Emily's House: Book 1 of the Akasha Chronicles

Chapter 44: A Promise

 Chapter 44: A Promise

It was a day like most of the others that lay behind him. As usual he went to his master’s main grounds and cared for the livestock and repaired the buildings. It could be worse, he well knew. Mainly he was left alone to do his work in outside areas, away from others. Left on his own to ponder and think all day and plan his escape.

He had decided that day was the day. He quickly finished his assigned tasks in record time. He could go home early. He planned to find his mother in their small quarters, through with her morning chores of gathering water and food and readying their evening meal. She did all this before she went to her own ‘work’.

When he had left that morning at the first light of dawn, his mother’s ‘work’ was still with her, loudly snoring in the small room his mother slept in. This happened occasionally. The lousy oaf was too lazy to get up and out when he was supposed to.

That day, as he approached the door to their small apartment, he felt coldness come over him. His belly tightened and seized up. With a huge feeling of foreboding, he ran to his home.

The door to their dwelling was wide open. He stopped in the small doorway and instinctively listened. He dared not call out to his mother. He was small and quiet on his feet. If an attacker were still there, he would have the element of surprise.

The abode was so small that it took but three steps to move from the entryway to the doorway of his mother’s room. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he peered inside. He quickly surveyed the situation and found no one in the room. He was about to turn around and leave to look for his mother when he heard a small whimper.

He spun back around and quietly walked the two steps that it took to go to the other side of the small bed in the room. For all the years since that day – and there have been many – Dughall wished that he could excise from his brain the memory of what he saw.

There, a mass of human flesh. Its face so black, blue and swollen it was barely recognizable as human. One arm dangled, lifeless, from the body. The other was bent at an odd angle, surely broken in two. And on the floor, a pool of blood that oozed from the pile of flesh.

A part of him wanted to back away and to run. He wanted to run as fast as he could from the horrible sight. Run until he was sure that it was a nightmare and he’d come back to find his dear mother cooking their evening meal as always.

But then he again heard a whimper and he knew it was real. The pile of broken and oozing flesh was his own mother, his only love, the flesh of his flesh. His reason to live. She was beaten and tortured beyond the capacity to rise again.

Then a tiny voice, rasping and choking and trying to speak. He bent down nearer what used to be his mother’s face, nearer to hear what may be her final words.

The power of his touch on her arm as he bent in close seemed to give her the strength to speak. “My dearest son,” she choked out. “Remember all I taught you.” She coughed and stopped. Dughall thought she had stopped breathing.

But then she started again. “Your time is now my son. You will walk a path of greatness, my love.” Her breathing labored, gasping for air.

“You must do something for me now, my son. Honor your mother,” she rasped.

“Of course my most beloved,” he said. His tears choked his words and blinded him. “Anything you ask my mother.”

“Take your small knife, my son, the one you use to cut rope. Use it now, my love, and plunge it deep into your mother’s heart. Use it, dear son, to end my pain.”

Dughall felt he could do anything for her. He could kill their master with his bare hands. He’d smash the skulls of the slave owners in the whole province. He could do anything but the task she had asked of him. How can I silence the beating of the one heart that ever loved me?

“Please,” she croaked. “Please ... ”

As he looked at the rasping heap of flesh that was once his mother, he knew that he had to release the one he loved from her broken shell. Dughall grabbed the small, dull knife from the pack around his waist. His master didn’t allow him to own a dagger, sword or weapon of any kind. The small knife was so dull it would barely cut bread. But it was all he had. He knew that it would be the power of the force of the thrust not the sharpness of the blade that would complete his task.

With that thought, he summoned all the strength and love that he had. With a powerful thrust, he slammed that small knife into the still beating heart of his only mother. From the sound of her shallow breaths he knew that his knife had swung true. Within seconds, she drew her last breath then laid still, her glassy eyes still open.

Dughall’s hand was still clenched around the knife handle while, with his other hand, he closed the lids of his mother’s eyes, never again to look upon her loving countenance. In that moment, his hand still on the hilt of the weapon that had taken the life force from his mother’s body, any love or compassion that Dughall may have had within him died. In that moment, the Dughall that would fight his way to the top ranks of the Norman army was born. The Dughall that would lay waste to entire villages on his quest for power was born. The Dughall that would one day risk his soul to bide his time in the Umbra Nihili was born. On that day, the Dughall that sits at the control panel of the most powerful machine humans have ever built was born.

And on that day, in that moment, kneeling beside the dead body of his only love, Dughall made a pledge. Perhaps never before or since has one made such a fervent promise, a promise that would ring through the ages. A promise that would bind a person to risk their immortal soul. A promise that had the power to resurrect one long ago dead. A promise so strong, the desire to fulfill it blinds its maker to the risk of death to those around him, even to the whole of the planet, perhaps to the whole of the solar system in which the beautiful blue planet swirls.

“Hear me now, any gods there be. Hear me now as I pledge this solemn oath, with all my heart and soul. From the depths of my being, hear my promise. I will find you, my beloved, and we will be together again. I will find a way to bring you back to my side and together, my mother, my queen, we will rule over all those who have had a hand in our suffering, and over their kin for all generations to come. This I promise to you, my love.”

Having made his oath, Dughall rose and swiftly left the small dwelling where he had lived since he was an infant. He considered himself free and would no longer live the life of a slave.

It was payback time.