Fettered Worlds

Chapter One

Kieran sat atop a white mare with infantry about him. Dressed in leather armor as dark and red as blood with sewn in areas of metal stained a shadowy black, he looked menacing. As was the purpose of it. However, currently, the attention it usually garnered was gone as it was caught by another object. This one was of a strange tunnel? No one knew for sure and there were mutters of guesses going about the battalion of soldiers. On the edge of a town at the edge of the kingdom was a glowing blue swirl of haze and darkness in the middle.... And it just manifested. 

This news had made it to the capitol and upon the ears of the Monarch. It had taken Kieran a month to make it here, two months since the thing manifested. From what he heard of the local battalion and the townspeople, it has done nothing but float here. Infantry guard it and make sure no one comes near it. Some, though, have begun testing it. Rocks and items thrown at it, only to disappear and not return. The last one being a given. Someone had complained of losing a shoe to it. He wasn't sure what they expected. 

The land here was mountainous and rocky, the people were preparing for winter when this thing showed up. It has disrupted life with the curiosity it brings, but Kieran is concerned about the danger it might bring. He has no clue why it had shown up but he didn't believe things to just show up without a purpose. Without reason. Even a snow fall has reason. So, a mysterious --- tunnel --- had some reason too. Unfortunately, the Monarch decided it was his job to figure it out. While it did peak his interest, there was a war more deserving of his skill off to the northwest. Not a blue haze in the south. However, here he was. 

"Kyja, what do you wish of us?" Asked an infantry sergeant. Kyja pronounced with the southern accent came out as kaieeyo. It was a term of respect, used in addressing superiors. However, the term was created by northerners, and was properly pronounced as kai-yuh. 

"Maintain guarding the thing. I will speak with the wiseman brought to study it." The wiseman was Caldan. He was well known in the land and was the Monarch's favorite, as best as favorites go when it came to the Monarch. The Monarch has no emotions, only logic, and was eternal. Although, Kieran knew well that while the Monarch did not age, he could be killed. Otherwise, why make warriors like him? 

He twists the reigns and nudges his mare into motion, heading back into the town. The town was poor and full of hard workers, each and every one of them trying to survive in the destitute south that was mountains and cold weather. The homes were cobblestone and wood, the path was mud, and alpacas and mountain animals were more at use here than cows and horses. In the summer, there was a chance it could look nice, but the winter paints the village dismal. Cloudy sky's that are gray, give no cheerful light to it. The chilly air and it all, sinks into his bones. 

People give him wide birth as he walks past on horse. It is not just that he is Raskrane, but because he is a Flame. This world was full of humanoid species, the tribes of the world grew up together, but they went too far and they lost it all. Biological weapons. He's not sure what his people were called back then, but now they were Flames. This is because of their ability, his ability, to manipulate flame. However, to add to that, they grew them to be better in physicality. 

As a kid, he wished the fear would leave them. After all, they didn't end everything. Maybe they helped, but... another biological project resulted in an epidemic. A virus that Flames were immune to. Now, he just didn't care. That fear could be used and he wanted his space. Like now, as he walked down this muddy street, he could get through faster as the people on it parted to make way. 

Caldan was given a room at the local barracks and a workspace for his studies. Kieran dismounted at the small, dilapidated stables and handed the reigns over to a young boy. He looked at the barracks and found that it shared a similar status to the stables. It was poor and the infantry didn't deserve this dilapidated accommodations. The Monarch, though, didn't give to what he felt didn't need it. Resources went to the places of importance. That mainly was the citadels and fortresses along and around the war front. So, he wasn't surprised to see the barracks of a town far south to be falling apart. The courtyard was dirt and mud, his boots squelching in it as he strode over and into the barracks. Boots met cold stone and light flowed in from open windows and from torches alit. He could feel each torch down this hall, or more accurately, the fire. Fire felt... hyper. It was energetic and was like a beast being held in a cage, just wanting  release, to be let free. As a kid, one had to learn to control themselves. The energy and hyperness of flames can be intoxicating... it was infectious and you could feel it in your nerves. An untrained Flame was dangerous. It is, also, why not many are still alive. 

Boots whispered down the corridor as he came to Caldan's residence. The elder man was hunched over a wooden desk and seemed to be thinking as he drew how he remembered the blue haze to look. 

"What do you make of it?" He asked, announcing himself. Caldan didn't even look up or seemed startled by his silent arrival. Then again, Caldan was used to Raskane quietly going about. Skittering was the term Caldan uses. 

"Make of it? There is nothing to make of it. I just got here, shiny." Caldan called young people shiny. Like a shiny new coin, compared to him being an aged one. "We just got here. It's been two months and nothing of any interest. I need to, watch it more. I need to find a pattern of some kind, find where the items go. Observe, shiny. I must observe and test." 

"Do you find it dangerous?" He continued to question. 

"Dangerous? Dangerous?" Caldan chuckled, as if the question was ridiculous. He just maintained his blank look, trained into him. With him not laughing back, Caldan sobered. "It's done nothin' but sit. I can't say its dangerous until it does something dangerous."

"It swallows things." Kieran replies back. If it swallowed things and those things never came back, then that seemed like a danger.

"Then don't fall into it. Besides! We don't know if it can't come back. We haven't thrown anything that can move through."

"You want to have a person go through?" He asked, being completely serious if it was requested of him. If he was ordered, he'd go through just as much as he was willing to have another go through. 

"No, you shiny! An animal. I'm not throwing a person in. Unlike the Monarch, I do hold morals. He teaches you Raskane to see people only as tools. It's a shame, truly. We were meant to think that way."

"Morals get in the way of what needs to be done to keep the kingdom going. I've argued this point with you before, Caldan. I'll leave morals to you, Raskane must think clearly and of like mind to the Monarch."

"If you say so." There was doubt in Caldan's tone. Something that irked Kieran each time they had this conversation. Caldan didn't believe in forgoing morals and maintaining a status of logical processing. He fussed that, that thinking was too resembling of the artificial minded of an era long ago. Maybe so, but his people were made, just like the superminds of the Artificials were made long ago. 

"Figure this thing out, Caldan." He said, sternly. "I want to know if its dangerous. I want it gone or I want it covered up and guarded. We have a war waging, I do not want to waste time on this."

Caldan snorts. "Right. The war. I've not known a day without that blasted war going on. So, believe me, shiny, it's going to be there when this thing is handled."

Caldan didn't believe in the war and he didn't like the Monarch. "I don't know why he favors you."

"Because I'm honest, he knows exactly where I stand, I'm intelligent and therefore hold merit and use. And lastly, I don't speak my mind within the wrong crowd. As long as I am the most intelligent, he'll favor me. That's how he works." 

And that was how the Monarch worked. Caldan could say whatever he wanted, as long as it was to the right people, and as long as he was of use. 

"Keep guard on it. Tomorrow, I will begin testing." Caldan says after a moment of silence. It was as much as informative as it was a dismissal. Caldan had fallen back to drawing the blue haze out on his paper. 

Kieran stood there a second more, before turning on his heels and leaving the entrance of the door, having never fully entered the residence.

His ears picked up on boots running down the corridor and it was soon confirmed as an infantry private rounded the corner. He looked winded and sounded so, as he came to a stop upon seeing him. 

"Kyja, there's --- people." The private said through breathes, jabbing a thumb back behind him for emphasis.

"People?" This wasn't really the type of news that was urgent to share. This was a town. Did people come from other areas to see the thing? He waited for clarification. 

"People... people came through --- came through the... uhhh... the blue, floating blue cloud."