The First Alex THE FIRST ALEX By Gregory Allen, May 2005 There would be no escape for him now. If he attempted to leave the circle, he would quickly be torn to pieces by the creatures. He had scarcely proven himself more than a match for one of the beasts, and, now, he faced the prospect of facing dozens of the things Eventually, he would starve or bleed to death, but he was certain that neither the creatures, nor their master that sent them, would allow him to live that long. There was nothing to do now but wait. Alex limped painfully back to the center of the circle, blood leaking from a number of ugly wounds on his leg and back. Dressing the wounds seemed futile in the little time he had left. Rather, he chose to use his few remaining minutes to prepare for his death. At the center of the site, he paused once again to consider the large flat stone that occupied the central position. On it, was carved a single, unusual character, three concentric circles, the same as that engraved into the hilt of his sword. In the past, he had consulted those reputed to have knowledge and wisdom about the mysteries of the world. He had never received any satisfactory answer concerning the origin of such writing, at least, not any answer that made any sense. One very old black slave had claimed to have seen similar such writings in a far, desert land, where the people dwelt near large, triangular monuments of limestone. All other answers were absurd mixtures ranging from the writings of gods to emblems of evil. He sat by the stone with difficulty, his muscles stiffening rapidly under the drying blood. He reached inside of his worn leathers and removed a circular, silver object, much worn by handling. He carefully turned the familiar object over in his hands, looking at the item, but not seeing it; his mind reviewing all his memories that the object represented. He pressed the release button on the side of the disk and opened it. Inside, he could see the image of his beloved, replicated in faithful relief, the eyes ever looking into his, no matter at what angle he held it. He never knew by what craft she had made it. She had always playfully avoided his inquiries as to its manufacture. It was one of the few good memories that caused him to regret this end. His first memory was of heat and fire, frantic hands pushing his small body through a tiny opening in the wall. The faces were no longer clear in the progression of age and time; he could only remember them as framed silhouettes against the raging flames behind them. He had tumbled out, into the cold snow, clad only in his thin nightshirt. He had sat shivering as he watched the hungry flames rapidly consume his home and whom he guessed had been his parents. He was found some hours later, sobbing in the snow, and was taken to the town�s patriarchs. In their wisdom, they gave him to a woman with less than a dubious claim and even more suspect character. None other was willing to claim guardianship, so Alex was given to the woman to raise as her own. The woman proved to be a slovenly prostitute and despised by even the other bottom-feeders of humanity. By the time he was seven summers old, he was turned out into the streets by the ill-tempered slut for consuming food and refusing the attentions of her more impoverished clients. � He learned to survive by becoming invisible, living in holes dug in hidden corners in the village, feeding on refuse piles and drinking collected rainwater. He became indiscernible as a human being to the townspeople. His treatment more fitted that of a wild animal. Whenever he was seen, they would chase him away with shouted threats of violence or hails of thrown stones. When he was in his tenth summer, he made the discovery that would change his life. He found it digging a new hole by the corner stone of a church, figuring that the location would be somewhat safer for him there. About three feet under the surface, hidden between stones in the foundation of the building, he found what looked to be a sword. It had the shape and size of the weapons he had seen many of the men carrying, but instead of being shiny and sharp, it seemed to be made of some sort of wood, being dull and brown with circles carved on it. He could not read, but he recognized that this symbol was different than those used by the townspeople. Determining that the sword did not have a practical use, he reasoned that he could exchange it for a few coins with a merchant or guardsman. He hid the weapon under a thin layer of dirt in his new subterranean home. It was only days later when he was being pursued again. This pursuer was more determined than the others, having unsuccessfully stalked Alex before. The young boy could not evade his hunter and was soon cornered near the church. With no where else to run, Alex crawled into his new hole, dug out and clutched his newly found weapon, and sat apprehensively, waiting for the man to go away. Not easily discouraged, his pursuer groped into the hole, and grunted with satisfaction as he was able to grasp a handful of Alex�s hair and pulled the terrified boy from the hole. Alex struggled to escape, but the man was too strong. The man grew impatient with the struggling child and hit him with a calloused fist, sending Alex sprawling in the dirt. Alex fought through the dizziness and nausea and got to his knees, still clutching his sword. The attacker the saw the sword, whose only response was to bellow with laughter. �Well, well, lookie here, the boy has a toy sword,� his attacker sneered, � I�ll show you what a real sword looks like!