Tales of The Scarlet Lament

Jasten cursed aloud as she dodged around a woman carrying flowers in a basket upon her head, causing her to gasp in surprise. She spun around, her feet carrying her backwards. “Apologies, miss!” she called out back to the flower woman as she continued hurrying on.

She didn’t pay much mind to any response, she was far too excited. Excited and nervous. Jasten had been thinking about this day for months, thinking about how she would feel, what would happen, how her life would change. Her mother and father had somewhat prepared her for what to expect, but in the moment all their previous conversations had fled her mind. All Jasten could focus on was keeping her feet on the ground, rather than lifting off into the air. She was running so fast she felt as if she might fly.

Jasten knew the quickest way home from the big oak tree at the edge of the thicket, where she had been throwing stones, seeing how many she could get into the big open hollow halfway up its thick trunk. When fat little Dalian had come huffing and puffing over the hill to tell her the news, Jasten hadn’t even taken the time to drop the stones she was holding. Still carrying several in the palm of his hand, she squeezed the small rocks tight as she sprinted across town.

Maneuvering through several tight alleys, Jasten leapt over crates and scattered buckets, accidentally knocking over an empty barrel behind the Lord’s Eye Tavern. She kept on, not pausing for anything or anyone, her mind running wild with the possibilities of the future.

She came to the final hurdle separating her from home, a large stone wall at the end of the alleyway. Jasten took a familiar approach, scrambling up onto the sacks of flour stacked halfway up the wall. Placing her right foot in a well-worn hole where a brick used to reside, she pushed himself up and over the wall. Jasten could feel the afternoon sun shining on her shoulders, and she couldn’t help but let a grin break out on her face as she landed in a run, heading right down the street where she had grown up.

Ahead on the corner, in a little shop, Jasten could see the familiar wooden “Dunnesburrow Boot and Shoe Repair” sign hanging above the door, a sign that was older than her. As she sprinted ever closer, she heard a sound coming from inside her home. She had heard this sound plenty of times, and knew exactly what it was, but she had never before heard it in this context. It was the sound of a baby crying. Jasten, for the first time in her life, had a sibling, a baby brother. And she couldn’t wait to meet him.

---

Nothing left to do. The calculations had been run, repeatedly. Laret had consulted the texts and checked his work, in quadruplicate. This was going to work. He knew it.

He rested his elbows on the cluttered desk and rubbed his tired eyes, letting himself be absorbed into the quiet stillness of his laboratory. Forty long years he spent on this ritual, fine-tuning the measurements and the script, making sure that nothing would interfere with the procedure. Laret leant back in his wooden chair, his bones creaking as much as the chair. He took a moment to gather himself before standing up, feeling his knees pop and his back click. Rather than groaning like he normally would, Laret instead chuckled. “Not much longer, old boy,” he thought to himself, “you’ll feel as spritely as a Bitkin by this time tomorrow.”

Laret coughed, tugged at his long wispy beard, and straightened his robes, taking special care to not disrupt the multitude of parchments and implements on his desk as he moved away towards the shuttered window. To the untrained eye, the desk would appear in complete and total disarray. To Laret however, there was order in the chaos. Every parchment and tome had its place, and to move anything would be akin to letting a whirlwind spin freely within the small room, in terms of disruption.

Moving to the closed window-frame, Laret grasped at the shutters with wrinkled, liver-spotted hands. He took a moment’s pause to glance at his gnarled old fingers gripping the wood, and a tired smile crept over his lined face.

He drew back the shutters, letting in the summer air as warm natural light flooded the dim room. Laret took a deep breath in and stared out from his tower over the small town of Dunnesburrow. Behind the tower of the wizard Laret, the sun was setting, and a shadow was growing long beneath the tall spire. Years of hard work, blood and tears, countless sleepless nights spent holed up in this musty tower, poring over age-cracked manuscripts to find an answer. It would all come to fruition tonight.

