Locket Scarred

Locket Scarred

By Jennifer E. Whalen

Scarred by the elements of fire, war and famine, Salem Creek was now a vast wasteland of fallow fields and ramshackle buildings. A place Jericho no longer recognized. The tiny village was the last haven for humans and Fae alike. Looking out towards the pale horizon, Jericho stood quietly, mustering the courage to enter his forsaken home. Human in shape, the only Fae trait betraying his identity was his slightly flatten nose. Clad in heavy boots, trousers, and a weather-stained duster, he was tall with broad shoulders.

Scanning his surroundings with just his eyes, he sensed no threat and proceeded forward. Shells of charred vehicles and debris littered the once utopian settlement in which he was born and raised, sheltered from the reaches of the Phalanx conflict. The day he turned sixteen, the conflict manifested into war, and he like so many others was conscripted. Forced from the safety of his home, he was hauled off into the unknown.

“Better to die on your feet, than live on your knees,” her voice resonated in his mind.

Shaking his head, Jericho adjusted the weight of his land-glider’s saddle and moved through the desolate landscape. Reaching the edge of the village, he paused at the skeletal remnants of his childhood home. A chiseled-old abode in the side of a cliff, thatched with a roof of dead vegetation. Pushing open the plank door, stagnant air rushed out. He set down the bulky saddle with exhaustion, and rolled his shoulder stiffly, wincing sharply. He looked ahead and saw the disrepair of his home. The interior had been gutted, stripped clean of anything of value.

Entering further, he had half-expected to find his family’s remains, but only found splintered furniture and broken pottery instead. He sighed a breath of relief. In the three years of his absence, Jericho could only imagine the fate that had befallen his family. He had hoped they had escaped the terrors of the war and was spared the savage acts of the Phalanx. Swirling dust particles in a shaft of light penetrating through a broken stained-glass window drew his attention upward, through a gap in the floorboards.

Despite his size, he leapt into the air with little effort and landed in the loft gracefully, as if he were weightless. The dimly lit loft was plundered through and left at the mercy of the changing elements leaching in through the decaying roof. Across the room, a bed of straw lay against the cobbled wall with signs of a recent occupant. Looking around, Jericho spied a familiar emblem painted on the floor in dried blood. The alchemic conduit was a large circle with a hexagon inside it. The runes for sulphur, mercury and salt surrounded an upside-down triangle within the hexagon.

He recognized the seal and walked over to it in stride. Stooping down, he rested his scarred hand on the edge of the circle. Anticipation gave way to disappointment. He could no longer activate the circle, for his alchemic stamina was gone. A price paid for saving the enemy, a child no older than 6. Pulling his hand back remorsefully, he lumbered to his feet upon hearing movement behind him. Slowly turning around, he came face to face with a small land-glider. Structured like a large chicken with powerful legs, the land-glider had a magnificent plume of sapphire feathers.

Jericho gazed at the beautiful beast, spying something clutched in its emerald beak. Slowly reaching out his hand, the land-glider squawked, dropping the golden keepsake.

Carefully reaching down for the plundered jewelry, he kept his eye on the strange creature. After the creature showed no interest in him, Jericho looked down at the heart-shaped locket. Pure gold with a matching chain, he ran his calloused thumb across the smooth keepsake. Suddenly, it opened, and Jericho gasped, his eyes wide. Dropping the locket, it hit the floor with hardly a sound. Turning, he leapt down through the gap in the floorboards, and made his way outside. He took one last look at his home, before departing the last remnant of a lost world, erased by the flames of war.