The Guardians of Verinian

A sudden gust of wind sent a chill down my spine, though the desolate village that surrounded me did a fine job of that on its own. I trekked through the deserted marketplace, looking for any signs of life, anything to suggest that people still occupied this land, but found none. I ran a hand over a snow covered booth, finding two silver coins and a broken wooden sign that once listed the prices of the goods sold here. I picked up the coins, holding them by the edges with gloved fingertips, and examined them closely. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them, they weren’t particularly old, nor were they newly constructed.

Abandoning the coins, I moved on down the street, forgoing the marketplace for the village homes. I entered the first house without much resistance. The door, though rusty, was unlocked. Inside, I found much of the same scenes I had previously noticed. There were signs of the house being inhabited, but nothing to suggest that anyone lived here any longer. In fact, fruit sat on the kitchen table, sunken and rotted, as if someone had prepared it to eat, but had never gotten the chance. I quickly moved to investigate the first of the two bedrooms, but stopped short. It was a child’s room, the scattered toys and the size of the bed gave that much away. A small worn doll lay just in front of the doorway, torn beyond repair. I bent down to pick it and was shocked to find a small object embedded in its neck. A gentle tug released it from its binds and allowed me to identify it. It was a steel needle, the kind more suited as a weapon than as anything else. Being careful as to not damage the needle in any capacity, I shrugged the burlap bag off my shoulder and flopped onto the ground beside it. From the bag, I retrieved my book and paints. Setting the needle down carefully on a page ripped from my book, I set to work constructing a case, just large enough for the needle to fit snugly inside. My brush strokes were quick yet graceful as the box begin to take shape on the page. When it was finished I set aside my brush and removed it from the paper, watching as the two dimensional image I painted became a physical box as I lifted it. I quickly moved to place the needle within it. Though it might have appeared worthless at first glance, it was the only evidence I had managed to gather. Once it was secure, I placed it in my sack and started to do the same with my paints but hesitated. Hastily, I composed a new object, bringing it into existence with a touch of a my fingers.

A doll with black knitted hair and emerald glass eyes lay cradled in my hands, an exact replica of the one they lay in tatters only a few inches away. I replaced it with its newer counterpart, tossing it into my bag along with the rest of my supplies. I was glad in that moment that I was alone. If Aiden had been here, he would have just reprimand me for wasting resources and time. In reality, the girl who lived here was probably dead, and if by some miracle she wasn’t, she would probably never come back to this place, none of them would. I stood, shouldering my bag once more, and sighed. She would probably never return, but still, I wanted the object she held dear to be here, waiting on the off chance she did.

After checking the rest of the house I moved back out onto the street, mulling over whether it was worth it to comb through the other houses or not. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a black blur. Anyone else from our clan would have immediately been on guard, their weapon drawn, but I knew immediately there was no need. Turning to face the direction of the blur, my eyes landed on a raven perched on the roof of the house I had just exited. It’s slick black feathers were a heavy contrast to the snow that surrounded it and its beady eyes seemed to glare at me with intense interest. As soon as it noticed me staring it squawked loudly and hopped once in place. I sighed and turned my attention back towards the other houses.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” I told it, turning my face back up to look at the raven, but instead finding a boy crouching in the exact spot where the bird had once been.

“I finished looking through the houses in the last town. There were no survivors. Any luck here?” He asked before standing and nimbly jumping to the ground only a few feet from me with ease.

I always loved watching him fly about like that. When he was human he still retained that bird like grace. In fact, he retained more than just that, his dark hair had the same luster as his feathers and his eyes still gave off that intense look, as if he could see straight into your soul. I pulled the bag off my shoulder once more and pulled the box out from within it.

“As far as I can tell, there’s no one left. They’re all gone. I found this though.”

I handed him the box and he lifted the needle out, handling it with extreme care. His expression was unreadable, but it often was. Aiden didn’t let you know what he was feeling unless he wanted to on his terms.

“It could be nothing,” he replied placing the needle back into its container, ”but it’s more than we’ve ever been able to find. We should check the rest of the houses to see if they’ve slipped up with anything else.”

“Be my guest,” I told him as I sat down my bag down on a nearby porch and begin to paint once more.

“What are you doing?” He asked me, coming closer to peer over my shoulder.

