Amendments, page 23
“Food!” many cried out. “Bring us food!”
“We are dying! You can't do this to us!”
Finn was shocked at first by the emaciated faces that looked out at him. Then he became disgusted. These people were being treated like animals, not humans. He realized many of the bodies in the cages weren't moving.
“I... never knew how bad it was,” Finn said to himself. Finn had often doubted if starting a revolution in Tier was a good decision, but after seeing the Tierian prison, he felt absolute resolve in his actions. The king had to be removed. Tier would be made beautiful again.
Finn heard a frantic voice that caught his attention and he looked in the direction. A frail elderly man said with thick Tierian accent, “Hey! Hey! Th' guards are hidin', friend. Th're hidin! Th' saw yer light comin' and hid.”
Finn barked over the din of others calling for help, “Where? How many?”
The man shook his head and his white beard scraped back and forth on his tiny chest. “Not sure. There's usually two guards down 'ere though. Might be more since th' said thr's intruders.”
Finn nodded at the man and pulled two daggers from inside his cloak. “Thank you. I promise I'll do my best to get you out of here.”
The man demanded, “Don't worry about me. Get the young ones out. They still have a life to live.”
Finn shook his head. “No, I'm going to get all of you out.”
Finn heard the clanking armor of the Tierian soldiers before they reached Finn in a sneak attack. Finn ducked and rolled to the side. As soon as he stopped his roll, he flung the two daggers at the two charging Tierian guards. One dagger bounced off the breastplate of one of the men, but the other caught the second guard in the neck. The guard dropped a large spiked club, grabbed at his throat, and fell to the wet cave floor.
The other Tierian guard cursed loudly then charged straight at Finn. Finn knew he had no chance in straight and fair hand-to-hand combat with a trained soldier, so he pulled his cloak over him and activated the light bending lux effect. Finn ducked to the side and the guard barreled into the metal bars where he'd just been. Finn quickly threw another dagger, but it bounced off the guard's right pauldron.
The guard sprang to his feet and looked around wildly. Many of the prisoners had begun to cheer and some were screaming, so the sound of Finn's movements were drowned out. Finn slowly moved into the shadows while holding his cloak tightly around him. The guard swung his sword into the air wildly. “I'll find you, Luxin!” he bellowed, but Finn could hear fear in his voice.
Finn circled around behind the guard and waited until he attacked wildly in the opposite direction. While the guard was recovering from his attack, Finn jumped onto his back and plunged two daggers down into the guard's shoulders.
As the guard fell, Finn suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back. He let out a sudden gasp and fell to the ground. Finn reached behind him and felt the shaft of an arrow protruding from his side. Apparently the invincible cloak enchant had not been in the path of the arrow.
Finn again pulled the cloak around him and ran behind one of the metal prison cells. He pulled out his last two daggers and felt blood on his hand from where he'd touched the arrow. Another arrow clattered to the floor near where he'd been. Finn waited in the shadows behind the cage. The prisoners continued to make noise, but now it was to Finn's disadvantage and covered up his attacker's approach.
Finn waited for what felt like minutes, but time always warped strangely during battle. Eventually, a guard with a sword on his belt, arrows on his back, and a bow in his hand shot past. He was headed toward the sloping tunnel Finn had used to get there. Finn threw both daggers at the retreating guard. One dagger flew slightly high over the man's head and clattered against the floor up the tunnel, but the other caught the man in the small of his back beneath his metal breastplate. The man cried out in pain and tumbled to the ground. Finn seized the opportunity and ran to the fallen man. He ripped the dagger from the man's back and dealt a finishing blow.
Finn’s legs gave out to the pain and he fell beside the man he'd just defeated. The arrow shot streaks of pain through his side whenever he moved. Prisoners now cheered, but Finn was still worried that there could be more guards. He had to do something about the arrow first, though, or he'd have no chance.