Laret had lost too much to give up now. Family and friends had been pushed away, he couldn’t let them distract him. He had relinquished it all in his quest to reverse the toll life had taken on him. Yet here he was, on the precipice of his life’s work. He was going to do it. As he leaned against the window-frame, looking out upon the golden hour, when the sun’s rays were painting the sky a dazzling array of colors, Laret began to laugh. It started small, but grew slowly, evolving into a long and gleeful chortle that radiated throughout his tall, wiry frame. The laugh came to rest finally in the center his chest, and as he wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye, he thought back to all those he had left behind in his pursuit of age-reversal. Laret was momentarily chagrined to realize that he could no longer remember the name of the woman who had once been his wife.

The feeling soon passed however, as it was of no consequence now. Once he completed the ritual tonight, as the moon would be at its fullest, and his youth would be returned to him, he could find another wife. Hells, he could find several. With the knowledge he held, in the body of a younger man, Laret could have anything he wanted. As this thought crossed his mind, he shook his head. “Laret, you fool,” he chided himself, “keep to the plan, you’ve worked too hard to throw it all away on idiotic whims.”

He turned his eyes skyward, looking for the full moon that would harken his rebirth. Ah, there it was, cresting its silver shine over the horizon in front of him, opposite the golden glow of the sun sinking down behind his tower.

Laret was surprised to see a smattering of clouds approaching with the full moon, as by his calculations the skies were meant to be clear for the night. They were scattered enough to be of little concern, but still, Laret frowned. Should he postpone the ritual for a later date, when the conditions were pristine?

No. No, it would have to be tonight. Laret knew the next opportunity to perform the ritual would not come around for another half-year. He had waited long enough. Besides, the clouds should present no problem. To confirm his hypothesis, Laret reached a long crooked finger out towards the glowing orb that was beginning to creep across the darkening sky. He whispered an incantation and waved his bony digit in a series of fluid gestures, tracing the full moon in its entirety, leaving behind shimmering symbols floating for a brief moment in the warm evening air. Indeed, it was as he thought. Tonight, the moon would shine bright enough to penetrate any paltry misshapen mist. Laret smiled again, and spit out a curse at Balhuah the Spiritgavel, She Who Judges the Dead, before closing the shutters to prepare for the work ahead.

Tonight, Laret the Wizard would defy death itself.

---

It was early morning. The craftsmen and merchants of Dunnesburrow had begun to set up shop for the day in the cool morning air, as the light from the sun was making its meek introduction to the day. The steam began to rise off the thatch roofs, and a low mist was rolling through the streets. There had been a thunderstorm the previous night, followed by a mild summer rain, and small puddles now filled the holes in the cobblestone. The storm had taken a few insomniacs by surprise, but as the thunderstorm occurred late enough in the night, it didn’t pose any sort of issue to most folk.

The sun was now almost visible over the rolling hills off in the distance, and more of Dunnesburrow was waking. There were a few people who took the light’s appearance as a sign to perhaps put the bottle down and stagger to their respective places of rest. Several of these individuals failed to make it out the door of the Lord’s Eye, let alone back to their homes.

One of these wandering bottle-huggers was named Hosk, and he was in no particular rush at all. He was feeling good after a productive night, having come out overall ahead in multiple games of Jester’s Bones. Alize wouldn’t be happy that he had stayed out all night, but at least she couldn’t be upset over any lost money. Hosk giggled as he thought through how he would display his winnings just as his wife would start her tirade, and how she would stop dead in her tracks. He was sure she would immediately forgive his absence from their bed. It was the little victories that made a marriage last, he thought.

Hosk weaved his way back and forth across the thoroughfare in the general direction of where he remembered home to be. He began to whistle to himself, a slow, sad tune he half-remembered from childhood. How did that old song go? Hosk sang softly as he wandered through the knee-high mist floating around town, the fog mixing with the steam coming off the cobblestones. He began to dance lightly, skimming his foot through rainwater along with the tune.

