Young Writers Society

Frane was walking through the woods and counting his money, trying to figure out how his family would pay taxes this year, when he suddenly noticed that he was no longer on the trail. He tried find his way back but couldn’t and started wondering the woods for hours. Frane became a merchant just as his father had after he died. Frane was just under 6 feet and was growing balder as he was aging. He was supposed to see his family three days ago but the trails around the city of Les Far have always been difficult for people to navigate. This annoyed him because all of the tax money went towards the military instead of agriculture. Frane only goes to collect a portion of the money that his son makes, especially since his son has recently had his first child and rent in the city is extremely expensive. Recently they have had few sales though which has made Frane worry about how his family will survive.

He was trying to go back the way he came but had lost all sense of direction. It was starting to get dark and he did not want to be here at night. Nothing would attack people on the trail but here things were different. He started to walk faster looking for any form of shelter but with no success when he heard howling from no more than 300 feet away. Frane had no weapons on him since it was against the law so he started to run. He could see three wolves coming closer to him and he was almost out of breathe when he saw a stone temple not far from him.

The temple was old, probably the oldest building in the country Frane lived in, Rentrot, and the temple was not forgotten. Frane heard stories when he was young about how no one but the most holy of holy people could go inside when it was in use and that it was dedicated to the goddess of life for the religion Zaliharism. People rarely go inside anymore and would have no reason to anyways for the religion has all but died out. Frane realized that the temple was about 2 miles away from the trail so if he could make it there, then he could stay at it tonight and get back to the trail tomorrow as well as getting back to his house in only a day.

As he was nearing the temple, he felt a sharp pain in his ankle. He had not felt pain so extreme in all of his life. The wolf had red eyes filled with anger and grey fur that was tangled worse than anything he has ever seen. Frane pulled his leg free of the wolf’s grasp, tearing his pants in the process. He started running up the temple steps. With each step he took the wolves were getting closer to him and he could feel the awful pain of where he was just bit, barely keeping the willpower to not scream and fall over in pain. He managed to get into the temple, closing the wooden door, trying to lock it while the wolves were pushing hard, almost breaking in. Frane managed to lock the door and started to feel the pain in his ankle even worse than when he was first bit. It felt like one hundred thousand needles were jammed into his ankle at once. It was so unbearable that he fell over.

The temple was just one large room with bookshelves all around the walls with a marble pillar in the center of it. When he was trying to close the door he didn’t notice that there were other people in the temple but he could see them now. There were about 5 of them and were all wearing hooded robes staring at Frane.

One of them who was shortest of the hooded people said “He should be our next test.”

A different person that was holding a dagger said “No! We aren’t ready and I do not want to fail. You know what would happen, it would go both ways.”

The short person now annoyed said “We need to move up at some point and…”

The person holding the knife interrupted “Animals come next, nothing else.”

“Your right, but we can’t just let him leave. We should just take the knife and end him.” The short person said walking towards Frane.

The person holding the dagger thought for a moment before sounding like he had a sudden realization and slowly said “No, we shall erase his memory of us tomorrow and if he remembers, then he will be our first human sacrifice. One person can always help us in the most unexpected ways. I shall have him remember us helping him many years ago.”

The short person bowed down to the person holding the dagger and said “As you wish for the end is near and the only truth is death.”

While the hooded people were talking, Frane was trying to get up and leave, he knew weapons were illegal out of the army and punishable by death and he did not want them to kill him so he thought it would be best to escape while they were talking. Frane felt that the chance of death was higher with these hooded people than in the woods. He couldn’t hear the wolves anymore so they probably left which meant that if he managed to get to the trail, he could walk along it for many hours and sleep when the sun came up as long as he tried not to think about his pain.

As he was getting up, a hooded man saw him and stabbed his ankle where it was bit worst, twisting the knife around. Frane could see that the hooded man had long pointy ears and was quite tall, looking like he will soon burst out laughing. That hooded man was an elf. Frane couldn’t stand the pain any more. It felt like the needles inside him were jugged out all at once and were replaced with fire that could maintain shape and would turn inside him, not burning only his skin but even his bones. Frane started screaming, not able to endure the pain any longer. The elf who was stabbing him picked him up, threw him in a wooden chair, chained him down, and gagged him, smirking down at Frane before returning to the circle the rest of the hooded figures had just created.

