The Arkanist

Gallows End

Visir stared at the old man, his eyes clouded with a grey mist like smoke. Lifeless they seemed, striped of color and bleak as stone. Who is this man? Visir thought. What is he talking about? The eyes seemingly inflated, growing larger and larger until they glowed through the shadows like lamps. “What do you mean?” Visir asked. “I know not of your words.”

         The man, who named himself Aandil answered, disregarding Visir’s puzzlement. He gripped the iron bars with an intense vigor. “You have come, at last, after all these years of searching, of hoping, of praying. The gods are good, whoever or wherever they are. The gods are good.”

         Searching for me? This man is deranged; the sea has consumed him. He has let himself go.  “You must be mistaken,” Visir said.

         Aandil brushed the words aside like flies swarming over ones food. “The Son of Dhaeher is with whom I speak! He is here, before my very face.”

         “Who is Dhaerer?” Visir asked. “Not in all my long years have I ever heard of such a name.”

         “Then, my great lord has not lived long,” Aandil said. “The Lord, he is, the Lord of this Earth!” I’ve never heard of such man, Visir answered under his breathe. “His very son, you, yourself has been sent to men and I to find you. My spell, my curse will be released. Ah, yes, I will be free again, as I once was!”

         “You’re cursed?” asked Visir.

         “With the most terrible of curses,” Aandil said tragically. “Long ago, under a black starry sky I was cursed to forever live a life alone and to live it again and again, to never die, to never pass from this world. For ten thousand years I have walked this earth, bidding my time, watching the people and the wars around me fall into the Void and seen the world crumble and age, but I never have. I have been forced to endure. But you, you are here to save me, to cure me.”

         “But I don’t know how,” said Visir. “I haven’t the faintest clue.”

         “You’re the Son of Dhaeher,” Aandil said, convinced. “The son of my accursed, the one who did this to me for my sins, my actions, and my failures.” He took his hands off the bars and started to wave them in the air, as if drawling on a page of parchment, his canvas the dark, oppressive air. “It was said in lore, that the son of Dhaeher would come to me, or I to him, and he would be the only one who would be able to save me. He would be akin to the shadows, garbed in black and born from ice and snow. He would be my savior. Among the elder trees of the Forests of Ered I was cursed and there you must take me, Son of Dhaeher, to save me.”

         “I can’t,” Visir said. “I don’t know how. I am no Son of Dhaeher, whoever he is. I cannot cure you.”

         “You are blind to what you truly are,” the old man said raggedly. “What hidden truth lies deep within you is veiled. As with us all, there is a truth that stirs the moment we are born, and it is with that truth that we are made into who we are and our destinies determined. I cannot change fate, only follow it, and it has led me here, to meet you.”

         “Even if I could, or even would take you, we are both in a cell and on a ship, sailing along the Endless Sea.” Visir hugged the stained iron bars with his bloodied and raw fingers, the jagged folds of skin spiking off his knuckles like spires.

         Aandil fingered his long snowy beard. “We could escape.”

         “Easier said than done,” answered Visir. “Each and every one of these prisoners wants to escape, yet none have. What makes you think we can?”