Dewaria Ablaze

A Little Background

    Dewaria is introduced in the first book of my series. I should say that a Dewarian is introduced. In the second book, readers walk abvoe and below Dewaria, but it is known only by its common name, The Burnt Lands. The allure, that I so enjoy as a writer, is the begging question: what was it like before the Burnt Lands? 

    The world I made started with one book, but the plot lines had major and minor tributaries – as any good series possesses. I set out one evening to answer the first, aforementioned question, and to travel back in time, via one of those tributaries, to hints of why events are transpiring in the current storyline.

    Plus, it’s fun to write from the shadows when I primarily write and speak with a positive, inspiring or therapeutic heart and mind.

Dewaria Ablaze

    The clouds drifted in front of the moon, darkening all but the right edge. It looked like a drawn bow. He stood on the deck, looking at the moon and its eagerness for battle. Inwardly, he was calm. His heart steady, his breath even more so. The only outward sign of any excitement came in the form of the gentle stroking of the facial hair around his mouth. He’d shaven it to be shaped like a sharp arrow. The humor of the moon aligning with his intentions and his facial hair almost made him smile.

    He hadn’t smiled since that life before. He did not long for it as only fire burned to decimate those that had taken away the life from him. He knew they would call it a sacrifice, but those two hadn’t sacrificed anything. He had sacrificed more than they would ever know. And they would likely never know until their last breath.

    The deck creaked and broke the soothing rhythm of the gentle lapping of the waves against the ship. It also brought him back to the present. He didn’t wander too long in his mind to the life before nor the day it all changed. Doing so only made the internal fire of hatred and disdain uncontrollable to the point it would burst outward and manifest into flames crawling out of his skin. If he let it go for too long then the flames would change to a dense mist of poison that ate through everything the way death rots fresh flesh. That couldn’t happen today. He wouldn’t let it. It hadn’t taken too much planning and too much time to get here.

    He took a few steps forward and stopped just shy of the railing. The massive cloth sails rippled under the slow night wind. It had taken three hours for them to get from out of sight to within an arrow’s range from shore. He’d insisted on using the wind to take them in instead of the oars as the echo of two dozen oars rowing from each side of the ship would raise alarms. That was not part of the plan. 

    The wait at sea had been long especially being outside the trading lanes in and out of the port. But he’d known about a spot where the current was almost non-existent and the wind didn’t blow enough to move a ship of their size or a dried leaf hanging from an old tree in the last days of Fall. So there they stayed until nature laid in a course that would guide theirs. The moon had to be bright enough to see the rocky shores, but the clouds had to be thick enough and stretch far enough that it would cover their movements most of the way through the night. Most of all the wind had to be perfect. It had to be strong enough to quickly take them the miles into shore, but not so strong and low that the waves would crash loudly into the ship and announce their presence. Six long weeks had passed. The sun was unforgiving, the humidity even worse. With only a whisper of a wind moving through the otherwise calm patch of sea, the crew was miserably uncomfortable. Restlessness only aggravated the conditions. 

    It was the third day of the seventh week when he saw the sign. There was movement on their makeshift buoy. Attached to the end of a long submerged rope was a salt-encrusted barrel. Its brim barely cresting the surface of the water. Atop the barrel was a piece of cloth, painted turquoise and left to bleach under the sun before being stuck through the rusted handle sticking toward the sky. The sail was not to move the barrel, only to be moved by the wind. The sun had only a few hours left in the sky when he saw the sail move. His men rejoiced, smiling that the time had come. He thought about rejoicing, but he knew it wasn’t time.

    As he stood at the railing, with the wind slowing to a crawl thanks to the natural shelter of the rocky bay, the thought of rejoicing returned. Just like the thought of smiling as he knew making it this far meant he would be one step closer to righting the devastation that had plagued most of his life. But he didn’t rejoice and he didn’t smile. It wasn’t time.

    Before the night was over, the entire land would be aflame. The orange and red and yellow would burn brighter than the sun crawling out of its daily slumber. Screaming and shouting from the valley and the port, the places that housed most of the land’s population, would collide and crash louder than ships ramming full speed into the docks and rocky shores. 

    He’d have set aflame to all the lands to get those who had done the unforgivable to him. And he still might have to. But tonight he only had one land for three people to meet a dreadful, painful, excruciating end. The other tens of thousands were kindling to ensure it happened.

    ​He stroked his facial hair one last time, and set his hands on the railing and his eyes upon the land. He didn’t see the shadows of homes and forests and hills nor the sole mountain in the distance. He imagined only the flames that were coming. He thought about how very bright Dewaria was going to burn tonight. The edges of his mouth started to turn upwards.