Finn crawled to the other arrow that had clattered to the floor and inspected it. To Finn's dismay, the tip was barbed. The one in him would do more damage if he tried to pull it out.
“Great,” Finn said to himself. He scanned the prison cells in the light of his large glow sphere that now lay on the ground. He'd dropped it in the initial attack. His eyes fell on a tall, muscled man in a cell to his right and crawled toward him.
“Hey,” Finn said as he forced himself to stand. “I need your help, big guy.”
The man looked scared but nodded. “What do ye' need, friend?”
Finn turned and pushed aside his cloak which was rapidly turning opaque again. He pointed to the arrow that stuck out from his side and said, “I need to be mobile. Can you break it close to the skin?”
For a strange moment, all of the prisoners shushed each other and silence filled the large prison. Finn guessed they wanted to hear what he was saying. The large man in the cell agreed, “I will try, friend. Will ye' try ta get us out of here?”
“Yes. I promise.”
Finn turned his back to the metal bars and took a few steps back until his back was pressed against the cage and the arrow stuck into the cell. “Do it quick so I don't--”
Finn screamed involuntarily as a tremendous pain shot from his back through his whole body. He found himself on the floor of the cave breathing heavily. He put a hand to where the arrow had been and felt less than a finger-length left. Finn forced himself to stand and turn. “Thank you.”
The large man threw the rest of the shaft of the arrow out of the cage and said, “Just get us out, friend.”
“Workin' on it,” Finn said through clenched teeth as he walked toward one of the fallen guards.
Finn searched through the belongings of each of the three guards as quickly as possible, but found no keys. The prisoners were his captive, quiet audience, now. He turned to them and said, “No keys. I can pick locks, but it is going to take forever to open all of these.”
“There's a Din Mage over here,” a voice offered from somewhere deeper into the prison. “She can melt the locks or even the bars. You just have to pick the lock on her collar.”
“That might work,” Finn replied across the distance.
Finn walked to his large glow sphere and picked it up. He walked quickly, ignoring the pain in his side, and found a dark-skinned man standing in a cell near the middle of the room. As Finn neared, the man added, “I don't know if she'll cooperate, though.”
The man pointed to a young woman with tangled, jaw-length hair. She sat in a defeated pose, eyes down, and looked skinnier than any living person in any of the other cells. Noir had described his cousin in case Finn had to recognize her. This girl matched what he'd said perfectly. Finn reached the cage and said, “Aimee?”
Finn involuntarily took a step back as the girl's head rose and stared into his eyes with unbelievable hatred. “How do you know my name?” she spat with disgust. However, her voice was weak and small. This young woman was on the verge of starvation. Surprisingly, she was surrounded by several trays of food in various states of decomposition. They'd been feeding her but she hadn't eaten?
“Your cousin Noir. He sent me--”
“Noir started all of this! I hate him! Tell him to leave me here to rot!”
Finn stood for a moment unsure of what to say or do. It was not at all what he'd expected. He had imagined rescuing the damsel in distress and being a hero. She was supposed to be thankful, not hateful. Finn pushed the thought aside so he could deal with the matter at hand. “If I picked the lock on your din slave collar, could you melt the--”
“No.” Aimee spun her body away from Finn and dropped her eyes to the ground again.
“I'm sorry, Din Mage Aimee, but I don't understand. You could help free all of these people in here. Why don't you want to—”
“Because they don't exist.”
Finn was again surprised. This girl really wasn't what he'd imagined. Noir hadn't told him that his cousin was insane. Finn stared at the tiny, emaciated girl's back and tried to think of what to say next. “Look,” he started, “I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm here to get you and all of these people out. You say they don't exist, but they're there. I'm here. You're here. We exist. Now help us out.”
Aimee didn't say anything for a long moment. Finn was about to give up and try to think of a new plan when Aimee said quietly, “It doesn't matter. Even if I got them out, everything is still ruined. None of this is real.”
