Adaar Chapter 1

Adaar - Chapter 1 (Working Title)

The room was musty and all sense of the outside was completely erased with the incense burning throughout the close quarters. Kyre was practically shivering as she stared wide eyed at every little thing I did. Finishing with the lighting of all two hundred and forty five candles I took a step back to admire my work. Kyre in her light pink clothing contrasted beautifully to the dark surrounding her even though it seemed to shrink her to about the size of one of those candles.

            “We are ready to begin.” I smile down at her.

            “Adaar, I…I’m really not sure any more if this is a good idea.” Kyre said shifting her eyes from candle to candle so as not to look me in the eyes.

            “Oh, my dear sweet Kyre, you know deep in your heart that the Light will protect and guide you through anything. Now is the time to stand up and defend Her Goodness no matter what the obstacles. This is just one of your tests and you will be tried many times. Do not fear and be welcomed into her embrace.” Kyre smiled timidly and nodded. “Good, so are you ready to commit?”

            Kyre paused for several more seconds and then took a deep breath of confirmation and with her eyes closed breathed out the word I was expecting: “Yes,”

            I smiled and grabbed my worn and tattered cloak off the chair I had draped it over and proceeded to throw it over my shoulders. I gave Kyre one last reassuring smile before grabbing the hood and pulling it up being transported to the Light’s Abode.  The dozen or so people standing in a circle greeted me. The feeling of being welcomed and received washed over me. This has been my fourth time coming to this room yet it still mystifies me as to what or where we were. There was no doors, no light except for an almost spotlight effect that appeared out of seemingly nowhere above us and shined down on our cloaked forms. All I could make out was the color of the other’s cloaks and the color they wore as pants since all the cloaks ended at the knees. Unsurprisingly, everyone wore white pants.

            A voice from one of the cloaks spoke first, “Is the initiate ready?”

            “Yes, my Knight.” I responded.

            “Then let us begin; I summon you here, Kyre Notik Repod-Fer, to be in our presence.” And with the speaker’s words she was there in the middle of the circle shaking more than the ground during a Quake.

            “Here,” she squeaked as if it were some kind of attendance.

            “Like your father and his father before him you shall take up the mantle of you family and carry it for Her Goodness and serve and protect the Light until your dying days.” The speaker said.

            “I shall.” Kyre shifted around and tried to find which one of the speakers was the one talking.

            “You will defend the Light and beat back the Darkness in yourself as well as in those around you.”

            “I shall.” She stopped looking and just started proclaiming it out loud as if to the Light herself.

            “You are the embodiment of Light and should so act like it.”

            “I shall.” She finished with a crack in her voice just at the last moment. She was really going well until then. There was a pause and I swear the guy next to me snickered.

            “I proclaim you now a Knight of Light, Protector of Life, and Defender of Her Goodness!”

            “I am.” She nodded.

            “We hereby reactivate your family’s cloak and charge you with the duties it corresponds to.” Kyre nodded again as if too afraid to speak again. A second goes by and all of a sudden people start dropping out of the room as if they were never there. I could see how it freaked out Kyre as everyone around her disappeared. I walked forward as the last person blinked away.

            “See, that wasn’t so scary, was it?” I said.

            “Scary as hell.” I smiled at her aggressiveness in her voice compared to her fearful expression.

            “Come on, let’s get back.” I held out my hand which she gratefully took and I threw off my hood bringing us back to the small little room with the hundreds of candles and incense so strong it nearly burned my throat as it entered my nose and mouth. “Home, sweet, home.” I whispered. “This is why you bring your cloak with you on inauguration; so you can get back.” I laughed and her scared expression seemed to lighten just a little. “Be happy, and don’t worry about anything. You’ll know when you’re needed. In the mean time, just go about your normal business. Okay?”

            Kyre nodded and grabbed her cloak previously tossed to the floor earlier while setting up.

            “Well, I guess I’ll just head home now that this is done. I have to study for a midterm. Can I see you again? You know, without the cloak and dagger.” She joked lightly.

            “We can meet whenever you want to, Kyre.” She nodded with a worried expression and hurried out the door.

