Perception (Book 7) | Chapter 01 - What Year is it...? (Patreon)

(The following is the very rough first draft for a new novel I'm working on. It follows the life of Eric Linnaeus, from the Eric Linnaeus Bo

(The following is the very rough first draft for a new novel I'm working on. It follows the life of Eric Linnaeus, from the Eric Linnaeus Book Series, if his life had been slightly different. This is a dark fantasy series and it will hurt you good >:}

Nathaniel begins his search for Eiríkr in Maine...

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ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕦𝕖: 

War is ugly. It strips life from the world and leaves behind deep scars as a reminder of the loss. Mercury Linnaeus began the war with his desire to rule over all life. He saw us as competition, he wanted our lands and feared the Fae would command human worship. It was a ridiculous assumption. Fae care nothing for humans, they are little more than livestock and incubators to us.

If he had left our lands well enough alone we wouldn’t have stood in his way, yet he sought to destroy us all the same, and if it weren’t for his own son, Eiríkr, he might well have succeeded. The boy helped us, and Mercury was defeated though not without cost. Vanir and Fae alike fell in the battle.

Blood stained the streets in a crimson wash of violence. Buildings crumbled, destroyed under the weight of opposing magics and the castle of Leúchtend was no more. Hundreds lost their lives in the pointless fighting. A reasonable person might learn from this tragedy, accept fate as it is and live on with more wisdom. But I am not a reasonable person. 

The battle of Leúchtend took something from me, and I want it back.

-Nathaniel Klein.

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟙: 𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕐𝕖𝕒𝕣 𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕥...?

The earthy scent of crushed leaves and damp moss permeated the air as I travelled up the mountain side. Birch trees shaded the ground, keeping the harsh glare of the sun off my back and casting a dapple light across the forest floor. It was warm enough that I had forsaken my coat and rolled the sleeves of my shirt up to the elbows.

A gentle breeze stirred the leaves overhead, and the sunlight glittered off individual strands of white hair between the patches of light. I squinted, pushing my hair back with an irritated scoff. Fae aren’t made to walk about in the sun like this and the reflection hurt my eyes. 

I had navigated through the woods for days. Alone in the wilderness, I carried with me only what I had arrived with: the things I had been wearing or holding at the time of activation that came with me through the spell. There was nothing for me at Leúchtend. The ruins had been abandoned long before I arrived. 

Once fine marble towers were reduced to crumbling ruins. Chunks of rubble lay silent and scattered, taken over by fresh vegetation. I tried not to think about what that could mean. I had left the battle that ruined the castle, and arrived to find overgrown ruins. Had the spell not worked as intended…? Had I been thrown forward in time instead of back?

I grimaced, if that was the case there was no hope…

The world is so eerily quiet now that I wonder if I’m perhaps the only living thing remaining. Even the birds are quiet, and everywhere I look the aftermath is plain to see. The forest floor is scarred. Mottled and lumpy with divots of churned earth, it makes walking difficult. 

Lush greenery grows around piles of stark white bones, thick and untouched. The mosses have reclaimed much of what remains, and devoured the silver shine of armor. Broken weapons lay among the dirt, covered over by seasons of weather and lost to nature. 

It had taken me some days to recover from activating Eiríkr’s spell runes. Exhaustion brought on a fever that burned from the inside and I drifted between living and not until it broke. Even now my energy is still unstable. The nausea won’t leave me and my muscles are fatigued.

I stopped to rest beside a small glacial stream, its bubbling trickle was almost a comfort among the otherwise silent land. Golden sunlight glinted off the silver metal of my sword as I unclipped it from my back. I laid it across my lap as I leaned forward.

If I had any emotion left, perhaps I could have cried. I certainly wanted to. It had become apparent that I had made a mistake. Terrible things happen to those who dare bend time, to the few foolish enough to even try. Scholars would say we don’t understand if the concept of time is correct, or how it changes… But I would say, I don’t care.

The world could end for all it mattered to me, so long as the outcome was different. So long as Eiríkr lived. I paused with the idea as memories came back to me. The way his ocean blue eyes sparkled under dim lighting, the soft flush in his cheeks when he was embarrassed. How his sharp tongue twisted ordinary words into lashing insults while his hugs brought comforting warmth.

He was kind and gentle. His heart must have been breaking to fight his family, to face his father and his cousins. The stupid little brat had done it to protect me, given all his power so that I would survive and now here I was without him. I thought the seiðr he had written would reverse time.

But it seems I was wrong.

I’ve met no Fae or Vanir, nor even a human in the time I’ve travelled. Perhaps the runes weren’t meant for me to activate. Maybe they were a curse, some last effort to contain Mercury or maybe I had died and not realised it yet. I suppose it didn’t matter… All that it meant was that it didn’t work, and I would never see Eiríkr again.

My chest tightened with the thought and I swallowed hard. That couldn’t be. Not because it was unrealistic, but because if it were true I couldn’t bear it. I would forsake everything, give anything to any number of deities real or imagined, just for him to live again. He deserved so much better than to die the way he did.

