Silent Heart: Part 2

Weln slowly climbed the rough stone stairs that he knew led to the top of the mountain. He passed under a stone arch and adjusted his bow and quiver, the latter filled with a solemn arrow. Weln had debated leaving them at the entrance to the cave, but could not part with what had been with him for so long. Light was minimal, so Weln used his hands. He felt a small, symbol. A raw arrow that had lasted so long Weln was, frankly, surprised…

“Weln! Weln, where are you?”
“I’m over here, Valentine,” Weln said, leaning up from his work. Harvest was due to come in soon, and Weln had spent many hours cutting the wheat.
“You have a visitor!” Weln’s wife yelled over the fields of grain. Weln’s already present smile widened. Finally, he had come!
“Coming!” Weln yelled back. As he placed his harvest-scythe back in the shed and locked it, he heard his younger daughter, Sarah, ask her mother who the funny looking man was.
“A friend of Daddy’s, honey,” was his wife’s reply.
Weln walked up to the farmhouse, made of sturdy oak. The smell of roast drifted onto the rough-hewn porch from the kitchen. Tinkling glasses and idle chatter came from inside. Weln’s smile widened again and he stepped inside.
“Weln, you old dog!” A big bearded man sitting at the table shouted, standing up and wrapping Weln in a giant hug.
“Silvyn, you’re older than I am!” Weln laughed back. He wiped the sweat from his face and lifted his older daughter to his hip, who promptly buried her face into her father’s dense, light brown hair.
“In years maybe, but not in experience! I’ve yet to even marry!” Silvyn said, tipping his broad-brimmed traveler’s hat to Valentine, who smiled back.
“And how are you coming on your studies? Able to do more than make some sparks, you talent-less conjurer?” Weln asked, accepting a drink from his wife.
“I’m better at magic then you are at archery, I’ll wager! Able to hit your barn yet?” Silvyn questioned back.
Weln laughed. “I could hit it with my eyes closed last week!”
“And I am a fully fledged sorcerer! Sparks indeed!” Silvyn said, producing a mess of blue sparks from the tip of his finger anyway, much to the glee of Sarah. Abigale, on Weln’s hip, stayed silent.
“Do more, mister Silver!” Sarah asked, overjoyed.
“Hah! Hear that Weln? I’m precious! Silver!” Silvyn roared. He obligingly snapped his wrist up, producing a bouquet of wildflowers and a very confused looking blue jay. Abigale giggled.
“The other one talks!” Silvyn said. “Tell me Weln, how old are those wonderful girls of yours?” He asked as Valentine took the flowers from him and shooed the bird out the window.
“Abigale is almost seven years old, and Sarah turned four about two months ago,” Weln answered, Abigale is a bit more shy, as you’ve noticed.” The girl was still hugging close to her father’s shoulder.
“Well she shouldn’t be afraid of little old me!” Silvyn said with a smirk. “Come here, little one,” Silvyn beckoned to Sarah. The girl looked to her mother, who nodded. Sarah eagerly hopped into Silvyn’s lap.
“Can you do more magic?” Sarah asked. Silvyn chortled.
“She seems to be taking quite an interest in the arts, friend!” Silvyn said to Weln. “Of course, darling.” Silvyn delved into a pocket of his robes and brought out a handful of toothpicks. He placed them on the table in a pile, and hovered his hand over them. He twitched his fingers a little, then snapped them. The little sticks shuffled and arranged themselves into a man, complete with a brimmed hat. The man stood on thin stick legs and walked on the table over to Sarah, who was staring with her mouth open.
The stickman tugged the hat off his top stick and swept into a miniscule bow, then began to dance. He tucked a leg in and spun round, jumping into the air with legs split, touching down with one knee, arms spread apart and head tilted. He stood and tapped a tiny foot on the wooden table. Slowly at first, relishing the awaiting looks of Sarah and Abigale. He began to tap faster, until his thin leg was bouncing up and down like a piston. The other leg joined in, and twiggy began to tap out a dance faster and faster, legs rat-a-tatting a bouncing sound, until he dropped, exhausted, onto the table, chest heaving in mock breathlessness.
Sarah shrieked and clapped her small hands, and Abigale laughed out loud. “Wonderful, Silvyn, simply amazing,” Weln said. He sniffed, taking in the meaty smell that had grown stronger. “We’d love it if you were to stay for dinner.”
