Damiynn
Fantasy Author
Chapter 1
‘In service to all.’
I pushed the half-empty bottle of bourbon across the table and away from me and looked at it through blurry red eyes. Leaning back in my chair, I shifted my stare, apprehensively towards the redstone medallion lying next to the bottle.
I had seen them, they had been there. The damn golden words had been there. They had flashed across the stone’s face like some sort of glowing inscription.
Groaning, I buried my face in my hands as both the bottle and the stone turned into two objects. I waited until the blurriness faded, and they merged back into single objects. I wasn’t having a hallucination from the hangover. They had been there, glowing on the stone’s face.
Blood pounded temples like a jackhammer. I felt every shot I had drank after I had seen them, hoping the whiskey would’ve helped me remember some of the forgotten stories my father had told me as a child about the stone and himself.
Stories I had tried forgetting, leftover memories from a troubled childhood. Stories about how we were supposed to be men of importance.
Slowly I pulled at a fragment of memory, a thread-bare thing about the glowing words. The words were… My thoughts trailed off again in a swirl of drunkenness. Then it hit me. My world spun, this time in a different dizzying circle of upside-down realities as what my father had told me long ago came back into my head.
The words, they are a summoning, and it is your responsibility to answer it.
The whiskey was still making my thoughts hazy, but the long-forgotten memory cut through my consciousness like a white-hot knife, burning away the haze.
I remembered my father making me poke my finger with a needle as a child. He had made me rub a drop of my blood onto the medallion’s red stone face. I had sworn vows that had included the words I had seen glowing on the stone’s surface. ‘In service to all.’
There was more. I rubbed at my temples with my fingertips. I couldn’t remember the exact words. My father had said something about always being ready to answer the call. It was my duty.
The memory was old and faded. As I had grown older, I had tried to purge the memories of my life with him. Living with a deranged man, especially with one who had delusions about being a protector of some sort and had lived on a fantasy world, had not been easy.
Slowly as the headache faded, more memories began to trickle back into my head, and I began to remember his words and stories. Stories about how my blood on the stone marked me as the servant of the eye. He had told me that it linked me to the redstone. That if I was called upon, I had to answer the summons, to perform some service to all.
Precisely what the glowing words had read!
No, I thought, not exactly.
The memories began to come back faster, and I could see in my mind how it had happened.
Thirty years ago, on my eighth birthday in another shoddy little trailer on the outskirts of Chicago, I remembered my father telling me a story about the Men of the Blood. A tale about protectors of a land on another world linked to this one, a dragon world named Allryss where the gateways were. That I, like all of my ancestors, was a Man of the blood. Like them, I could be called on someday to fulfill my duty and protect the gates. Despite his faults, my father’s stories, always about duty and loyalty, had inspired me. Because of them, I had joined the military, and later the police department.
Anger twisted my thoughts, and my eyes grew hard, turning to brown stone. I also remembered my father trying to commit suicide. I remembered my Aunt committing him to an asylum because of his fanciful stories about the Dragon world.
To try and free my father, I had tried proving that Allryss existed, hoping I could find some kind of proof. I never found any references to a world called Allryss. The doctors said that my father suffered from a mental psychosis brought on by the death of his twin brother and that he couldn’t raise me anymore. The doctors convinced me that my father’s stories weren’t true, and I moved in with other members of my family.
Tension cut long, hard lines into my forehead as I pulled my bloodshot gaze away from the dark redstone.
They settled again on the empty glass, next to the almost empty bottle of whiskey.
I wasn’t supposed to drink, my therapist had forbidden it, but tonight had been hard. Visions of past failures had filled my head earlier. So many that they overwhelmed me, and I had needed to deaden the pain in my mind.
Finding a strength I hadn’t known I possessed, I pushed away my empty glass with trembling fingertips. It tumbled across the tabletop, and a second later, it rolled off. I noticeably cringed as I heard it shattering on my shabby little trailer’s tile floor.
The sound of it breaking reminded me of my life. Once it had been whole. Now, like the glass, it was shattered into tiny splintered pieces.
My father, I thought dully, will his memories ever leave me alone.
I had laughed as a child, enjoying my father’s stories. Twenty-five years later, I hardly ever laughed, not after the hand life had dealt me. Not when I was alone in my apartment, alone in my life, and it in ragged tatters once again.
