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  Jorm

  (Thayan Chronicles Book 1)

  Copyright © 2018 Alan Bayman

  All rights reserved.

  Edited By:

  Amy Hakanson

  Cover Art By:

  Gwynn Tavares

  To those I love and have loved. There is a piece of you in every dream I craft. But especially to my Princess, who has the biggest piece of all…

  Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  EPOLOGUE

  Excerpt (foreshadowing)

  1.

  It was raining again. My eyes where above the water level, so I could see the splashes ripple on the canals surface, mottling the grey sky’s reflection. When the rain paused, and the ripples grew calm. I could also see things in the reflections edge; towering buildings of grey stone and the occasional silhouette of a person passing by.

  I was standing in the water, concealed by the edge of a bridge that passed over me. I did not remember anything before. I had been there, I think, for a very long time. I have watched the water rise and fall, and day to flicker into night, then day again, countless times. I watched the moss gather, creeping along the canals edge, covering every surface save the water, only to be devoured as herds of small rodents, in a squeaking cacophony swept in, chewing on everything green, leaving behind only droplets of waste, that the insects feast on, which calls the fish, swimming and gliding around me, to feed.

  I liked it when my eyes where under the water and the fish came about. I liked the bright colors painted on some of their sides, and the way they would dart at the surface to catch an insect or at each other when they fought.

  It was their brushing or bumping against me that made me realize (or remember) that I have a body. I did not know if I could not move or if I had just forgotten how to. I could turn my eyes but not my head. Things crawled over me. Moss grew on me, and things slithered over me to eat the moss, but almost nothing tried to eat me. Once a fish tried to, nibbling on me with a strange stabbing sensation. After it began to float on its belly at the water’s surface, and the other fish began to eat it, only to die themselves, bobbing gently away from me downstream.

  On this day, I was contemplating one of the few things that has ever caused me no small amount of loathing; the Stick.

  Many things have come floating in the canal. Pieces of crate, rotting food, mostly. Once a man floated by, pale and bloated, his blue eye staring up as the fish devoured him from underneath. My favorite was a cork-less bottle, its crimson contents swirling around as it bobbed along, carried by the current. My least favorite was the Stick.

  The Stick was small, about 6 inches in length. Smaller than other sticks. There was nothing remarkable about the Stick, really, except that instead of floating down the current like all the other sticks before and after it, the Stick floated up to the left side of my head and stayed there. When it rained, it would tap against my temple. Constantly.

  At first it was curious. I tried to find patterns in the tapping. Time passed, and it became tedious, a distraction from the rain. More time passed. My irritation grew. And grew. And grew. It came to be that rain brought only irritation, thanks to the Stick. My thoughts where consumed by it. By that day I had driven me to such rage that something in me changed.

  The Stick had suddenly stopped poking me. Looking over, I saw a pale grey hand just peeking out of the water’s surface, clutching the Stick so hard that it had broken in half.

  I had moved. I didn’t know if I ever had before, or even if I could.

  After I figured out it was possible, moving came (relatively) quickly. At first, I had to channel my irritation in order to force movement. I thought about the Stick and channeled that annoyance onto whatever part of my body I wanted to shift. I noticed more things then. Touch. The water current gently pressing against my skin. I had always noticed the drops of rain that tapped against my face and head when the wind shifted so that a storm would bring droplets down under the bridge, but now I could turn my head up and watch them fall.

  And so, I did. From day, until night, and then day again, until it stopped raining. I then reached out and touched the gritty stone wall underneath the bridge, just within reach. It was hard and coarse yet covered in something slick that left a dark smudge on my fingers.

  Moving my legs took some time, as I was buried in earth up to just above my ankles. I climbed out of the canal. Some memory stirred in me that this was too easy, that lifting myself should not have been so effortless.

  The sun was setting as I pulled myself over the canal’s edge, feeling the water slide and pool of my bare skin for what felt like the first time. I stood and beheld the riot of orange and crimson splashed across the cloudy sky. It shown in sharp contrast to the blackened and dark masonry of the buildings around me, save for where the rain drench reflected the evening light, like embers on coal.

  “Who owns you?” A voice jolted me out of my reverie. I looked down from the rooftops to see a man facing me near the base of the bridge. The bridge arched sharply from one side of the canal to the other. I had never noticed that from underneath. A few people were walking on a street that led to the bridge. Two of them stepped into buildings, shutting doors behind them. One woman, dressed in drab whites and carrying a cloth bundle, slowed and grabbed onto the bridges railing as she stepped on, trying not to slip.

  As she did, the man facing me took a few steps closer. He was wearing a dark cloak about his shoulders clasped with a silver insignia. His tunic and trousers were an even darker color, and looked, soft, clean, and expensive.

  Velvet, some wispy, half-forgotten memory told me.

  “I said,” the man’s voice was cold, but his eyes were nervous and excited while trying to look stern. His face was young, with only hints of a beard to mark him as an adult.

  “I said”, he repeated, stepping closer, almost within reach. “Who. Owns. You.”

  He was talking to me. Could I talk back? I opened my mouth to try. I felt my chest squeeze and water flowed out of my mouth and onto the ground. He looked surprised for a moment but quickly recovered.

