Dashyl's Journey: The Assassin

“Thank you so...whoa!”

One minute the journal was in Dashyl’s hand, the next, it was gone, snatched by a black blur of a form somersaulting through the air. A person, dressed all in black, punched Alerial in the face while in the air, deftly landed in a crouch, then spun around to face them clutching Kilkarak’s journal. The thief was a woman, masked, with just her eyes visible. Those eyes narrowed as they focused on Dashyl. She pointed at him and then jumped back into a shadow where she faded from sight.

Alerial yelled a guttural, gravelly yell after being punched and leapt toward Dashyl. The avenir waved his radia-tipped staff in a circle above him. A blue shield of radia energy emanated from the staff and enveloped Dashyl and Alerial. Dashyl turned around in time to see a dart flying through the air toward his neck, but as the dart hit the radia energy, it vaporized, releasing a bright blue flash. Dashyl averted his eyes, but heard a man cry out.

When the flash faded, Dashyl saw a man standing in front of him dressed in black robes and a red hood. The man was holding his hands over his eyes, grunting. At his feet sat a blow gun and another dart. At this moment, the woman in black leapt out of the shadows, kicking Alerial’s hands and he lost his grip on his staff. The radia shield dropped and the woman bounced from her landing right into a backflip. As she flipped in the air over Alerial, she punched him in the head and rolled through her landing, popping up near Dashyl.

Dashyl drew the knife that the venomist had given him. “This woman is as slippery as a fish,” he told himself. “Strike where she will be, not where she is.” Dashyl flung the knife through the air as the woman began her next move. As she tried to twist away, the blade caught her in the side of her torso, slashing deeply into the softer skin there. Dashyl again noticed her eyes, this time they filled with rage instead of focus. Kicking away the knife, she flew through the air in a jump kick pose towards Dashyl. Before the woman could land her kick, two bright blue flares fizzled through the air striking her in the back and head and then exploding. The force knocked her off course and she slammed into the wall behind Dashyl and did not move from where she crumpled to the floor.

“A Shadowhand Agent and a Krill Assassin!” Alerial shouted to Dashyl. “Be on your guard, they want us dead! Urk.” As he finished his sentence, a dart hit Alerial in the neck. Dashyl spun around to see the man in the red hood run to the woman and dive on the floor to retrieve the journal that she had dropped.

“Are you okay,” Dashyl asked as he went to Alerial’s side. The avenir pulled the dart out of his neck.

“Nysik. A special toxin developed by the Order of Kril. My people have been trying to come up with an antidote, but we have not succeeded.” Alerial said, looking Dashyl in the eye. Before Dashyl could even think of what to do, he heard a voice behind him.

“I have your father’s journal,” said the Krill Assassin as he walked toward Dashyl. “Your mother is dead, your father is dead, and soon you will be dead.”

Dashyl stood there, frozen with fear, thoughts buzzing through his head. “The Order of Krill and the Shadowhand Agency were part of the Legion faction. They were Sarion, just like me and my parents, why would they want us dead? Why do they want my father's journal?” These thoughts flew from his mind as he suddenly recognized the pattern on the assassin’s red hood: a skull. The skull seemed to be smiling as it hovered closer to the boy.  The man reached beneath his black robes and pulled two curved, kinked blades, one in each hand. He started whirling the blades around his body and shouted a word Dashyl did not understand.

In a frenzy, the assassin came at him, blades clashing in the air seemingly everywhere. Dashyl closed his eyes. Just as he was about to leap away, an arm hit him in the side, pushing him out of danger. Dashyl rolled and came to a stop in time to see Alerial take the brunt of the assassin’s attack. Blue blood streamed from a multitude of wounds on the healer’s body.

“Run!” Alerial screamed as he looked over at Dashyl.

Dashyl watched as Alerial pulled two more radia flares from his pockets and throw them at the assassin. A blue ball of flame engulfed the black robes and red hood for a moment and then faded. Dashyl could see his rucksack by the door. He had a clear path to grab it and run. But could he leave Alerial, the Akrasa who had saved his life? “What can I do for him now?” Dashyl asked himself.

“Run, boy!” Alerial bellowed again.

