Soulforge Legacy Series

I ignored the priest and his insistence that I talk to this person or that one. My feet carried me across the room toward two of the five humans I could see in this room. Of those, the old woman was the first to glance in my direction before returning to what she was doing.

Still, something about the way her face tilted, or was it the deepening of the lines by her eyes caught my attention. Whatever it was, I could almost tell that even in this place, she was finding reasons to smile.

“Oh dear, it is nice to see you doing so well.” Her words caused the man next to her to shake his head as he looked up from the grill. His eyes look at her before glancing my way.

Almost as soon as his eyes found mine, a spark of recognition twinkled in his gaze. Unfortunately for them both, I was certain that they were both mistaking me for someone else.

I rushed to correct the two of them before either could say something they could possibly regret. “I am not who you think I am.”

While the old man scoffed, the old woman let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh coupled with a single word. “Right!”

“What the cantankerous old woman…” he started only to be forced to stop when she elbowed him in the ribs hard enough to cause him to wince and cough.

“I’ll show you cantankerous you old coot.”

“Next to me means is that we do remember you.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just been interrupted.

I shook my head but decided to play along, even if just for a few minutes. “How?”

“You think that we survived to be this old simply by depending on luck or playing it safe?” The knife in the old woman’s hand twirled around before stopping to point at me. “This man has always had the bad habit of getting us into trouble. Sometimes he just did stupid things. There was this one time that he accepted a dare to run through a spider nest hidden deep in a cave – naked.”

“Oi,” he smacked her knife to the side with his tongs. “It worked out, didn’t it.”

“Only because B’lin convinced the rest of us to go in after you!” Her voice rose to be heard over the machine fast sound of metal hitting metal. While I knew that they were likely the two tools, I couldn’t see either of them.

The sound only stopped when he shifted to the side and moved to flip a few pieces of meat on the far side of the grill. “I would have been fine.”

I tried to direct them back to my question, but neither of them heard me as the old woman smashed the flat of her blade against some garlic. “Sure, if the nest was small, but that damned thing practically filled the cave.” Another garlic met its fate at her hand as she continued. A cave that, need I remind you, was nearly as large as this city.”

Holy fuck, that was one hell of a nest. The spider cave we had just dealt with was maybe the size of a block, maybe two. That was it.

“Okay,” he seemed to give into her words. “I have to admit that the nest was a fair bit larger than I had expected. But I blame that on the people who let it get that large in the first place. I mean, who in their right mind allows a colony of those buggers to get large enough for the queen to start altering her children. Especially as she made them fucking fireproof.”

Giving up on my question, I tried to get another one in. This time along the thread they seemed to be bent on keeping going. “So, how did you kill them?”

“The old-fashioned way dearie.” The old woman spoke softly, as if I were a child.

“What she means is we smashed, slashed, and bashed the buggers.” His grin forced creases to distort part of his face and stretch others.

“It was a bloody mess was what it was.” He hand stilled as a shudder rippled up her arm. “Spider blood and guts everywhere.” Her voice gained some strength as she practically spat the next part. “Worst part was that we didn’t even get paid for the work.”

“Maybe for you, for me I was more angry over the fact that I lost that bet.” His voice was a bit mournful at that fact than anything else. They both continued to work in silence for a beat before he looked at me. “Now, what was your question again?”

“How do you two know me?”

“Oh, that’s right. He nodded but the old woman interrupted him. “As I was saying, it isn’t just luck or playing it safe that allowed us to reach old age. We have a few skills that help us. Namely spotting various things. The relevant skill here is the one that allows us to see souls.”

Without so much as a hint or warning, the old man’s voice took on the qualities of a storyteller. “To gaze into the twilight of existence and behold the Spectral Tapestry – a swirling carnival of light and echoes. Where souls pirouette like errant fireflies. See through the jumbled prism of life’s nonsense. Witness the fractured dreams and whispered riddles tangled in the cosmic giggle.”

The words were nonsense, yet I couldn’t seem to break myself from them. Each word held weight yet were meaningless. Almost like the entire statement itself was a spell. One that would only make sense if you had first hand knowledge of the spell itself.

Or maybe it was the translation system having trouble with whatever language they were using. Sure, the system was fairly good, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen with the less used languages. Or, if I had to guess the case here, the more esoteric ones.

“Each soul a patchwork of ancient and modern lullabies intermixed with the absurd laughter of forgotten stars. All of which dance upon the edge of reality. On the edge of life and death. Where madness meets sanity. Where the chaotic symphony of life meets the melodic serenade of fleeting shadows. Where even the logic of time and space is laid bare. This is the curse and blessing of those that see beyond.”

“And thank you for reading that stupid skills description for everyone to hear.” The old woman growled as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “It gives me a fucking headache every time I head the damned thing.” Her words gave me pause. Mostly because it was a really weird description. Almost as though the system itself had a mental breakdown as it was generated.

“So you can see souls?” I asked as I tried to get a handle on what they were saying and how they had used it to recognize me.

“Sort of.” She winced a little. “We can see parts of a soul, but not the whole thing.”

“Seeing so much tend to make those that see them go insane.” The old man helpfully chimed in.

“But that little bit that we can see tends to be enough to see just a bit of what makes a person tick.”

“And what did you see when you saw me?” I was both curious and afraid of what they would say.