  “Well,” he said looking around. His nervousness and excitement seemed to heighten all at once.

  “Fresh meat,” he said, looking back at me. He grinned suddenly, reached into his cloak and pulled out a long slender wand. It was solid black with a silver tip, and I remember thinking how well it matched his clothing.

  He pointed the wand at me and said something that I could not understand. Suddenly, there was a terrible sensation, as though my thoughts where being squashed down and swept away. I felt frozen and locked, unable to do anything except for what this sensation bid me to do.

  This sensation came from the tip of the wand, that was now resting on the center of my chest. The man was now standing directly in front of me, still uttering strange words. Within the sensation I felt his mind seep into mine. The first and last thing it said to me was now you are mine.

  I responded by doing what I did before when I couldn’t move: I summoned my rage. Thinking of the Stick started to get me moving, but this man had given me plenty of extra motivation. My thoughts where still scattered but my sudden rage took him totally off guard. For an instant his presence faltered, and my hand lashed out, grabbing him by the throat. His carefully crafted words turned into a strangled choke, and thin
gs began to change.

  The sensation of oppression, from the tip of the wand resting on my chest, changed to a feeling of burning. Both hot and cold at the same time, and strangely, not all that unpleasant. The man tried to struggle against my grip. The wands tip felt glued to my chest and flickered with a blue and white fire. The feeling of oppression vanished, replaced with the burning sensation, that mingled and suffused with my rage. Instead of pressing hid mind into mine, his mind seemed to be dragged into the flames inside me.

  He groaned and began to wither as the flamed on my chest and in my mind grew brighter. It all happened quickly, the flames and the withering. So quickly that by the time I realized what was happening, the man was nothing more than black dust crumbling around my fingers. A crumbling skeleton in expensive clothing collapsed on to the damp cobblestones that I had vomited on, the wand landing on the cloak as it billowed to the ground.

  Something in me had changed. The rage in my mind had settled but the fire still burned. Not as brightly, but like burning coals, a smoldering heat, both hot and cold. Memories started coming back to me in bits and fragments. I had a name, but I could not remember what it was. A memory came to me, distant and warm of a woman laying next to me, layers of her dress draped across my legs, her face pressed against my shoulder. Surrounded by pillows, there was a softness all around, especially from her. Softness and warmth. She was young, but life had made her older. She smiled at me with a light in her eyes that reminded me of the fire that now smoldered within me.

  “Jorm,” she whispered. “Jorm…”

  That must be my name, I decided.

  Other memories started coming to me, though they were not as vivid as the first. I remembered writing. A lot of writing. I realized that I could read, in more than one language. There was a name, an occupation for what I was.

  Scrivener. I took notes, wrote letters, made copied of scrolls and tomes succumbing to age. I have little memory of whom I worked for, but I could recall a great deal of what I read and copied.

  I looked around. The sun had set, and the nearest light came from a flickering lantern hung over the doorway on the other side of the bridge, marking it a tavern. Even fewer people were out now, and they hurried along fearfully, as if to escape the night.

  It was dark, but I could see clearly. Though, I could not see colors unless they were close to the lantern. I could tell from the others hurried movements that they could not see well, if at all. They certainly couldn’t see me.

  I knelt and shook the man’s clothing free of dust and brittle bone. The fabric was soft, reminding me of the pillows in my memory. He had an ornate belt with several pouches, two ornate knives, and a thick, heavy coin purse.

  I put the clothes on. The tunic and pants where a little loose around me, but after tightening the laces they fit nicely. The boots where surprisingly snug. It was as if they conformed to my feet as soon as I put them on. One long pouch held a long slender sheath that looked fit for the wand he was carrying. The other pouches held pieces of dried herbs, small bones, and some parchment bound in twine like a book without a cover. The parchment had some writing on it that I immediately recognized as Late Cyrian, and so I put it back in its pouch to read later. Then I picked up the cloak and wand and returned the wand to its sheath. As I adjusted the cloak about my shoulders, I looked down at the pile fragments at my feet. A piece of the man’s skull stared back up at me with an empty eye socket. A breeze started up, stirring about pieces of black dust from which the skull rested.

  I had killed him, but felt nothing. Nothing? Almost nothing. There was a faint glimmer of remorse, mingled with outrage, somewhere within those smoldering coals in my mind. I killed him. He had tried to enslave me. I killed him.

  I wondered how I killed him. I had only grabbed him by the throat. The spell must have backfired somehow as soon as I started to choke him. I did not know.

  On impulse I kicked the skull fragment into the nearby canal. I thought, maybe he could do with time staring away gazing at the moss and fish, so threw I rest of the pieces of him in. It was only later that I realized he was completely dead, unlike myself, whatever I am.

  I then began to walk. The rain made the cobblestones slick with ice, but if I moved slowly, I could remain sure footed. Buildings on top of buildings rose up into the night sky, divided by canals, streets, bridges, and walkways. Old towers rose up, sagging, half collapsed into other buildings, who used the fallen masonry to grow around, on, and sometimes through the crumbling structures. Other buildings built on the side of the canals had sunk so low into the mud that only their uppermost windows could be seen. Newer buildings were built on top of them.

