The Bridge Between Worlds

Chapter 1: Lost Pages

"Empyrean be with us."

That's what we used to say. That's what all of us used to say before this world became what it is now. But now they, gods, are like outsiders to us. After all the things that had been done, many most heavily influenced by the darkest magic, we lost our faith. The gods had turned against us and we turned against them, so we thought it best if we simply wished that they had never existed. Now me, I'm just an old innkeeper writing in a small lounge. I've never had strong values. The closest thing I've had to a partner in legal bond was the girl I met back in... well, now I can't even remember. But of the Elvairy, as they called themselves, my people and I held what was wanted respect. They were a species bound to their magic. It encompassed everything they stood for, every morsel of society they had built. But what they failed to see was that someone was holding up that society. What they failed to see was that a people that they had bred would unfortunately be their doom. 

There is an old story. It tells of a small boy who searches for scraps in the yard, and his father is killed right in front of him. That boy grows up with only the feeling of justice. He seeks to bring balance to the world, and rid it forever of a group and it's leader who committed such a terrible act. However, it comes to giving him the reconciliation he deserves, but the group only murders the brothers he came to know and love. The boy, now a man, searches within himself. "What is this justice, letting him live so he is able to take more from me than what I'm ever able to possibly gain once more? Why is this justice failing me? Where can I place it? I am beginning to believe it is worthless, for justice only scratches at the bottom of a box in the ground. It is weak. No, I am not the boy who searches for justice, comfortable with letting a man who hath slain my brethen walk the plain of life. He deserves what I aught to give to him. Men don't scratch at the box... men annihilate the box, hacking through the grime to get to the evil who buried them. And when the evil sees what has emerged, he is only so desperate to flee. Run he will. Yes... he will run, hiding behind the trees, his own brothers, a scared fool with nothing to prove. But I, I must see red. And red I will have." Ah yes, vengeance, the feeling of going over the edge. My people never truly liked it. But the boy turned man in the story tries to find that and so he does. It enamors him, so what does he do? He cuts the man's throat in his sleep, of course.

That story was always controversial. Some were attracted to it; worshiped it even. The man in the story became a symbol of what might happen when obliviants were pushed over the edge. Suppose now that it was sort of like a warning. I never really believed it was written by us though. A woman who stays here, Jeline, believes it was written by the elvairy who wanted to give their counterparts a bad name. Jeline doesn't know much though. She's just a small girl with a very fury back. I tease her about that sometimes when she comes up to me. Our talks are sweet, as she brings me honey sometimes. Guess that's just what her people eat. It's odd because this young girl stays in an inn everyday, goes to a blacksmith job to work with the higher ups, but never comes back to anyone who loves her. She's very shy to talk about it as well. She always dodges my questions,

"Marxis, why don't you have any family?" She asks. Well, I tell her that I haven't had a family since I was a boy. She sympathizes with me. I try to ask back but Jeline changes the subject. I regress, but I know why this is such a bother. Jeline never once talked to me at first, only sitting on a chair writing off of papyrus. We would have strange otherworldly glances from a distance. Soon as I opened my stupid mouth to say something clever that might gain her attention, she would skit away. Don't know, perhaps it was the red of my eyes that terrified her the most. Or my old wrinkly pale skin. One day I was sitting waiting for someone to come along, some junkie high off of sand maybe, anyone to come and at least engage me in conversation, when I was scared almost off my seat.