Swapped Fate

42: What is My Name?

Morning came with no sign of Tristan. I stood in the middle of my bedroom, dressed in my riding outfit. I still did not know what the Great Owl’s name was for sure, but I had an idea. Lea and Adrian had provided me with a list of possible names for the taalmin.

Abaddon, Alastor, Brutus, Cain, Foley, to mention but a few.

I thought of playing the guessing game with him, but remembered Atlas’ words—never trust a taalmin. If I did meet him and guessed correctly, what would stop him from devouring my soul right there and then? Certainly not the rules of a game he had me playing—his game.

The safest strategy was for me to receive the final part, and meet with Atlas to discuss the possible names.

A darkness fell over the room, signalling the plague’s arrival. I turned around and saw the Great Owl hovering above my bed, its large body blocking the entire headrest from view. Ruby red eyes glimmered at me, the small pointed black beak shut and still as ever.

His voice rang throughout the room. “Are you ready for the fourth and final piece, human?”

I didn’t have the time to chat.

“Just give it to me.”

The chuckle I despised so much bounced off the walls, irritating my ears. “Very well, then.”

The pieces started to float towards me and into a new pouch.

“I can see the desperation and fear in your eyes. It tells me you do not know my name yet. How can you, without the final piece? But worry not, for it will all come to an end soon. This game, and your life. For your soul shall be mine.”

His chuckle followed, growing fainter by the second until it was no more, and he was gone from my sight.

I jumped into action, grabbing my packed satchel and stuffing the pouch inside. I rushed down the staircase, slowing down only to greet everyone at the breakfast table. They wondered about how I dressed, but my excuse was at the tip of my tongue.

“Tristan and I will be spending the whole day together,” I declared. “I met him yesterday and he promised to meet me in the city. I do not know what he has planned, but he told me I would be riding with him.”

Madam Felicity was overjoyed. “That is wonderful, dear! I see he’s making up for missing your date.”

I gave a false laugh. “Ahaha. Indeed, Madam Felicity. I will get going now.”

“Wait, shouldn’t you eat first?”

“We have breakfast planned,” I lied, backing away slowly. “See you later!”

I hope.

I rode out of the gates and headed straight for the pines in the East side. Atlas wasn’t surprised to see me at her door, and was willing to help me sort the last puzzle part.

She was quite good at it, fitting pieces together without having to rearrange them. Thanks to her, we managed to complete the thousand piece puzzle in an hour.

This picture was even more ominous than the last.

It was of the Great Owl, but in a different form. It was the same ruby red eyes and grey feathers, except now his wings stretched far up and above him.

Each feather was distinct, with a few sticking out further than the rest—like four bony fingers. The legs were longer; as long as human legs, but still feathery with talons on the black feet. And the head—the head was stretched and tilted to the side at the same uncanny angle through which he had peered at me the previous night.

“Now that is a taalmin,” Atlas commented.

The man wasn’t in this picture. I dug through my satchel, pulling out the drawings of all prior pictures and lining them below the final puzzle piece. It must have been an origin story. The death of the man—his owner—at the owl’s hand signalled the birth of the taalmin.

Atlas peered at he pictures and murmured, “Dark.”

The last piece only confirmed my suspicion that his name had to do with these events; events of malice, death and destruction.

“I have a list of possible names from the story told here,” I said to Atlas. “Perhaps one of their meanings matches the story.”

She nodded. “That is a good idea. I have never heard or read about an owl taalmin, but maybe I should check one more time.” She stood up from the floor and disappeared round the corner.

Check where?

I waited in curiosity for several minutes until she returned, holding a book in her hands. My face was a question, and she answered, “This has information about taalmins encountered in the past.”

I was appalled. “You’ve had that the whole time!”

She gave me a sheepish look as she sat down again. “It’s been a long while since I dealt with taalmins. You triggered my memory when you said list of names.”