  Street signs were rare and half hazard. All of them were written in Late Cyrian. Curious. Cyrians, I suddenly recalled, where a rigid caste society. They would never have any tolerance for all this unregulated building. So, this place may have been conquered by Cyria at some point, but the rulership did not last.

  I found the pieces of an old sign near and abandoned washing well. The letters, though faded, were written clearly in Uben.

  Ubenfold.

  The name, the place, had a stirring of familiarity. The memory stirred within me again. I recalled the woman’s face, her dark and curling hair tumbled over one cheek, her eyes full of that fire…

  …hair of darker completion can be found on the continents of Amberly, Ambrosia, Keldesh (of course), and Ubenfold:

  As stated previously, the Amber people have a variety of looks and completions due to their lecherous tendencies of breeding with slaves, and the great continent of Ambrosia holds a variety of peoples, very few of which can ever be found OUTSIDE of Ambrosia, since the Cataclysm. Keldeshians have blackened hair to match their blackened skin. It is now only common in Ubenfold that you will find people fair of skin and dark of hair…

  The clothes I wore made a soft whispering sound as I walked the city streets. The roads where icy, especially at the bridges, but if I tread carefully, I would not slip. Few people were out at night. Bums huddled together for warmth in narrow alleys. Some men staggered, alone or in groups, from one tavern to another. Poorer buildings had flickering lights within, illuminating the silhouette of women sagging against window frames, adopting cloy postures and baring flesh to men who passed by. Rats moved with me in the dark but shied away from those who carried light.

  I noticed the silver brooch that held my new cloak about me had some sort of symbol of heraldry. I reversed the brooch so that the insignia was facing inward. I did not want my identity mistaken, or worse, people to get the right idea about how I got the cloak.

  I walked all night. I learned to avoid the guardsmen; gaunt men with torches of blazing green fire. Their hard faces and beady eyes grew increasingly suspicious as the hours wore on.

  It was easier to think now that I had the burning embers within my mind. Still, it was easy to slip into a state if emptiness, of passive observation. So easy that I had spent the entire night doing nothing more than walking and watching. I made a note to remember to think.

  Dawn brought color back to the world. That dark masonry and black mud remained the same, but the vines clinging to them took on shades of green and brown. Stained wagons looking of marbled mahogany began to roll down the larger streets pulled by oxen of grey and rust. The people wore drab workmen’s leathers. They hauled barrels of wine and ale, and carts of goods to sell at any one of the many market places I had wandered through.

  The city had docks on the Southwestern side of it, and as morning arose I found myself near them, in a maze of alleyways connecting warehouses, slums, and brothels, with the occasional sailor’s inn at an intersection. I had been there a while because the guards seemed to avoid the area at night. As dawn approached, it didn’t seem like they would be coming around much during the day either.

  I rounded a corner and beheld something new. The alley went a ways and turned again, following another canal. At the corner stood three men over a fourth. Two of the men wore filthy leat
hers and held thick wooden cudgels. The third looked somewhat cleaner and held a long thin knife that dripped blood on the hand that held it. The fourth man was dressed as a ships laborer, with sashes of cloth across his waist and chest. He had been stabbed many times, and his was sashes were soaked in blood.

  The three men, as one, turned to face me. The cleaner one, obviously the leader, had a hard, rugged face made uglier by a broken jaw poorly mended, making his teeth offset, pulling to the left as he spoke.

  “What o’ we here? Ah noble ofer a night o’ fun?” His crippled mouth made him hard to understand, but his intentions where clear. His two men took a few steps toward me, one raising his club with a grin and the other crouching down as if to rush me. “Leth thaay hello oys!”

  The men began to rush me. Fear flared up in the embers of my mind. I did not know how to fight. Further, I only had a small knife and a wand I had no idea how to use.

  I decided to bluff. I pulled out the wand and pointed it at them. The way the pouch was arranged on my belt, it was surprisingly fast. Luckily, I had sheathed the wand the right way and now had the silver tip pointed in their direction.

  The men froze for a brief instant at the sight of the wand, then the leader shouted “Necro!” and hurled his knife. With a speed easily twice as fast as they were charging me, all three men bolted around the corner.

  I listened to the sound of the men running fade into the distance, then looked down at the knife sticking out of my chest. It didn’t hurt, but I felt it grating against a severed rib as I shifted. Without thinking I pulled it out. There was a small slit in my tunic, but no blood. Peeking through the slit, I could see a deep gash in my pale flesh, with a hint of grey sinew and muscle underneath. Then, for the first time, I grew hungry.

  I did not salivate. It was more like an itch in my mouth, coupled with that familiar aching emptiness in my stomach that comes from going a long time without a meal. I glanced down at the dead man in front of me and it felt like the hunger magnified a thousand-fold. I tried to resist, the spark within me shuddering with revulsion, but my body moved of its own accord, bending down and sinking my teeth into the flesh of his arm. There was a pleasant burning sensation in my mouth, but no flavor. The flesh seemed to dissolve the moment it entered my mouth, turning into a hot liquid that sent a warm shiver through me as it slid down my throat.