“The First Envoy perished to get those words, left only with half a breath to utter. Is that price not proof enough of what will come?” Jovae Chanthel in appeals to take action.
Hugh pieced together the few memories he had of his third and forth life. He really didn’t think about them too much as in the third, he died shortly after being born.
It was some miserable sickness that took him before he could even figure out what the people surrounding him were even saying.
The previous life, or his fourth that he now remembered, wasn’t as bad. Though, he only made it to four years and had learned enough to speak and understand many things surrounding him.
He wished he could go back to that one. There were so many things he hadn’t seen in his previous lives before. Originally, he thought that his parents were leaders of some sort.
At first, he had thought that maybe his father was the village leader with how often he seemed to be missing out during the day after putting on an outfit that seemed majestic at the time. It was only later he had learned how naive the thought was.
In that life, there was no trading of items between people. Everything was traded for some hard circular rocks. His parents had referred to it as money. They would then take that money and trade it for other things that they needed.
While nothing too complicated was explained, he did have an idea of why they did it that way. After all, he had to think about something while growing from a baby and nobody was speaking.
That wasn’t the only strange thing in his past life, there were all kinds of things he hadn’t seen before. Sure, in his first life, there was a general place and time people gathered to trade items. That was usually after eating the last meal of the day. In his fourth life, he was taken to a market a few times by his mother.
It was there he saw people buying and selling things constantly. When he asked his mother about it, he found out that it was like that for most of the day. It initially surprised him, but after witnessing so many people around, he figured it made sense. He couldn’t imagine having to remember who had what or needed something specific, and all that with so many people around. That is one of the main reasons he came to accept why money was needed.
There were many other differences too that were completely new to him, there were even grand stories of people doing fantastical things. He didn’t believe them though as it was to far out there, and in his first life, he had told grand stories about others long passed preforming feats akin to magic. It always got the young ones excited. And so those stories were relegated to the back of his mind as just that. Stories.
During his forth life, he had thought that it was going good. Better than the second and third, since he realized that the house they were in was more comfortable than his previous lives. The air was never too hot nor too cold inside their home and food seemed to be plenty. His father was a big man, with twice the bulk his first father had, and taller too. He would’ve been a good hunter in his second life. After learning the language, he discovered his father was not the village leader like he had originally though, but just a guard of sort that protected people.
Things were looking up in his forth life, then one day he heard a voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was another big reason he reflected on that life so much.
Like somebody was standing right next to him speaking, he heard, “If you don’t show yourself in one minute, then this town, which you have sworn to protect, will be no more and you along with it.”
He was in awe of the ability to so clearly made himself heard through the walls of this home he thought were almost impenetrable. That aside, he was also in fear of his house being destroyed. He couldn’t do anything, he was only four at the time.
In the one minute after those words were spoken, he heard several things. Mostly of people off in the distance begging to be spared, or curses at whoever the person was who spoke earlier.
He knew there wasn’t much he could do and his mother had already found him only to hug and tell him everything was going to be alright. Even though it was obvious she thought different from the hysterical voice and the way she acted. He had seen people lost in terror before in his first life when somebody was judged not worth their crimes and sentenced to death to bring peace to all. His mother was lost in that terror he saw in those judged for death.
He, however, tried to imagine how one person was going to walk to each house and beat down the door. Only to then use a large club or something to slowly destroy the village bit by bit.
He couldn’t even fathom how anybody would even let that happen. Which is why, at the end of the minute, when the voice echoed again in his ears, “So. Be. It.”
He realized how very wrong he was.
Just after the last word was spoken, he noticed everything began to become brighter rapidly, before he could no longer see. It was but for an instant that he even felt anything. An all encompassing weight of a thousand pounds smothering him and crushing him far worse than any hug his mother had given. A burning, all over his body at the same time. He didn’t even register that it was two separate effects. Luckily, it ended just as fast as he realized that the entirety of his being was in pain.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
That was how his fourth life ended.
-
Hugh had spent a lot of time in this current life wondering how that would even happen. What was it that killed him?
Was it a god?
He could only assume the reason he died was from the wrath of something that voice was related to.
In the end, after stretching his imagination, he could only think within the limits of his own knowledge. Whoever the voice was after had done something so unforgivable that even a great being was angered to destroy himself along with whoever was hiding.
Hugh had settled into his new life after coming to that conclusion about his last and found that his current life seemed to be a mix of his second and fourth.
There was money used for trade and his home was not as comfortable as the last but way more comfortable than the others. His mother took care of everything around the house, and his father worked as a farmer.
He first thought it was strange that his father in this life spent all his time to grow plants, but after a better explanation, he was more impressed since that meant people didn’t have to risk their lives to hunt animals. It was still a struggle to eat normal bread, as the memories of his second life were ever present with every bite of the stuff.
