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of the Elementals Trilogy 

THE CREATOR

 
The walls and ground of Dawn’s home where living roots used to grow were now black and dying. The leaves were curling in on themselves and falling to ashes on the floor.

Dawn had salvaged some of the herbs before they begun to die. She used them to make tea for her father and brothers.

Dawn’s hands shook as she placed the cup of tea in the fleshless hands.

Suddenly, one of the fleshless hands seized her wrist.

“I’ve missed you,” he avowed, holding onto her spotted hand. He looked around at Vuur, Glaciem, and Vjetar. “I’ve missed all of you.”

He let go of Dawn’s wrist.

“Where is your brother, Destan?”

Dawn gulped.

Did he know? Did he know what she and Destan had done?

“Destan has been wandering the earth,” Vuur volunteered, “looking for you, father.” His waxy hand rested in his lap.

Erebus touched the burnt side of Vuur’s face with his fleshless hand. “He is a good son.” There was no sarcasm in his voice because there could be none.

Dawn sat down next to Erebus. “How long have you been back, father?”

“Time rolls by when you are hungry.”

“I can get you something.” Dawn rose from her seat. Dawn had stopped faking her raspy voice. Now her voice rang out clearly, like a young woman’s. It seemed unnatural to her weathered form.

“Oh, can you, my dear. Perhaps a little baker’s boy or a wandering traveler.”

“The town is abandoned,” Vjetar explained, “and travelers do not pass through often.” His sharp blue eyes pierced the darkness.

“Pity.”

Glaciem gripped one of his ashy grayish brown fingers and broke it off with a dull crack. The brown nail fell away. “Here, father.”

“I can’t eat your frost bit flesh.”

Glaciem withdrew the finger and put it in his pocket with his head down.

“Why are you hiding in this hole?” Erebus questioned.

When Dawn had touched his face to see him with her sightless eyes, she noted that he was more deteriorated than when she had last saw him. Dawn feared that his eye, ungrounded by any flesh, would pop out and fall upon the floor. Eating rats underground had rotted his teeth and increased his need for human flesh.

Dawn still had the nightmares about Dustpath, and the people lining up to eat from the communal stew. She could still smell the rotting intestines of the bodies.

Erebus slammed the small table with his fist. “Why are you hiding here?”

The butter knife clamored to the floor.

There was a knock at the door.

Dawn rose from her seat to answer it.

She saw a tall, shadowy form in the doorway, but that was all her eyes would allow her to see. Still, she knew it was Fulgur. She could sense his energy.

She moved aside so that he may enter.

“Fulgur, my son,” said Erebus, “please sit. We were having tea.”

Dawn thought for a moment how absurd it was that they were having tea. After all, they could find no joy in it. They could eat dirt just as well to dissuade their hunger.

Fulgur sat where Dawn had been sitting next to Erebus.

Dawn walked over to the kettle and poured a cup of tea, and she tried to hand it to Fulgur, but he refused it.

When was the last time Fulgur had eaten? Dawn wondered. Was he just letting the pings of hunger consume him? 

“What have you been doing?” Vjetar asked.

“Amusing myself,” Fulgur responded.

“With humans,” Vuur said.

When their father was gone, they had made a pact not to mess in the affairs of humans. They would watch from afar but never again try to present themselves as gods. Fulgur had gone against that pact.

“Why are you all dressed in rags?” Erebus asked, staring from Dawn’s plain robes to Vjetar’s tattered gray shirt.

“You look like prisoners. Humans should be making you glowing robes with glass beads and gifting you golden necklaces.”

Dawn had kept her fine robes and golden necklaces of the past locked away in a chest in the corner to remind her of the decadence that killed so many people.

“This is a different world than when you left it, Father,” Dawn explained.

“I did not leave it,” Erebus snapped. “I was imprisoned by one of my sons.”

They looked around at each other.

“Destan,” he hissed. “He bites the hand that feeds.”

Dawn visualized Erebus’ arm where the flesh had been pulled away.

Destan used to be his favorite son.

Would he give Destan the fatted calf if he returned or would Erebus condemn him?

“You were supposed to keep this world in line for me. Instead you’ve let the humans take over to rule themselves again?”

Glaciem’s head seemed to sink into his lap.

Vjetar stared at the ground, now dying with the great tree.

“They brought this world to shambles the first time,” said Erebus, “and I cleaned it up. Now, you have let it go to ruin. I’ve seen vessels flying through the air. Little machines to replace them. Government. There would be no need for shadow leaders if the people had gods.”

Vuur stared into the eyes of his father.

Dawn watched his form.

Fulgur focused on his peeling lips, the blood dripping from the corners of his mouth as if he had just eaten.

“I am the Creator of the Children of Spheres. They must bow before their gods.”

Dawn remembered the old days. Humans were their slaves. The Children of the Spheres kept them in line, like sentinels, but they were no less slaves than their ungifted counterparts.

