Finding Hope

WHEN DEATH came to the world of Eldreanon it wrapped its dark tendrils around love and strangled it into powder. Love existed as the moon lives overhead and shines its light into the darkness. But on this night the moon had turned away and now Jonah lay dead and cold on the forest floor. His was the first unnatural death in over a millennium, and the dark form standing over him hissed out a long inhuman laugh.

“Now isss the time,” it intoned as if reading from a unholy tome, “and now we begin.” The figure dissolved into mist and floated over Jonah’s still form and slithered across the brambles and branches.

A sound echoed through the forest. A clear bell of a voice calling for Jonah as if a game were being played. But Jonah would never answer or play again. He was a child in mind and spirit as were all the people of the light side of Eldreanon. They all existed to learn, to love, to grow, and honor the Guardian. But on this night, as Shiloh stumbled across the forest floor, a new emotion stole into her heart. Fear. This was so foreign to her, she wondered at what it meant. Then she knew. She tripped and fell and looked through the suffocating darkness to find her husband. He lay where he’d fallen, as if the very essence of who he’d been had drained out of him in one long sigh. Shiloh cried out, tears streamed across her sun bronzed cheeks as her feet lay across his chest. She moved quickly placing her head near his face checking for breath, then her ear to his chest to listen for the beat of his heart. Nothing. Her hands ran across his body, so familiar to her, and found no wounds. The tears now formed puddles beside her nose and leaked down her chin to drop sadness and grief onto Jonah’s chest.

“My love!” She cried out as she lay her head upon his chest, her long chestnut hair spread as if to protect him from this end.

A shimmering of light began to coalesce around her and she raised her head, shielding her deep brown eyes as it grew brighter. The Guardian had come.

“Shiloh, my child. What is this?” The voice echoed and bounced across the trees, the night creatures scurrying away to find their dens and burrows.

“I don’t know my lord,” she cried, “here lies my husband and yet I can find no reason for his death.”

“Step aside child. Let me look.” The Guardian placed a pale hand across Jonah’s forehead and then sighed in sorrow. So, the tide was turning. Darkness had been here this night and visited horror upon this man. The Guardian was pure light, and watched over his people, as a father protects his children. Long ago, when time was old, he had been given this task, to guard and protect this people who lived in the light of Eldreanon. A people who existed in a kingdom of pure love. Only a select few, those who longed for service to their people, were trained in the art of combat by those who accompanied The Guardian from the celestial palace of the sky above. Long had The Guardian toiled to bring these children into a world of laughter, love, and kindness. Long had he feared the darkness might come to destroy that which was good in the world.

“What do I do my lord?” Shiloh hugged her husband now, cradling him as if her were a new borne babe she could protect. Her mind, blank and empty, did not know how to feel. She and Jonah had been married a short time moving into their home where they planned to bring many children into the world that promised protection and laughter.

“Now, my child, I take him unto myself, and we will mourn him. I am filled with sorrow this night. Shiloh now is the time foretold by your ancient ancestors. Darkness may come for all of us. You must be strong. You must be a beacon of hope for our people. Can you do that?” The Guardian knew he was asking much of this broken woman, but her people would not understand.

“Yes, lord,” she wept, “I understand. But I know not how. My heart lies here in pieces. How do I carry on when it feels as if all is lost?”

The Guardian leaned down from his great height and placed one finger of light to her forehead and whispered, “Learn.”

Shiloh gasped. Her mind filled with images of a people long ago, before the Guardian came to them. Their anguish and despair swirled and lived among them. She understood that time was here again. While her people understood death, it came at the end of a long, well-lived life. It was a natural part of living, but a life snuffed out like a firefly left to suffocate in a jar, was unknown to them. Shiloh fell, her head heavy on the ground, hands protecting her mind as it spun round and round with these images and feelings. “Lord, make it stop,” she begged from deep within her heart. That beating part of her there, slowly turned to stone.

“I cannot child,” he said, “one must be entrusted with the knowledge. One must save our people. That is you. You are now Hope. You will be a beacon in the darkness as we push against the darkness. Can you do this?”

She wasn’t sure. Her whole world lay in pebbles around her. The walls that protected her people would shatter and fall. They would lose the love that lived in their hearts. They needed a compass to guide them back to the light.“Yes, my lord. I can.”