� and proceeded to loosen his trousers with his free hand. �Anger and disgust welled up in the young boy and his grip tightened on the wooden sword. As the man lunged forward, Alex brought the point of the weapon up. Unable to check his forward motion in time, the man impaled himself on the brown blade. Surprise marked his features as he made a wet, gurgling noise and fell to the ground. Terrified that the man would get up and come after him, Alex scurried to the trees and hid among the concealing branches. Alex watched for a long time before he became confident enough that the man was probably dead. Alex approached the body carefully, but the man�s staring eyes never changed. He stood over the body for a long time, knowing that things would be different from then on. He could now protect himself. �He hid the body and hid his new possession. He practiced in secret, imitating motions he had seen others use, but mostly following his own instincts. He grew stronger and more confident as his skill increased. He was not proficient by any definition, but he no longer feared to walk the streets. When he was 15, he killed his second man, this time for money. A group of merchants, that were being extorted by a local street thugs, quietly offered gold in exchange for a solution for their problem. The bully had resisted Alex�s suggestion to relocate. In the end, Alex had no choice of action. The few coins he received did not make him feel guilty. Some people deserved to die. The gold was useful. The boy, who was rapidly growing into a man, used his small bounty to secure lessons in swordsmanship. The instructor was impatient and harsh, but Alex was able to gain a considerable knowledge of weapons and tactics. One day, after an exercise in fighting multiple opponents, in which Alex had proven equal to three of the favored students in the school, the instructor had had him thrown out. Alex was only too happy to be gone from to be rid of the illiterate tyrant. Over time, he made use of his hard acquired skills. Soon his services were in high demand. He became known as a mercenary that could be trusted and his unusual skill with the strange blade. Success gave him access to books and knowledge. He learned to read from a serving wench, whose talent was not limited to academics. He also had access to scholars, hired to teach the progeny of his employers. Nowhere could he find any reference to the strange symbol on his sword. It seemed it would forever remain a mystery. �It was on the way to another rich patron who would pay him yet another sack of gold that his life changed again. He was traveling through an insignificant village, similar to one he grew up in. There was no gold to be made in a place like this, he was merely passing through to re-provision and to sample the local wenches, who were inevitably drawn to his name and money. He stopped in a local herb shop to purchase balms that were useful in the treatment of wounds. He beheld the young proprietress and knew instantly that he never would leave again. They were soon wed and prepared to live out their lives together. But, soon, the changes came to them. Latent and slower the change was in him, but the change in her was soon apparent. They soon realized that the herbs that passed through her hands would actually possess the healing powers that the na�ve and superstitious thought they would. As word spread of the special qualities of the herbs from their shop, business flourished. Soon, Alex was able to give up his travels and dangerous occupation and become a successful merchant. In a just and merciful world, their story would have ended there. His happiness came to an abrupt end. One day, while he was doing the shopping, he heard and felt her cry from across the square. His chest heavy with dread, he dropped his purchases and rushed to their home. Pushing his way through an already gathering throng of gawkers, he found her lying on the floor, her life blood draining out through a wound in her side. Knowing that there was nothing that could be done to save her, he held her in his arms, felt the last touch of her hand on his cheek, before her eyes went dark and his life and his hope were gone. He buried her the next day. He sold the shop to a sweaty, greedy merchant, who had long had his covetous eye on the business. Alex did not see the need to inform the buyer that the herbs would no longer have their potency. Two things only did he take from their former home; his brown sword and the silver disk that the held now. Supplied with the gold from the sale of the shop and his weapon of vengeance, he had set out in search of her killer. Through bribery or his sometimes menacing questioning, he was able to track her killer, a pinch-faced, scrawny little murderer, to a town a weeks travel from his village. The information was that the pinch-faced man lived in the complex of a wealthy nobleman and seemed to be in his employ. With stealth and patience, Alex was able to gain entry into the palace without being detected by the numerous guards. He made his way toward what he determined to be the center of the building and the place most likely to find the owner of the premises. His plan was to force the nobleman, if that what he was, to reveal the whereabouts of the pinch-faced man. Luck was with Alex. He found the pinch-faced man and an ornately dressed man of middle years, who could only be the nobleman, alone in the large central chamber. He saw that they were not quite alone. The pinch-faced man was bent over a bound, naked young girl and was enthusiastically administering loving attention to the girl�s body