For a while now, I have been telling people that I will be writing three 'Chain of Souls' stories. I know that a lot of you don't believe me, due to the great number of single unfinished works on the forum. So, to prove that what I said was true, here is a sneak peak at my third story. It is going to be a little different than my other two, due to the 'path' it will take, but I hope you will like it.
Here are the links to the other two stories:
Chain of Souls 36000+ words. Finished, though another 4 to 6k words may be added in the rewrite. My pride and joy, and the first multi-chapter story I have ever written. If you read it, give me a PM telling me what you would change about it, where it needs to be more clear, or how the emotion could be stronger, so I can address those issues in the rewrite. Thanks.
Chain of Souls II; Soul's Mirror 10000+ words. 5 out of 12 planned chapters written. If you have read my 'evolution' post at the end of 'Chain of Souls' then you know what I mean by 'planned'. Cos had only 4 planned chapters, but ended up with 14+. SM has already been expanded from 8 planned chapters to 12+, so who knows how long it will end up.
**Addendum April 19th, 2012** I did not forget about you. However, I will not be completing the stories on this forum, nor, in fact, in the PS universe at all. I will make a summery of an ending for them, so you know how the PS version ends. I now plan on... de-planeshift-ifying all three stories in an edit, and publishing elsewhere. Actually, not a lot deals with PS in the first place, so that part of the editing will be minimal. I will leave these versions on the PS site, however, unless there is some conflict in rights. The new version will not have the same ending, and will carry on in a different way.
And now I give you 'Path of Fate'. I am disobeying my own rules and going into this one without a plan, so I have absolutely no idea how long it will be, or what path it will take. All I know is where it starts...and where it will end. The rest is up to Fate. You can read this before the other two, as it contains no spoilers as of yet. So enjoy and tell me what you think. I may be adding to it before I finish SM. It just depends on when inspiration strikes.
And, as always, thank you for reading.
It starts 11 years ago, with a fish...
Chain of Souls; Path of Fate Chapter 1:
Odd Fish
Old Kremlie sat contentedly on the shore of the small lake, not too far from the enormous pile of rock that some said looked like the remains of a huge dock. But Kremton -at least that is what he thought his name was- didn't believe a word of it. In fact, he wasn't even sure who said it. Why would anyone build such a huge dock on such a tiny lake? He scratched his aged peeling scalp, further tangling the few clumps of tangled white hair that seemed a moment ago to have been already tangled to their utmost. When was the last time he saw anyone? Tremton didn't know. Perhaps there were no others. But who, then, built that ruined dock. People had said he was crazy for thinking it was a dock. They said it was a place cursed by Laanx. That must be why they all moved away. All but him, unwilling to leave the place of his birth. How long ago was that? Surely no more than a few years. He closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened again, the sun had dimmed noticeably. Thramton shook his head on its spindly neck. Time did pass oddly here. Sometimes days at a time seemed to vanish when he forget to look over his shoulder. He knew it must have been decades since he moved to this lake from his home far far away. Sometimes he missed that home.
The stick in Thramjin's hands gave a little twitch. He looked at it quizzically, trying to remember who put it there, and for what reason. His eyes, still sharp as his youth, followed the length of the stick to where it ended abruptly in a point. Oddly, there seemed to be a string tied to the stick, though he couldn't be sure, his sight not as good as it used to be. Odder, the string hung straight down -nothing odd about that, he had seen many strings hang straight down- but this one seemed to be attached to the murky waters of the lake somehow. Ripples danced around the string as it twitched back and forth in the water by some unknown force. Hanjin felt fear creep upon him. What could cause a string to dance so fearsomely? But the fear passed quickly as he studied the way the ripples expanded ever outwardly. As the ripples licked his gnarled bare feet at the lakes shore, a random wondering asked him were had those ripples had come from. But a twitching in his hands reminded him of the fishing pole he carried, and the fish that must now be at its end. With a laugh of glee, he pulled the thrashing string out of the water, followed by a good sized fish. A red snapfish! The best kind, and his favorite. He would be eating good tonight.