As I thought, I fiddled with the onyx bead bracelet tied around my wrist. Eiríkr had put it there when he tricked me in Maine. He’d tied it carelessly with a sly smile that made my blood boil, and maybe it meant nothing to him at the time, but I hadn’t taken it off since. 

It was the only gift anyone had given me in too long to remember and I intended to wear it until it broke. Back then I almost hoped the leather would wear out fast. I wanted to be free of his stupid games. Now I tended to it as if it were a damn lifeline. The idea that it might break and I would lose the beads was akin to losing the last of Eiríkr. 

Taking a deeper breath in, I pushed the past from my mind. I wasn’t ready to give up yet. If Leúchtend was gone, perhaps our sister castle Dunkel remained. The Vanir had taken it over the last time, and I hoped I might find some answers. If nothing else, I just needed to know what year it was.

I continued on until the sun touched the tree tops. A glint of golden fur through the trees caught my attention and I approached to find a small herd of Vanir boars. Their massive bodies lumbered through the trees as they grazed. Snuffling the ground and pushing the dirt up as they foraged.

None had any Vanir riding gear, nor any charms in their manes. They weren’t owned, but wild roaming. That wasn’t something that should have been allowed. It violated the Great Laws, and treaty terms… Moreover, if my family was still in control of this area they would never have permitted such a thing.

Disappointed, I turned away, best not to disturb the creatures. 

I walked from the forest and turned left to step onto a man-made road. Asphalt crumbled at the edges and undisturbed leaves littered the way as far as the road stretched. Nothing had traveled this way for some time. Looking up the length of it I made the decision to follow the path and began walking. Finding a human township might be helpful, and I was getting hungry.

The road seemed to elongate, spanning impossibly longer with every step until the sky dimmed and nightfall overtook the landscape. I should have stopped and made camp for the night, but I felt some kind of strange compulsion to continue on. As if something were calling me, until the faint twinkle of artificial light appeared in the distance.

Through the exhaustion it took me far too long to understand. I had reached the black hole in Maine. 

*** 

I walked into the township following the main road. One slow traffic light blinked out of time on the corner, and the streets were devoid of activity. Shops were closed with windows boarded over and an empty silence haunted the buildings. It wasn’t late enough that I thought it should be this desolate. Rather, it was as if all the towns folk had abandoned the town.

The idea slowed my steps to a stop. This was Eiríkr’s town, the place he ran to when he wanted to avoid his family, and for it to be like this… I exhaled the anxiety. His mansion wasn’t far, and if he was going to be anywhere, that was a good place to look. I moved to turn when a fractional sound of a boot on gravel alerted me to the presence of another. 

“Don’t you fucking move or I’ll shoot, Fae bastard,” the threat came from a voice too high pitched to be intimidating, and I turned back only out of arbitrary curiosity.

Standing before me was a young human boy. His floppy brown hair gave him away and my heart leapt, Charles. The rate at which humans mature is difficult to pinpoint, and I had never been aware of his exact age before except to say that he was a full grown adult. Now, he was an adolescent, one or perhaps two decades younger.

His head was almost level with my shoulders and he glared up with steel gray eyes that denoted hatred. He had a long bolt-action rifle with the barrel directed toward my head. His knuckles were white from the death grip he held it with, and perspiration dampened his hairline. He was just as nervous as always.

“Put that down before you hurt yourself-” I stopped as he fired a shot. 

The bullet scorched my cheek, and the recoil threw the boy to the ground. Lucky his aim was poor. Charles scrambled to get back on his feet and reload as I processed his audacity. He hadn’t dared shoot at me when he was grown.

“Enough, drop the gun, Charles,” I ordered sternly and he scowled as his hands involuntarily allowed the gun to drop.

“H-how do you know my name?” he growled through clenched teeth.

I crouched and he flinched back, “Never mind that, where is Eiríkr?”

“W-Who?” he stammered confused.

Did he not know him by that name yet? “Mercurissen,” I clarified. 

The child glowered up at me without any spark of recognition for either of Eiríkr’s names and my hope drained. What had the older Charles said? That he’d ‘known Eiríkr since he was a child’? If that was the case, this one should have known him… I stalled as my mind raced to catch up. 

I was in the past, but I was in a different past from the one I knew. Was that possible? I hadn’t thought about it before. Moreover, if it was different, what had changed? Did Eiríkr even exist in this timeline? Given that Leúchtned was destroyed, perhaps the Fae had already fought the Vanir, and if that was the case, who won?

Doubt trickled into my veins like ice water. What if I was stuck here without him forever? A battle cry from the edge of the forest interrupted my speculation as a small skinny girl burst from the tree line. She ran at me with a knife, and I was too dumbfounded to so much as move. The knife sank into my side up to the hilt. 

It was a short blade that left a superficial cut through nothing of importance, but it still hurt. The impudence of these human children. One shot at me, the other stabbed me, who raised them? When I didn’t react the girl released the knife and fell back of her own accord. Her wide gray eyes fixated on the wound with abstract horror as I pulled the blade from it. 