“Why, I’d be honored!”
The meal was better than the usual fare, for Weln had expected Silvyn to accept his offer, and a big man like him enjoyed his food. The roast was hauled out of the stove and garnished with potatoes and carrots, along with hot, savory bread and a cool cheese. A fresh ale was supplied, bought from a friend in the town nearby. After all of that was finished, Valentine brought out a pudding made from the meat drippings. When the plates had been eaten clean and the mugs had been drained, Silvyn sat back and belched.
“Silvyn, please! We are trying to teach the girls proper manners.” Valentine looked to Abigale at her left, a smaller version of herself: long russet hair and sharp hazel eyes. “Abigale, never belch at the table, understand?” Abigale nodded, focusing on swirling the leftover gravy on her plate with her spoon.
“Pardon me, ma’am.” Silvyn looked at Sarah, who looked more like a female version of Weln: Green eyes that spotted everything, a wide smile framed with light brown hair. “Don’t follow after my example, girly.” He touched the side of his nose and winked. Sarah giggled and gave a clumsy wink back.
“Ahhh…that reminds me of the time you got in a fight with that Tower boy. You remember that?” Weln asked. Silvyn knocked his eyebrows together and rubbed his short beard.
“Oh yes! Gerard, wasn’t that his name? Right after lessons had been let out, in spring. D’you remember why we fought?”
“It was because he called you a pig and told you to go wallow in some mud.”
“That‘s right. Turned ‘round and socked him in the mouth. He went right down!”
“And then, like the fool you were, you turned around and boasted about your ‘great strength.’ And then you winked at Fhea. Remember her? Then Gerard got right back up and tackled you!”
“Mmm, I was a bit over-confident then.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you still are!” Weln said as he stood and began to gather up the dishes from the table. His family helped him with the chore, and soon the table was clear. It was then that Silvyn confided in Weln.
“You know that mountain to the north? The big one?” He asked, drawing his friend aside. He spoke in an abnormal hushed tone.
“Of course. It causes some powerful storms during the winter. What about it?”
“On my way here, I sensed some magic coming from it. Powerful stuff. Still do, ‘smatter of fact.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to try to retrieve it. It could be very useful in my studies, for all I know it could be something I’ve never seen before. But I’ll need your help.”
“Me? Why me? Weln said, drawing a look from Valentine, who was tending the girls. “I don’t know any of that magic foolishness.”
“I know you’re capable, and you don’t need to know any magic, It’s just safer in general.”
Weln sat quiet for a few moments. “How long will it take?” He asked finally.
“Two days at the most. It may take some time to extract the magic, but that should only be about a day.”

“I don’t like it. I tell you I don’t like it!” Valentine yelled quietly later that night, the girls tucked in their room and Silvyn sleeping in another. Valentine’s hazel gaze bored into Weln’s green. “You know I don’t trust magic! Any number of things could happen! What would I do if you died and I had to take care of the girls?”
“It won’t take long, dear. I’ll be back within two days,” Weln pleaded.
“And what if something happens during that time?” Valentine asked in a huff.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to take care of it, love. The other villagers would help,” Weln said, embracing his wife in a hug that seemed to melt away some of her anger.
“Promise you’ll be safe?” Valentine asked, her bottom lip prominent. She would always do that when she wanted something. She knew how to touch that soft spot in Weln’s heart, and he could do little to deny her.
Weln smiled and kissed the lip. “As safe as I can. No matter what Silvyn thinks, I’m pretty good with a bow, and he isn’t a student anymore. Besides, what up there could give us trouble?”
“Mountain cats, or-or, thieves or storms! Anything! Anything could happen!” Valentine sighed and sat down on their creaky bed. “You have to promise me you’ll be as safe as possible.”
Weln said before putting out the bedside candle. “I do. I swear. I’ll come back safe and sound, just for you.”

The early morning sun hovered in the east as Weln said goodbye to his daughters, kneeling and hugging both of them, and then Valentine. He hooked his quiver of handmade arrows over his shoulder, along with his hand-me-down bow.
“Still using that child’s toy?” Silvyn asked, garbed in grey robes that clashed horribly with his blond hair.
