Anyway for the rest of you who aren't Him but still reading this, here's chapter 4 of my story for this year's NaNoWriMo, and I am getting better I think, slowly but surely.
Chapter
4:
Time meant nothing when one was unconscious. Had it been hours, days, or even weeks Cody
didn’t know, but when he woke up he was confused and had to blink several times
to clear his vision. He could feel warm
sheets around his body and a soft mattress under him, but other than that he
couldn’t tell much about his surroundings other than a soft glow coming from
the side of the room he was in.
He threw off his covers and stumbled out of bed
towards the light. He felt stiff and
sore but the shock of being in an unfamiliar place left him wanting answers and
spurring him on. He reached the light
and found that curtains were covering up the source of light coming in from a
window. Pulling the curtains back quickly,
Cody became blinded by the sudden bright light streaming into the previously
dark room.
After his vision cleared Cody looked out at the
scenery from the window of his room.
Looking out he saw a wide range of mountains and fields covered in
trees. From what he could tell his
window was coming out from the side of a mountain. Looking down from the window he saw the rocky
precipice that lead down to more jagged edges until they reached the foot of
the mountain and the flatter lands below.
“Just where the hell am I…?” Cody looked around the rather barren room he
was in and noticed other beds with curtains that could be drawn between them to
offer some privacy to each. Cold end
tables and some trays that carried gauze, vials, and various other medical supplies
lead the man to figure that he was in some kind of hospital ward. The one next to the bed he had been sleeping
in had his shirt that he reached for before he noticed he felt something around
his body.
Looking down he saw that his body had been wrapped in
a strange feeling gauze that had strange patterns written all over it. It was an odd series of symbols that he had
never seen before and they were written on every inch of the gauze. What was particularly strange was that when
he was last awake his ribs and head had still been hurting but now he felt
almost completely fine.
A sudden sound of a door opening up behind him made
him jerk and look back to see the strange Howard Nickles walking in with a cart
of food and bottles of water.
“Ah, awake at last are we? How are you feeling?”
“That a rhetorical question, you, ass? What the hell did you do to me, where are we
and give me one good reason why I shouldn’t punch your face in?” Cody pulled his shirt on and clenched his fist in anger. He had been drugged, kidnapped, beaten up,
and robbed in a very short amount of time and his patience and good nature had
effectively been lost at last.
“Well I was hoping that you were feeling better at
this point. Our medical abilities are
far beyond what most people can imagine so you should be almost completely
healed by now if not totally. You can
tell, can’t you?”
Cody blinked in surprise, he had just been realizing
that very thing when Howard had came in.
“Yeah… I feel great actually, just how long have I been
out and again where am I and why?”
“All very good questions and all I shall answer in
time but first if you will please follow me, I think you could use some
exercise. You’ve been asleep for almost
18 hours after all.”
Cody looked at him for a moment and looked into those
eyes again. They were the same color and
held the same warmth as before, and despite all his better judgment he walked
up to the man and looked at the food.
His stomach rumbled from hunger and his mouth felt dry with thirst. He picked up a bottle of water and examined
it carefully.
“There’s nothing in this is there?”
“Haha, no, and I am terribly sorry about having to
drug you like that but it was for your own safety that I knock you out and
bring you here I hope you’ll come to understand.”
Cody looked at the bottle once again before he twisted
the cap and opened it. Taking a sniff of
the bottle once to make sure it was fine before just going for it and taking a
few deep gulps of the water.
“Ok, so start talkin’ then. Are you with that guy that attacked me?”
A sudden sad look came across the man’s face, “I’m not
with that man, and it is by sheer luck that he didn’t outright kill you. That man was sent to assassinate you and
likely take your music book.”
“WHAT?!
Assassinate me? Wha- Like
assassinate, assassinate like what John Booth did to Lincoln?”
“Oh is that what they’re telling you kids in school
these days?” Howard chuckled seemingly
amused, “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that they still think Kennedy was
killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.” He laughed
amused as he turned to walk into the hallway motioning for the now very
confused Cody to follow.
“John Booth was not the man to kill Lincoln, he was a
scapegoat set up by the real assassins who wanted to put a stop to Lincoln’s plans
for the country and while they did succeed in stopping several of the things he
had planned at the very least the transcontinental railroad was started and slavery
was abolished so it wasn’t so bad. But
that is not the matter at hand, my boy.