She remembered the first uprising.

The Children of the Spheres armed with their elements attempted to fight against the Keepers. Hundreds of thousands died fighting against their gods.

Dawn had refused to help her father, and Destan hid himself away.

When the battle was done, those who remained cowered in fear.

Erebus celebrated with his children, sad that Destan was not there to join them.

Until one day, Erebus disappeared.

His children didn’t look for him, didn’t wonder where he had gone.

They calmly retired until, over the centuries, the people forgot them.

Dawn didn’t want power. She didn’t want life. She wanted to sleep, to be restful.

No matter how often she closed her eyes, she could not sleep, could not dream, and could not see anything beyond this world. That was the gift that her father had given her.

Now he wanted to be worshiped again.

Dawn had lived in a semi-calm before this moment. She knew that her father didn’t trust her. She would refuse to help once again. He said she had more water in her soul than Destan, that her fate was wavering.

“You will show them what we can do,” Erebus planned. “I will reveal myself to them after they have seen this show of power. Give them time to digest it.”

Dawn could sense Fulgur staring at her. She shifted in her seat.

She still felt his lightning rage the day she scorned him.

She had moved the earth in Jetty Verte.

Their lovers’ quarrel had inconsequently freed the prisoners in the underground jail and crushed many beneath the falling earth. Power had consumed her that day.

Since then it had been decades since she had used her element. It stirred inside her, but just as Fulgur refused to eat, Dawn refused to give into releasing the energy.

They sipped their tea in silence.

Dawn could hear no breathing. She had been used to such silence when they were together, but now it was unsettling.

She wondered how long Erebus had been out of his cage.

It would be like her father to settle a few matters behind their backs before coming to them. He no longer trusted his children.

Dawn heard something wet hit the floor, and she wondered if that was a piece of her father’s flesh falling from his bones.

They settled into pairs.

Vuur and Vjetar sat in one corner, talking.

Erebus and Fulgur sat together in silence.

Glaciem was reading to Dawn from an old book that she kept.

It was the history of Tosia, but it was only a partial history. It told the story of how fate led the people of Dustpath to the Great Tree where they carved their future. It spoke of their vows to live by nature and to never use their elements.

Glaciem had difficulty turning the pages. He could only use his ring finger and thumb because the other fingers had turned stiff and brown.

His voice rang out youthful and clear.

Sometimes Dawn imagined that they were all young.

She could feel her thinning, brittle hair and the deep wrinkles on her face, but she had never seen herself after her hands left the sphere.

Her father was the only one in the room whose face she had seen, and she could never forget it. The skin on one cheek was completely rotted away so that the sinews beneath were visible. The flesh around his eyes was starting to rot, and he had several bony fingers where the flesh was almost completely gone.

Dawn looked up from the book.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she had not noticed her father and Fulgur leave. She had not heard the sound of the door opening or closing.

Dawn placed a hand on Glaciem’s arm.

“Is Father still here?” she asked.

“He and Fulgur left moments ago.”

Dawn allowed Galciem to read for a little while longer, so as to not draw suspicion. Then, she stood up from where she sat.

“Where are you going?”

“I need some fresh air,” said Dawn. “Now that my plants have died, this room has become stuffy.”

Dawn felt the wall to the door. She sensed her father and brother’s energy and followed it to the Cliff of Broken Promise.

Dawn leaned against the tunnel-like walls. Through her dull vision she could make out two forms on the Cliff. Sensing their energy, she knew it was Erebus and Fulgur.

“Don’t you want peace, my son?”

“But I’m afraid to die.”

“You have been a good son. You deserve to rest. Will you help me gather them?”

“Yes, father.”

From the remnants that she had gathered, Dawn could not piece together what her father had meant. Keepers could not be killed. They could not rest. The eternal slumber was denied to them.

Dawn could see their forms move towards the tunnels.

She snaked along the walls until she was out. Then she walked along the blackened tree branches that made out the pathway.

She moved into the center of town where the Domom Fidei was nestled and up the narrow pathway.

If her heart could beat, it would be hammering.

Once she was satisfied that she was far enough away not to be suspected, Dawn slowed her pace to a steady stroll.

She was turned around by the shoulder and pushed against the wall.

She felt static.

“Fulgur?”

“It is so nice to hear that voice,” he said.

She felt urgent lips pressed against hers.

She slapped him.

Fulgur pressed a hand against her chest and shocked her.

She thought she felt her heart beat again, but only for a moment.

“What were you and Father talking about?” she asked.

“It was between me and him.”

“Don’t you think we should all know?”

“If you kiss me with passion, I’ll tell you.”

Dawn glared at him with her sightless eyes.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Not where father has sent me.”

“You’re disobeying him.”

“I’m just making a detour,” he said. “There is so much to get settled first.”

He touched her face. “You are so lucky that you held onto the sphere long enough to take your sight, so you can’t see what I’m about to do.”

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