As he sat there, mesmerized by the way the light glinted off the fish's multitude of gold and red scales, an odd noise caused him to frown and look down. Was that his stomach? He must be hungry indeed. This fish would be just the... His brow furrowed in confusion as the groaning sounded again. His astute ears reasoned that the noise indeed did not come from his stomach. But from where then? He watched the hand at his feet curl and grasp a handful of dark sand. Slowly, Fremjid's eyes went to the pole, and his own two hands on it. Two hands. Then his eyes went back to the third hand in the sand, which seemed to be attached to an arm, which seemed to disappear beneath him. There was something odd about that. He went back to gazing at the odd fish at the end of his fishing string. He had never seen this type before. Perhaps the man had brought it with him. Man? Fremlid blinked, then looked down as he realized his seat was stirring and groaning. The seat seemed to be wearing a red coat with gold runes down the sleeve, which ended in a hand. Less odd than the fish, a silver-ish colored chain sprouted from the base of the palm of that hand, trailing down into the water. Dremlid chuckled at the thought of using a chain instead of a good string and hook. A man would never catch a fish that way. He went to scratch his head again, but somehow there was a fishing pole in that hand with a fish giving its last few feeble flops at its end. The last of those flops caught the old man across the face, causing him to gasp in surprise and fall backwards off his stirring, groaning seat. He jumped to his feet in an instant -well, an instant for a man of his advanced age, younger folks would have been tapping their feet impatiently by the time he jumped up, the jump itself being more of a painfully slow, knobby kneed scamper- then looked about, trying to locate his assailant, holding the pole before him in a soldier's defensive stance, the fish dangling at the end of the string.
Then, to Dremlis's great surprise, the stirring, groaning, red coat wearing seat with an arm and hand rolled over and slowly sat up, using a second hand -one without a chain attached to it- to rub what appeared to be a head. In fact, it was a head, the old man saw as it turned towards him, no more than two eyes gazing out at him. Though gazing may have been the wrong word, due to the unfocused confused look to them. The man -yes, it must be a man, though Kremlis wondered what cruel fate had turned such a wonderful, comfortable seat into a man- the man shook his head, then did something even more surprising. He spoke.
"I am not dead."
Kremlik nodded his head, agreeing with the logic of that, being that he had never heard a dead man speak before, and a dead man would most likely have said the opposite thing anyways. He would have to ask one someday. A movement in front of him alerted the old man to a man standing before him wearing a red coat. Kremlie's eyes went to where a similar man had been sitting on the shore... but that man was gone! And where had this new fellow come from? Seeings how people seemed to be disappearing without notice, the old man came to the tremendous decision to introduce himself, perhaps in hope that this new fellow wouldn't run off like the other.
"Greets feller, I'ms Kremlie," he said, friendly like, and extended his hand -which unfortunately still held the fishing pole.
The man stumbled back as the pole met abruptly with his forehead, follow by a heavy thud as that same head connected with the low hanging branch behind it. As the man fell to his knees, two things occurred to Kremlie. One being fellers should watch where they are going. The other, trees should grow taller, or perhaps the ground should be lower. He scratched his head.
"No, tha would'n work. Den yer 'ould need longer legs. Dey'id hav'a make the trees ev'en taller then. Or deh groun' lower?"
The red coat man looked up and shook his head in apparent confusion. "Why... what...?" He shook his head again while rubbing the back of it. "Taller trees?"
Kremlie took a cautious step back from the obviously delusional man. Who in their right mind would want taller trees? The things were twisted giants the way it was. "Now, feller," He stopped as he spotted a large fish at the man's feet. A red snapfish! His favorite. Perhaps this red coat man wouldn't mind sharing, seeings how it was such a large fish, and Kremlie hadn't caught anything yet this day.
"Say, feller," the old man started, but took note that the other man was no longer in front of him. His gaze wandered back and forth, unsure how a man could vanish so quickly all the time. It reminded him of the ghost fish legend said lived at the bottom of the lake, which in turn drew his eyes back to the placid waters of his lake. He always thought of it that way, 'his lake'. No one else lived there but him, and had not done so for as long as he could remember. Which is why he found it startling to see a brown haired man wearing a damp, red coat at the water's edge. Something tickled the back of Kremlie's mind. Did he know this fellow? He... he had a son once. Did the boy finally come back from the war to visit his old father? It must be so! His son had come back! He must tell his wife... What was her name again? A moment of confusion rolled through the old man's mind, but was washed aside by the one thought he was sure of. His son was home, and that was all that mattered.
