Firestorm

Chapter 23

Flynn stepped through the portal, leaving the harsh heat of the desert behind. When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but blinding white. After a few moments of panic and franticly blinking his eyes, they finally managed to clear and adjust slightly. All around him, he saw only pure white sand, as far as the eye could see in all directions, so different from the deep red sands of the desert he had just left behind. The bright sunlight refracted off the ground, making the glare even more unbearable. Unlike the Scarlet Desert, which at times felt as though it were the surface of the Sun, this place was neither hot nor could. Where the traces of the tough and hardy fauna could be seen if one looked in the right places in the red sands, this place seemed lifeless. Even the air was still, devoid of the harsh and blustery winds he'd grown accustomed to in this places' red counterpart.

He'd seen the vision and remembered clearly all that he had been shown. Each of the places he'd been shown, though he'd never been to any of them before, he knew of. He had been told of them all in tales and legends told to him by his coven. Tales of the wild and dangerous eastern lands of Evrenaill. The freezing ice sheets of the north, the noxious jungles of the south and here, known only as the Dying Lands. A place where no life was said to live and where Death itself was said to have first come into being. He remembered the story well, almost hearing his grandmother's kind and warm voice as, he remembered:

"In a time long ago, Death did not exist. At least not death in the way you and I know of it anyway, my son. All creatures were born and lived that is true, just as they do now. But when their bodies died, their souls simply wandered the earth unable to return to the Summerland to be reborn, as we all may do so now. It is told that one day this changed. It is told that a mortal man, so overcome by the grief of losing his wife and unborn child, travelled for many moons, to reach what is now called the Dying Lands, to end his life.

 It was said, in certain versions of the tale, that the circumstances of his loss and grief were that of his making. It was said the man was cursed, almost as if two men lived inside him, by day one way and by night another. By day, the man was a hardworking fisherman. He was well respected by the people of his township. He was known to be a kind and caring husband, working long backbreaking hours upon the sea to give his wife a decent and want free life. A life which the other women of the town were said to envy his wife for. In turn it was said, the woman adored her husband, she cooked and cleaned and kept a home which she was proud of and loved her husband more than anything in the world. 

But by night, the man changed, becoming more beast than man. Returning home to his bride only after spending his evenings at the local alehouse, as most fishermen or husbands did in those days. One night, after his usual evening routine, the man returned home late in the night. It is said, he was enraged by the mere sight of his wife. Instead of the adoration his wife was shown during the day, she was faced with only fury and contempt. He accused the wife of spending his long work hours in the company of other men. Of which it is also said, were tales of pure fantasy, concocted as finely as the drafts the man was so fond of. It is said the man flew into an uncontrollable rage, tearing their home apart. His wife tried with all she had to calm him and end his unfounded madness. Then, he and struck his wife, as hard as he made his oars hit the sea as he rowed back to shore each day, desperate to quench his thirst. The wife fell to the floor, lying motionless.

As the morning sun rose, the man awoke, unable to remember the events which had occurred only hours beforehand. Before him, he found his wife's cold, motionless form lying upon the floor. Her eyes clouded over and no breath rising from her chest. He wept miserably holding his wife's cold dead body to his chest. It was only then the man spotted in the corner, his wife's knitting basket, upon it which lay a newly knitted hat, a size so small that only a newborn child could find use of it.