Dasha my dear-o
My darling delight
Why have you left me alone
Tonight


Your hour draws near-o
I’m out of my head
Dasha you’ve left me
Seeing red

He kicked through a larger puddle on the last line, lost his balance, and slipped forwards, banging his knee onto the slick stones beneath him as he fell. He cursed loudly, sprawling on the ground like a babe that had yet to learn to walk.

Hosk lifted his head off the cool cobblestones and groaned with the effort of raising himself to his feet, combined with the pain in his knee. As he straightened up as best as he could perceive in his state, he felt a pressure in his bladder. Irritated with the now slightly more damp conditions of his clothes, Hosk was determined to show that puddle who was in charge around here. He undid the strings in the front of his breeches, and began to relieve himself in the middle of the main street, laughing at the misfortune of this puddle that had caused him such embarrassment.

He heard a scream coming from behind him. Hosk laughed, and shouted back, “Oh wass the madder, ya scared of a lil’ rain?” Without breaking the stream, he turned around to face the source of the scream.

Men and women were running towards him with looks of horror on their faces.No, not towards him, past him. Away from something. He heard more screams. Hosk squinted in the early morning light to see down the main street in the direction of the commotion.

Stumbling up the street was a figure, dressed in shimmering dark robes. The figure appeared to be a young man, moaning and holding his hands up to his face. As the figure stumbled closer, Hosk could see that it wasn’t that his robes were shimmering. They were in fact covered in blood, catching the morning light. And more blood was pouring out from between his fingers, dripping down his hands and splattering the cobblestones, leaving a grim trail behind.

Hosk was too stunned to move. In his stupor, he couldn’t think of a single thing to do. As the man came nearer, he tripped on the cobblestone, and fell onto Hosk. Hosk caught the man’s arms as he fell, and was immediately soaked in the young man’s blood. He could now see the blood’s source, as the vital fluid was running from the afflicted man’s eyes, nose, mouth and ears. “Please…” the young man cried, tears of dark crimson streaming down his face, his voice garbled as he spat up blood all over Hosk, “… Please help me…”

A crowd had now begun to gather around, and an older woman, appearing to be in her mid-sixties, came through the circle of onlookers. “Oh my lords. It—it couldn’t be…” she gasped, clutching her chest as she gazed upon the horrifying scene in front of her. “It’s been so long—and yet you look the same as the day you left—my lords Laret, you actually went and did it…”

---

Laret the Wizard had been moved into a room on the second floor of the Lord’s Eye, much to the reluctance of the tavern’s owner. Healers were sent for in Eladunne, but by the time they had arrived, it was too late. Laret had been drained of his life force, as his blood had seeped through the mattress and pooled on the floor of the small room. The old woman, who had claimed to be Laret’s wife, was by his side to the very end. She had watched how as the blood flowed from Laret’s body, his visage seemed to grow younger and younger. By the time his heart ceased its beating, the body lying on the blood-soaked bed was that of a fifteen-year old boy, scarcely that of the man she once knew.

The old woman knelt by his bedside for hours, clutching his crimson-stained hand with her wrinkled fingers, weeping openly. Her gray hair was loose over her face, the ends tipped with red as they draped over the body lying before her.

When two healers finally came to the Lord’s Eye in the late-evening, they went upstairs to investigate the situation. They looked Laret over in an attempt to determine the cause of his horrific demise. The old woman answered their questions to the best of her ability, relating to them Laret’s last choked words. She told them how the last phrase Laret sputtered out through the blood was “Damn clouds”.

When questioned about Laret’s past, she could only tell them what she knew for certain. He had abandoned her forty years ago to focus solely on the question which had consumed him for decades, to search for the life’s ultimate cure, to reverse the aging process. At the mention of this, she and the healers glanced over to the corpse of the boy, lying now cold on the bed.