I glared at her, but took the issue no further and let her open the book; or rather diary, because it was handwritten with all the pictures of taalmins drawn by pencil.

I listed all the names Lea and Adrian had provided me while she checked for them in the book. But alas, none of them matched the Great Owl nor his origin story. In fact, the names either belonged to other taalmins or weren’t in the book.

I sat back on my heels, dejected and lethargic. “This is pointless.”

“There isn’t one owl picture in this book.” Atlas sighed, closing the diary.

I looked over at the clock on the wall. Midday.

My heart sank. Tristan wasn’t here yet with the weapon, and I had met a dead end with the puzzle.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I whispered. “There’s only two hours left.”

The Great Owl in the puzzle stood tall, proud and magnificent. His ruby red eyes peered back at me, taunting me for my failure. I could hear his sinister chuckle, and his slick mocking tone.

“Pathetic. Weak. Futile. Your soul shall be mine.”

My hands balled into fists. I was none of those things.

When my orphanage was raided and burned to the ground, I had escaped. Even while roaming the streets and forests barefoot and starving for days, I had lived. Fought my way against thugs, survived on leftovers in the streets and crossed a border into Evindrear. I learned to work and make a living. Even though it was little, it kept me on my feet and I saw another day.

I was not weak.

“Actually, it’s about an hour. An hour and thirty minutes at most, because I need to summon the taalmin before he summons you,” Atlas helpfully corrected me.

“I’m not giving up,” I stated, fuelling my body with anger at the taalmin. It reinstated my determination, building a Fort around my mind. I wouldn’t let him get to me.

I fished out a blank piece of paper and pencil from my satchel, and began to sketch the final piece. “I’m sure Tristan will be here with the blade, but there will be no point if I don’t find the name.”

My sketch was rather subpar compared to the other detailed redrawings, but I did not care. I took the four pieces of paper and sat at the table so I could study them more carefully.

“Well.” Atlas stood up too. “While you do whatever it is you’re doing, I’ll look through some more books.”

As she walked to the shelves, she asked, “Isn’t there something he could have said to you that might be a hint to his name?”

“Him and I don’t really chat. When we do, he simply mocks me. While I’m fighting for my life, he thinks of this as nothing more than a game,” I spat bitterly. “He’s so happy to play, he thanked the Forest of Despair and some kind of fore link for it.”

Remembering our meetings filled me with anger and spite. I was fearful before, but now I was enraged at his languid attempts to snatch away the life I worked so hard to keep.

“Did you just say fore link?”

My pencil moved mindlessly as I tried to recreate the other drawings so they all fit on one piece of paper. “I didn’t understand that either.”

“No.” The strength in Atlas’ voice urged me to look up. Her pupils were wide and twinkling. “It makes perfect sense!”

I tilted my head, momentarily forgetting my anger and focusing on the epiphany she seemed to be having.

“The plagues are linked to their master, who ideally would be a sorcerer,” she explained. “If the taalmin called it a fore link, then it isn’t the genuine link between the plagues and a sorcerer. It means something—or rather someone else other than a sorcerer is the master.”

The words replayed in my mind until they finally made sense. She meant faux link. I squinted at her. “Are you saying a sorcerer didn’t cast the spell?”

“Yes!” she shrieked, beaming. “The Curse of Verthen is born of the Forest of Despair, meaning a sorcerer first acquired it from the dark deity that reigns over it. The deity is drawn to disturbed, troubled, angry beings. The Forest corrupts those who come near it, giving them malicious murderous intent. It can use them to kill others and those souls are what make the deity stronger.”

Zealously, she scurried towards me. “The deity has grown stronger over time, and is able to leave the Forest to seek out troubled, angry, broken beings—twisting their minds and giving them power to do evil deeds. In essence, they become false sorcerers. Their magic is limited and simply borrowed. Have you heard of the Smolden village massacre?”

I shook my head, engrossed in the information.

