Banished Hex

Complementary 

Photo: Terry Tabors/ Dash Files

The Sea of Atir enclosed the brown-eyed boy from three sides. The vehement sun beamed down upon the clear waters and refracted light into the boy’s eye goggles. I’m dying of thirst, the boy thought, but I mustn’t drink from the Dream Pond. Instead, he reached down and grabbed a metallic flask that was tied to his waist. It was almost empty, but it contained enough liquid for sustenance. As he sipped the final droplets of freshwater from the hip flask, he stared into the sea. The Dream Pond was well known for a multitude of reasons. One such thing was its waters: clear as crystal, warm to the touch, poisonous if ingested. It was said to be the weapon of choice for assassins and abused wives. 

With a splash the young child of nine plunged and darted towards the deep. The aquatic environment was bright and beautiful. Dazzling fish with luminescent fins and eyes swam around the boy in several multicolored schools. Pastel corals and lichen waved and stretched over rock formations that were the color of mud and onyx. Spotted sharks and hundreds of glowing white crustaceans also filled the viewing spectrum of the boy’s goggles. Such gorgeous creatures, yet all of them are poisonous to anything that dwells outside these toxic waters, the boy thought as he began to dive deeper. 

At five minutes into the dark region of the Dream Pond, the boy began to feel sleepy. This was another thing the Sea of Atir was known for, and the source of its nickname. Legends that spoke of the Dream Pond always mentioned that it had the ability to wrap anyone foolish enough within a dream that they could not wake. It is even said to be the birthplace of the Origin, but that was acknowledged as merely myth amongst scholars. 

The boy drifted into a dream that was as real as the watery world that encapsulated him. His consciousness was taken to a broken wall of a forgotten kingdom. Men ran in all directions; some bloodied, some marching forward, all of them scared. The boy could feel the emotions of every fighter ready to give his life for glory, riches, or savagery. He turned his attention towards the damaged wall and was surprised by what he saw. It took a moment to shake the disbelief, but he eventually realized that he was witnessing the Siege of Tarpie led by the Ventriloquist King and the Blue Hex. I’m about to see how my grandfather’s story played out.

Blue entered the broken wall and confronted three men who had given their souls for the sacrament of fire. Their eyes seemed dull and dead while their hands glowed with fire that dripped embers upon the sand. Blue held his monstrous sword with one hand and continued to walk forward. His blue eyes were still and focused on his targets. 

“I see we have our first victim, boys,” the fire-wielder with the most hair said through rotten teeth. The other two grinned and flared their hands. This did not dissuade Blue, nor did it stop him from walking closer to his foes. When the warrior was a few footsteps from the fire brothers, they outstretched their arms and torched him from head to toe. The flames were so strong that they reached through the outer wall behind Blue and licked some of King Dzat’s army. When the fire-wielders decided to let up, thick black smoke covered their vision as it slowly billowed out of the hole in the fortification. Blue could not be seen.

Suddenly, a force of wind engulfed the area. The black smoke began to twist and turn its way back into the wall, back towards Blue. The vigor of the gust encircled the fire warriors of Tarpie as well as Blue. The boy’s consciousness became aware that the wind was coming from the Blade of Blue. It was sucking in the smoke as well as the brothers of flame. They were swept off their feet and hurdled into the blade that Blue held in his hand. Impossible! What did I just see? The sword absorbed them!? Blue stood still for a moment then slung his blade onto his back. The glyphs that were etched into the grey-blue blade shined azure. 

“Fools,” Blue said as he began to walk back through the hole in the wall. The boy’s awareness focused on the face of the muscular warrior and started to see someone very familiar. Grandfather, the boy thought, but he had trouble believing it. How could that be my grandfather if this was a tale from an old world? The facial features are unmistakable, though. This cannot be real. He watched Blue return to the Ventriloquist King. 

“Tarpie is yours,” Blue yelled up to King Dzat atop the great mammoth. From his view below, the throne of horns and feathers resembled a black spike impaling the mammoth through the skull. With a wisp of black mist, the Ventriloquist King appeared before Blue with a smile that seemed too big for his face. 

“Why, thank you,” King Dzat said with a high pitched voice. “You are what they say you are, my friend. Your rightful king has seen your deeds noble and appealing. Take whatever you want.”