Hell, I thought staring at the bottle, then to my police ID card, which read Micah Williams in bold black letters. Slowly my eyes moved to my service revolver lying on the couch where I had placed it earlier after I had taken it out of my mouth. These days, I barely managed the will to survive at all. If it weren’t for my son, I would have already taken my life, just like my father had.
At thirteen, my father had made me swear to him that I would wear that damn medallion always and that I would answer the summons if it ever came. As I had grown older and the doctors had convinced me that he was crazy, I had stopped believing his stories and had stopped wearing the stone. I remembered the time I had showed up without it. He had flown into a rage, yelling and screaming about my duty to the people. Cursing about my vows to the eye, and Allryss. Screaming how I could not shirk my responsibilities.
Like a moth drawn to a candle, my eyes fell again on the stone. I remembered the last day I had worn it. It was the day after my father’s suicide.
Hell, I didn’t even remember the last time I had seen the damn thing?
Staring at the stone, I felt a flicker of fear.
The words had been there, just as my father had said they would be.
I was awake, this wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t another hallucination. The alcohol stopped those.
I could hardly believe it. A summoning. Could my father’s lies be true?
Turning, I raked uneven fingernails through my dark hair and looked at the cardboard box. A harsh, bitter laugh erupted out of my mouth. My ex, Mariynn, must have found it and put it in there. She hadn’t believed my father’s stories, either.
When I had found the box in my closet earlier along with the rest of the things she had made me take from our old house, it had been warm to the touch. There had been heat emanating from it. I couldn’t afford a fire or another shabby little trailer out of the remains of my police severance, so I had opened it. The stone had been lying on the bottom.
The Dragon’s eye, I corrected myself. Its golden chain coiled around it like a snake guarding its clutch. Although one thing I remembered was the last time that I had seen it, it had not been glowing. Not thinking, I had reached into the box.
The moment my hand touched the blood-red stone, the words, In service to all, had filled my head. The voice came from everywhere, sounding as if a hundred different voices were speaking to me all at once.
The blood summoning, I thought, recalling more of what my father had told me.
The call to duty. The call that I, as a servant of the blood, was supposed to answer.
I had pulled my hands away from the stone, clutching at my head as the room had begun spinning. What had happened afterward shouldn’t have. Not while I was awake. It never happened when I was awake.
A vision had filled my head. A different one, not the usual ones involving helicopters or warehouses.
‘In service to all.’
I pushed the half-empty bottle of bourbon across the table and away from me and looked at it through blurry red eyes. Leaning back in my chair, I shifted my stare, apprehensively towards the redstone medallion lying next to the bottle.
I had seen them, they had been there. The damn golden words had been there. They had flashed across the stone’s face like some sort of glowing inscription.
Groaning, I buried my face in my hands as both the bottle and the stone turned into two objects. I waited until the blurriness faded, and they merged back into single objects. I wasn’t having a hallucination from the hangover. They had been there, glowing on the stone’s face.
Blood pounded temples like a jackhammer. I felt every shot I had drank after I had seen them, hoping the whiskey would’ve helped me remember some of the forgotten stories my father had told me as a child about the stone and himself.
Stories I had tried forgetting, leftover memories from a troubled childhood. Stories about how we were supposed to be men of importance.
Slowly I pulled at a fragment of memory, a thread-bare thing about the glowing words. The words were… My thoughts trailed off again in a swirl of drunkenness. Then it hit me. My world spun, this time in a different dizzying circle of upside-down realities as what my father had told me long ago came back into my head.
The words, they are a summoning, and it is your responsibility to answer it.
The whiskey was still making my thoughts hazy, but the long-forgotten memory cut through my consciousness like a white-hot knife, burning away the haze.
I remembered my father making me poke my finger with a needle as a child. He had made me rub a drop of my blood onto the medallion’s red stone face. I had sworn vows that had included the words I had seen glowing on the stone’s surface. ‘In service to all.’
There was more. I rubbed at my temples with my fingertips. I couldn’t remember the exact words. My father had said something about always being ready to answer the call. It was my duty.
The memory was old and faded. As I had grown older, I had tried to purge the memories of my life with him. Living with a deranged man, especially with one who had delusions about being a protector of some sort and had lived on a fantasy world, had not been easy.
Slowly as the headache faded, more memories began to trickle back into my head, and I began to remember his words and stories. Stories about how my blood on the stone marked me as the servant of the eye. He had told me that it linked me to the redstone. That if I was called upon, I had to answer the summons, to perform some service to all.
Precisely what the glowing words had read!
No, I thought, not exactly.