“It looks like it’s going to rain soon and since we’re staying here a while longer I need to get the needle back to our village,” I explained to him as I coaxed from the page a timid hawk.

I tied the box around its body, careful to make sure it was secure.

“Take this home right away. Do not stop and guard it with your life. Find Bex and give it to her.” I told him as I shooed him off the page. “Now, go before the rain comes.”

The hawk took flight, shooting off into the distance with incredible speed.

My drawings, though real in every sense of the word, were still paper at heart, meaning that too much water, especially a downpour would reduce my creations from living artforms to ruined versions of their painted psychiques. A general rule of thumb was the stronger the medium I drew on, the stronger and more resistant the creation that was formed from it.

Aiden glanced upwards as if just noticing the storm clouds overhead for the first time, which I found immediately strange, not only due to the fact that he spent part of his life as a bird, but also because Aiden was one to never let any small detail slip past him, especially one that could affect are mission in any form. I set my brush down and looked at him fully. As to be expected his dark eyes and stoic expression betrayed nothing.

“What’s on your mind?”

Aiden’s gaze shifted from the sky to me. He was silent for a moment as if contemplating his next words. “How can we stop an enemy who leaves no clues to what they’re planning or their methods. We’ve never even seen a single body, it’s as if everyone from the villages they raid simply vanishes.”

I shouldn’t have expected anything less from him. Aiden was brutally honest to fault. We had been trailing this enemy for sometime now. We refer to them as Stalkers. The name's origin is a mystery, but it’s been their moniker for as long as I can remember. They are our natural enemies, in fact, they were once a part of us. We are guardians, users of thaumatology unique to each individual, but still human in every sense of the word. They are something else, monsters who were once humans, more specifically, guardians who committed an unforgivable taboo. They craved power, the power to utilize more than one type of thaumatology. They speculated that by killing and consuming another guardian they could achieve this, but to mix a guardian’s magic with another is like poison, twisting the body, mind, and soul until what’s left is something else entirely. Only a hand few of guardians have survived an attack against a stalker, and the tales they recant are enough to give the most courageous of us nightmares. They clamber out of the forests at sunset, their sallow skin, stretched tight over elongated limbs and faces devoid of hair, can no longer tolerate sunlight for very long. Elder guardians impart accounts of their dark, soulless eyes, seemingly void of pupils, and their monstrous grins complete with gnashing bloody teeth that often dug into their gums. They are a far cry from the Verinian citizens they once were, yearning for the taste of us like breathe itself, a consequence of their treachery, but will settle for ordinary human flesh as well. As a result, we are little more than prey to them, but we do not go down without a fight. We train our entire lives to protect our villages and the land of Verinian, even if it means skirmishing with monsters like them.

It would be an easy explanation for the missing bodies if these raided villages were ones belonging to clans of guardians, but that wasn’t the case. There were only a few towns and villages in our region that were almost completely inhabited by guardians alone, but none of them had been attacked. In fact, the guardian population in the raided villages had been scarce. Stalkers could eat ordinary human flesh as well, but it did practically nothing for them. Stalkers were known for being relatively dumb, and it was not easy to take down a guardian. For this reason, it was believed that the stalker population was almost extinct, in fact a stalker sighting hadn’t been reported in years, but this had to be the work of stalkers. There was no other explanation for something so strange, as much as I hated to think about it. I had only seen a stalker once in my life and I wasn’t too eager to do so again. I shuddered at the thought, but quickly composed myself.

“We’ll know soon enough. They can’t stay hidden forever, and when they come out of the shadows, we’ll be ready for them. After all, that is a guardian’s duty.”

His eyes stared into my own as if trying to determine whether I truly believed the words I’d just uttered and a small smile betrayed his lips for a split second. “You’re optimism is contagious. Now, let’s get moving before your thaumatology becomes completely useless.”

I nodded back, grinning broadly. There was something about that moment, Aiden’s smile and his belief in me though he was cynical about everything else that made me feel as if I could do anything. Let the Stalkers come, one after another if they must. I could handle it. With Aiden by my side, I could handle anything, and I had to be able to, because that is what it meant to be a guardian. You had to have strength, the strength to never give up, because even creatures in the shadows can be brought into the light.