with a large, ugly looking knife, her screams punctuating his performance. Judging from the look of ecstasy and the movement of his arm in his lap, the nobleman was getting a great deal of pleasure from the display. Sickened by the display of perversion, Alex moved into the room to dispatch these deviants before any alarm could be raised. As he entered the room, both looked at him and Alex stopped, startled by what he saw. The faces of the two men seemed to be transparent, the human features merely gauzy covering for the strange faces beneath. These faces were like none Alex had ever seen before, with narrow, slanted eyes with cat-like pupils; a large, flared, wrinkled snout; a forked, red tongue that slithered out between rows of long, sharp teeth; a pointed, almost triangular chin and scaly, reptilian hide. As Alex looked, the rest of their bodies resolved into nightmares of adulterated body parts. The torsos appeared human-like except for the powerful, furred arms and clawed four-fingered hands. Their legs were jointed and covered in curly fur like jackals with cloven feet. Alex had never even heard of such creatures except for the demented rantings of a defrocked priest some years ago. The madman had claimed that these creatures were servants of evil and that they must be stopped. The man had gathered a small following until he and his supporters had been put to death. Alex shook off his astonishment and strode toward the creature that had the appellation of the pinch-faced man. The thing backed away, exclaiming �he can SEE us!�. The pinch-faced man-creature raised its hand. A ball of red fire formed in its palm, clearly some form of attack. Alex quickly closed the gap between them and buried his sword in the thing�s chest. The creature roared in pain and collapsed into a twitching mass of mismatched body parts as Alex pulled the blade with a now numbed hand. As the foul-smelling body excrements seeped onto the tiled floor, Alex turned his attention to the beast the bore the resemblance to a nobleman. Alex was surprised that the thing seemed to have enjoyed the engagement. �So, it appears that your little bitch wasn�t the only one with talent,� it said, smiling.� Strange, we did not anticipate that.� The thing shrugged, �a minor miscalculation, easily corrected.� Its eyes narrowed as it lifted its hand, a similar ball of boiling, red flame forming there. It threw the ball in Alex�s direction. Alex didn�t know what the ball was, but was quite sure he did not want that thing touching him in any way. Instead of dodging the flame, as might be expected, Alex ran towards it, rolling forward under the flame, coming out of the motion smoothly and planting his blade in the chest of his opponent. The thing looked momentarily surprised, but recovered quickly, clawing at Alex and then trying to pull the blade from its body. Unable to do so, it gave up that tactic, and grasped the blade, seeming to concentrate. Alex felt chilling cold coming from his sword. He tried to release the hilt, but his numb arm would not respond to his will. The cold crept up his arm, into his body, numbing as it went. The cold had a willful malice and Alex realized that the creature was trying to enter into his body. It crept into his mind, explored his memories, gleefully enjoying his greatest moments of sorrow. One by one, the thing dined on the sorrows of his life while Alex felt helpless to prevent the violation. It laughed at the poor, abandoned child living in the street living on garbage and rainwater. It gently caressed the memory of Alex the child�s seeming endless violations of his body by drunken and deviant townsmen. It embraced the thoughts of his dying friends to arbitrary chance from being a professional soldier. It rejoiced at the site of his lackey�s handiwork and his beloved Sophia�s murder. The memory of Sophia gave focus to Alex�s mind and steel to his will. He began to force back the invasion of the beast. Memory by memory, he reclaimed them as his own. Inch by inch, he forced the onslaught back down his arm, into his hand, and back down the blade. The creature resisted, but Alex�s will was too strong. Alex�s hate was not born of greed and jealousy, but of cherished things lost, and emotion unfathomable to the creature. Alex forced the creature back into its body, and held it there. The creature struggled and flailed, but there was no where to go as its host body died. It finally passed away, the demonic visage fading, leaving only a dead human body impaled on his blade. Alex withdrew his sword, letting the body fall to the ground. He remembered the unfortunate young girl, but found that she had already mercifully passed on. He cut her bonds and covered her with the cloak from the body of the now, only human-appearing, pinch-faced man. Alex heard a loud gasp and looked up to see a woman in servants garb. Her eyes were wide with fear as she surveyed the chamber. Her lord and two of his servants were dead, there was blood everywhere, and a big fierce-looking man was holding a bloody sword. She turned and ran from the room. Alex hid his sword under the cloak covering the dead girl, picked her up and left the way he came. He was able to walk right out of the building amid the confusion. Nobody thought to stop someone carrying an injured girl. He buried the girl in a forest clearing some miles away. He did not know her name, so could only mark her grave with a symbol of a cross, guessing this was her faith, based on the religious jewelry she wore. He sat next to the grave, considering what to do next. He had revenged himself on his wife�s