Finn ducked down and pulled out his lock picking kit. He pulled out a couple tools, inserted them into the lock on the door, and started to put the pins into place. Bending over sent jabs of pain through his body from the arrow in his side. While he worked, he tried to keep the woman talking. “All of this is real, Din Mage Aimee. I've lived my whole life in Tier. How could I possibly have childhood memories and... a physical body if none of this was real.”
“This can't be real,” the woman murmured. “Throwing fireballs... making the earth move with my hands... it's impossible!”
Finn got another pin in place and suggested, “Stranger things exist than din, Aimee. Think about how you breathing air energizes your body... that's amazing!” Finn got the second to last pin in place. “Think about gravity… or the sun… or think about our very existence! We can't--”
“Stop,” Aimee said. Finn expected the girl to simply silence him again, but instead she stood in her cell and faced him. Finn got the final pin in place at that moment and the lock fell to the ground. She didn't even react to the cell door swinging open. “Stop right there. You said gravity.” She paused for a long moment. She seemed to look at Finn with confused interest.
“Yes... gravity. What about it?” Finn said with confusion. He returned the lock-picking tools to his pack and stood.
“Gravity is a concept created in my world! I learned about it in school. It's impossible for you to know about it! It's impossible for you to know the English language, for that matter.”
It was Finn's turn to stare at the girl with confusion. “Of... course I know about gravity. I am not--”
“No, you understand the concept of gravity.” Finn took a step back as the girl walked toward him with a sudden frenzy of interest. “You may understand that things go down, yes, but to actually call it gravity and understand the principal... that's impossible.”
Finn held out a hand of caution as the woman approached him, but she ignored it. “You have to tell me how you know about gravity!”
Finn shook his head. “I will later, but guards could come any second. We have to free these pe--”
“They don't exi....” Aimee trailed off in thought. “Or... no, they do!” Suddenly Aimee flung herself against Finn. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged tightly. “No, they exist!”
Finn patted the Din Mage on the back with trepidation. “Okay... that's good,” he stammered in a confused way. “I'm... glad we got that out of the way. I'm Finn, by the way.”
“Well, Finn,” Aimee commented as she released the hug and stepped out of the cage, “let's free all these people.” To Finn’s surprise, Aimee was smiling.
Finn furrowed his brow. The young woman was like no one he'd ever met before. “Why the sudden change of heart? You go from starving yourself to hugging and wanting to save everyone in a matter of minutes.”
“Because,” Aimee said as she playfully punched Finn in the arm, “I just figured everything out.”
Finn shrugged and shook his head. “Figured what out?”
“I figured out where Noir, Dad, and I are.”
Chapter 26
Nidhoggr's Wrath
Noir's body ached. He looked down at his eight-year-old body and the broken bicycle that lay nearby. He couldn't take his eyes off the two large patches of red on his knees. They had already started oozing blood and they stung tremendously. Noir screamed, “Daddy! Mommy!”
Hurried footsteps came down the sidewalk in Noir's direction and he suddenly found himself in his father's arms. “Noir, are you okay?”
“It hurts all over, Dad!”
“All over? It should only hurt on your knees!”
His father was right, Noir realized. Why did his entire body sting when only his knees had been injured? “No, it hurts all over. Why is it all over, Dad?”
“I don't know, but I do know what we need to do.”
Noir suddenly realized that his father was holding him over their above-ground pool in their backyard, but didn't remember him carrying him there. “Dad, what are you doi--”
Noir's words were cut off as his father plunged him in the frigid water. His strong arms held him under the water and Noir couldn't breathe.
~~~
Noir awoke with a start and splashed furiously in the water. His entire body stung in the icy liquid. It took him a moment to realize he was not in his childhood pool, but in the subterranean lake beneath the Tierian capital. The memories of what happened with Ruith and Nidhoggr flooded back to him.
Noir ran his hands lightly over the skin of his face and felt scarred, mutilated skin. He looked down at his arms and saw his entire, naked body was covered head-to-toe with deep, red, angry scars.
