章節 20: The Shackles of Freedom
"What was the plan?" Kaleb asked, kneeling down next to the impaled man.
"We ju ... just needed your f, your fear." Elroth struggled to tell them. "We weren't ... going to let them ... hurt you. We needed ... to scare you. We ... would giv ... bonus after."
'They needed fear to lure out the Abyssal Fears. So, they only planned on scaring us then letting us go free with some extra compensation.' Kaleb could understand the logic of such a plan.
"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO US?!" Ameri shouted stepping up to Elroth. His state of mind obviously far from rational.
Kaleb quickly grabbed the young man and led him a few steps away before he could continue his yelling.
"Ameri, I understand your upset but we can't make a lot of noise right now." Kaleb said in a soothing voice. "Just let me handle this. You just stay back, Okay?"
Tears were now streaming down Ameri's face, who was still looking at Elroth with indignation. But, he nodded his head at Kaleb's words, calming down slightly. Kaleb hoped that the outburst and tears were a better sign than the dazed state Ameri had been in.
Kaleb went back to Elroth and grabbed one of the spikes in his abdomen.
"This isn't the time to be placing blame. We need to get out of here before the monsters get back." Kaleb told him calmly as he began to work the claw free from the ground.
He pulled the first one free, with a audible grunt from Elroth. The wound began to gush blood as the claw came free.
'The claw must have been keeping the wound from bleeding somehow.' Kaleb thought as he grabbed the wound to apply pressure.
Kaleb felt a burning sensation rising up through his palms that were blocking the blood. It seemed to course through his veins and gather in his stomach.
'What the..?' Rackshar said suspiciously.
'Is this a side affect from the Abyssal Fears?' He asked Rackshar, debating whether to pull his hands away, as the burning sensation continued to crawl up his arms and flow to his stomach.
Rackshar didn't answer immediately and Kaleb became worried. He glanced at Elroth's face and jerked his hands back. Elroth was shriveling. His face was already starting to resemble the pictures of Egyptian mummies that Kaleb had seen. As Kaleb backed away from Elroth he noticed that something was still connecting them.
Red wisps were drifting between Kaleb's hands and the wound on Elroth's stomach. They looked like swirling tendrils of red mist that were lazily flowing from Elroth into Kaleb.
'Rackshar?' Kaleb prompted again.
'This is a flow of magic.' Rackshar said with interest. 'I've never seen something like this, but it's not a bad thing, for you at least.' A dark chuckle followed, as Elroth's condition continued to deteriorate.
"Kaleb what's going on?!" Ameri grabbed Kaleb's arm, his mind being sent back into a panic from watching what was happening to Elroth.
"I'm not sure myself." Kaleb said without turning around.
The hellish process finished as the last wisps of blood colored tendrils swirled around Kaleb's hand and disappeared into his body, leaving Elroth little more than a husk. Kaleb looked at the body of the man who had just saved his and Ameri's lives, his emotions in turmoil. But, Elroth had also put their lives in danger in the first place, all for the purpose of his own selfishness.
'If superman threw an innocent person off a building just to catch them is he the hero or the villain?' Kaleb asked himself.
He felt his rational and emotional sides warring inside his mind. Elroth was what he would have considered a friend, though they hadn't known each other long. He had subsequently betrayed them. Then he had tried redeeming himself by saving Ameri and Kaleb. And to end it all off, Kaleb could see no way in which he wasn't the one who had killed him.
'This is going better than I could have hoped for.' Rackshar commented with glee. 'Now cut out his cores, he has to have at least two or three.'
"Kaleb what just happened?" Ameri asked again.
Kaleb made up his mind. He needed to act for now. He didn't like Rackshar's attitude, but from what he knew of this world, those cores would be very helpful to their survival. He also wanted to give Ameri an answer. Kaleb trusted his young companion who had saved his life several times, and so he gave him the only answer he himself could come up with.
"Listen Ameri." Kaleb said, handing him the claw he had pulled out of Elroth. "There's something about me I need to tell you. It's something I don't fully understand myself."
Kaleb knelt down and began to cut open Elroth's palm with the belt knife, as he was explaining to Ameri.
"I'm actually from another world and I was pulled through a rift, that's how I ended up in the desert." Kaleb fished out a small circular crystal from Elroth's hand.
Holding it in his palm he held it up closer to his face. The light wasn't very good in the cave as only a few torches, dropped by the hunters during the ambush, still cast a murky glow. Kaleb was shocked when he saw that his eye's weren't playing tricks on him. The inside of the crystal was moving. It was like it contained a constant explosion encased in glass.
"The reason I was pulled through the rift is because I contain a trace of dragon's blood in my veins. A dragon tore me from my world because I am a dragonborn." He continued to explain, still focused on the crystal.
'What are you doing! You can't tell anyone what you are you idiot!' Rackshar roared with indignation.
The burning sensation that had come from the red magic pulled from Elroth had never abated. It had settled in Kaleb's stomach, he had ignored it up till now because he had other things on his mind and, the sensation wasn't necessarily unpleasant. But, the warmth suddenly shot back up his arm and gathered in his palm. Kaleb clenched his teeth as the warmth turned into a raging fire as it gathered inside his hand. He watched as thin red vines broke though his skin and crawled up the core in his palm. When the vines had encompassed the core completely, Kaleb felt a sharp sucking sensation, which almost made him cry out and the core was dragged into Kaleb's hand. Not even a mark was left over from its passage.
'Thats...' Rackshar's speechlessness was reflected in Kaleb.
The whole process had taken only a moment but Kaleb was in such shock that he didn't hear Ameri's response to his revelation.
"Accursed?" Ameri said slowly. His unfocused eyes falling on Kaleb's kneeling figure, still confused from all that had happened to him in the past half-hour.
While Kaleb was still examining his hand he felt a sharp pain explode on his shoulder. He whipped around on instinct, his out flung hand striking his attacker squarely in the stomach. Then he watched as an explosion rocketed the figure into the side of the cave, knocking Kaleb to his side with the impact. The explosion had erupted from Kaleb's hand, the same hand that had just absorbed Elroth's core.
Kaleb stood stunned for a moment staring at his hand that was completely unscathed. Then he looked at where his assaulter had fallen and lost his breath. He raced to Ameri's side as he lay crumpled against the wall.
Ameri's stomach was torn open and he had blood spilling out of his mouth. His breath was ragged and although his glassy eyes were open, he was obviously not conscious.
"Why..?" Kaleb said haltingly, as he reached back to feel the Abyssal Fear's claw still sticking out of his back.
"You told him you were a dragonborn. An Accursed, as they call you. Did you think that he would still consider you human after you told him that? I told you they hate your kind here. To be honest his death is the best possible outcome for you." Rackshar told him mercilessly.
"Shut Up Rackshar!" Kaleb shouted out loud. His emotions spilling over. "I have to save him."
Kaleb pulled his jacket off and pressed it against the hole in Ameri's stomach with shaking hands, trying to stop everything that was coming out. Blood quickly soaked through the leather and began to pool around his hands.
A burning sensation shot up his arms and Kaleb's heart dropped. His hands, yanked away from Ameri's stomach, were followed by swirls of flowing red mist.
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