The person who was holding the dagger that didn’t stab him stood over the pedestal and took out a flower. They placed it down and started chanting in a language Frane couldn’t understand. He was trying to think about who they were and why they were doing this but couldn’t because the pain was too distracting. The only thing he could think about was how the pain was the worst thing he has ever experienced and that he wanted everyone there dead. After half an hour of chanting the hooded people stopped and the flower disintegrated looking as if it had been burnt by 20 dragons all shooting fire at it for an hour strait.

The hooded figure with the dagger sounding almost as if he has just achieved his greatest life’s accomplishment said “The time has come for death. The Ones who claim to know truth are bringing over the western scales to cause chaos so the fake can rule the world. They have made their prophecies and in doing so became dull. While they have been choosing their path we have figured out their plan. What we need to do is…” The hooded people looked over at Frane and cast a spell that forced him to fall asleep.

Frane awoke the next morning by the hooded people throwing him off of the chair and ungagging him. His back was sore and his ankle was starting to swell and did not look good. Frane tried to get up but couldn’t because his ankle was still in a lot of pain. The elf sighed and bent over using some sort of magic to heal his ankle just enough so he could walk but would still be in pain. They told him to leave, pointing Frane in the direction of the trail and told him not to look back for at least 10 minutes. Frane assumed they wanted to do this so he could wipe his memory. He would rather have his worst memory wiped than dying so he didn’t look back after he started leaving but could still remember the night before. Frane thought of trying to kill the hooded people but knew it would never work and would probably be disintegrated just as the flower had if not worse the moment he rose against them. As he was leaving, he never lost his memory.

As he was limping down the trail, he couldn’t stop thinking about how that flower disintegrated. Frane was contemplating about telling the king of Rentrot, Alof, but knew it wouldn’t do any good. He would either be killed for wasting Alof’s time or the hooded people would kill him. Frane also thought that maybe if he said that he was robbed at the temple then he might have a chance to get rid of them but would still most likely die. Another thing he couldn’t stop thinking about was what they were saying that death is the truth and why would they be in that temple. Frane felt like that if they didn’t put him to sleep then he would know what their true intentions are and how they will achieve them. This made him wonder why he still had his memory and why they put him to sleep in the first place if they were going to wipe his memory.

He couldn’t think of a single reason how they failed at wiping his memory but could perform magic that was as powerful as disintegration. He thought about this for many hours before coming to a sudden conclusion that seemed so obvious that he was disappointed in himself for not realizing it before. He realized that the hooded people must have not wiped his memory on purpose and wanted him to do something. This would mean that they must have wanted to be found but why would they say that if he told anyone then they would kill him? He had no idea what to do at this point and the pain of his ankle and lack of sleep was making it hard for him to come to reasonable conclusions. There was also the possibility that everything they said last night around him was a lie to try and deceive him.

Frane has also never heard of anyone called The Truth Holders. There is nothing west of Rentrot because the ocean is right next to it so there is no way scales could come from the west. He thought that maybe scales are dragons but all of the dragons live in the south. There was the possibility that Rentrot would attack another country to the East but he was almost certain that Alof had already declared war on all other nations around them. He then had a feeling that they were probably spies for another country even further east next to a country that could be losing the war. Frane thought of everything they did with disintegrating the flower and how the short person said that the only truth is death. He thought that it might be possible that they will be attacking the country from within. Another question Frane kept on thinking but figured out was why were they in the ancient goddess of life’s temple if they were worshiping death and he decided that it would make sense to say that even life cannot stop death and they are the most powerful. Frane decided that no matter what happens, Rentrot is in some sort of danger including his and his family’s life. Frane decided at that point that he will not mention anything to anyone and in one month’s time, he will leave to study in Les Far about anything that might help him with this knowledge about who these hooded people are and if they might be invaders. He would rather go to study in the temple because of all the books there but knew it would be too dangerous. Frane would also like to go to Alof right now but knew that without complete proof, he will die. He decided to not tell anyone, including his family about the cultists or else they would all be killed. Frane noticed two things at that moment, he was almost back to his house and all of his money was gone.

Without money he had no way to pay taxes so him and his sons will be forced to fight in the war or have their family be executed. In order to not be drafted Frane would need to get 200 gold within two weeks and if his ankle isn’t healed by then, he will have no chance of survival fighting in Alof’s war for his ever growing desire for more power.