"Shadowpath: The Saga of Aarian" : 'Destiny' - Part 1

submitted by aarian on Mar 6th, 2007

“Shadowpath: The Saga of Aarian”

“Destiny” Part 1

“Every man has his destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him”
- Henry Miller

“Concentrate damn you, focus on the result not the means” The instructor snapped at young Aarian who stood awkwardly, palm outstretched. A small flicker of light hovered in the air above his palm, his eyes squinting as he focused. The light began to pulse and grow. It doubled in size, it tripled in sized, and then…gone.

Aarian let out a long sigh and lowered his head, purposely dodging his instructors glare. “Useless I tell you, useless. They send me a boy with no hope.” The old man hobbled around the room muttering to himself.

“He has potential they tell me. He has a natural gift they tell me. Well you know what I say, rubbish”

Aarian let his mumbling drift into the background as he thought back and wondered why he was here. His parents, aristocrats to the City of Khal, had placed him in the care of the old man for the sole purpose of making a sorcerer out of him.

They believed that he had a natural ability that just needed the right training. Besides, imagine the prestige a sorcerer in the family would bring them. He could hear them at night giggling with delight at how that would easily reinforce their stature in the city and then they truly would be looked up to, as they rightfully should be.

Aarian sighed again as he realized he had let them down. If he had any power it was barely enough to light a candle let alone command the mystical and elemental forces of the world.

“Are you listening to me boy!” the old man’s voice snapped Aarian back as he grasped his arm firmly, shouting in his ear. “Bad enough you are useless as a sorcerer, don’t make it worse by ignoring me. What am I supposed to tell your family? They have paid me good money to make a wizard out of you, and I doubt I could make you much more than a dung farmer. So tell me, what good are you?”

Aarian began to murmur but was quickly stifled “Don’t speak, just sit and wallow. Better yet, go out back and tend to my goats. You can do that much can’t you? I will come get you when I have figured out the matter; you may want to take something to sleep on”.

Aarian nodded his head reluctantly and gathered up some old blankets as he made his way out the back door to the goat pens. They were typical pens for the small farms of the area. Rickety wooden posts surrounded a meager section of the yard where a dozen or so goats wandered about, passing away their mundane existence. Some were milk goats chosen carefully at the auctions for their production ability. The sturdier goats were there passing their days awaiting their turn at slaughter.

Amongst them all, standing away from the meandering herd, was one rather large male. Perfect in every way, from the shape and symmetry of his horns, to the perfect fur pattern and color, he was special. He was the old man’s stud. Here for one purpose and one only. Spared the butcher’s hammer and treated like a king.

Aarian lay his blankets under the shade of a nearby aukfruit tree and want over to the fence to get a better view. The more he stared at the stud the more he saw, and the more he saw the more he stared. He was focused, amazed at the power and grace of the animal. This one was in every way, shape and forms superior to the others. As he stared at the animal, taking in every detail he began to notice something odd.

A strange haze surrounding and penetrating the animal It was fog-like, yet there was no fog on the nearby ground and to late in the afternoon for fog anyway. The more he stared the clearer it became.

“What is that” Aarian whispered under his breath.

He carefully moved towards the stud to get a better view. The closer he got the more the fog seemed to shimmer: almost shine. He stopped and looked around the surrounding area. The other goats were surrounded in a similar fog, yet not as brilliant as the studs. Some were brilliant and clear; others, the older goats, were – for lack of a better word – lifeless.

It was then he noticed the fence, it did not have the same foglike surroundings. The fence was just that, a fence. He looked away for a moment, to the ground. Perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him. He clenched his eyes shut tight in hopes of cleansing his vision. When he opened his eyes, returning his gaze to the goats, it was just as before. Strange fog surrounded the animals, but not the fence.

He looked around frantically at everything around him. The trough, the stones, the house and the wagon did not share the same phenomenon. Yet the horse tethered to the wagon, the old man’s cat meandering by, the bird flying from the tree; they were encased in this fog.

“Could it be” he questioned himself “could it be their, soul?”

Oh, it was too ridiculous to entertain. One cannot see a soul, but Aarian had no other explanation. The living had the fog, the unliving did not.

What else could it be? He had heard tales of people able to see and even manipulate the soul. Those were dark stories, told only in private. Bedtime ghost stories meant to frighten children into compliance when traditional methods failed. Ridiculous or not, he could see it, but could he – touch it?

Aarian reached out to one of the less skittish goats. Expecting to touch soft fur, he jerked his hand back in a panic when he touched the fog. He felt it. It had mass; it was warm to the touch, comforting to him in some way. He quickly went back to the fence to observe from a distance. His mind racing to comprehend all of this new information as he continued to stare, afraid if the fog left, he would never be able to see it again.

He focused on the stud once more. This one had the most prominent soul of the others: the brightest and most tangible. As he stared he began envisioning the soul growing and shrinking. Soon he noticed it was more than a vision. As he pictured the soul moving, it would respond. He would picture the soul growing and it would begin to leave its containment and grow like a cloud. As he pictured it constricting, it would in fact respond in kind.

He pictured the soul shrinking down to a speck, a molecule of dust. If he could do that then he could make the soul grow just as much the other way. He was fascinated. As he envisioned the soul shrinking he noticed resistance the smaller it got. It was fighting him. So, the more it resisted the harder he concentrated. He was enthralled with the challenge and with this new ability. So much so he failed to hear the bleating of the goat.

The panicked wailing and thrashing as the soul got smaller and smaller. As the soul shrank, the tormented cries of the goat became louder until suddenly all was silent and the soul was gone.

When the soul disappeared and Aarian’s focus dwindled he looked around him. The souls were gone. He looked back to the stud and gasped when he saw it lying on the ground, a hollow shell of the massive stud that stood there only moments ago.

“What have I done?” Aarian whispered to himself incredulously

“What have you done??!!” He heard the old man shout from the back door of his home

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