Into the Darkness Second Draft

Satyr and King

"The King's side." Kindrow said, pacing the black room, deftly avoiding the spilled food. "I've been working for the King this entire time. Even after he relieved me as Captain of the Royal Guard. He needed me to have time to figure this out, and I couldn't do both."

"But why are you not black like everything else?"

The satyr hung his head. "Part of the stories are true, and not even our Liege knows all of the truth," he fell silent as he continued to pace the floor. Samantha and Doug looked at each other and then at Carl who shrugged.

"Go on," Andy said, hefting his axe, "and I better like what I hear."

"And that, is precisely why no one has heard my story in its entirety."

Gottfried hopped in front of Andy. "Both of you stop. Andy, put down the axe, we're all in this together now, and we can't afford to lose anyone, at least not yet."

The minotaur did as instructed, shaking his head, "You're right Gottfried, but I don't trust him."

"Nor do you have to," shot back the frog. "But if we want to get to the bottom of this, we need to know everything, and right now, Kindrow is our best bet," he glared at Andy. "Unless you'd like to go ask the dire wolves outside?"

"Bah," growled the great horned beast.

"Thank you, Gottfried, you always did right when it needed to be done." Kindrow said. Stopping, he leaned against the wall.

"I'm not your biggest fan either," reinforced the amphibian, "so let's be about sharing information now."

"Yes, I see that now," Kindrow resumed his pacing. "I'm much older than I look, much older than even Alisia."

"So you've seen this before? And you didn't tell anyone?" Andy's hand was upon his axe, but a glare from Gottfried stayed his hand.

"I couldn't, without revealing my part. I used to work for Cain. Not twenty years ago, not the time before that either. Nearly five hundred years ago, Cain brought me to this land. I was young, didn't know what all of his plans were at the time. And when I saw the chaos that he sewed, I abandoned him during a battle. He thought me lost, and he continued on, working his magic, consuming the color of the realm, while I hid like a coward. I'm not sure what restored the color to the realm after that time, or if his spell finally wore off, but it was over a hundred years before the trees were brown again, the leaves green.

The next time that Cain returned, the time Alisia spoke about, I hid, again like a coward, but was not spared his wrath then. I too was turned black. It was that time that I vowed to not let it happen again. I had made friends, friends that died because of Cain. The dire wolves are his. We started our own Color Guard then, when a young man by the name of Maxwell appeared. He too had a power like yours, and managed to restore the color to the land, and when Cain found out, he set his wolves hunting. I was with Maxwell when they found him. There were only seven of us at the time, and we couldn't save him. I watched helplessly as Maxwell was dragged off. I vowed then to not let it happen again. I joined the Royal Guard and moving up through the ranks, until Cain showed himself again.

I was ready for him though, or so I thought. He remembered me and offered me a position at his side again. Thinking it was a way to get close, I accepted, and he spared me his curse. When we gave chase, it was my plan to capture him, afraid that his death would allow the curse to continue. I tried to stop the King, but my Liege's anger got the better of him, and when Cain disappeared, I thought we were doomed, but I resolved to do everything I could.

And I did, but it amounted to nothing, until Alisia showed up and reminded me of Maxwell. I think I'd blocked that failure from my mind."

"That's a great story," Carl said from where he sat, cross legged, upon the floor, "but why hasn't any of us heard about the blackness?"