Here’s a second chapter preview, this time it’s Mother Alanna, another character from “Hallowed Ends.”<\/p>\n
TWO<\/span><\/p>\n \n The timeless dream became a steady white light, the sun, the flowers, the hillsides, the bright blue sky fading into an endless void with no beginning, no end. The flower petals fell from Mother Alanna\u2019s fingers, disappearing before they reached her feet. She called out to the void, her voice seeming to echo forever with no reply. Sadness enveloped her, the sense of loss of her god abandoning her, taking from her one final happiness as the peace and serenity of her dream became nothing. The silence made her want to scream, the fear of madness replacing the serenity that she had felt only moments earlier. A bright flash, somehow brighter than the white void, forced her to close her eyes. <\/span><\/p>\n When she opened them, she was surrounded by darkness other than the dim glow of the heavy object on her chest. Alanna lay still as she steadied her breathing, amazed that the heavy metal on her chest flared lightly with a red glow with each breath she inhaled, becoming a dim blue that faded with each exhale. She listened intently, unsure of her surroundings. The faint sound of voices met her ears. Alanna struggled to move, her limbs stiff and sore. When she was finally able to gain control of her hands, she ran them over the object on her chest, sighing at the warmth emanating from it. <\/span><\/p>\n Her fingers felt the smooth edges of a hammer head, then the solid shaft, and finally the perfectly oiled leather strips of the weapon\u2019s handle. A distant memory came to her of Tarver Irondale\u2019s son, Davon, lovingly placing the warhammer on her chest and gently wrapping her fingers around its shaft. The memory became a blur, but not before she recognized Davon\u2019s father, Feyric, and Mother Lucille, kneeling next to her body on the funeral bier, softly conversing then praying to Torren. <\/span><\/p>\n The instant she thought of Torren, her god, her master, she came fully awake. A sharp intake of breath caused the weapon to flare brightly. She almost screamed in fright at the number of bodies surrounding her, all of them bereft of life, all beginning to decompose. Alanna swung her legs off the bier, wincing at the floor\u2019s chill, wincing again when she stood. Her legs refused to obey her commands at first, but after a few seconds, she used the warhammer as a makeshift crutch to steady herself. The voices she heard seemed muffled, as if far away, which made her wonder if she was still asleep, still in another realm, or still dead. She sucked in a breath to create more light, hoping to find a doorway. <\/span><\/p>\n After a few minutes of searching, she became frustrated, until another distant memory came to her. The clerics of Torren had sealed her inside the burial chambers reserved for those of their order. She wanted to cry, but the warhammer began to glow a faint red at first, becoming brighter as her sadness and frustration mounted. Another thought\u2014this one felt less like a memory, more like a sliver of inherent knowledge\u2014suggested she use the weapon to destroy the tomb\u2019s wall. Part of her balked, the shame of desecrating the final resting place for members of her order instilled in her since she took up the robes as a young girl. Another part of her hungered to swing the weapon with all of her might so that she would be free from the pitch black tomb. <\/span><\/p>\n Alanna used the warhammer\u2019s constant glow to find the creases in the wall where the doorway had been sealed. She closed her eyes and swung the hammer, letting out a shout of surprise when the weapon\u2019s head slammed into the masonry, shattering it into fine dust. Screams of fright met her ears, then the shuffling of feet. She peeked out into the dim hallway to see three clerics, their eyes wide with terror, staring at her. One still had a long strip of cerement in her shaking hand. Alanna took one step into the hallway and raised the warhammer as if it were a torch. <\/span><\/p>\n The clerics screamed again and ran in the opposite direction, afraid the specter that had escaped its resting place would attempt to strike them down and send their souls to the underworld. Alanna tried to call out to them, to assure them that she was neither lich or demon, but by the time she could form the words, all that was left in the hallway was the waxed cloth from the cleric\u2019s hand. She followed their cries for help down the long hallway, pausing at a wide set of stone stairs. More voices came from above, then the sharp command of a familiar voice that silenced the others. Alanna listened to the barely audible rapid whispering, then the sounds of cloth rubbing together along with footsteps that grew closer. <\/span><\/p>\n Alanna saw two glowing globes of blue, then the face they illuminated as the robed figure descended the stairs. Mother Lucille\u2019s face went white with shock, her eyes wide with fear as she saw the naked cleric the others had run away from. Mother Lucille rushed down the remaining stairs, reaching the bottom just as Alanna pitched forward, her last thought a mix of wonder and amazement that she was in the basement of the cathedral instead of wandering as a ghost through an underworld plane. <\/span><\/p>\n \n *<\/span><\/p>\n \n \u201cAm I dead?\u201d Mother Alanna asked after opening her eyes to shaded sunlight. