The Flame of Wrath (34 page)

             
Today, I am the eldest living druid. The magic which flows through my veins has granted me a seeming immortality. In truth, the young ones believe I am immortal, but I can be killed the same as any other man. My death is merely harder to come by.

             
My body ages far more slowly than others. It is because of this truth: I am the Keeper of Knowledge among my people. I hold their hopes and truths. I am alive with them.

             
I do not know what will become of the druids. For every premonition to rack my mind, I see a thousand other possible scenarios which could follow should certain events only come to pass. Now is a time of great unrest for not only our brotherhood, but also the world. I can only pray that the Dragon grants us all 'new sight.'

________________

              I sit alone with no hope of salvation. It is lost. All I can do now is wait for the inevitable and share with you, the future, what little I know.

             
I was born within the Province of Blessed Vine. I was the youngest in a family of five children.  We did not have much, but no one within our family's modest walls would ever know it.

             
My childhood years were filled with the perfume of fruitful vineyards and an overabundance of love. Of all my siblings... of our entire family, I alone was born with crimson eyes.

             
My parents never looked at me with sadness for what I was. Nor did my clan perceive my existence as a curse or burden to my family so why in the name of all that I have loved, is it believed that now I should hang my head in shame? Why is it that now I am an abomination?

             
I have agonized over the situation faced by all druids for so long. I can remember being safe and warm inside sect walls only to hear our gates being pummeled viciously by the Empress' men. We fled. What else could we do? We were no match for her soldiers. We after all are men of faith. We are not fighters. Still, we have had to learn. For our very survival, we have had to learn.

             
My body no longer trembles with fear though my heart does quiver with sadness as I mourn the loss of you, my future or greater still,
our
future, the future of the entire brotherhood. How can I mourn what I have never known? Still I do. I wonder what great things might have been to come, what glories we will never see because we are lost. The druids are lost.

             
Staring at that so simply written sends a shiver throughout my insides.

             
We are dead at Aurea's hands. No one person so hated a group of people as Aurea hates the druids. She is the Hunter and her Knights, her supposed virtuous minion, are her hounds sent to scour the brush for the kill.              

             
In the beginning, the Empress took in druids for isolation or for “reeducation.”

             
A few druids, fearful for their lives, converted to a life of Virtue. They changed their modest robes for new more costly robes as worn by the priests of Aurea's religion. Those men, my former-brothers, have been shunned by our sect for having turned their backs upon what we believe in, but can we truly blame them? Is it really so bad to simply wish to survive? I have asked myself that question so many times, but no answer ever brings me comfort. When all is said and done, these men were men with whom I broke bread, men that I embraced as kin and men who would be dead had they not acted as they had. Is it my preference that these men I have professed to love so profoundly should be dead rather than disagree with my views and if so, how am I any better than Aurea, herself?

             
All that I know is that throughout this year, which has come to be known as the Blood Year, too many have died.

             
I hear movement above. From the tread, it sounds like men with dogs. No doubt they are searching for this place. I have been waiting in this wretched hole among the earth for the return of my brothers with medicine to treat my wounds. For you see, I was injured while attempting to evade a task-force of soldiers sent to our haven among the villagers. I pray for those kindly villagers. No doubt they will be punished horribly for their generosities. Sacred Mother, keep them.

             
At first I resented this shelter. It was far too much like a large grave for my liking. Now I see it for what it is, a temporary means of hiding until my brothers’ return or until the Knights come for me. Either way, it will not last forever... just as the druids cannot last forever.

             
If I should have a final wisdom to pass on, it would simply be this: I am a druid by birth not by choice. I am what I am and I make no apologies for this fact. Nor should I be made to. I have known happiness remaining true to myself. It was not until I was asked to be what I cannot that I ever truly knew what it was to be a lesser man and in that reality, I became one of the Empress' many imprisoned fallen.

___________________

              The Sacred Mother shelters us in Her divine warmth. She holds us close in our time of need. She watches over us with Her great sight to deliver us from this pained existence.

             
I do not waver in my faith. It is all I have left.

___________________

              I am one among one thousand.

             
We are to be moved at morning's light to a new location though we know not where. We have exceeded the makeshift prison made for us here among the muck. While covered in cold wet mud, we are various tones of gray and black with hollow red eyes.....

             
I saw it. Through the stinging vines of thorned metal, I have glimpsed the dawn.

             
Beneath the sounds of whips and shouts, we marched.

             
A brother fell to my right. I had reached out to take hold of him, but a guard roughly shoved me forward and my poor brother was kicked and stamped until his brittle old body could take no more.

             
What has become of this world? What madness have we fallen into! Where is the salvation our Mother promised?

             
I am one among one thousand and I am dying.

____________________

              I find that I can scarcely gaze into a mirror. The man I see staring back at me is hardly one I recognize. Who is he? When did he come to live my life for me? When did that life come to be a life lived in fear?

