Day 353 - Valjer Story

Valjer Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

The city was on fire. There were soldiers in the streets and war everywhere. The walls had been knocked down and the city coffers had been raided. The war had been long and hard and a river of blood flowed on both sides of the valley. Fields were burnt. Forests had been leveled. An entire generation had been slaughtered. Valjer, the great kingdom, the great city, was burning, with no one left to fight for it. It had been immortal; a city of the ages, and soon it would be gone.

Valjer had been an immortal. He was one of the gods, but he had chosen to live among man. He had come from the sky with the promise of a better world. This was his city. He had built it with his bare hands. The hillsides formed where he had buried the giants that once roamed the land. The rivers flowed where he had once reached down and pulled the earth apart. The countryside was full of the animals from his private zoos. He had changed the weather by donating his breath to the skies. He had brought provisions to the land, cultivated the fields, and taught the people to tend to it themselves.

Valjer had made this land. It was immortal as was he. But now it would all be gone. No one fleeing the city had time for theological questions. If they had, they might begin to wonder if they had been forsaken by their god, or if he too was dead, or if he possibly had never existed at all.

Jason had been separated from his family. He had lived in a tiny cottage with his mother and sisters his grandmother and father and two of his three aunts. His father and uncles had all left to fight in the wars. Jason was too young and his grandfather was too old. A year earlier Jason had wanted to fight, he had wished he was just a little bit older. Now that the war had come to the city and he was faced with the reality of what war actually was, he was thankful for his youth. Still, his youth wasn’t going to protect him now.

They had all stayed too long, thinking their walls would protect them. Now there was chaos in the streets as waves of people tried to flee, only to come crashing into the invading soldiers. Valjer was being ransacked and the people were caught in the middle of things.

Jason has been pulled apart from this family as the mob flowed in different directions. There was no going back. There was no way to fight his way back into the city. There was only escape. The guardians of the city were falling all around. The city itself was going to burn. Jason didn’t want to burn with it.

And so he ran. He ran when he could and hid when the raiders and sounds of fighting came too close. It wasn’t until nightfall that he attempted to reach the outer walls. And by then the fires were raging and coming close. He didn’t flee because he thought he could make it, but because he thought it was his only chance to avoid burning.

The girl didn’t look like anyone he had ever seen in Valjer. Her skin was different – it was smoother, cleaner. She was young, but had the look of an adult. Jason had been so relieved to get out of the city; he had let his guard down and didn’t even realize anyone else was there at first. He had run and run and run and reached the hills. And then he had collapsed and slept. And when he woke up, she was sitting on a rock, watching him.

He demanded to know who she was, trying to act brave. He looked around for anything he could use as a weapon. She didn’t seem dangerous, but he couldn’t be too careful. She clearly wasn’t from Valjer. She didn’t look like anyone from the invading army, but really he hadn’t ever seen anyone from outside Valjer, so he didn’t really know what they would have looked like if had seen them.

She said her name was “Ananke,” and that she wasn’t from this city or from the soldiers.

“What are you doing here then?”

“I came to find you.”

Jason didn’t believe her.

“Me? Why would you come to find me? You don’t even know me.”

“What if I told you that you could do something great, something amazing.”

“I’d call you a liar or a fool.”

“What if I told you that you could be a king?”

She had a glimmer behind her eyes and a confidence in the way she spoke. There was an infectious way about her. She seemed to know what she was talking about and she made Jason want to believe.

“Valjer is in flames. No one is king.”

“Valjer can be rebuilt. Or not. That is up to you. You can build whatever you want and name it whatever you like.”

“And I’ll be king.”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw it. The looking glass told me.”

“I think you’re crazy.”

“No you don’t.”

She was right. He didn’t. He knew it should sound crazy, that she should sound crazy. But he wanted it to be real, to be true. He had never had anything, or been important. His future was written in his birth. He was born to poor laborers. He would grow to become a poor laborer. He hated that. He wanted more. So desperately. He would do so much to have it. It might make him a fool, but he wanted to believe her.

“I’m listening.”

“Stick with me and you can have it all – you’ll be a great warrior, a great leader, and your kingdom will be remembered forever.”

“You make big promises.”

“And you believe me.”

He did. There was something special about her and a certainty in the way she spoke.

“Yes. I believe you.”

“And would you trade me for it?”

“Trade you? What does that mean?”

“If you want something, you have to give something in return. That is the way deals work. Do you want to know what I know? Do you want to see what I see?”

“Yes. Teach me to become king.”

She approached him. She wasn’t intimidating or threatening in her motion or appearance, and yet Jason suddenly felt frightened. She was but a girl, yet she was so much more. He face must have given away his fear, for she smiled and commanded him to trust her. Jason didn’t, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that now.

She showed him her true face – the face of the sinister fates, the face of cruelty and bloody futures. She showed him her claws and her fangs and her tortured soul.

He screamed. He begged. He nearly cried.

She didn’t listen.

She bit into him and drank his innocence and feasted on his naiveté. She kissed him and filled his soul with hate and venom and cruelty.

When Jason woke she was gone. He could hardly remember her face or the sound of her voice. He thought that perhaps it had all been a dream.

He looked back at the city that had been. The fires were burning out, but the dark smoke still filled the sky. Valjer was no more – burnt, ruined. The wind kicked ashes into the air and they fell across the valley a little like dirty snowflakes. He remembered his family and their tiny cottage and the broken and borrowed furniture they had used. He remembered the hard winters and the hungry nights when there wasn’t enough food. He remembered the nastiness of the other neighbors and the thieves on the street that would steal whenever he had a little something of his own.

Valjer had been a god and his city had been powerful, but Jason’s life had been ravaged by poverty and the injustices of the struggling. A new rage formed within him, a new anger that had never been there before. Life had been cruel. Life had been unfair. His city, his people, his god – they had all lied to him and left him to rot. He would make them pay for their betrayal. He would make the whole world pay. He would find a way. He would, no matter what, no matter who got in his way or who tried to stop him.

Jason sat and watched the ruins of the city, a new purpose inside, a new strength that had never been there before. He wondered if his experience with Ananke had been real. It didn’t matter. He had the taste of it deep inside him now, a new blood, a new soul; his course had been set. He wouldn’t change it if he could.