“More reliable than magic, I think,” Weln answered. “Are we off?”
“That we are, Weln, that we are,” Silvyn said. He barely looked away from the pointed mountain to their north as they treaded between the fields of the sparse farming community. Weln enjoyed good relationships with the other farmers, and several were surprised to see their neighbor walking towards the mountain with Silvyn. It was a big community, and the houses and shops were spread out.
Their target’s top was hidden in clouds, though not the brooding clouds they would later be. As the day dwindled the mountain grew above them. It was curved, like a wicked nail, and it had a sharp top. Weln wondered: did it have some heavenly purpose? Was it a torture for angels or demons that betrayed masters? Such as the story of the errant demon escaping into the human world? Was that demon punished on this giant spike of stone? Weln did not know.
Silvyn talked of things trivial during the trek: frogs caught at the creek, mud slung, and the tutor they both despised at the small school of their youth. Clearly the man was enjoying himself. As the sun finally sank below the endless line of trees in the west, they spotted an opening in the base of the mountain. Silvyn led them in, revealing a complete darkness. The magician took a moment to summon a magical mini-sun.
The spell lit up a monstrous labyrinth. Stone staircases wound every which way, into countless doorways and passages. The astounding three-dimensional maze had Weln dazed. Silvyn, however, spoke a magic word to the mini-sun and it turned brown. Silvyn turned this way and that, and it changed color. When it turned white. He began to walk, and Weln followed.
Even though the sun changed color to point them in the right direction, Weln decided to leave his own clues for their return trip.
“Wait,” he said, taking out a knife and carving out a small, uneven arrow, pointing back the way they had come, through a stone arch. Several hours passed, following Silvyn’s spell, before they reached two iron-wrought doors, inscribed with magical runes and symbols.
“This is it. Behind this door is magical power beyond anything mankind has ever known!” Silvyn shouted excitedly. He pushed against the giant doors, but they wouldn’t budge. “Give me a hand, would you?” He asked Weln.
With Weln’s help, Silvyn pushed one of the doors open a few feet. Weln and Silvyn slipped in, unexpectedly buffeted by fierce, mountain top winds, for the room behind the doors was open to the sky.
“How did we get so high up?” Weln wondered out loud. His voice echoed around the chamber, carried by the winds and bounced off of the rock walls.
The room was bathed in purple light, emanating from a glowing purple pillar in the center of the room, so tall the top could not be seen for the clouds. There were two palm-sized indentations in the pillar on either side, directly opposite each other. The pillar it self was nearly ten feet in diameter, with swirling carvings climbing up and down its body.
“We must hurry, for I fear the magic will pass!” Silvyn shouted over the rushing winds. “Place your hand in one of the indentations. Quickly!”
“How do you know this is safe?” Weln asked. Silvyn tilted his head and looked at his friend.
“Like this.” He then placed his hand in one of the cut-outs on the pillar. Weln touched a finger to the glowing structure, and felt an unearthly warmth grab his hand. He jerked it away, but with an impatient look from Silvyn he placed his entire hand in the space, his face set in a grimace.
“The time is nearly here,” Silvyn said with apprehension.
“How can you be so sure?” Weln asked, peering around the pillar to look at Silvyn.
Thunder rumbled and bright purple lightning struck the pillar, electrifying Weln. A scream escaped his lips like none before. It was echoed by Silvyn as energy coursed through their bodies, jerking them like dolls on a madman’s strings. After what seemed like eternities, the lightning stopped and Weln collapsed to the ground. Bits of energy flashed between his limbs, sending painful shocks between them. It took him some time to climb to his feet. He staggered a little as he stood, and when he did he was met by a gruesome sight.
A skeleton, bones bleached and decayed, stood stock-still, staring at Weln; though it had no eyes. Weln heard a yelp from Silvyn and saw him hastily back away from a rotting corpse, similarly staring at Silvyn.
Weln then heard a chilling voice in his head that sent ice into his veins and snow done his spine. Master, it said.
“Master? Me?” Weln heard Silvyn say, addressing the zombie. The zombie nodded slowly.
Weln saw the skeleton take a step toward him. “Stop!” Weln yelled. Incredibly, the skeleton did. Weln felt the voice again. Your next order, master?