Kremlie scampered over to his son as fast as his bare, gnarled feet and knobby knees would take him. His son! Oh how he had loved to watch the boy play at the lake's edge as a child. Such a good boy. He used to stare at the water for hours, just as he was doing now. Kremlie never understood what his son saw in the water, and when he asked, the answer had always been the same. "Don't you see it Pap'a? Fate rides a white ship." Young-un always came up with the most fanciful things. Kremlie decided to tease his son a bit.
"Mah son, does Fate stahl ride a white ship?"
Kremlie's son flinched as if struck. If Kremlie hadn't grabbed his shoulder to steady him, the other man would likely have fallen. What had the war done to his son that only a few words could set him off so?
"Sern? Mah son? Tell yar old Pap'a what ails yar mind."
The look on Sern's face was that to make a stone cry. It seemed as if he carried more weight and pain in his eyes than any man had the right to. Kremlie's heart reached out to his son, gone all these years. It was a father's job to comfort his son, was it not?
Sern took the knobby hand from his shoulder and let out a deep breath. "I am well fa..." Sern's tongue stumbled over a cough, but he continued all in a rush, "...Father. Bad memories is all. We can talk about it later. Let us take your fish to the house before Mother worries her self sick."
Though the words were right, the old man sensed there was something not right, something his son was not telling him. It was as if the words were being forced out, or ripped out. Perhaps it had something to do with the chain wrapped about his son's left forearm. In any accord, the young man was right, and there would be time for talk later. Kremlie dropped the fish in a worn wicker basket that someone must have forgotten and picked it up. Just happy to be holding his son's hand in his again, he began leading him back up the narrow path to where his small cabin rested. Sern helped him over some of the larger roots, taking great care in handling the old man's spindle-like arms. The entire way, Kremlie talked of this and that, of the memories they had together before the war. The way they had laughed together long into to the night brought a new joy to the old man's voice. He couldn't remember being more happy than right now. His son had returned.
At long last, Kremlie led his son into the small clearing and cabin where the boy had grown up. Sure, the walls were leaning and the roof sagged in a haphazard way, but it was still home. He could imagine Sern as a boy, running around the house laughing and hiding behind the shed until his mother found him. She would scoop the boy up with a loud "Ah ha!" and smother the boy in kisses till he begged for her to stop. It pained Kremlie to no end when she died so young. Sern had left not long after that, off to play soldier in yet another war. A war that had killed him in the end, just as it had done to countless others. How many parents had lost their children to that pointless war? How many children had lost their parents? It was all such a waste. Kremlie looked up from his dark thoughts to see a man standing not far away with his head down, apparently deep in his own shaded thoughts. Kremlie distantly wondered why the man's red coat was wet. It hadn't rained, had it?
"Feller? Yur gun'a catch yar death, runnin' round in wet garb."
The man looked at Kremlie sadly. "Death has no power over Fate." The man paused, gazing toward the lake, which was just visible though the sparse vegetation. "Fate does ride a white ship, but death follows in its wake. If I may ask, how long ago did the last ship sail from the Dock?"
Kremlie burst out in a wheezing laugh. How was it that a grown man believed in such things? Between gasping laughs he asked the man the same question.
The man closed his eyes as his head dropped in despair. "Too long then?"
Kremlie shook his head at the man. The poor lad obviously had something heavy haunting his thoughts. "Listen feller. Ya jus forget 'bout those chil'ren's tales. Thar's no treasure et the bottom uf the lake. Ya fine yursef a nice wife an se'el down. Mah boy died chasin' gilded shadows, an ah don wan'a see a fine feller like you do the same."
The man nodded, though there was no conviction behind it. Kremlie shook his head again. Perhaps some shadows were too hard to shake. The man began walking away, but paused for a moment without looking back.
"I hope your son found forgiveness in Fate. I fear I never shall."
Kremlie frowned. How had that man known about his son? He was about to ask when he noticed a basket at his feet. Even more strange, there appeared to be a freshly caught fish in its frayed bottom. The fish was like none he had ever seen before, with red and gold scales shimmering down the sides. Maybe the man had left it? He frowned. What man? He hadn't seen anyone in many years. Just his mind playing tricks on him again. He picked up the basket without further thought, gazing at the lovely scales. Such an odd fish.
~end of chapter one
More will be added someday, maybe soon, maybe not, but someday... and elsewhere.
I will update when my story finds a new home.