Obeying this time, Dashyl ran, grabbed his rucksack and bolted for the door. He turned before stepping outside. Alerial was holding his staff high in the air as the assassin charged at him with his blades spinning. Dashyl gasped as the assassin plunged his swords deep into Alerial’s belly. Alerial yelled one last time and smashed his staff down on the head of the assassin and both of them disappeared in an explosion of blue flame.

Dashyl had not seen the explosion. He had turned to run and was out the door a few paces when the concussive force of the blast knocked him forward into the gravel of the path. He turned back to see the remains of Alerial’s house, a ruin belching blue smoke. Scrambling to his feet, the boy grabbed his rucksack and ran away down the path, tears streaming from his eyes, with one thing repeating through his head, “Trader’s Haunt and home.”

Dashyl's Journey: The Beginning

In the morning, Dashyl was up with first light preparing a rucksack of essentials for the journey: hard breads, dried fruits, nuts, a small rain shelter and sleeping bag, flint and wool for starting fires, fish hooks and line, and a small shovel. Lastly, he packed the pouch of small saffira stones Alerial had given him to sell. With that money, he could buy passage home on an airship from Trader’s Haunt. But Trader’s Haunt was a dangerous place full of thieves and vagabonds. Dashyl unpacked his rucksack so he could put the pouch of stones deep in the bottom of his sleeping bag. He then slid his knife from the venomist into its sheath on his belt and threw his cape over his shoulders.

Finished with his packing, Dashyl sat with Alerial as they ate their morning meal. “Eat as much as you can," said the blue-skinned healer. "You never know when you’ll get another hot meal once you leave my house.”

“I went a long time without a proper meal before you brought me here. I can do it again,” Dashyl said, sitting up straighter in his seat. Alerial smiled and nodded as he dished Dashyl more of the thick paste they ate every day. “I won’t miss your cooking,” snickered the orphan.

“I won’t miss your appetite. You’ve eaten half my supply for the winter!”

“I’m a growing boy. Besides, you brought me here, you took responsibility,” Dashyl retorted.

“That’s true. I will miss our repartee. Your wit is beyond your years, young Dashyl.”

Dashyl considered Alerial’s compliment as he swallowed his last mouthful, “I’m full.”

“Good. It is time for you to start your journey home. But before you go, I have something for you.”

“Ooh, a parting gift?” Dashyl said, expectantly wringing his fingers together.

“Well, a gift, you could say, but one that you may decide not to open.”

“Huh?” Dashyl questioned with crinkled eyebrows as Alerial disappeared into his bedroom and returned with what looked like an old weathered book.

“What is that?” Dashyl asked, unsure why he wouldn’t want to open a book. His mother and father had taught him to read and gave him many books he loved that retold the old legends of the Sarion journey through space to Rynaga. “Maybe it’s a book of scary stories,” he thought, “but no story can scare me.”

“This is your father’s expedition journal,” Alerial said as he handed it to Dashyl.

The boy’s eyes grew wide. His mouth dropped open. He looked from Alerial to the book and back. “How…”

“I found it among your father’s possessions after his death.”

Alerial was right, Dashyl did not want to open it.

“I read the journal while you were in your saffira sleep. I skimmed the first part and then picked a random day to start reading. I went back a few entries after that and then read to the end. Your father has written some things in there you may not want to know right now, but I am giving it you now so you may have it and you may make the choice yourself to know some of your father’s darker secrets.”

Dashyl's Journey: The Beginning

It took a few days for Dashyl’s head to finally clear and his mind to function properly. He had been going on long hikes through Blue Hollow with Alerial. His Akrasa guardian did not talk; simply lead the boy on excursions that were a little more strenuous each day to increase his strength. Dashyl felt good this morning and struck up a conversation during their first meal.

“The last thing I remember before I woke up is a dream of my mother and my father.” The boy paused, looking at the dark gray eyes of Alerial watch him.The healer offered no words. It was not only physical strength the boy needed to gain, it was the strength to live on with the knowledge that he was alone in the world, both of his parents dead, now. 

Dashyl continued, “I remember Fog Rend and being glad to leave it and looking forward to a real bed at the Carapid Ward. I can’t believe it, just when we had given up and were returning home...” the boy trailed off and sighed. “Home,” he said, as if remembering how far away that was.

