Chapter 6 - Alldeh

Alldeh woke up from the dream screaming. It was the same dream, it always was, of men screaming as they burned alive. His nose flared as he breathed in the fresher air of the room, trying to rid himself of the stench of burning flesh. He had known these men. He was sure of it. Just as sure as he was that the dream was more memory than another fabrication of his mind. But, only moments later, he was questioning it again, wondering if what he thought was real could truely be believed. His mind played tricks on him. It had to. It needed to keep the evil fooled, so it fooled him too. Or was it the other way around? He pulled at his hair, trying to make the pieces of his mind settle back into place. It didn't help. All it left him with was another small handful of hair. He looked around guiltily before stuffing it under the mattress.

There would be no sleeping now. The dream always left him unsettled. He got out of bed and got the chalk off the table, wishing again that they'd give him clothes with pockets. But after he'd gathered stones in them one day, they stopped letting him have places to keep things hidden. It didn't help that he couldn't remember why he'd wanted the stones either. His mind forgot things so quickly.

He realized that he'd lost a few moments of time again, staring at the chalk in his hand. He sighed and moved to the wall, trying to draw the things he'd seen recently - the symbols in his dreams, the glowing stick. It seemed as if the stick came out closer to how he'd seen it than the symbols. No matter how clearly he had seen the symbols in his dreams or in his mind, he couldn't seem to make his hand draw them properly.

It's important, he thought to himself, trying once again. He's coming.

He wasn't sure who was coming precisely. He just knew that he could feel him in the back of his head, as if they were connected somehow. Alldeh didn't want to be connected to him though. Or was the he an it? Alldeh couldn't be sure. But it was hungry and angry and evil. And it was coming. No. It was here. Not here as in at the church, but here on this world. Where it shouldn't be. And Alldeh could feel him.

"Damnit!" he swore as he looked at what he'd been drawing. He'd drawn faces, the menacing, demonic faces he sometimes saw in his dreams. Before the men burned. He'd meant to draw the symbols again. Or was it the stick? In frustration, he slammed his head against the wall. For a moment, his vision was blurred and his head filled with pain.

My name's not Alldeh, why do they keep calling me that? he thought, in a single moment of clarity within the pain. But when he struggled to remember what his name really was, his mind fogged again. The blood he'd left on the wall, however, gave him an idea. He discarded the chalk and used his finger instead, dipping it into the blood as he needed more. He knew they wouldn't be happy when they found it the next morning, but they'd see what he'd drawn. Sometimes that was more important - that someone see. Maybe one of them would start to understand. He knew of no other way. His hopes rested on Rolin, the one who came the most. He'd have seen more. He'd have a better chance of recognizing the danger soonest. Alldeh continued, smearing the blood frantically before it dried, trying to get as many details down as possible of the glowing stick. It was new. Not like the last one. More powerful. It might even work this time.

He drew carefully, but still working quickly. Rolin always brought breakfast. If he had it done by then...

The red paint he'd been using dried. He looked around for water, but he couldn't find any. He spit on his finger, and tried mixing that with the paint, but it wasn't helping. He searched everywhere for more of the paint, but he couldn't find it. There wasn't even any hoarded under the mattress.

He slumped to the ground. He'd failed again. There was chalk sitting next to him, but chalk was useless. Chalk almost never worked. One couldn't channel magic through chalk very well. He threw the chalk across the room in frustration.

He started to cry but he made himself stop. He wasn't supposed to cry, he told himself. That's not what great people did. He had been great once. Or was that someone else? He couldn't remember.

Now he wanted to remember. There was something important he had forgotten. His eyes fell on a piece of chalk across the room. Drawing things had sometimes helped his memory. Maybe if he drew something, he told himself. He grinned, now that he had a plan, and went across the room to grab the chalk. There was a red smear where he wanted to draw. He rubbed at it with his sleeve and most of it seemed to rub off. That was better. He didn't like red anyway.

He drew for a while, trying to jog his memory, but the images that appeared on the wall didn't seem to make any sense to him. He looked down at the chalk accusingly before throwing it across the room.

"It must be the chalk," he muttered. "Would be better if I had charcoal instead."

He searched the room for something else to draw with. Eventually he found a small bit of chalk on the floor and decided he'd have to make do with that. It seemed to be the only thing in the room capable of drawing with. Someone had already drawn on the wall, and he wondered who'd been allowed in his room. He reminded himself to chastize the guards later for allowing entry to some lunatic. Whomever had done it had obviously been crazy, based on the drawings themselves. He used his sleeve to clear away a space for now. He'd have the rest cleaned properly later, when the maid came by.

He drew the symbols he was going to need, but had trouble getting them right for some reason. Something nagged at the back of his mind, some evil presence. He turned around, feeling as if he was being watched.

"Who's there?" he demanded. "These are my quarters! Who dares enter without my express permission?"

The only person in the room was a priest. He wasn't the source of the evil at all. Alldeh dismissed him, and started searching for the stowaway. It didn't take him long, the room wasn't big. The evil wasn't under the bed, the table, the chair, or the priest. The priest kept getting in his way, however, saying something about blood and trying to dab at his forehead with a damp cloth. Confused, Alldeh stopped and felt his forehead.

"I've been wounded!" he exclaimed in surprise, looking at the priest. Father Rolin. The name popped unbidden into his mind, but he knew it to be true. "Rolin? Who did this?"

He saw the priest sigh and look concerned.

"You don't understand," Alldeh said, taking Rolin's arm in his hand. "He's back now. We failed and he's back. I can feel him Rolin. He's going to try and kill me. He's going to try and kill us all."

For a moment, he knew. For just a moment, he remembered why the men in his dreams screamed. Why they'd sacrificed themselves and suffered a burning death. Why his mind was shattered. He opened his mouth to tell Rolin.

"We have to hurry," was all he got out. Then it all slipped away, trickling from his grasp as quickly as he tried to stop it from going. "Noooooo!"

He collapsed in a heap, knowing he'd just lost something very important and having no idea what it was. He wept, knowing more lives would be lost because he couldn't remember.