With one last longing look, Hope stood, tearing the pocket of Jonah’s jerkin and, grasping the cloth, looked up at the Guardian.

“What is my task?” she asked as the tears dried on her cheeks. They felt stiff and she tasted salt at the corner of her pale lips.

“Come. We must leave this place. Jonah will be taken care of. He will be placed in a tomb of honor. But you and I must prepare for the coming darkness.” With one hand he waved them away and they became light, lifted up to the night skies above.

THE DARKNESS did come. It raged across the land of light, blotting out love like a sun gone suddenly dark. The people were prepared. Hope had taught them. She led them. She reassured them. The celestial army descended from on high and battled greatly with the darkness. The Deceiver, the Guardian’s counterpart, empowered his grotesque troops with a loathing known only to them in a time long forgotten. These creatures lived their lives in perpetual darkness, never knowing love or happiness. This warped their minds and withered their hearts. A millennium of hatred brew like a bitter soup feeding them only anger and resentment against the people of the light. When the Deceiver called them, when he was at the height of his power after he fled to the darkness, he called his people to him and taught them war. He gave them weapons of destruction and power to tear down walls and blot out the light.

“Come!” he called, and they obeyed, without thought or fear. He was their lord. A blight across Eldreanon whose sole purpose was to kill love and happiness, which had betrayed him. He had once been of the light, but the loss of his beloved, the emptiness, filled his heart with rage against the Guardian. He screamed out his woe and no answer was given. So, broken and alone, he fled into the shadows and hate grew and destroyed his mind. As with the Guardian, he could not use his power in battle, but he could influence his people. He could point them toward the light and order them to kill and destroy.

HOPE STOOD on the battlements, wrapped in armor of light, her face shining giving her people a beacon to lead them. The armies below battled greatly, but the soldiers of love and light faltered. They knew no hatred, no guile, no anger, and so were weak against such a powerful enemy. Hope cried out to the Guardian, “Lord what are we to do? We are overwhelmed, and the white light is being snuffed out like a candle before an open casement.” No answer was forthcoming; the Guardian was silent. He had left his people to find their way. He had no power he could wield. He would not intervene for to do so would corrupt him and his people, if victorious, would never again know the pure unconditional love he gave them.

The children of the light cried out in fear, they saw the darkness and fled before it. How could they win? Then a shower of pure energy filled Hope. It rose up through her body as if a being beyond understanding had taken her very essence and changed it. In the middle of the hoard before them, she saw a darkness, so black and roiling, filled a man of the dark, one of Deceiver’ creatures. So, it was to be a battle of light against the dark. Great magical powers, one meant to destroy, and one meant to feed. Such powers were unknown to Hope. The old books, locked away in the keep, had only been read long ago. Her people had abandoned them, tucking away their history as unimportant and irrelevant. Now Hope needed that knowledge and her mind filled with it, swirling as a great wind through her mind.

Long ago, a power of light and dark was gifted to Mineuis and Greeatus. Mineuis embraced the dark power, but it tucked him away for centuries only to rise up and attempt to destroy the light. Greeatus open herself to the light and helped her people to learn and grow in love. But in that time a great battle ensued, and both fought with vigor each pulling from the land power great and opposite. Greeatus was victorious and banished Mineuis to the western half of their world. Eventually both heroes passed away, leaving the world without the magic.

Now Hope was becoming. She was filled with the power of Greeatus and the knowledge of her ancestors. Now she and the wielder of the power of Mineuis would engage in a battle to either the end of one or both.

The soldiers of the light, protecting their people who were within the walls of the white keep, trembled as they saw Hope step through the steel portcullis. It rose for her and then lowered behind her as if her being was now more than the air around her. The soldiers let her pass, moving aside as her armor glowed and her cape danced in an unseen wind. A figure slunk out from within the dark hoard, low brows, and greasy hair etched in darkness as if no sun could penetrate the miasma that shifted around him.

“So, now we battle again you and I, sister.” Mineuis hissed.

“Yes, my brother. Now we meet again on this field, each to test the other to see which will prevail.” Hope knew she spoke not for herself but for Greeatus, the sibling of the light.

“You will lose.” Mineuis said with hate etched in every word.