Again, Alerial said nothing as he stood and collected their food bowls. It was time to hike.

“I always feel like I am being watched out here,” Dashyl explained to Alerial’s back as they walked up a rocky slope among the trees. “I mean, I first felt it after I stole…” Dashyl sucked in his breath and quickly bit off his sentence. He had not told Alerial that he had stolen a saffira stone from an Akrasa dwelling earlier on the expedition. “I…I mean,” Dasyhl sputtered.

“I know what you mean. I know what you stole.” Alerial turned to look at Dashyl now.

“What? But how?”

“I know what you stole, but it is okay, you did it in order to ease your father’s pain and that is the instinct of a healer, something I cannot fault. Next time, however, I trust you will simply ask an Akrasa to do the healing instead of thieving something you don’t understand.” Alerial did not want to tell the boy that it was the use of this stolen saffira stone that sealed his father’s fate to die from the carapid sting. The boy shouldn’t feel responsible for his father’s death, Alerial thought.

“Oh yes, I will definitely ask, next time. I didn’t know what you guys were or how you would react to me. But I am glad you saved me, even though you knew I stole from your people.” Dashyl suddenly looked a little sheepish. “Can you…can you read my mind?”

Alerial chuckled slightly, “No, my boy, I cannot read your mind. I will reveal soon enough how I came to know these things.” Alerial reached the crest of his hill and stopped to take a drink of water while surveying the view of the forested hills obscured here and there by blue mists. “You felt watched because you were. My people do not trust outsiders and prefer to observe behavior first before making contact. You were moving so quickly through our land, that I’m sure most thought not to bother you and let you continue on your way. My people are not hostile to the Sarion. We deal with radia hunters and other traders looking for saffira stones, raw or refined. However, I do not know why you should feel watched now. You are in my company and there is no longer any reason to observe your behavior.”

“I still feel it,” Dashyl said, his eyes darting from tree trunk to tree trunk to see if someone might be hiding behind each one.

“Perhaps you are sensitive to the eyes of birds, my friend,” Alerial said as he began walking down the other side of the hill.

“Maybe,” Dashyl mumbled.

“Tell me, Dashyl, did your father tell you how you could get home if you were ever separated?”

Dashyl thought for a minute. “Yes! Yes, he did!” Dahsyl cried out, suddenly remembering. “The airships! He said to follow the airships to a town where I could get on an airship and fly home! Follow them to…” Dashyl couldn’t remember the name.

“Trader’s Haunt,” Alerial finished. "It is a bit of a journey from here, but your father was right, it is shorter and probably safer to travel this route home.”

“Trader’s Haunt,” Dashyl repeated slowly as he scanned the sky for airships.

“There should be an airship heading there tomorrow that you could follow. I suggest you head due east toward the Radiabergs, you most likely will find a radia hunter or other trader there you can travel with the rest of the way to Trader’s Haunt. The airships move quickly and it will be difficult for you to follow for long.” Aleria nodded to himself as if confirming his plan now that he had said it aloud. “But I must warn you. Trader’s Haunt is a dangerous place. There is little compassion or care for others. A few Akrasa have traveled there over the years for various reasons, but they do not stay long and they never wish to return. Beware of being tricked or swindled. I will give you some raw saffira you can sell to earn your passage home.”

“Why are you helping me so much?”

Alerial slowed his pace and patted the boy’s shoulder as they walked. “I lost my mother at a young age, and I could not imagine losing two parents. I know your father loved you very much. Helping you is a way to honor his memory.”

“Oh. I see.” Dashyl said, watching the ground just ahead of his footfalls. The two grew quiet again as the trail looped back toward Alerial’s home.

“In the morning,” Alerial said that night as they ate their dinner, “We will make you ready for your journey and you will be on your way. Before you leave, I will tell you how I know the things I do about you and your father.” Dashyl nodded. He was ready.

As he drifted off to sleep that night, all Dashyl could think about was what had happened as he and his father were attacked by the carapid. Had he ignored his father’s pleas and not run away, but instead returned to try and help him? “I'll never know,” were the three words he kept repeating in his head like a mantra inviting unconsciousness.