Small steel knives are severely ineffective against Fae, the iron is too refined, anyone with even a day’s training would have known that. “If you two are done playing stupid games,” I began with forced calm, “Would one of you like to explain what happened here? Where are your caretakers?” 

Both stared like gaping fish, and I sighed, pinching my brow. I strongly dislike children for the simple fact that they are limited in their intellectual capacity in a way that provokes extreme irritation. “Charles, Answer me.” I ordered, choosing the older of them to explain.

“The Vanir came, they killed our parents… “ Charles began quietly, “And the town was destroyed… No one is here anymore…”

“How did you survive?” 

“...One of them let us go…” Claire murmured.

Eiríkr, I thought, there was no doubt in my mind, “Where did the one that spared you go?”

“We never saw him again…”

“Did he say anything to you before he left?” 

They shook their heads and exhaled to control the irritation, these little creatures were useless. I stood without another word. I could still check the mansion. It was unlikely that Eiríkr would be there, but maybe there would be some clue as to where he was. 

I ignored the other uncomfortable thought that pressed at the edges of my mind– If my vanir was the one to save these children, why would he leave them all alone like this? He wasn’t the kind of person to abandon them… did that mean something had happened to him that prevented him from returning?

The quiet shuffle of little footsteps followed me as I travelled up the road toward the mansion and two dirty malnourished humans trailed after me. “Don’t follow me,” I muttered. Human children are like ducklings, they follow anything when they’re left alone for too long.

They stopped obediently a few steps back and I cursed myself internally. Could I really leave them? Ordinarily, perhaps. They weren’t even worthwhile as snacks, but they were something Eiríkr had cared about… Would he hate me to know I left them? What would I even do with them?

Begrudgingly, I slowed, “Nevermind. You can come, but keep up.”

***

Eiríkr’s mansion was set on the edge of town down the end of a long winding road. Almost hidden among the trees it came into view around a bend and my hope dwindled. The building was long abandoned. The preservation runes surrounding it had worn away, leaving the wooden steps damp with mold and rotted through. 

Part of the ceiling had collapsed under the weight of tree debris, leaving a gaping hole that dripped moisture into the interior. I treaded lightly as I made my way upstairs, “Eiríkr?” I called despite myself. 

Unsurprisingly there was no answer, and I paused as I reached the door to what was once his room. It hung loose. The top hinge had pulled free of the frame, but the door had caught on the lower hinge and the floor. Inside was a satisfying mess of decayed bedding and broken furniture. If he had ever lived here, it must have been many decades prior.

I let out the hope filled breath I’d been holding and slouched against the doorframe. Dull pain tightened my chest and the briny taste of sorrow coated the back of my throat. What if I never found him? What if he was nowhere to be found? I closed my eyes and swallowed the doubt. It didn’t matter… I had to keep searching.

When I returned to the humans they were waiting at the base of the steps. They looked up as I approached and I beckoned them without a word. We would need to find shelter and I would have to provide them with some kind of food. 

Having them with me forced me to care for them, and myself. I hadn’t realised how long it had been since I last ate, and as I sat beside the small fire roasting deer meat over the flames, the hunger hit all at once. I’d been too busy trying to find Eiríkr that I hadn’t stopped to eat until I was forced to for someone else.

I fed them, and myself, slowly. The pair of them were dirty and malnourished. Their clothes were dirty, torn with dried mud caked into the fibres. They smelt damp, like wet dog, and as I watched them I wondered…

“How long have you been here alone?” I asked at last.

“I don’t know… a while…” Charles answered quietly.

“How did you survive?”

“We’ve been living near the supermarket, the fridges don’t work, but there was lots of canned food.”

“And we planted some of the vegetables,” Claire added proudly. 

Smart kids, “How did you survive the monsters?” I mused, curious.

“... If we heard anything, we just hid…”

“Why did you approach me then?” I muttered indignantly. My side still hurt and the blood had stained my shirt. 

Charles fidgeted and Claire looked away, but neither answered.

“Well?” I demanded. 

“I thought it would be easy to kill you…” Charles admitted with hesitance. 

“Foolish. Fae aren’t that easy to kill.”

“I thought you seemed nice,” Claire added quieter and I gave a humorless laugh.

“Hardly.”

“Well… you didn’t kill us so…” she pointed out.

“As a favour to a friend. That’s all.”

“How did you know our names?” Charles asked again.

“It was a lucky guess. Now finish eating and sleep,” I dismissed them. If they were going to come with me, we would have a long way to travel.

The pair of them curled up together against a log beside the fire, and I laid back to watch the stars. Dunkel was at least a week away, maybe longer now that I had burdens, and there was no telling what I would find at Dunkel. 

Maybe the castle would be just as desolate as this town, or in ruins like Leúchtend. Perhaps the Vanir now ruled the realm. For all I knew, I might have been the only living Fae left. These two were the only humans I had come across, and Vanir boars roamed the forests freely. How many things had changed? Moreover, what had changed them? And what would I do if I couldn’t find Eiríkr…?

(A/N: Maine - 1983.)

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