Iorrjaer

Chapter 19

Sorâth and his team were slow to their destination as their journey into town was taken over by an unknown force. It seemed that as they progressed further into town, the less ground they had actually made. A thick mist billowed from an unseen source and engulfed them one by one.

For Sorâth, it was as if his own tricks were being used against him. He prided himself in his ability to project himself near others. His mastery of the mirror illusion was unprecedented but here it seemed that he could not tell which mirror image he actually was.

He often used this trick to intimidate someone that was overstepping their place or to defuse an escalating situation or to let someone know that he wanted their attention. He used it on the road to keep a distant eye on Yophiel and to access the different dangers that surrounded them. Now, it felt as if the ziggurat was doing the same to him and he was willingly, knowingly, allowing its trails to guide him.

A voice, hidden and distant, called to him. It was faint as if it was the wind itself and it lingered just outside of his ability to process the information it possessed.

The more he struggled against the spell that trapped him, the more he found himself before the ziggurat. Every direction he turned, every time he tried to break away from the spell he found himself standing before the grand structure. It was huge and dominated the space it occupied. A wicked wind blew from it as if it was a barrier to keep those that it deemed unworthy away from its secrets.

He felt probing, something from the ziggurat was searching his mind. Or it was trying to. Something he had learned long ago from a life before he was commonly known as Sorâth, was to shield his mind from outside forces. He was good at keeping mind reading spells or mental probes at bay but this was different. This was much stronger and it was taking all of his mental prowess to keep it at bay. He was unsuccessful and in his mind he saw Zâzel - his brother. Zâzel was pouring over tomes in a large library. As Sorâth watched, the tomes piled up in different piles but were always open to an important page.

The voice persisted, just outside his comprehension.

Sorâth was now standing before a figure that was not manifesting correctly. His mind was steeled against this - from the other parts of the illusion that he was in, he could tell that he was back in the caves where he grew up - which meant that the ziggurat was trying to get him to see his father, but he refused to give up that information. The images before him swirled and twisted around him before settling on him standing in the woods. Four travelers laid dead before him. They were all carrying bows and quivers with crudely made with poor fletching.

This was where and when he had met Kârael. The travelers were a group he had come across and followed to find Kârael's village. He had overheard the four talking about how they were going to win the competition and then rape the elven women as rewards to themselves. He had made sure that they did not even make it into the village grounds. This was his first taste of the name he adapted for himself - Ronin, The Pale Drow.

A name that became feared across the land and the one that had ultimately gained him an audience with Tapht and Bne of the Inglegaard. He did not mind the ziggurat knowing this part of his life - it betrayed no real information of who he really was. The ziggurat eagerly ate up what it was being fed too, it showed him more of his travels with Kârael and how they roamed the world, taking jobs and proving their mettle in a world where humanity was still young.

Sorâth heard the voice calling to him again. Its proximity to him was getting closer and now he was sure that he was hearing a voice and it was a female voice. A voice unlike any other. A voice that brought brief recollections to his mind of a woman had met in passing. She had been someone he had met once in a meeting with the then Commander of the Inglegaard, Marshal Mahrkus. She had spoken but once and still, her voice lingered in his mind.