“Er…turn around,” Weln said.
The skeleton immediately turned a half-circle. Weln looked at Silvyn, who was having the zombie go through a complicated dance step. Silvyn was roaring with laughter.
“Silvyn!” Weln shouted, lifting a hand. Silvyn sailed backward as if by an invisible force. He landed on the stone floor with a whoosh. Weln gasped and rushed towards the man.
“Silvyn? What happened?” Weln yelled.
“It…it is the power. From the pillar! We control them!” Silvyn said in shock. He stared at his fingers “and we can manipulate things at will!” He pointed at Weln and lifted his hand in the air slowly. Weln felt the ground leave his feet. He looked down and gasped, as he floated several feet off the ground. He laughed and motioned to Silvyn, who suddenly spun like a top. Silvyn released Weln and the two fell to the ground, laughing. When they stopped, Weln looked around and realized they were surrounded. A ring of white bones and rotted flesh circled them.
“Silvyn,” Weln said, pulling the big man to his feet. Silvyn wiped a tear from his eye, and his smile disappeared. The monsters did not look happy.
“Let me deal with this,” Silvyn said in response. He stepped forward and puffed up his chest. “I command you!” He said to no one in particular. In chilling unison, all of the monsters nodded. “Uh…go away!” Weln palmed his forehead, but incredibly everyone of the monsters disappeared. Weln barely noticed it, but they had vanished.
“We don’t talk about this,” Weln said. Silvyn’s smile, which had grown back, again vanished.
“Well why not?” Silvyn asked.
“We can control dead things. How many people do you believe would like that?” Weln said. “We must never reveal it! We would be hunted and killed!”
“We have been given a gift!” Silvyn roared. Weln stepped back, surprised with his ferocity. “We would be fools not to use it!”
“You may, but I will never!” Weln responded. “I could never subject my family to that kind of terror.”
“Well, I don’t have a family.”
“Fine. But I’m getting rid of it,” Weln said, walking up to the pillar. It had dimmed, and was now as dark as night.
“Getting rid of what?”
“This-this power. Whatever you call it.” Weln placed his hand on the same indentation as before. All he felt was an invading cold. He walked around to the other side and placed his hand in the indentation Silvyn had used. The same chill. Weln removed his hand and held it towards Silvyn. Silvyn was blasted backwards to the ground.
“No.” Weln stood stock still. “NO!” He bellowed. Dust and rocks swirled around him in a dance of anger. “You’ve cursed me!” He yelled at Silvyn. “I can’t get rid of it!”
“Then you’ll have to live with it.”

The trip to the base of the mountain was faster than the trip up, as they more easily navigated the messy interior of the mountain. Silvyn floated and jumped with abandon, but Weln refused all chances to use his new gift. He told Silvyn he would walk like he had for his whole life.
After exiting the mountain they both walked. Silvyn was tired from his play. Weln was also tired, but it was different than Silvyn’s reason. He felt full, as if tired from eating too much. They made it back before a few hours before daybreak.
When they reached Weln‘s home, Weln dropped his bow on the porch and immediately demanded Silvyn leave. Silvyn, instead of complying, played dumb. he asked to spend another night then leave in the morning. At Valentine’s urging, Weln agreed. He went to his bed to hopefully get rested.
But Weln’s dreams were plagued with flashes of light, screams in the distance that echoed through his mind, pain cascading down his body, and a dark hole in which he was falling. He fell forever, not daring to wish there was something good at the bottom. Then he was awake.
And the farm was burning. The roof had caved in, and the walls were crumbling. Weln heard screams from his daughter’s room. He jumped out of bed, and into the girls’ room. He found only two bodies, still glowing with the ghostly light of life, mouths open in silent screams, hair singed from the fire. Weln gave a tortured yell. He tore to his own room, and could not see Valentine. Part of the roof had fallen on her side of the bed. No movement came from under it.
Rage surged inside Weln. He ran to Silvyn’s room and kicked open the door. The apartment was ablaze, but empty.
“Here, Weln,” Weln heard from behind him. Weln spun. Silvyn stood there, behind him. He held a smile on his face that told Weln enough.
“You! You did this!” Weln yelled. He lifted his hand to attack Silvyn, but Silvyn read too far ahead. Weln felt a great weight on his skull, and fell into darkness.