             
I know the answer. At least, I know the answer to the question of when. If I am honest, I can even answer the question of how, but why... Why I cannot truly say.

             
Do you see? Do you see what I have done? Even now, I lie. When it began was nearly one year ago. How it began was that I surrendered. Why did it begin? The falsely unanswerable question has a real truth. This life began because I was and am... afraid.

             
Once men called me “Druid”, but now they call me “Father.” I am a member of the Order of Virtue. I am a priest who serves the Dragon no longer. Instead I serve the Light. For a time, the belief of this new dogma was that the Light originated from the Dragon Mother, from the Sacred Source. This is no longer true.

             
As the Empress rose in power, she changed that belief so that now all Virtue's followers believe that Light originated not from the Dragon, but from mere goodness in and of itself. Aurea, the Bringer of Light, wrestled Light away from the possessive clutches of the Dragon and returned it to her people. Or so this is what the people are now told to believe.

             
Do they not see? Do they not know? She makes herself a demigod of her own religion when she was near that as a Dragon Child before. How can being the chosen child of a Goddess not be enough for her?

             
I have come to pity the masses. Many do not read or even write. Those peasants of the land trust blindly in those learned individuals who are supposed to speak only truths directly from the 'word'. Instead, they are fed the 'truths' which change according to Aurea's whims. They do not know to question their Empress. They believe naively that she has only their best intentions in mind when truly she cares nothing for anyone but herself. They do not see it. They do not recognize her tactics.

             
What do I believe? I believe in my throat
not
being cut. I believe in staying out of detainment camps before marching off to die! And yes, I also believe that I am a grotesque coward.

             
Look at me. I have turned my back upon my entire life, upon every friend I have ever known rather than die alongside them within the Blood Year. I am not alone, though. A handful of others chose as I did.

             
We are an insufferable lot. Among the realm of Virtue, we have no real power. We will never rise in ranks the way that others might. We are used as living symbols. We proof that the supposedly indomitable spirit of druids
can
be broken. We are paraded through the streets, preaching the word of Virtue to draw support from the people while lulling some of our former brethren out of hiding. I am ashamed to admit that so many of my old friends are now dead or dying because of their hopeful trust at the sight of me.

             
You fools! You stupid, stupid fools! How I hate you for not joining me in life.... even if it is not the life that we might have all originally planned upon. At least we would be alive! At least we would be together! And oh how I love you for having the conviction enough to die as you are, you beautifully brave souls.

********

              The stories of the druids were streaming throughout reality to be written amidst their brothers' accounts for posterity. Soren uncoiled slowly from his place upon the earth. His eyes were sore from crying. He had not mourned this way since learning of Wrath's destruction.

             
Violently his entire body tensed. He sensed a surprising name among the words zealously materializing.

             
“Autumn,” he whispered. Her aura was heavily weighted within the words.

             
Soren thoughtfully frowned. He focused on the druid using his last breath to send his energies to him. A pang resounded within his heart as he sensed a mortal wound.

             
A quick-slashing sword had been this druid's end, but his wounds were not what the druid had wished to transmit to Soren. He had wished to pass on the information gathered from a servant within the Imperial house. The woman had risked so much to deliver this information to him, but she was one of many who were still loyal to the druids and the Sacred Dragon.

             
Soren caught a fleeting flash of the woman's face. She was beautiful. Her features were forever soft and aglow by the aura of love and devotion permeating from her soul. Her eyes were the most intense emeralds. Her golden hair glistened like the sun. A light dusting of freckles lined her cheeks and nose.

             
“I am Salem,” Soren heard the woman whisper within the dying druid's mind.

             
Soren reached out his hand mentally for the information attempting to float away. He clasped it, needing to know what had become of Autumn.

             
“Autumn is hidden within a remote temple in the province of Endless Sun,” the druid heard Salem say.

             
Soren stood motionless. The emotions traveling beneath the surface of his face were hidden all too well by an expressionless mask. “Endless Sun,” he whispered hoarsely.

             
In his mind, he could feel the suffocating heat of the desert sun. He could remember the feel of weighted steps taken as his feet trudged through golden sands.

             
Soren had ventured to the temple only once. It had happened nearly a century ago. The occasion had found many druids flocking to the temple in order to celebrate a druid elder. It took something significant of this nature for the druids to acknowledge the distant house of the Goddess.

             
It had been Soren's belief that the temple was long ago overcome by the sands of time. Hearing tell of it now was surreal. It was as if the temple was a mirage left upon the desert's horizon to taunt him.

             
Why would the Empress keep Autumn within a temple especially when that temple belonged to a religion which Aurea was working to destroy?

             
He mulled over not the reason why but instead upon where the temple was located. Pyros was vast. The desert was no less than three month's journey. The wastelands would be too far for Aurea to visit without being away from her throne for long stretches of time then realization hit. It did not matter to the Empress if she could not be with Autumn as she would wish as long as no one else could determine Autumn's location. 

             
“I have to get to Autumn,” he murmured.