The fact of the matter is that yes that man had been sent to kill you
and based on your injuries it was going to be made to look like a mugging gone
bad. It’s not that untypical of their
style, but that’s not important either.”
“WILL YOU JUST STOP!”
Cody screamed in frustration, “You’re talking in God-damned riddles and
I just want a straight answer that’s not frickin’ crazy!”
The older man turned and looked into Cody’s frustrated
face and nodded before he put his hand on the wall and pushed on it to open a
path to a small sitting room. On the one
side of the room were books set upon shelves, and a small repurposed window box
garden with flowers of various colors growing set on the other side which faced
more mountains and fields with a town miles away.
“Very well. I
will answer your questions honestly then.
To start with, yes, someone wanted to assassinate you just like your
parents were assassinated.” Cody’s eyes
went wide in shock hearing this. His
parents were killed in car accidents from what he had been told, he had never
even thought that their deaths could have been more than mere accidents.
“I see this comes as a shock to you, I guess your
father really didn’t tell you anything about your heritage or purpose in this
life.” He sighed and shook his head,
“Did that fool really think you’d be safe being blindly ignorant of
everything…”
“Yes your parents were assassinated and it was made to
look like an accident. They were a part
of this organization that I am a part of called The Order of the Muse as you
are also a part of rather you like it or not.
We protect the arts and help humanity progress. We inspire others with our various powers and
abilities and from that inspiration people accomplish great things. The creation of society, the exploration of
the world, all inventions and progresses can all be traced back to what we’ve
done.”
“And what exactly is it that you and your…
organization… does?”
“We use special arts to inspire humanity like I
said. While many people can draw, write,
and play music we have an innate ability where what we do actually has a
greater affect on the hearts of others.
If someone else was to play a sad song it might make people around them
feel a bit melancholy, but when you play a sad song it will actually make
everyone around you feel that sorrow.
You will bring people to tears and make them feel such sorrow that it
would be as if they were experiencing it for themselves. People like us can sway the heart and still
the soul and if we work in conjecture with other arts and use our full
abilities we can perform feats of legend that many would call miracles or
magic.”
Cody scoffed at that and snorted out his nose,
“Magic? You expect me to believe that
you can do ‘magic’ and have power over people’s hearts and all that other crap?”
“Oh? Perhaps a
demonstration is in order then?” Howard
stood up and went to his shelves and pulled out a glass, a flask, and a violin
case. He set the glass and flask down
and opened the violin case and picked up a strange looking violin that had
various patterns and symbols written all over it.
“These symbols and runes were made by our scribes to
imbue my instrument with various powers.
Add to that an ancient song and a peaceful state of mind and watch what
I can do.”
Howard readied the violin on his shoulder and rested
his chin on the chinrest before he pulled the bow across the waist and tested
the sounds. After a slight twist of the
tuning pegs to tune it he placed his bow on the strings and pulled it across
the waist to let out a melodious sound that made Cody feel much calmer and
relaxed than he had since he woke up.
A few notes were quickly played in succession that
changed the mood of the song to a more intense melody. While slow and spirited it made Cody feel
calm and almost like he was floating. A
few more notes were played and the flask that Howard had set out started to
rise into the air and the cap unscrewed itself.
Cody stared stupefied as the levitating flask was opened and the gently
poured into the glass that had also started to float in mid air.
“Is this a good enough demonstration for you,
boy?” Howard smirked.
“It’s… it’s just a trick, something with magnets or
something.”
“Heh, so cynical despite how strong a spirit you
process… interesting, but let’s see if this helps prove my point.”
A quicker series of notes started to be strung across
the waist and the liquid that had been poured out started to rise out of the
glass and form shapes. Musical notes
formed and moved through the air before they formed stars that shot out all
around. The water caught the light and
refracted it across the room casting colors all around the walls. It was an impressive sight that left Cody
completely speechless and unable to think of anything else that this could be
other than ‘magic’.
“Okay… I honestly have no explanation for that so I’m
going to just shut up and go along with this, because you’re either telling me
the truth and this IS magic or those pain pills the doctors gave me were REALLY
good and this is just some crazy dream.”
Cody pinched his arm and flinched, “Nope, not a dream…so this is real…
Now… how did you just do… THIS?”
A soft chuckle came from Howard as he started to play
a bit more slowly and let the liquid fall back into the glass, “As I said
before that was a very special song that was written well over 200 years
ago. Its capable of levitating objects
and manipulating things on a small scale.