When he awoke, the sky was thick with ash. It was late morning. Little was left of the farmhouse, though Weln himself had escaped destruction. He picked through the debris and found his bow, mercifully unharmed. Hatred simmered in Weln. He would not rest. He would not stop…

He hadn’t stopped, and he was not about to stop now. He was finally close enough and had finally been pushed into it. Weln’s borrowed white cloak drew along the ground. He reached the top of the stairs and was greeted by two massive, iron-wrought doors, inscribed with symbols and runes.
A pair of hulking zombies defended the door, both towering over Weln and holding wicked weapons. One griped a spiked maul, the other a flamberge. They initially charged Weln, but stopped. They knew off him. The lost master. The other one.
Weln smiled, and even the mountain’s stone could not stop the two monsters from flying away over the land, merely from a nudge that held years of hidden power.
He kept walking as the doors flew inward, thrown from their rusted hinges like playthings. Inside was open to the sky, the air thin from altitude. In the center was a glowing pillar with two palm indentations.
Staring at the pillar was a man whose blond hair and beard had turned black by use of an evil power. The man turned and looked at Weln, his black eyes locking to Weln’s grey.
“Ah, Weln, how good to see you. I hope you’ve brought a translator. I’m not too good with those hand signals of yours,” The man said.
Weln smiled. “Don’t worry, brother,” He said, his voice raspy from disuse. “You won‘t need one.”
And Silvyn’s expression changed to pure, unimaginable terror.

It took a mere moment for Silvyn to regain his composure. He smiled reassuringly.
“Ah…brother. I have not heard that word since I left home,” He said, spreading his arms wide. Two skeletons rose from the earth, then crumbled, seemingly of their own accord. Weln smiled.
“This has gone far enough. I give you one chance. End your own life, or I will end it for you,” Weln said, no humor in his voice.
“You! Kill me?!” Silvyn gave a barking laugh. “You can‘t kill me!” Even laughing, Silvyn barely deflected the surge of power that nearly crushed him. His laughter disappeared. “That’s how it is then.”
Weln charged Silvyn, and Silvyn charged Weln. Weln’s white cape mirroring Silvyn’s black cloak as the two clashed in an explosion of power. Energy flowed like water, so thick in the air that the sky above them danced with glee, lightning flashing. Weln and Silvyn jumped and spun, pouring their all into their attacks. The walls cascaded down pebbles and the floors shook. Wayward cones of energy blasted through the clouds to let in the sun, but the brothers took no notice. Weln let all of his rage and anger flow out of him in destructive form. Silvyn was astonished at his brother’s ferocity, but he held his ground, striking Weln in the chest and throwing him to the ground. He used the mystic energy to wrap Weln’s body in a vice grip, limiting Weln’s movement to nothing. Silvyn laughed, triumphant.
“500 years have passed since we were last both here, and you will not ruin it! Not again!” He roared.
“Again?” Weln managed, his limbs crushed by Silvyn’s ethereal power, his body drained by his own attacks.
“I was supposed to get all of the power those centuries ago! Me! All of it!” At first Weln did not know what Silvyn meant, then he realized.
“That was the only reason you came to see me?” Weln said. “You planned it?”
“Of course I did! You think I would go to you and entertain your little brats and that hag you called a wife, just because I wanted to see you? Hah! I came here for a purpose, and that purpose was this power! And you took it from me!”
“I would have given it to you! Instead you killed my family! You set my home on fire and killed them!” Weln shouted, painful memories impacting him.
Silvyn looked surprised, but laughed again.
“It was not I that killed your family! It was you!”
Weln’s vision blurred, and his anger rose.
“I was asleep! I couldn’t have!” He shouted.
“You power spilled from you like milk from a cow! Even in your sleep your power was destructive enough to tear down your own home!” Silvyn shouted back.
Weln quieted. He remembered the dream he had. He remembered how he was unharmed while unconscious.
“But the fire! I couldn’t have done that!”
“Didn’t you keep a candle by your bedside?” Silvyn asked, white teeth peeked out through his black beard.