“I shall take a nap, if it pleases my king.” Blue walked past the Ventriloquist King and into a crowd of awestruck soldiers. One of the men stopped him.

“You truly are the Blue Hex,” he said. It was the fighter from earlier. His eyes were full of wonder and amazement. 

“I told you to leave this place,” Blue said with a sigh of agitation. 

“I was leaving m’lord, but then I saw black smoke. Then I saw it all get sucked up real quick, like,” the fighter said. “I had to see what it was. I reckoned it was you.” The man looked into Blue’s blue eyes. “I sure wish I had your powers.”

“Then take them,” Blue said lazily. “I’m tired of ending the lives of weak men.” He unsheathed the Blade of Blue and brandished it before the wishful fighter. “I said ‘I am Blue’ and I was transformed by the sword. I do not see why it should be any different for you.”

Without warning, the sky turned dark and the sun became an ominous black disk. The Ventriloquist King materialized from the city walls in a crack of shadowy smoke. His eyes harbored an innate malevolence. The ground began to crack beneath each step that King Dzat took. The earth gave way and ate men and mammoths whole. The king lifted his hands and the dark circle that was the sun fell like a rock behind the horizon and the sky moved in zigzags above them all. 

“I found nothing!” King Dzat yelled. Men fell to their knees in death at the sound of his voice. “This world is a waste! It’s completely unworthy of being called my creation. Oh, well.” Hatred left the Ventriloquist King’s eyes abruptly and his twisted smile returned. What followed next was a rumble that erupted from the bowels of the earth and the most haunting sound that ever was droned from the heavens.

“What is happening?” the fighter said to Blue. 

“The king is the Banished One made flesh. He is Black, the Unending. He is destroying the world. Everything will die. Only the Hexes will endure.” Blue pushed the sword into the man’s hands. “Say the words so that you may live.”

The fighter did not know what to think. He was overwhelmed and was suffering from sensory overload. “I, but, I don’t, I-I’m scared,” whelped the man.

“Say the words!” screamed Blue. His eyes stared to glow. There was another frightening sound and five beams of light shot into the sky from different directions. Blue looked up with sad eyes. “It is too late.”

“I am Blue,” the fighter said as he held the Blade of Blue. His dim eyes began to shine blue and his muscles popped. His height increased by two feet. “This is incredible! I feel incredible.” The transformed fighter looked down at Blue. “No.”

Grandfather! The boy’s mind was having a hard time taking everything in. He had just watched the Blue warrior morph from a colossal man to a feeble one. He witnessed the Blue Hex give his sacraments to another, altering both men in the process. The boy suddenly felt a snap in his consciousness and he could feel liquid in his lungs. The scene in front of him vanished in a flash of white light and changed into murky water. The only thing that he could focus on was…a sword. The Blade of Blue!

The sword glimmered with a hazy cobalt tint on the gloomy sea floor . The glyphs pulsated with the boy’s heartbeat. He reached for the steel as his body choked and flailed toward the bottom. I am dying, the boy thought. He touched the sword and wanted to say the words, but when he opened his mouth the poison water of the Dream Pond was the only thing that made noise as it filled the boy’s body. I am Blue…

“Wake up, you damned buffoon,” a voice said as a hand smacked the boy’s face. His eyes slowly opened and they fixated on a shade tree. A breeze made its leaves ballet softly. A man dressed in an orange robe stood over him and smacked him again. An orange crystal swung from a rope tied to his neck. “Are you finally awake?”

“Yes, now stop hitting me,” the boy said as he pushed the man in orange away. When he saw his own hand in front of himself, he paused. My hand looks enormous, he thought. Was I bitten from something in the sea? He looked down at his legs and felt his face. I’m huge all over! Slowly, the boy started to regain his memory. “Wait. How did I survive the Dream Pond?” He looked at the robed man.

“The waters of Atir mean nothing to a Hex, my dear friend,” the man said as he unhooked the clasps from his robe. Underneath, he wore an orange leather vest and orange leather pants. He was quite skinny with and angled face and a hooked nose. “It seems like your life has changed since you went for a little dip,” the man said. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Orange, the Hex of the Order.” His eyes began to glow deep ginger.

The boy looked beside the tree and saw the Blade of Blue tilted against the trunk. “Does that mean I’m…” he said.

“Yes,” Orange interrupted. “You’re Blue. Now let’s get the bloody hell out of here before they find us.”

- Terry