If played with more ferocity and passion with a different intent it can
be used to lift heavier things and attack.
Of course there’s a better song for attacks and such,” a dissonant
shrill rang from the F-holes and the glass that had held the liquid suddenly
was split in half from the top to the base.
“That is what I like to call the ‘song of slicing’
it’s very useful in cutting things like stone, glass, and the occasional ham.”
Cody chuckled at his joke and looked at the glass,
“Okay, that I will admit is really cool and all, but what was that about
assassinations now?”
The happy look on Howard’s face turned sour at the
mention of something so depressing, “It is not something any of us like to talk
about, but I suppose the story should be told to you now.”
Howard got out another glass and poured himself a
drink from a bottle of whisky before he took a sip, “This is not something
new. The man who attacked you, the
people responsible for your parents’ deaths, this has been happening since the
mankind started to record history. You
could say they are our polar opposites, the darkness to our light, the yin to
our yang, the death to our life. We call
them the Silent, they are a group of assassins who serve to stop the progress
of mankind and to drag us all back into a new dark age.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“Mankind was easier to rule when they were stupid,
scared, and ignorant. The Silent want to
create a new dark age, eliminating all the knowledge and progress mankind has
made over the millennium so that they can rule with an iron fist. The best way to do this is to first destroy
us, those that can inspire hope and emotions for people to act on. They seek the destruction of our lineage as
well as the destruction of those who oppose the tyrants in power who stifle the
freedom and souls of others. Destroy
their passion and thirst for life and they can be controlled like meek little
sheep.”
Cody nodded softly, “Okay… and these Silent people
want to kill me because I’ve got some special ability inside me?”
“Exactly,” The old man nodded and threw back the rest
of his drink, “And even if you never discovered your abilities you’d still be a
threat to them. Your most basic songs
hold great power over others and that most simple of an ability makes you as
great a threat to them as if you had a bomb hanging over their heads.”
“Wow… so what happens to me now?”
“Well for your own safety we’ve collected your things
and moved them here where you are free to stay for as long as you wish, though
you will be taking some “classes” to learn how to defend yourself and use your
powers. I don’t think it will be a good
idea for you to leave here for awhile, but when you learn some of the basic
abilities I think it will be safe for you to go out on your own. Until then I think it’d be better if you were
with someone. They really wanted
something from you and I don’t think they are going to stop looking for it
until they get it.”
“So, what I’m going to be a prisoner in this place
until I can learn how to beat up people with my guitar or something?”
“Not as eloquent as I’d say it, but even so not
really. You can come and go as you like,
it would just be safer for you to be with someone until you could defend
yourself against the Silent’s assassins.”
“Hey I think I can hold my own against people, I’m not
some wimp or kid after all.”
“Oh? So what
happened with that man who attacked you was…?”
Howard leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand as his elbow was
placed on his leg waiting for an answer.
“He just… Surprised me is all.” Cody drummed his fingers on his arm as he
looked away, his argument completely put down.
“These are assassins, Cody, now that they know what
you look like they won’t ask questions first.
They will use poisons, bullets, bombs, and more. The next time they find you, if you do not
learn how to stop them, they will kill you and anyone around you and associated
with you. Friends, companions, even
strangers on the same bus as you will mean nothing to them, they will kill
anyone to get to you.”
Cody looked ahead at what he had just been told. He could either stay here and work to make
himself stronger, or he could risk going out into the world, being found again,
and then being killed along with anyone around him. It was either his freedom or his life and
while he longed to not be cooped up here in some strange area he had never been
to he did not want to die.
“Okay… fine I’ll stay here and do what I need to
do…” Cody said the words and while he
knew it had to be done the emotion and tone in his voice said that he regretted
his decision as soon as he had made it.
“I know it’s hard, Cody, but it’s for the best.” Howard stood up and put his hand on Cody’s
shoulder. “It’s not forever and I think
you’ll enjoy it here. Think of it as a
vacation. Why don’t you go explore our
little home for awhile and after dinner we’ll get you settled into your room.”
Cody nodded and stood up. He felt a great deal of confliction stirring
inside him but he decided not to let that deter him from this new challenge in
his life. He felt things starting to
overwhelm him, but as he walked out of the door he thought that maybe it
wouldn’t be so bad, and hoped he was right.
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