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d a voice said as soft fingers stroked her cheeks. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAre you sure?\u201d Alanna asked, closing her eyes when the light became too bright, too strong. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMother Lucille says you are not dead,\u201d another voice said, this one almost as familiar as Lucille\u2019s. \u201cI have sent Sister Erin to fetch her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFather Kyle?\u201d Alanna asked weakly. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, my dear,\u201d Father Kyle answered, grasping her free hand. He and the other clerics had tried to remove her right hand from the warhammer she clutched to her chest, but had given up after a few minutes of struggling, the weapon\u2019s head growing a brighter red the harder they struggled to pry her fingers apart. \u201cYes, it\u2019s Father Kyle. Do you know where you are?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe cathedral,\u201d Alanna said softly, opening her eyes again. The cleric\u2019s face hovered near hers, his kind smile and wise eyes tinged with worry. \u201cKyle,\u201d she said, squeezing his hand. \u201cWhat has happened to me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe do not know,\u201d Father Perry said from the other side of the bed. Alanna turned her head, wincing when the light became brighter. \u201cDo you remember?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTorren\u2026\u201d Alanna trailed off, remembering the endless days and nights with her god. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, Torren has awoken,\u201d Mother Trina said from the end of the bed. \u201cWelcome back, Alanna.\u201d She smiled at the woman in the bed. \u201cYou have frightened a number of acolytes, and I\u2019m afraid you will be the subject of tall tales for generations to come.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Alanna smiled and closed her eyes again, the familiarity of her friends and surroundings washing over her. The wispy memories of conversations came and went, her thoughts reaching out to hold on to them before they dissolved. She remembered Torren sharing a bottle of wine with her on the deck of a luxury ship as it sailed through the calm oceans of the southern seas, but she was unable to grasp the subject of their conversation. The sound of a door opening brought her back to the present. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMother Alanna,\u201d Lucille\u2019s melodic voice said. <\/span><\/p>\n Alanna\u2019s heart warmed at the sound, then her whole body at Lucille\u2019s light touch on her shoulder. She smiled at her friend, her teacher, her mentor of almost three decades. Lucille, once a thinning, graying woman in her fiftieth summer, looked exactly as she had the day she took a frightened, orphaned Alanna under her wing. Alanna\u2019s memories floated back to the days after her family had been waylaid on the high mountain road leading into High Cliff, of a young Mother Lucille holding her tight, whispering to her that she was safe, that the clerics would take care of her. Alanna began to cry, the love she felt for the woman she considered her mother enveloping her. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShhhh,\u201d Lucille whispered, her hands once again glowing a soft blue as she cupped Alanna\u2019s face. \u201cIt\u2019s all right. You\u2019re alive, and you\u2019re safe.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Alanna felt peace wash over her even as her silent tears continued to flow. They had become tears of joy as she felt the power of her god remove the stain of sadness, despair, and loneliness from her. A kiss on her forehead from Lucille sealed the love in, and she closed her eyes once again, this time falling into a deep slumber. When she woke again, the room was dark other than a number of candles burning in their wall sconces. She felt the warhammer pressed against her chest, its alternating red-blue glow steady as she breathed, her right hand still wrapped tightly around the shaft. Mother Lucille held her left hand, their fingers linked, a barely perceptible thread of love, joy, strength, and healing flowing into her. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou are awake,\u201d Lucille said, her voice quiet. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhere am I?\u201d Alanna asked. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou are in my chambers.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow long have I been here?\u201d Alanna asked, struggling to sit up until she realized the heavy weapon was still pressed into her chest. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFour days and four nights,\u201d Lucille answered. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am alive?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, as far as any of us can tell. You show no signs of being a lich, a demon, or any other spirit in physical form.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat has happened to me?\u201d Alanna asked, finally moving the warhammer off her chest and standing it up against the small chest next to the bed. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI can only tell you of the events of your death,\u201d Lucille said. \u201cOf what became of you after\u2026 Torren has not spoken of it.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou talk to Torren?