Later that night, the two healers gathered at a table downstairs in the Lord’s Eye to discuss what they had seen that day. They agreed, this was something big, bigger than they were qualified to handle. One healer, a dark-skinned woman, suggested they bring the matter to the attention of the Grand Medical. The other healer sitting across the round wooden table, an older man with a thick white mustache, advised that there had been just the one case thus far, and to the best of their knowledge, the only case of its kind. To go all the way to the Grand Medical, knowing so little, would be a waste of her time and theirs.

As the healers were discussing their options into the night, they heard a scream come from upstairs. They rushed up the stairs and into the room at the end of the hallway, they saw the old woman sobbing in the corner, hands covering her face. Except she was an old woman no longer. In front of the healers sat a middle-aged woman, dark of hair with flecks of gray, crimson pouring out from between her fingers, choking on the blood splattering out from her mouth.

The healers did the best they could with the time they had. They watched, horrified, as the woman became younger before their eyes, her life’s essence staining the already blood-soaked tavern room. She steadily grew more pale and weak, and the healers realized she was well beyond their means of assistance. There was nothing left but to learn as much as possible about the condition, while the patient was still conscious.

---

Jasten cursed aloud as she dodged around a woman weeping rivers of blood, reaching out with blood-smeared hands and screaming for someone, anyone to help her. Jasten did not stop, and did not look back. She could hear more cries of anguish and pain, surrounding her now. Fearful howls coming from all sides, above her, from within buildings, everywhere. All around her, people were leaking red, and with the flowing blood, their age ran out of their bodies and into the streets. She could scarcely recognize anyone, as the poor souls around her had not appeared in their current forms since before she was born.

Her father had strictly instructed her not to leave the house that morning, but she had to see for herself. She had to see what was happening to the people she had known and grown up around. Jasten would never forget that first view she saw when she had snuck out of her father’s shop; the young, blood-covered bodies lying in the streets, the heavy iron scent in the air, it was enough to make her gag.

Jasten had wandered through the back alleys around the Dunnesburrow Boot and Shoe Repair, lost in the sheer terror of it all. There had been disease in Dunnesburrow before, sure. Jasten remembered the pox outbreak during the winter of her sixth year, she had barely survived. Her mother and father were so worried, staying at her bedside every minute of every day she was ill. Jasten could still hear her mother softly singing to her, stroking her head as she lay shivering with a fever.

This was nothing like that. The mental image of her mother singing as blood streamed down her smooth face made Jasten physically ill, and her knees buckled. She collapsed where she had been standing, in the middle of the alley, her back leaned against the warm stone wall of Koten’s Bakery. She took a few minutes to sob uncontrollably, as panic overtook her body. What would happen to her family? Her new baby brother? He was so small, so fragile, not even able to lift his head on his own. There was so much she wanted to show him, things they would do together. The thought of her brother was what drew Jasten’s attention back home. She had to go back, what was she even doing out here?

Jasten scrambled back onto her feet and took off back up the alley, onto the main street. As Jasten hurried past the scenes of horror, some small part of her natural curiosity snuck through the nearly overwhelming fear she felt.

Why hadn’t she been affected? In fact, she had yet to see anyone her age afflicted with whatever this nightmare was. Jasten rushed past little Dalian’s house, and she could hear him screaming from inside. “Nanna! Nanna stop it! Papa, make Nanna stop crying!” Jasten shook her head, trying to block out the noise. She couldn’t worry about Dalian or his Nanna. She had to get home.

She flew along her usual route, leaping over puddles of blood, spinning around grasping bloody hands. She didn’t care about the red liquid splashing up onto her clothes as she ran, she was too focused on returning to the safety of her home and family.

Ahead on the corner, in a little shop, Jasten could see the familiar wooden “Dunnesburrow Boot and Shoe Repair” sign hanging above the door. As she sprinted ever closer, she heard a sound coming from inside her home. This was a sound she had never heard before, and yet she knew exactly what it was. It was the sound of her father crying.