“That you…” the old man started to say only for the old man to let the knife drop as her body blurred toward him.

Just in time to slam a hand over his mouth and stop him as she let out a little growl. “That is something we cannot tell you.”

“Why? Is it a limitation of the skill or something else?”

“Nothing like that. Just that, every time we have told a person about themselves, they went a bit insane before getting themselves killed. Typically while taking quite a few people down with themselves.” Suddenly she yanked her hand away from the man’s mouth. “Keep your tongue to yourself you old perv.”

“That’s not what you said to me last night.” EWW, old people flirting. “And what Zelonda did was not your fault.”

“I never said it was.”

“You didn’t have to.” The old man’s hands flew over the grill as he shifted, turned, and replaced various pieces of meat.

As soon as he finished moving them, a little kid with floppy dog ears ran over and picked up the plate. His steps slowed as he made his way to a woman who looked to be his mother. The kid placed it down before running off to play with a few other kids while she got to plating everything.

“Anyway,” the old woman returned to her cutting board as she tried to force the subject to change. “We can tell who you are based on the bits of your soul that we can see.”

“And what a beautiful soul it is. Even if it is a bit tainted…”

“Whose isn’t”

“Ithilwen’s wasn’t.”

“She was, is, an elven priestess. Of course her soul was pure.”

“It was a sight to behold.”

“Her body or her soul?”

“Both.” The old man realized what he said too late. Still, he tried to quickly backtrack his words. “But her body has nothing on yours my dear.” Her eyes narrowed on him as if she was debating whether or not to punish him.

Either she decided to let him go, or she was going to get him back later because she turned to speak to me. “Still, a soul like yours is quite memorable.” She answered my question before I could even think to ask. “And it isn’t just you. All of you travelers are not from our planet, or our little universe really.” She waved off what had to be shock on my face. “Planetary travel isn’t something that is limited to the gods or even the demons. There are stories of travel between the various worlds. Trade and exploration undertaken by various groups.”

“I still remember the day we left for our little escapade to that plant planet.” The voice grew a bit somber at some memory. “That was back when the demons were first setting up on that planet.” Grief tinged his words. Anger and tension filled the air. “So many good people were killed. Butchered by those monsters.”

“That was the day we lost nearly everything.” That made no sense. Not about the fact that they lost so much, but about just how powerful such a trip would have required them to be. For them to be able to make it to the next planet with only what you could bring with you was unthinkable to me. “The kingdom’s only princess was with us that day…”

The old man’s voice quivered as he whispered a name. “Elinora.”

“She was only supposed to be there to get a bit of field experience before being accepted as the crown princess and getting married. She wasn’t even supposed to be near any of the fighting. Our entire parties job was to protect her. Not the caravan. Not the explorers. Her.”

A fist slammed into the counter. “Yet she went and that damned spell. Spending her life like it was nothing to open up a path for us to get away.” At this point the entire room had gone silent. I was pretty sure that if I turned around, every eye would be riveted to the two of them. “I would have been more than willing to cast the spell if she had just given me the chance.”

“Once she started, there was nothing any of us could have done to stop her. Even the king and the royal inquisitors admitted that there was nothing we could have done.” Her hand slowly but steadily lowered to the counter before she released the knife from her clenched fist.

“Even if we were absolved of all wrongdoing, pardoned for our failures, we willingly subjected ourselves to having our power pulled from us. Our circuits burned out until they were little more than shells of their former glory.” A bead of sweat dripped down the mans face as a small flicker of flame sparked above his finger.

The old woman took a deep breath before forcing herself to continue. “It was then that we got a good look at the souls of beings that interacted with a different version of the system. That knowledge has kept me occupied for the last half century as I looked for other ways the system can be accessed.”

While I felt horrible for this, I had to ask. “But what does this have to do with me or the rest of the travelers.”

She shook her head. “It was that research that allowed me to see how new the system is to your souls. How little time it has to integrate itself. The lack of the little connections they make with us and those around us.”

Something she saw caught her attention. “What do you know about mates?” Her sudden shift in topic riveled the shock that went through me at the mention of the topic.

Not knowing what else to say, I answered with the truth. “Not much, just that I have one out there.”

“You do.” The noise around us picked up as she nodded, confirming what Inari had hinted at. Which I was a bit excited at the prospect of such a person, I also feared ever meeting them. What if they didn’t like me? Just because we were fated to be together didn’t mean that we would mesh well. In fact, I almost wanted to avoid them altogether. “While there is a connection, the section tying it to you is faint, almost non-existent. As if the bond is there, waiting for an answer from you to solidify.”

Her eyes locked onto mine. Holding me there as if she was making sure I understood her next words. “Just know that even if there is a bond, that does not mean you have to accept them. No matter what biology, fate, or even the gods say, the choice is yours and yours alone.”

Which meant that it was possible to avoid the person. After all, if one could reject their mate, that meant that fate couldn’t just force two people to meet.

Her body stiffened just as an impossibly familiar scent reached my nose. A combination of fur and wet earth. The wild mixed with the smell of a campfire. Each twirling around and through each other in such a way that I could almost see an image of a cabin in the middle of the woods.

It was a scent that I had only smelled once before.

Fearing that I would find the demon behind me, I spun around to find someone that was almost as unwelcome.