my soul.”
Lukar found himself unable to remove his gaze from the boy’s eyes. The more he thought about his idea, the more it seemed to be perfectly appropriate. By the time he spoke again, he was certain that it had been my idea.
“Loot all we can carry. The boy can dine with the vultures!”
With a gutteral laugh, Lukar the Red turned his mount and rode off, the rest of his band following shortly afterwards, some taunting the boy, others coming close to killing him themselves. But if Lukar found out…
The bandits gone, the sandstorm seemed to die down, chasing after the men who had used it to their advantage to deadly effect. Left alone, Maledak walked over to the mauled bodies, his eyes betraying no emotion as he saw boys younger than he quivering, minutes away from death.
They will all be gone soon. The Dead have passed, The Living will go on.
With purpose and resolve, Maledak went back to his master’s body. Although his death was a boon to Maledak’s purposes, he was neither remorseful nor happy that his master was dead. All he knew was that it had to happen – he had reached the limit of his training and had to move on.
“Thank you master, for teaching me up to now”, he began, the dead body of his master hearing nothing. Maledak continued anyway, pulling out a belt with pouches that he had concealed within his rags. He showed it to his dead master.
“With your spell components, you may have perhaps extended your life a bit longer. But they would have overwhelmed you, and if what I have heard of Lukar the Red is true, neither of us would have survived. But I cannot die, not yet master. For I am here for a purpose, master, one where we must look beyond the simple attitudes of good and evil, which goes beyond even our thirst for knowledge. There must be, there will be the Balance.”
With a final nod, Maledak turned away, leaving the remains to the vultures. He was speaking the truth to Lukar when he said the elements would claim him, Iafha was a couple days away by horse, and he was left without one.
“Noumt morf woherne, Keta em yoaherne” Maledak rasped, tying the horsehair in his hands in a knot. Throwing it onto the sands, it sank as if it weighed a ton, the sand swirling around the hole made by what seemed to be the minuscule hair. Suddenly, two hoofs appeared out of the swirling sand vortex, following by a horse head. Within moments, a horse had broken free from the sand, shaking the sand out of its mane and neighing just as the swirling sands beneath it returned to stillness. The young wizard smiled, taking delight more at his act of creation than his hypnosis of Lukar the Red. In time, he knew, he would be able to create different things – and destroy them utterly.
That was his plan for The Balance – the destruction of all that was, is, and will be of Vlacian. With Oblivion would be nothing. Good and Evil would have nothing left to fight over, if indeed there was anything left that was Good or Evil.
*****
Maledak was born into conflict and strife. The son of a mercenary of the Independent States, his early childhood years were spent in the supply train of the mercenary army his father was a part of. He had seen wars fought for justice, he had seen wars fought for feuds, for the spread of power, for the accumulation of wealth. But they lost meaning for him – for him, wars only brought pain, suffering, and destruction for those who would otherwise not want war. Whether it was a Crusade or for Conquest, whether it was to invade or to fight to oust invaders, the cost of war was felt all too keenly by Maledak. The supply train had travelled through the worse warzones – over empty battlefields save for the dead and the dying, through shattered villages, houses burned, animals slaughtered. He had sat on his father’s wagon with a cloth around his face, through besieged towns rife with disease, disunity, and disgust.
And through it all, came the realisation: while Good existed, so did Evil, and while Good and Evil existed there would always be conflict, and conflict would always lead to pain, to suffering. Only the dead knew the end of war, Maledak had read soon after he had learnt to read the ancient writings. He added his own note to it as well – The Dead do not War.
But the blade would not be the tool to accomplish it. Although he was adept at swordplay to a degree, thanks to his martial heritage, Maledak’s talents lay in learning, in reading, in remembering, in thinking.
It was the mercenary combat spell users of his father’s army from Learis that first introduced to the disciplined study of magic. Learning a little each day, it helped to solve the problems of boredom that all the children of the supply train had during long marches with little in between. But soon all the lessons that could be taught had been learned – and it was time for Maledak to move on, to find new instructors.
*****
The horse having disappeared a short while ago, Maledak settled down for the midday blaze, taking what shelter he could from a hole he dug into the sand, covered with his robes. As soon as it was dark, he would summon another mount and continue his journey. Resting to focus his mind, he drifted off to sleep, the slight discomfort at having to sleep on sand ignored by all his years of sleeping it rough while his father was on campaign.
Then came the dream. And then came the purpose.
Maledak awoke, not sure if what he had seen, what he had heard was real. But he remembered being frightened, truly frightened for the first time in his entire life. It had been La’Saol, and what he said – what Maledak had accepted, were true. Maledak had never been devoutly religious, the nomadic lifestyle of a mercenary army and the study fo magic left little room for the divine or diabolical. But he did know that La’Saol’s and his own ends were the same – the destruction of the world. In the end, that’s all that really mattered to Maledak and if La’Saol would help him…
“So be it”
