Passion (Book 1 of "The Fantasy of Life" Series)

Chapter 3

Ashanaya

"It's unnatural." The Shaman shook his head, his soft voice angering me slightly.

"I can see that! I need to see where the garven controlling it went." I spat out the elven word for 'harlet' with so much hate that the Shaman flinched.

"'Naya, calm down, we'll find her." Valen put his hand on my shoulder.

I sighed, and turned around to face Cullen. "You saw more of them than we did. Did you perhaps notice anything we didn't?"

"I don't think..." He stopped to think about it. "I think I remember.. could you flip him over?"

He stepped ahead of me, Valen and Marhara flipped the twisted elf over. Cullen moved his hair, and along the small bump on the back of his head, was something round, bright purple, and shiny.

The Shaman gasped.

"What? What is it?" I asked frantically.

"That, is a very dangerous artifact. An indoctrinary, it holds all the knowledge of... the man that once was. The problem is once you insert the indoctrinary, the person loses their will, only some people can take the knowledge from it as well. Usually only elven but some humans have been known to have the ability. If anyone than someone with the ability does it then they could risk insanity, or... their very being could be consumed by the gem." He seemed afraid, avoiding touching the gem.

"Is there a safer way to get the information?" I asked.

"If he was alive, he could take it out. Since the person loses their will, then only them or another indoctrinated person could take it safely. That or someone else with a strong enough will. There is a problem with that however. Indoctronated people do not have emotion, and do not function through ethics. They think logically. If we actually managed to get one of them here it'd be much more difficult to actually convince them that it'd be any benefit to take the information from the gem." The Shaman was talking slowly, he didn't seem to believe that there was any hope for getting the information from the gem.

"Well I guess we'll just have to risk it, we need that information." I quickly dug my hand into the back of the twists elf's skull and pulled out the indoctrinary. I held it firm in my hand, and red mist began rising from the gem. It spread out in thin lines, adn spiralled around me, the end of the mist flowed into my temples. Random thoughts and pictures of a lost childhood began flowing through my mind of a young elven boy. At first the memories were slow and the knowledge easy. I saw a small brown haired boys, a very round face, green eyes, and tan skin. Certainly much different than the man in front of me. He had a loving family and a very wealthy and diverse clan.

The pace rose, suddenly everything became meshed together and nothing was clear any longer. Everything kept increasing in speed, and only became more and more cofusing as time went on. I didn't feel like I was but I heard myself screaming.

Darkness. Everything stopped.

I opened my eyes to see that I was on the ground, I looked to where I was standing before and I saw Cullen standing in my place, holding the gem. His eyes turned from their normal blue colour to a dark menacing purple. He wasn't having any problem with the indoctrinary, as a matter of fact he seemed to understand. His eyes moved around as though he was scanning the area and taking everything he could from what he saw.

"Cullen.." I said, worried.

"No, he's learning, Ashanaya." The Shaman said quietly.

"It won't destroy his will?" I asked.

"Did you know you were screaming?" Marhara chimed in. "He's not, he's doing fine as a matter of fact."

Valen moved around Cullen and knelt down beside me. "Are you okay? You seemed like you were seeing some pretty awful things."