COP S2.4 The Story I Needed to Know
The darkness they carried spread like an infection across the land, town after town falling victim.
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Previously on…
Tass and Lyn come to an agreement that she is willing to listen to the healer’s tale but that she doesn’t agree she’s part of some ancient magical myth. After some prodding, Tass takes her through another portal back to the cabin. Inside they find a healed Steffan, Tass’ uncle and the healer. After Steffan leaves with the uncle, the healer starts his tale from the beginning.
“Long ago, before Magh was one kingdom, an expedition left from the Glittering Isles. They traveled across the Shimmering Sea to the lands beyond.”
“Wait,” I said and held up my hand. “There are no lands beyond. Just mist and well, nothing. It’s the edge of the world.”
Tass scoffed at me and rolled his eyes.
“It is now, but it wasn’t then.” The healer ignored my incredulous look and continued. “Not all of the explorers returned, and those that did were changed. No one noticed at first. Elders, wives, children, husbands, all assumed it was just the long and harsh journey that affected them. That the experience they wouldn’t speak of would eventually be forgotten, or at least lessen in time. It didn’t.” He leaned forward on the table, closer to me. “They got worse. After a few weeks they all left together, refusing to tell anyone why. They wouldn’t even look at their loved ones as they pulled and begged them to stay.” His eyes met mine. “In the middle of the night they returned and slaughtered everyone who didn’t hold some kind of magical power. Those that remained were rounded up and thrown into the elder’s hall. When they were allowed to go free, they had changed as well.”
He sat back, spreading his hands out over the table. “The darkness they carried spread like an infection across the land, town after town falling victim. People fled south, across borders, begging for help. It was Magh, a tiny kingdom in the far south that acted first before the infection reached them. They rounded up the magic users and killed them. For the greater good.” He closed his eyes, letting a moment of silence pass. “Their actions sparked a fever among the other countries who did the same. The spread of darkness slowed, shifted, took aim at those that didn’t purge the magic users. That,” he waggled a finger, “convinced everyone that magic users were the real threat. And the purges began in earnest.”
Sientin had told me the origin of the purges was a mystery, but likely done out of fear. “Now wait. My historian friend traced the purges back to a rebellion within Magh, a couple hundred years ago. And he’s very thorough. Why wouldn’t he find this in his books?”
The healers brow grew heavy. “Because of what happened next. Magh might have been tiny, but its leader, King Torim had great ambition. They also had fewer magic users to begin with so by the time the purges had pushed back the darkness, they were poised to be one of the few who could still mount an army of any size—one that didn’t rely on magic users from the beginning. Torim first made treaties with his neighbors, created a strong political alliance before uniting them all under his reign through marriage and coercion. Then he took over all the land and destroyed all records of what existed before.”
“The history of the Magh kingdom is thousands of years old. It fills the libraries in Isig and Pela. Sientin says the Petera library has ten times as many books.”
“Fabrications.”
I tilted my head. “That’s way too many books to fake. It’d be impossible.”
“Not impossible when you control everything that is written. Much of the history itself is true, but it’s been modified to read as though it was always Magh. Disputes between kingdoms, for example, became disputes between rival cities within Magh. Torim burned the originals after the copies were created. And along with the purges, people allowed themselves to be controlled, limited, out of fear the darkness would return. The king had complete control and created a past that would keep his dynasty in power. Forever.”
I shook my head. The vastness of such an effort seemed beyond comprehension. “Even if that is true, and I’m not saying I believe you, no one is that good. Books must have survived, someone must have kept records of it.”
He gave me a look of pity. It infuriated me.
“I am that record. And others like me. There are also some books, only a few, that hint at the true past. But when you’re indiscriminate, burning every book, scroll, painting, carving—anything that appeared to show something other than the version King Torim wanted, then it is almost a surety the true history won’t be remembered.”
I opened my mouth, but Tass spoke first. “Does this really matter? Books and records? No. Finish the story Asher, don’t let her distract you.”