\u201d Alanna asked, sitting up after Lucille placed a second pillow behind her.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is more that he talks to us, and only whenever he chooses, no matter how much we pray for his guidance.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2026 I remember the forging,\u201d Alanna said, struggling to remember the last moments of her life. \u201cThe shield, the beast\u2026 Davon Irondale striking the steel with his hammer\u2026 The pain\u2026\u201d She wiped away a stray tear that had escaped. \u201cThen nothing. Or something. I cannot be sure if it was a dream or a reality.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you remember?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDavon, his father, you\u2026 at my side\u2026 praying, crying, loving\u2026\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Lucille soothed, squeezing her friend\u2019s hand. \u201cBut you were dead when that happened. Of that we are sure.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTorren\u2026\u201d Alanna murmured. \u201cTorren welcomed me, showed me things I cannot remember other than I am sure we were together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo doubt,\u201d Lucille chuckled. \u201cHe has favored you with a resurrection. Father Perry and Father Kyle have been searching the records since you first scared the daylights out of the acolytes in the basement. They have found only fables, legends, old tales handed down across time in the pages of the tomes of such a miracle happening.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMaybe they aren\u2019t fables,\u201d Alanna said. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo, I suppose not,\u201d Lucille agreed. \u201cBut if that is the case, then the other stories they have found might be true as well. Stories of Clerics of Torren so powerful they could resurrect the dead. Gifts from our god to not only raise the fallen, but to smite the creatures who refused to stay dead, to counter the power of the ancient necromancers before The Fall, to heal the most serious of wounds.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Lucille\u2019s words triggered another memory in Alanna\u2019s mind, one of her and Torren walking along a ridge, a deep, wide valley below them, towering cliffs of granite above. Torren\u2019s words were muddled, faint, incomprehensible, but Alanna remembered the ideas, the images in her head that formed. He had spoken of her destiny, of dark journeys, of fear that would engulf her if her faith wavered. The memory suddenly became sharp, Torren\u2019s words no longer faint and indistinct. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI must leave,\u201d Alanna said, attempting to get out of bed. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo, you must rest,\u201d Lucille said, pressing a hand into her chest. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTorren has instructed me,\u201d Alanna protested. She tried to remove Lucille\u2019s hand, but the elder cleric\u2019s hand was immovable. \u201cI must go,\u201d she pleaded softly. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn time,\u201d Lucille assured her. \u201cFor now, you must recover your strength. When you are ready, we will accompany you.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Alanna said, leaning back into the pillows. \u201cI must go alone.\u201d She looked at her friend and smiled. \u201cThough you are somehow younger and I would only slow you down. I dare not ask Him why he sends an old woman instead of you.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Lucille laughed, stroked Alanna\u2019s cheek, then stood up and went to the table near the window. She returned with a silver mirror, handing it to Alanna. Alanna gasped when Lucille\u2019s palm glowed brightly enough for her to see her reflection. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2026 How?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA gift for our faith, I believe,\u201d Lucille said. \u201cIt is the same for all clerics who survived Hallow\u2019s End.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut\u2026 I look twenty summers again! As do you!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThen you will appreciate just how handsome Father Ulysses is once more,\u201d Lucille said with a wink and a sly smile. <\/span><\/p>\n Alanna thought of Father Ulysses, a man of more than sixty summers, though his rugged, handsome features had always belied his true age. Her eyes had always been drawn to the portrait of him that hung in the long hallway that led to the oratory. Painted during his twenty-fifth summer, it showed a Father Ulysses who had broken almost every woman\u2019s heart in the order, along with at least a thousand other hearts belonging to the citizens of High Cliff. After losing his wife less than a month before the portrait was painted by a traveling artist commissioned by Emperor Almurra, he had never again taken a lover or showed the slightest interest in temporary intimacy. The artist\u2019s skill was rumored to have been complemented by the hand of Torren for the way it erased the lines of pain, the creases of despair, and the gauntness of ultimate loss. Women across the region swooned at meeting the young cleric in person, the same as the young acolytes swooned whenever they passed by the portrait. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe is like you?