“Brother I ask as I asked before. Yield to the light. Let it fill your heart. You can be transformed.”

“No. I embrace what I am. I fight to destroy all. This world is lost. You cannot save it.” He spread his arms wide, claw-like fingers reaching toward the sky. Lightening and fire surrounded him. Hope closed her eyes for just a moment and grieved for her lost brother. Then she gently reached for the earth below her feet and green shimmered around her. The air stirred and tinkled like raindrops falling on tender green leaves.

Mineuis struck first, but his magic was thwarted by the shield of green magic. Hope pointed a single finger toward the earth beneath her brother’s feet and it rumbled and pitched and Mineuis faltered. But he recovered quickly and flung lightening at the earth, surrounding Hope with bolts of dark, red. She cringed and pulled more power from the earth, but Mineuis doubled his efforts and her shield fell and the lightening burned her hair and singed her back through her armor. She fell back a step, then whispered the words of the earth.

“Lotha niaga rathra,” and the earth below sent up a curtain of pebbles like silk. They swirled around her, and she felt strength and healing.

“You dare to use the ancient words?” Mineuis yelled.

“The earth is here to nourish and replenish all who care for her. She in turn cares for us. The earth is always there. Lightening, fire, it is transitory and gone when a strong wind blows their source away like kindling from a fire.”

Mineuis screamed his anger. He called fire and set the earth around her troops to blaze up. Hope drew in a breath and the earth below the flames folded in on itself and the flames sputtered and died.

“You see my brother, earth is eternal. You and your power are not.” As the words left her mouth a great cry rose up and her troops called out in one voice. “Hope!” The word was more than her name; it was an anthem to lift their souls. Even with evil before them they clung to hope.

Mineuis growled and pulled down a pillar of fire and lightening, but it was small and fragile. It burned the earth below it but, in that moment, before Hope could react, the earth herself rose up and a mountain spewed up to engulf the pillar. It died as Mineuis screamed and sank to the earth, who rose up tendrils of roots to encircle his wrists and ankles. Then Hope spoke the holy words so her troops could understand.

“Earth mother, this child is lost to the darkness. Take him into himself and let him rest until his heart heals.” Then Mineuis was encased in bark, branches, and green leaves. He let out one last horrified scream, then was silenced.

The hoard, seeing their master destroyed, screeched and howled, as they turned west and disappeared back into the darkness. Hope called on the earth once more and a stone wall grew along the border of the dark, locking the evil that wanted to destroy her people’s love behind it. It would not hold forever. Stone wore away by rain and time, but it would be long before the darkness rose again. Her people would heal, they would learn love again, in time. The tree stood in testament to the devastation of evil from their land and would remain as long as Mineuis held hate in his heart. But trees withered and died as was the nature of things and Greeatus knew she and her brother would battle again. In time.

Hope fell to her knees as the earth power drained from her body. Her head bloomed with a horrible pain, and she felt her body shake with grief. All she held for Jonah; the single scrap of his jerkin clutched in her hand. As her vision faded to black, she called his name and slept.

HOPE AWOKE to the sound of children giggling, women chatting and laughing, and young men urging each other to approach a pretty girl. She was in the cottage Jonah had built for them before they’d wed. She felt him in every corner, his love pouring into her.

“She’s awake!” A young girl sprang from the chair beside her bed and ran from the room. An elderly woman entered and helped Hope to sit up.

“He’s been waiting for you,” she said.

The Guardian entered the room, light shifting along the stone walls, and across the chest of drawers Jonah had built, and decorated with flowers for her wedding gift.

“Guardian. What? What has happened?”

The older woman quietly left the room and closed the door.

“Your love for your husband enabled you to embrace the power of one older than remembered time. She gave you the gift of the earth magic and it was used to defeat hate and darkness. Now you live as a mortal woman. You can do as you wish.”

“And Jonah?” She longed for him. The Shiloh she’d been ached for her husband, and she hoped he would be there to greet her.

“I am sorry. He is gone, but his spirit lives on. Your loving memory of him will one day lift your heart with happy memories. You will need time. As the months pass you will open your heart and hope will bloom.”

She didn’t think that would ever happen, but she trusted in the Guardian. Perhaps, if she clung to hope in the midst of her grief, she would one day find what she’d fought to keep alive. Love.