“It happened thirteen years ago in the province of Peak Valley, within Smolden village. Twenty people died in one night. They were found in the morning with numerous cuts and bruises that indicated they had been subjected to torture, but the eerie thing was how thin and pale their bodies looked—as though they had been starved to bones.

“Days later, two witnesses came forth with an unsettling account of one of the killings. They had seen shadows come alive and walk like humans. They stretched and bent in a boneless manner, lifting the victim by his throat and limbs. The witnesses saw a light leave the man’s body and float to the shadow, as though his very soul was sucked out of his body. The man was thinned and dead within seconds while the shadows retreated to the side of a cloaked figure. They swore the figure was human, and that he had controlled the shadows.”

Atlas’ cat eyes bore into mine, and the detached lowness of her tone made shivers crawl up my spine. “The villain you’re looking isn’t a sorcerer, Mavis. He might as well be human.”

I could hardly breathe. The revelation sent my mind spiralling into all sorts of thoughts. The Devereux family was surrounded by humans. At home, at Adrian’s work, and wherever we went. He would have been easier to find if he was a sorcerer because of appearance.

But now, the possibilities were endless. It could be anyone.

“I think your epiphany just made things a lot more complicated,” I professed.

Atlas offered a sympathetic look and glanced at the paper before me. She peered at the sketchy, less than stellar drawings I had made in a sorry attempt to recreate the pictures on one piece of paper.

“I thought it would be easier to look at combined,” I explained, “and to carry about. Stupid, I know. Can’t even draw. They’re basically stickmen. Even worse than a child’s doodle.” I chuckled humourlessly.

Atlas grabbed the paper with so much vigour, I was startled.

“This is...” she murmured, her eyes piercing my drawings like a hawk. “This is it!”

“What?”

Quickly, she snatched the pencil from me and flipped over one of the papers so she could copy down what I had drawn. “The pictures don’t tell a story. Well, they do, but that isn’t their true purpose. They are words themselves.”

Her speech was rapid and excited, goose bumps forming on her skin as she talked. “Not exactly words, but characters. Characters that can form words.”

“I’m not quite sure I understand.”

“It’s a language, Mavis!” she cried. “Each picture has been perfectly drawn and arranged in such a position so as to trace out a certain character. The same way artful depictions of constellations revert back to simply connecting stars in the sky, this art reverts back to simple characters!”

She barked a powerful manic laugh that made me cringe in my seat.

“Oh, that owl was smart to use this method, but you’re even smarter for figuring it out. You’re a genius, Mavis!”

My back straightened, fluffiness smothering my insides. “I am?”

Standing up, I hovered beside her as she finished writing. My stickman drawings had now been modified into neat characters across the page.

“It’s an ancient language called Eroudin. It is the first language sorcerers used,” Atlas explained and started to write below the characters. “My Eroudin is a bit rough since I’ve only attempted a few times to learn it, but the first character here directly translates to ‘Hi’ and the fourth to ‘on.”

My heart drummed fast against my rib cage in anticipation. “What of the other two?”

She beamed at me, a knowing look in her eyes. “One spell will do the trick.”

I watched and waited on the tips of my toes as Atlas stretched her hand out to the paper and chanted, “It is a name ancient and vile. Reveal its true form, so I beguile.”

The white markings on her grey skin glowed as the pencil moved on its own accord, eliciting a gasp from me.

I cupped a hand over my mouth as the pencil modified the two characters Atlas had written. It translated those, writing down the missing letters.

Hizieleon. That was his name.

The pencil was inanimate once again, its job complete.

That was when the door burst open, and Tristan barged in, looking like he'd just received the beating of a lifetime. In his grip was the tallest, largest axe I had ever seen.

And I could have kissed him right then and there.

Author’s ramble:

Lots of information to grapple but I am a fan of this chapter because a lot of things come together💃🏽

Thank you for reading😊 and don’t forget to vote⭐️!