The memories began to come back faster, and I could see in my mind how it had happened.
Thirty years ago, on my eighth birthday in another shoddy little trailer on the outskirts of Chicago, I remembered my father telling me a story about the Men of the Blood. A tale about protectors of a land on another world linked to this one, a dragon world named Allryss where the gateways were. That I, like all of my ancestors, was a Man of the blood. Like them, I could be called on someday to fulfill my duty and protect the gates. Despite his faults, my father’s stories, always about duty and loyalty, had inspired me. Because of them, I had joined the military, and later the police department.
Anger twisted my thoughts, and my eyes grew hard, turning to brown stone. I also remembered my father trying to commit suicide. I remembered my Aunt committing him to an asylum because of his fanciful stories about the Dragon world.
To try and free my father, I had tried proving that Allryss existed, hoping I could find some kind of proof. I never found any references to a world called Allryss. The doctors said that my father suffered from a mental psychosis brought on by the death of his twin brother and that he couldn’t raise me anymore. The doctors convinced me that my father’s stories weren’t true, and I moved in with other members of my family.
Tension cut long, hard lines into my forehead as I pulled my bloodshot gaze away from the dark redstone.
They settled again on the empty glass, next to the almost empty bottle of whiskey.
I wasn’t supposed to drink, my therapist had forbidden it, but tonight had been hard. Visions of past failures had filled my head earlier. So many that they overwhelmed me, and I had needed to deaden the pain in my mind.
Finding a strength I hadn’t known I possessed, I pushed away my empty glass with trembling fingertips. It tumbled across the tabletop, and a second later, it rolled off. I noticeably cringed as I heard it shattering on my shabby little trailer’s tile floor.
The sound of it breaking reminded me of my life. Once it had been whole. Now, like the glass, it was shattered into tiny splintered pieces.
My father, I thought dully, will his memories ever leave me alone.
I had laughed as a child, enjoying my father’s stories. Twenty-five years later, I hardly ever laughed, not after the hand life had dealt me. Not when I was alone in my apartment, alone in my life, and it in ragged tatters once again.
Hell, I thought staring at the bottle, then to my police ID card, which read Micah Williams in bold black letters. Slowly my eyes moved to my service revolver lying on the couch where I had placed it earlier after I had taken it out of my mouth. These days, I barely managed the will to survive at all. If it weren’t for my son, I would have already taken my life, just like my father had.
At thirteen, my father had made me swear to him that I would wear that damn medallion always and that I would answer the summons if it ever came. As I had grown older and the doctors had convinced me that he was crazy, I had stopped believing his stories and had stopped wearing the stone. I remembered the time I had showed up without it. He had flown into a rage, yelling and screaming about my duty to the people. Cursing about my vows to the eye, and Allryss. Screaming how I could not shirk my responsibilities.
Like a moth drawn to a candle, my eyes fell again on the stone. I remembered the last day I had worn it. It was the day after my father’s suicide.
Hell, I didn’t even remember the last time I had seen the damn thing?
Staring at the stone, I felt a flicker of fear.
The words had been there, just as my father had said they would be.
I was awake, this wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t another hallucination. The alcohol stopped those.
I could hardly believe it. A summoning. Could my father’s lies be true?
Turning, I raked uneven fingernails through my dark hair and looked at the cardboard box. A harsh, bitter laugh erupted out of my mouth. My ex, Mariynn, must have found it and put it in there. She hadn’t believed my father’s stories, either.
When I had found the box in my closet earlier along with the rest of the things she had made me take from our old house, it had been warm to the touch. There had been heat emanating from it. I couldn’t afford a fire or another shabby little trailer out of the remains of my police severance, so I had opened it. The stone had been lying on the bottom.
The Dragon’s eye, I corrected myself. Its golden chain coiled around it like a snake guarding its clutch. Although one thing I remembered was the last time that I had seen it, it had not been glowing. Not thinking, I had reached into the box.
The moment my hand touched the blood-red stone, the words, In service to all, had filled my head. The voice came from everywhere, sounding as if a hundred different voices were speaking to me all at once.
The blood summoning, I thought, recalling more of what my father had told me.
The call to duty. The call that I, as a servant of the blood, was supposed to answer.
I had pulled my hands away from the stone, clutching at my head as the room had begun spinning. What had happened afterward shouldn’t have. Not while I was awake. It never happened when I was awake.
A vision had filled my head. A different one, not the usual ones involving helicopters or warehouses.
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