Weln’s world was coming apart. Had he known he had caused his family’s demise, he would have begged Silvyn to kill him there, in the smoldering ruins of his home. There was no reason to continue. There was no reason to go back…
Weln’s white cape fluttered, strangely undaunted by the crushing force which held Weln. He tested his limbs and found them unrestrained. Silvyn had turned and was regarding the pillar once more.
“The energy is nearly at its zenith! The time has come!” He said as he placed his hands on the pillar, preparing to absorb the energy once more, half a millennium after the first.
“But one thing still intrigues me,” Silvyn said, turning to Weln. Weln snapped his arms to his sides to still appear trapped. “I used my magic to spy on you during my many years on top of this lonely mountain. Why could you not speak?”
“The power…” Weln said. “I did not use it, and it started to fill my body. It turned my eyes grey and hampered my voice…” Like a person that knows when he is being spoken about, his voice cracked.
“So now it makes sense,” Silvyn said, returning his attention to the purple pillar. “Oh yes…do you know what I did when I came back, after you had left?”
Weln didn’t know if he could take any more.
“I destroyed that fetid group of neighbors you had. Every. Single. One.”
Weln’s body ached. The cape fluttered again in the wind, identical to earlier that very day, when it was worn by Flyn. Memories stormed Weln. Tern’s eyes clouding over as his heart was pierced, Aern’s shoulder snapping, his beautiful daughters’ bodies aflame, any one of the dozens of other farmers that had toiled under the shadow of the mountain that ultimately held their end. They had, all of them suffered under the Silvyn’s horror.
For five hundred years monsters had ravaged the land. Weln knew it was because of him and Silvyn. Silvyn had no intention of giving it up. So it was down to Weln.
But what can I do? Weln thought. His body was feeble and drained. There was nothing he could do.
But his bow.
A solitary arrow sat forlornly in his quiver, begging to be granted the honor. Silvyn began to chant, mystic words with properties unknown. His attention was fully on the pillar in front of him.
Weln staggered to his feet, as silent as possible. He slid his bow off his shoulder and carefully nocked the single arrow, taking aim squarely at Silvyn’s back. Still over-confident even after all these years Weln’s right hand quivered by his ear, and his left eye slowly squeezed shut. His target was held by the pillar’s light.
“The time is nigh! I will receive power beyond anything before!”
Silvyn heard a tiny, insignificant ‘twang’ behind him, and a force struck him through his chest, slicing between his ribs and out, sinking into the pillar before him as well.

“Doesn’t look too good from down here, I’ll tell you,” Flyn said, standing beside Aern’s bed. “Flashes and sounds bode ill, even for somebody who likes them.”
“We can only hope things go well for us,” Aern said from behind his bandages.
Flyn leaned forward. “Do you hear that?” Flyn said, but his words were halted by the mountain top exploding in purple light, bathing the mercenary camp in energy and knocking people to the ground. Flyn was thrown to the ground and struck by intense strength. A tremendous boom echoed through the camp, thundering across the plain and deafening screams. Tents flapped and whirled, pots crashed and bodies flew. Minutes passed before the purple light died away, leaving flashes in people’s eyes and ringing in their ears.
“Aern, are you all right?” Flyn asked feebly, climbing to his knees, braced against Aern’s bedside. The tent above them had been ripped away and sent who knows where, and Aern, still lying in his bed was staring out over the plains, where a figure had appeared.
“No…” Aern whispered.
“Yes!” Flyn shouted. Other people had noticed as well, and there was a rolling cheer from the camp, carried on the same winds that carried the cry to arms that had started it all.
Flyn raced out to Weln, shouting and hopping about with excitement.
“You’re all right! You’re all right!” He yelled. “What happened?”
The crowd didn’t quiet, they knew Weln wouldn’t speak. Weln simply smiled weakly and shook his head. Flyn groaned, but allowed Weln to walk to Aern’s bed unhindered.
“Good to see you, Weln,” he said. Weln said nothing, of course.
“The Captain says we’re heading out, now that you’re back, Weln,” Flyn said, after speaking with a runner.

The camp was moving on, guarded by armed warriors. Weln, Aern, and Flyn traveled near the back. Aern fingered his sword’s hilt, his right arm in a sling.
“We’ll make it, Weln. We’ll make it for Tern,” Aern said.
“No,” Weln said. The words carried away from the other two by fresh winds. “Not just Tern.”
It was the last time he spoke.