It was the first time I’d heard a name for the healer and that distracted me from my irritation at Tass’ implication I was trying to distract him. So much mystery about him. I wondered if anything he said was true.
“Of course. What’s important is how they pushed back the darkness and how it still waits for its moment to rise.”
A chill ran through me as he said the words, like something deep inside my mind stirred.
Asher pulled in a long breath, almost as if he were going to break out into song. “While the Magh king purged magic users, he didn’t purge them all. There were a few with specialized knowledge he hid and protected so they’d never come in contact with the infected. With them, he was able to stay ahead of the darkness, ambush the hordes as they moved across the land. And in doing so, he unknowingly setup a kind of protective barrier across most of the country.”
His words made my head spin. “Can’t you just say what he did? You’re talking around and around it but won’t say what happened.”
He stared at me and bit his lip.
“They were portal makers,” Tass said. “He had them create portals all over the land, in strategic places.”
“Portals?” Maybe that explained why they had so many. “But wouldn’t the darkness just use them? To strike back?”
“It can’t,” Asher said. “Something about the portals, the way they’re made, repulses it. That’s what I mean by a barrier. The purges pushed the darkness back, but the portals are what kept it away.”
The more he talked, the more sense some things made but dozens of other questions popped into to my mind too. “Hold on. Then the darkness, the Demeid, or whatever, isn’t something to worry about. It can’t move out of that hole it lives in.”
“I’d hardly call it a hole,” Tass said.
“Metaphorically,” I replied, pushing images of the labyrinth leading to scary dolls and body-slicing pendulums out of my mind. “If it’s trapped there by the portals then what is there to worry about?” My sanity still concerned me, but that didn’t matter to anyone but me.
Asher let out an exasperated sigh. “Because now it’s taking over portal makers. If they make even one portal, it will corrupt all the rest. It will be free again and there will be nothing to stop it.”
A freezing sensation spread from deep in my chest out to the rest of my body. The idea that the darkness I’d sensed at the chamber, and within my own mind before the fryn, could be unleashed on the world, was terrifying. But the fact it could happen by someone making a portal was comforting. The magic needed to create them was long forgotten. At least that’s what Sienten had said. If he’d been wrong about the history, though, he might’ve be wrong about that too. “Who are the portal makers? Does anyone actually know how to make them anymore?”
Tass and Asher exchanged glances. I really hated being the only one in the room who didn’t know what was going on.
“That’s the thing. You are. As is Tass.”
“And you.” It suddenly hit me. He was a senpann. Tass was a senpann. I was a senpann.
Portal makers.
Asher licked his lips. “Yes. But I’m not infected with the Demeid. You both are, and there may be more out there we don’t know about. I’ve heard rumors…” he shook his head as if shedding thoughts.
“Well, I certainly don’t know how to make one. So no need to worry about me!” I leaned forward, not sure how to sort my relief and my worry. “I’d thought the knowledge was lost. My historian friend thinks it has, or at least only the king knows the secret.”
“The king.” Ley’s voice turned heavy, weighed down by layers of worry. “That’s a topic for another day. Let’s just say for now, this current king is an unknown in the context of this story.” He pressed his lips together and held my gaze.
I guessed he was waiting for me to object, to push him on the subject, but all I wanted to know about was what it meant for me to be a portal maker. A tiny spot inside me burned to know how to do it, to create instant pathways between places. The idea of them had always fascinated me, but I had assumed that was because they were a mystery, something that needed to be found out, something I might find when no one else could.
When I didn’t question him, he continued, “What matters is that neither of you ever makes one, even if you learn the secret. Even the fryn with you wouldn’t be able to hold back that power once it is unleashed. It would consume you, then make its way across the land with no resistance, infesting those with magic and killing everyone else. Everyone.”
“Another purge,” Tass said.
He was right. A purge of non-magic users. Sienten estimated that more than half of those born since the end of the last purge didn’t have though the number would decrease over time. I couldn’t imagine what an empty world that would be, if they were all murdered.
Asher and Tass disappeared. The table and chair vanished.
Next episode on Saturday February 1, 2024.
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