THE LIGHT OF A'LEST

CHAPTER 12

     Keko, Kara, and Zander sat stiffly in the high-backed chairs while Master Vicam incessantly tapped the table. His eyes were downcast, a solitary piece of parchment stretched before him. Copper stood with his back to the wall behind them, scratching something into paper while Grantook paced the dais with his hands folded behind his back. The endless clicking of his boots was in direct competition with the Lore Master's tapping. The chief stopped, casting a perturbed eye towards the Lore Master. The tapping stopped.

     "Show me your arm." His father's voice was grating, his tone unceremonious and stern. Keko knew right away there would be no negotiating. As Kara and Zander glanced at him, he stood and began unwrapping the bandage. Grantook looked at Kara and Zander. They, too, stood and began doing the same. Copper's scribbling stopped, and he began leering over the top of his papers as he waited for the last layers of cloth to be removed. Keko gasped.

     Copper's wiry form leaned in and grasped the wound. "Remarkable!" he exclaimed as he turned Keko's arm over and over again. Keko hissed as he surveyed the thick layer of molten black flesh covering his arm from elbow to wrist. It looked dead. Alien. Like someone had switched his arm for someone else's. In stark contrast to the dead flesh, a gnarly fissure ran along the inside of his forearm, tracing an ever-widening line that slowly tapered off as it met his wrist. The flesh inside appeared reflective, crystalline, almost mirror- like.

     Copper, unable to contain his excitement, chuckled and began rooting around in his pocket before finally producing a small suture. "The wound appears to have grown considerably. Yet, it doesn't appear to follow the course of any previously recorded infection." Keko felt his heart race as the man's voice faded into the background. His vision was narrowing with each breath. It grew dimmer and dimmer as the physician prodded at the hideous flesh of his arm with his needle. Overcome by the need to be anywhere else, he forced his eyes from his arm and saw Kara and Zander staring back at him. Their wounds were identical.

     Grantook watched as his only son floundered in the face of despair. The look on his face reminded him of the helpless look he had worn during Emma's last days. Her far-off stare was vacant, hollow, as if whatever force that anchored her to this life had long since departed. Keko's look was the same. Waiting with bated breath, he prayed for some reprieve, but each of Copper's words felt like hammer blows. Unavoidable truths that left little doubt to the likely outcome. Am I going to lose my son?

     "Amputation is the only remaining course, Chief. Every effort I have made to contain the spread has failed. If it spreads beyond the arm..." Copper released his grip on Keko's arm, standing back and shrugging, a resigned look on his face. "A'lest only knows how long before..."

     Panic ensued, all three protesting the physician's "advice" like their lives depended on it. Grantook took a breath and listened as all three hurled insults, pleas, and all manners of disbelief before raising his hand. "Silence!" Their voices trailed off, albeit reluctantly. "Master Vicam, if you'd please." The old man, who had thus far remained silent, staring blankly at the parchment before him, rose, shifted his robe, and began to read.

     The document was written by a clerk named Ada in the year 6978 and read like a butcher's bill. Recounting a time of blood. A time of death. Of cities destroyed, lives lost, and entire civilizations eradicated. In the footnotes and, if the Master of Lore was to be believed, likely added after the fact were references to a girl named A'lest. Born in the far north, high above, in the Shirni Steps, who was struck by a falling star.

     "Surely there must be some other way." Vicam looked at the chief and understood how he must have sounded. "I am sorry, Chief, but the text is quite clear." In the most confident voice, he could muster given the circumstances, he continued. "It goes on at length, but its meaning is clear. It hints at some sort of passage. Some gate of ascension." Lifting his eyes from the document, he somberly looked at the two boys and the girl before him. "If their wounds aren't testament enough to their destiny, the manner in which they received them is without question. Our predicament alone demands we investigate the possibility that this Gate could be a physical place."