            Now that she was gone I relaxed a little and sighed. Even though I didn’t show it like her I’m always nervous going there no matter what. Scary as hell was right. If this is what the Light was like, I shudder to imagine what hell was like. I carefully packed up my incense, or at least what was left of it, as well as the candles blowing them out one at a time. The ritual bag that I kept all this in was soon filled and the cloak just barely stuck out. Okay, now it’s time to go home. I nerved myself and opened the door. A rush of clean air and sun light billowed in making me temporarily blind. The city walls came into focus and the white brick that everything was constructed out of blazed reflecting the two suns, Maro and Weyr. Time to go, I told myself as I just stood there taking everything in. I weaved through the mouse-trap like streets with it’s lack of ceiling and toward the Weyr side of the city. It’s called the Weyr side because that’s the side Weyr, our smaller sun, rises from. There are also the Maro, Jikar, and Saaf sides but they were all poorer than the Weyr side even though Maro is known to be middle-class.

            Soon the unending winding slows down as the entrances to street ways became bigger and the door ways to houses became more ostentatious with its design and color. Finally I arrived at my large family home. I sighed and put my hand on the lock. Recognizing my spirit the door jerkily opened. That’s odd that it got jammed; I’ll have to let my parents know it needs to be fixed.

            I head in and immediately the room throws me off balance by the size compared to the walk way. This always questioned my balance as my eyes were taken all the way to the roof which made the room feel simultaneously small and huge. If it wasn’t that the walk ways didn’t have a roof I don’t think I would have seen the sky at all the way the city was built. I sighed again getting ready for the onslaught of questioning and nagging…but all I hear is silence.

            “I’m home,” I yelled to no one in particular. Giving one last long glance at the darkening sky I closed the door behind me. Immediately I was swallowed up in darkness. Geez, does my parents ever light candles? I light a match and sensed something was wrong. “Mother…Father…?” Silence greeted me and I made my way deeper into my house. “Are you guys out?” Again only silence. I could feel something very wrong and I wondered why I hadn’t felt it before. “Hello?” I called louder. Something is definitely wrong. I swung open my parent’s bedroom door and I laid eyes on them; Darkness in its mass twirled and spun throughout the room. It was then that I saw my mother and father entangled in the middle of it all as their life was being sucked out of them. My father weakly held out his hand as if for help. I screamed. Though I was a so called ‘Knight of Light’ I had never seen Darkness and never even believed it would attack in the city itself – especially on the Weyr side. I could feel it pulling at my ankles and trying to suck me in. I turned and tried to run but the darkness already had control of my feet and I fell. It was going to kill me. I was dead. I realized I was screaming and yelling in pure terror. I pulled at my legs to get out of the Darkness and began crawling on the floor away from the room of Night.

            I ran into my ritual bag while I crawled away and was about to throw it at the Darkness in an attempt to get away when I saw the edge of my cloak sticking out. Darkness cannot enter our holy place of Light! I pulled the cloak out and the darkness swarmed more and was half way up my legs. I threw it over my shoulders and in my pain was barely able to get the hood over my face when I was yanked out of my house and into the mysterious room with several Knights of Light standing around already. I felt more than saw the Darkness that ripped from my body as if it were taking my skin with it.

            I cried out and reached up toward them in an effort to get help.

            “What a pity…How could she defile our Holy Sanctuary…she should be punished…this is not acceptable.”

            “H-help me…please…my parents…” I managed to get out.

            “Adaar of the Trillod Family, you have transgressed our laws set in place by our ancestors. You shall be punished and stripped of your titles.”

            “But-but my family is dying!” I screamed trying to get them to understand. They must help.

            “And so shall they be because of your weakness and inability to protect them. You are exiled and your cloak is made dysfunctional. I hereby administer your punishment.”

            I felt it before I could even make out what was being said.

            “No! No, you can’t!” I felt it. My soul was marked as a Damned and a sliver was being ripped from its place. “Stop!” I screamed in agony, “Please, you can’t! Stop!” As it was slowly being pulled out of my body the pain intensified to a point I couldn’t stand. I incoherently screamed and yelled and probably was completely spread out on the floor.

            I faded into unconsciousness and awoke in a glade somewhere in a forest far, far from my city with only one question: who am I?