\u201d Alanna asked. \u201cLike me?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Mother Lucille chuckled and nodded. \u201cThe poor girls\u2026 They fall all over themselves for his attentions. It is good that Father Ulysses is discreet now that he has decided his long abstinence is over.\u201d She winked at Alanna, a wry grin quickly becoming a knowing smile. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou?\u201d Alanna asked, shocked not at Lucille\u2019s dalliance with the cleric, but at combination of lust and love that she could see in her friend\u2019s face. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am but one,\u201d Lucille answered, refusing to look away. \u201cBut as I said, he is discrete, and I am sure he would not like Mother Lucille spreading tales of his desires to a newly resurrected member of the order.\u201d Her expression became serious. \u201cTell me of this journey Torren has commanded you to undertake.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am to travel to the Dread Mountains,\u201d Alanna said, her memory of Torren\u2019s instructions becoming solid, as if He had spoken to her only seconds earlier. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Dread Mountains?\u201d Lucille asked with concern. \u201cThere is nothing but death and sorrow there. Not even the nightmare creatures venture into those cursed lands.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am to destroy a corrupted temple, one dedicated to Gol,\u201d Alanna said. \u201cAnd any who still reside within its walls.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGol?\u201d Lucille asked, fear seeping into her voice. \u201cGol has been silent even longer than Torren. He was destroyed thousands of years ago during the Cataclysm.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNot destroyed,\u201d Alanna said, handing the mirror back to Lucille. \u201cBanished by the combined forces of both gods and the twilight peoples. Yet one last temple has survived, deep under the mountains, where nothing but memories remain. Torren assures me that I am to make the journey alone, as any who accompany me will perish long before we have crossed over the Black Pass.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut you are only one cleric!\u201d Lucille exclaimed. \u201cThough you posses a Hallowed warhammer, you are not a warrior! None of us are. We are healers, menders, clerics of the light.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe were once far more,\u201d Alanna said, a wispy image of armies clashing in a desert basin floating at the edge of her thoughts, one side led by clerics of Torren, their shiny adamantine armor reflecting the glow of their powerful, god-infused weapons, the other a mass of darkness led by the sorcerers who brought about The Fall. \u201cBut I am afraid, as you are, that I am one woman, a robed cleric, possessing a powerful weapon that I have no training to use. I do, however, hesitate to question Him as to why I must do this, and do this alone.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBefore Hallows End, I would have not feared to question anything,\u201d Lucille agreed. \u201cNow\u2026 I am afraid to question anything. Once a god awakens, takes interest in mortal affairs, it is wise to be truly faithful. The gods of old were not kind to apostates and those who had fallen out of favor.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMay I eat?\u201d Alanna asked, changing the subject. \u201cI feel as if I have not eaten in centuries.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOf course, I will return shortly with a hot stew and chilled wine,\u201d Lucille said, walking to the door. She looked back to her friend, still amazed that Alanna, like herself, had somehow become young again, vibrant once more. \u201cThough it has only been six weeks since you have last eaten.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSix weeks\u2026\u201d Alanna whispered. \u201cFeyric\u2026 and the girl\u2026 The one Tarver Irondale gifted the first weapon to\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCelana Hammerstone,\u201d Lucille said with a smile. \u201cFeyric and Celana departed for the western coast the day after Hallows End.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNian,\u201d Alanna said, unsure of where the knowledge had come from.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, Feyric mentioned Nian. He is to take the girl there to be trained to use her weapon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Carnage<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, that is the name she chose for it. Do you know the name of your warhammer?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Triumph<\/span>,\u201d Alanna said, somewhat frightened that she knew the Hallowed weapon\u2019s name though the exquisite warhammer had been given to her after her death in at the forge. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI will return soon,\u201d Lucille said, her warm smile gracing her friend one last time before she slipped out of the room. <\/span><\/p>\n \n *<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s a second chapter preview, this time it’s Mother Alanna, another character from “Hallowed Ends.” TWO The timeless dream became a steady white light, the sun, the flowers, the hillsides, the bright blue sky fading into an endless void with … Continue reading