The Unkind Memories

Haganto tried to quickly decide what to do next. Alanus was all alone, and would surely die if Haganto didn’t save him. But how? It was hard enough to get to the front gate without getting distracted by the memories, but to also try to find someone in the mist? Haganto had never done that before, and he wasn’t even sure if it was possible. The field was big and he doubted the ghost lights would be kind enough to lead him straight to Alanus.

But, Haganto also couldn’t just leave Alanus here to die either.

Suddenly, he heard someone tumble to the ground.

He quickly turned towards the noise, but instead of Alanus, he saw a small and very thin child trembling from exhaustion at the feet of a big, burly ogre covered with scars.

“On your feet, monster,” the ogre growled as he raised his club.

Haganto exhaled harshly as he looked away from his past, unwillingly flinching when he heard the club make contact with his younger self. Making sure to not pay attention to the memory, Haganto scanned his surroundings until he saw a blinking light off in the distance. Knowing that he had to start moving, Haganto walked towards the ghost light. He kept his ears and eyes peeled for any sign of Alanus but as expected, the bard was not that easy to find.

The mist’s magic didn’t help.

“Walk! He told you to walk!” From the corner of his eye, Haganto saw the same ogre from before kick young Haganto in the back, causing the child to crash in front of an ogre with a wrinkled face and a gnarly cane in his hand. Young Haganto tried to push himself up but he only got as far as his hands and knees before he crumpled to the ground.

“Agh! How is it supposed to kill Agron if it can’t even walk?!” growled a different ogre standing by them, while young Haganto panted.

“Don’t fret, Grakag. We just need a different tactic,” the Brazug tribe elder said. Then he turned to the first ogre. “Degrok, put it in the bag. We’re moving out.”

Haganto, who had been walking forward this whole time, finally got far enough to leave the memory behind him so he didn’t have to relive what happened next. He prepared himself for another unhappy memory but luckily, Haganto was able to reach the ghost light without seeing his past again.

Unfortunately, he didn’t see Alanus either.

The ghost light didn’t make a noise as its wispy, smoky form floated gently up and down as it continued to blink a soft, light-blue light.

Haganto nodded his thanks to the ghost light before he searched his surroundings once more. While he still couldn’t find Alanus through the thick mist, he did catch another light-blue glow.

Hoping that Alanus somehow had the mind to remember that he needed to let the ghost lights guide him, Haganto moved on ahead.

And not too soon, since the mist decided to grace him with a third memory.

“You! You’re the one who’s been killing our livestock, aren’t you?!” cried a farmer standing in a fenced field as he brandished his gardening hoe.

“No, it was a chupacabra,” Haganto, who had only been passing by, said calmly with one hand raised and the other putting down the bag he had slung over his shoulder. “I ki—“

“Liar!” yelled a woman, presumably his wife, standing beside a wheelbarrow full of hay as she pointed a pitchfork at him. “Why else would you be here?!”

“You must have gotten pretty cocky to think that you could get away with attacking in broad daylight!” cried the farmer before he rushed at Haganto.

Once again seeing this memory at the corner of his eye, Haganto sighed as he reached the ghost light while the memory continued behind him. He still remembered quite clearly that he had to knock the farmer out before he could show them the chupacabra in his bag that he had killed on commission earlier. While Haganto had been able to show the creature to the woman, she had still been angry with him for hurting her husband and wanted him to leave and never come back.

Haganto hadn’t been angry, and he still wasn’t. For as he witnessed earlier, being falsely accused was not the worse thing he had been through.

He looked through the mist once more, and it wasn’t long until he found a cluster of ghost lights in the distance. Which could only mean that he found one of the rock piles.

Haganto was a step closer to Malnora.

But Alanus was still nowhere to be found.

And if Haganto wanted to save Alanus, he couldn’t touch the front gate without him. If he did, the mist would be dispelled for him but not for Alanus. The magic on the field would make Haganto see an empty field, while in reality, Alanus would still be there, surrounded by mist.

Oh, why did Alanus insist on coming with him? Especially when he seemed to not trust Haganto enough to guide him?

“Catch him! Catch the demon!”

Haganto’s eyes widened. He . . . has been called many things, but never a demon.

“No! I’m not a demon! I swear!”

That voice didn’t belong to him.

Haganto turned around and saw several people carrying and holding onto a struggling boy, all with determined and hateful expressions. The boy in question looked terrified as he continued to try to persuade his captors that he wasn’t a demon.

The boy also had a silver streak in his otherwise dark hair.

“Alanus,” Haganto whispered, transfixed on the scene despite himself as Alanus’ captors brought him to another group of people carrying rope and a piece of cloth. He watched helplessly as they bound Alanus’ hands and feet before tying the cloth tightly around his eyes.