killer. The words of the raving ex-priest echoed in his head speaking of more of the creatures and their penetration into society. Alex determined that his revenge was not complete and that there were more creatures to kill. Over the next few months, he hunted more of the creatures. Recognition was easy, Alex now had the ability to see beneath the human veneer to the true being. His ability to slay the creatures seemed to be dependent of his ability to wield the blade he possessed. The creatures, although differing slightly in appearance, had one thing in common. While all were not in positions of influence, all had access to all sorts of depravity and vice. After a few deaths, the creatures knew that there was someone who hunted them and had the ability to slay them. They banded together, hired extra security, and put a bounty on his head that would have ransomed several kings. Groups of hirelings and soldiers of fortune scoured the countryside, hoping to share in the extraordinary reward. Alex spent his time avoiding these sorties, having little opportunity to hunt the creatures. Time was the enemy of Alex, eventually one of these groups would stumble across him and he could never defeat so many. Alex decided that he would make one bold strike against this alliance of beasts. He could sense that the evil and the arrangement of defenses seemed to be centered around one location, specifically, one of the creatures. Alex reasoned that this must be their leader, or at least a very valued member of their group. This is where he would make his attempt. The large population of the city made Alex�s entry uneventful. Before he was even close to his intended target, Alex could feel the brush of a creature�s mind against his. Alex could hear the thing�s voice in his head, its harsh, heinous voice reverberating in his skull. �Welcome, whelp of Adam.. It has been many centuries since I have tasted the spirit of the progeny of that foolish slave of a fraudulent God. Come hither, little simpleton, and I will teach you the true meaning of life.� Alex sensed that this creature was far stronger than any that he had encountered, and far too strong for him to defeat now and in this way. He would have to find another way. Alex turned and fled the city to regroup and to recalculate his options. He fled into the countryside, but within hours, something had picked up his trail. Even using his considerable woodcraft and experience, Alex could not shake his pursuers. By nightfall, two of the pursuers were upon him, animals that resembled tortured, starved dogs more than anything else. The animals were so strong and vicious, and seemed to feel no pain. Severed limbs and gashes to their slimy, black hides did little to slow them. The only thing that deterred them from ripping Alex to shreds was the sudden loss of their heads, courtesy of the brown sword. Alex limped from the site of the encounter until he came across an area with tumbled, moss-covered stones. He had not the strength to go further. As he entered the ring of stones, he felt an itchy tingling in his sword hand. The curious carvings all along his sword glowed blue in sharp relief. The standing stones began to vibrate with a low hum, and gleamed blue in the fading light. The humming increased in frequency and pitch, until it seemed that some saturation point had been reached, and blue light sparked between them. Singly, or in pairs, the creatures arrived at the site. They slunk around the area many times, not finding any opening through which to charge their prey. Many sat staring hungrily into the circle, while the less patient creatures continued to pace endlessly around the perimeter. All sensed that they would be rewarded with fresh meat soon enough. When the thing came, he could sense it from miles away. Darker and more fearful than the most haunted night, it came. Alex could feel its ravenous spirit, filled with ancient hatred and lust. The dog creatures swirled around the site, howling with excitement and anticipation. Alex carefully shut the silver object and put it back in his pocket. He stood, ready to act the final scene of the tragedy. There was only one thing left for him to do. It was unlikely to work, but there wasn�t any other alternative. The idea had formed in his mind when he had noticed the association of symbols on his sword and in the site. The only hope he had remaining was that the foul abomination that approached did realize what was about to happen and that his desperate plan would work. When the thing reached the perimeter, Alex could see a void in the night, a nothingness that sucked in all light and life from the world. It had certainly robbed Alex of the light and life in this world when the thing�s group had been responsible for the murder of his wife. �Alex raised his sword above his head and waited. He sensed the thing�s scorn as it easily opened a gap in the blue light. The dog creatures poured through the gap, vying for the satisfaction of the kill. He could hear the thing�s mirth as Alex raised his sword in a feeble effort of self-defense against impossible odds. He could sense its puzzlement as Alex reversed his grip and poised the tip of the sword over the central stone. Alex felt its fear when it realized what was happening. Alex rammed his blade into the stone with a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil. He could sense its rage as the blade reacted with the stone and white light erupted from the stone and a rolling white wave of destructive swept through the site, killing beast, demon, and man.
Copyright © 2005 Gregory Allen |