Apart from that, there were also fantastical stories in this life as well. People who could wield fire with their hands, create water out of the air and so on. He had wrote them off in his mind, just the same as the last.
He was turning 10 today, and it was the day that he could choose what he wanted to do. Although, when his father, Yando, sat him down and explained his options, he wasn’t interested in them.
Yando said, “You can become a farmer like me, and always make sure that no matter what happens, you will be fed.”
Hugh had thought of that originally, but found that most of the time, the work looked boring. He was a hunter before, and after more thought, found that he didn’t like the idea of not being able to explore while hunting.
Even in his first life, it was thanks to his want to look around and see what was over the hill, or at the beginning of a stream, that he was able to find food for his tribe.
A young voice responded after shaking his head, “I don’t want to do that.”
His father frowned, obviously he wanted Hugh to take up the same duty. That when his mother, who was standing with her arms cross listening in stated, “He could work with Beff and learn how to make tools. You know how helpful it would be for him to repair your tools instead of paying Beff to do it.”
Hugh didn’t want to do that either. While he wasn’t as against it, that would still mean he would be holed up in a house all day. He was remembering the house he had in his forth life so he asked, “Can I be a guard?”
Yando shook his head and said, “That is not going to happen. Most of them are retired soldiers from the Cowr Kingdom and they are constantly traveling.”
His mother chimed in, “Your father is right. Even if you wanted to be a soldier first, they don’t even grab anybody from our village. We are on the outskirts of the kingdom. There’s nothing to guard around here except from beasts, which are rare anyways, especially this far away from the blessed lands.”
Hugh had learned about the general location of their village before and that they were part of the Cowr kingdom, but it was all just in name. Every few months, a trader, Kino, would come with a cart pulled by some animals, accompanied by another person.
A year ago, he had learned that the other person was a guard, whose sole job was to protect Kino as he went from village to village and then back to where he was from, Belford.
Kino wasn’t that friendly to him and ignored him whenever he tried to ask questions. It was completely different to how he treated the village leader. Hugh didn’t mind though. He knew kids could be annoying from his first life. Thinking back, he had almost spent more time as a kid than as an adult now. For a moment, a thought popped into his head, “I keep dying before I become an adult.”
The conversation went back and forth, his mother and father both mentioning one thing or another, sometimes circling back around to being a farmer and how helpful it would be.
Eventually, Hugh went on a whim and said, “I want to learn how to make fire and water out of nothing like in the stories.”
Yando chuckled and said, “Those stories are exaggerated Hugh. It sounds nice and convenient, and you’d think it would make life easier but life is harder instead. Being able to do things like that doesn’t get you anything but trouble. And out there, it’s nothing special so instead you have to be very careful or you’ll lose everything on another persons whim. So here we are.”
His mother was silent for a moment before saying, “That’s not entirely true dear. It’s just that this land isn’t blessed so there is no source energy here. There are clans that take people in that teach and protect them until they grow up.”
Hugh asked, “Then why do we live here? Shouldn’t we move to where that is?”
Yando shook his head, “No Hugh. There are lands that people say were blessed by the gods. Everything grows faster, people can live longer, and some say even the trees can speak the thoughts.”
Hugh wondered if they were really being serious. Hughs initial statement definitely wasn’t, since it was intended to just get his father to stop asking him to be a farmer, even if it was just for the day.
Yando patted Hugh on his head and said, “It sounds great. Doesn’t it?”
Hugh nodded, “Then why do we live all the way in the middle of nowhere?”
Realizing his son had no mind to let it go, Yando now wore a solemn expression. The seriousness he showed only a couple times in Hughs memories.
“It’s only great until you learn the darker side of people and what happens to the wildlife in those places. A person wants to buy your food you worked hard to harvest, and only wants to pay you a tenth of what it’s worth. If you refuse, they may decide to kill you and take it instead. What if somebody likes your house? Unless you are stronger than them, the result would be the same. People can do all kinds of things in places like those that you can’t even imagine. That’s where the curse, unblessed comes from. The lands are blessed but the people are not. Aside from the people, even all the animals, even the small ones like a mouse, is strong enough to bite through rock. Living every day in fear that somebody or something can kill you on a whim is not blessed, no matter how magical the land under their feet may be.”
Hugh understood what his father was saying, but after he was done he asked, “Then why not become strong enough so we don’t have to worry about that?”
Yandos expression eased, “That sounds good. In practice, it is not so easy. Even then, can you become more agile than water, stronger than fire, harder than rocks, and faster than wind? Then sure, everybody would have nothing to fear. Out here, where we are now, there’s no water threatening to drown us out. No fire, threatening to burn us down, no rocks attempting to bury us in the ground and no wind rushing to blow us away. Out here, we can live peacefully, away from the struggle of life and death with every passing moment… That’s enough of all that. Now Hugh. Think about what you want to do, even if it is to end up working with Beff.”