Noir instantly grasped lux within him and started to heal his injuries. The flesh mended quickly and his pain subsided marginally, but the scars remained.
Vaguely, Noir became aware of something else inside him. It was similar to lux, but seemed to emanate from his hands. Where lux felt pure and calming, this new feeling was inexplicably emotional and energetic.
Noir was about to attempt to grasp at the power like he had learned to do with lux when a deep, booming voice overhead said, “You are awake.” Noir stood in the shallow water and looked at Nidhoggr above him. “I wasn't sure if you'd live through that. No one has ever suffered as much for as long as you did.”
Noir stepped out of the water. He found his brown traveling cloak discarded nearby. He quickly wrapped it around his naked body. The dragon continued, “I assume you are the young man named Noir?”
Noir shivered from the cold water and wrapped the cloak tighter around him. “Why did this happen to me?” He looked at one of his hands again and studied the fresh scars that covered it. “How could he do this?”
Nidhoggr twisted and pulled against his restraints futilely. “He believes you can right everything that has been ruined.”
Noir looked back at the dragon. “I don't care what that man believes! He betrayed me!”
“It no longer matters,” the dragon growled. “What is done, is done.” The dragon pulled sharply at his restraints and said, “If you'd like to proceed with what you came here to do, now's the time. Release me, Noir.”
Noir couldn't believe what was happening. He'd come down into the caves beneath the Tierian capital only trying to do good. He was trying to help his cousin, Nidhoggr, and the other captives in the prison. How had this all gone so wrong?
Noir looked up at the massive siphon enchant that held the dragon in place. Perhaps one good thing could still come out of this descent into evil. “How do I release you?”
“You must embrace din, Luxin. Embrace it similar to what you do with lux. However, with lux, you let the light and power flow through your core. It is soothing and feels good. Din is different. If you let it envelop your core, it will burn you from the inside out. You must force din into the elements around you from your hands.”
Noir tried to listen to the dragon's words, but was distracted by all that had happened. “How could this happen?” he asked quietly to himself as he studied his scars once again.
The dragon above Noir let out a sudden roar that made the surface of the lake tremble. “Focus!”
Noir shook his head. He couldn't wrap his mind around what had happened, but he could figure it all out later. He had to do what he'd traveled there to do. “Yes. I am focused. What do I do?”
“Like when you use lux to heal or manipulate light or air, you will send out a tendril of din. You will feel through the din the elements that you wish to harness. If you want to create fire, feel the warmth around you and focus it into a single point. It will condense and ignite. Feed it din and it will grow into a flame. It is the same concept with cold and ice, but now you must use the power of ground manipulation as your first task.”
“Fine,” Noir agreed curtly. He couldn't get Ruith out of his head. Who was he? Why did he force Noir to gain din?”
“Grasp the din in your hands and send it into the ground that holds my enchant aloft.”
Noir frowned. “But enchants are unbreakable. It won't matter.”
The dragon growled, “I know what I'm talking about, you whelp. The enchant is in several pieces. We cannot break the pieces, but we can separate them from each other. Now, focus your din to where the metal poles descend from the ceiling.”
Noir tried to ignore everything else that circled in his head and focused on the new feeling in his hands. He calmed himself and grasped at the power like he'd done with lux, but it slipped from his grasp easily. He tried again and could not harness the power.
“Din is a separate power from lux. You do not invite din inside you like lux. You must control the power of din with force of will.”
Noir had become so adept at grasping lux that this new power felt foreign to him. It was like trying to write with his non-dominant hand.
Noir tried to forget all he knew about lux and tried to follow the dragon's advice. He grasped at the din over and over to no avail. Finally, Noir became enraged at his lack of progress. He inwardly lunged at the din. He screamed inwardly for the power to obey him and forced it under his control. Suddenly, Noir saw his hands glow red with din and felt a new, foreign power within them.