“I’m not a demon! I’m just a—”

“Shut your mouth!” cried one of the captors as he punched young Alanus right in the mouth, causing the boy to crash to the ground.

No one tried to help him up. One even laughed.

“Serves him right!” the laughing man continued as another captor brought out some rags before harshly stuffing them into Alanus’ bloody mouth.

“No. It serves it right,” the captor who punched Alanus said as a new batch of people came running in with bundles of sticks. “Everyone! This demon tried to pose as a human boy, but fortunately, it made a grave mistake!”

He then roughly grabbed the back of Alanus’ head and pointed to the silver streak.

“Do human boys have silver hair, an obvious sign of old age?”

“No!” cried everyone else.

“What do you think it came here to do?” the captor asked them.

“To trick us into selling our souls! To drag us down to Hell!”

“And aren’t we trying to go to Heaven?”

“Yes!”

“Then let’s send it back to Hell where it belongs!” the captor yelled as he threw Alanus back down on the ground. The people all cheered as they began piling the sticks on top of the boy. When Alanus, who was whimpering, had been completely covered, a man with a torch appeared.

Unable to stomach it anymore, Haganto finally tore his eyes away from the memory. Though given how he didn’t hear anything else, the memory must have ended right about then anyway. Haganto hoped that meant Alanus had been rescued at that moment. That Alanus hadn’t been forced to endure being buried under a flaming pyre.

A small whine made him look down to see Animo, who had been in the pocket this whole time, peeking up at him. Haganto couldn’t find any words of reassurance as he rubbed the top of the weasel kit’s head with his finger, while he processed what he just witnessed.

“That’s . . . why he slapped my hand,” Haganto whispered. “The blindfold reminded him of . . .”

Haganto left his sentence hanging as he quickly looked all around him, the cluster of ghost lights forgotten.

He had to find Alanus. Now.

“Alanus!” he cried out, hoping that somehow, the bard would be able to hear him. But, as he expected, there was no answer. Alberad was right, the mist’s magic really was strong enough to make its victims hear nothing else but the memories and immediate surroundings. His father figure also said that the mist had no problem showing the same horrible memory again and again.

What if Alanus was seeing the memory Haganto had seen right now? Haganto, who had seen and been through many things, was not afraid to admit that he had been shaken by seeing such cruelty. But unlike Alanus, he hadn’t lived through it. The incident hadn’t traumatized him as it clearly had Alanus. Not to mention, Alanus hadn’t been mentally trained for the mist.

If Alanus wasn’t found soon, his mind just might not survive.

Haganto felt little feet crawl their way up to his shoulder. He looked down to see Animo look around before moving onto the top of his head. Then it hit him.

Animals were completely unaffected by the mist. Animo should be able to see Alanus!

Before Haganto could curse himself for not thinking of this earlier, he heard Animo hiss before crawling down into his pocket. But instead of ducking his whole body inside, Animo had his head out and front paws out as he hissed at Haganto’s right.

Realizing that Grimoire was still by his master’s side, Haganto smiled slightly before he headed to his right. He didn’t search for any ghost lights through the thick, grayish-white mist, nor did he pay any attention to the memories that tried to distract him.

He just kept on walking.

Then Animo hissed once more, and a look down told him that he needed to head a bit to the left. So Haganto changed direction and continued walking.

Only a minute had passed when Haganto heard a familiar animalistic cry.

“Haganto!”

Haganto gasped and looked up to see that Grimoire was flying towards him. He still couldn’t see Alanus, but Grimoire never traveled far without him. And as if to prove his point, Grimoire turned around as soon as he realized Haganto had spotted him.

“Haganto! Follow!” Even though a memory of him being scorned by a pair of elves wearing the Malnora crest started playing by his side, Haganto kept his eyes on the raven and swiftly obeyed.

It wasn’t long until he spotted a figure wearing red and gold.

“Alanus!” Haganto cried as he rushed to cross the distance between them. Alanus, who had been staring into space, jumped as he spun towards him.

“Ha-Haganto,” he stammered, clearly shaken as a couple of tears fell out of his blue eyes and down very obvious tear tracks. Grimoire chose that moment to land on Alanus’ shoulder and rubbed his head against his cheek. “Wait, G-Grimoire, when did you leave?”

“He led me to you,” Haganto answered for the raven, realizing that Alanus had been too entranced by the memory he was seeing to let Grimoire guide him instead. “But that doesn’t matter, we have to get out of here. Close your eyes, and I am going to carry you over my shoulder.”

Then Haganto recalled how roughly the people carried young Alanus.

“Is . . . that alright with you?” Alanus didn’t respond at first, whether it was because he was still shaken by the memory or memories he had seen, or he was thinking it over, Haganto wasn’t sure. But before Haganto could suggest a different option, Alanus nodded and closed his eyes.

“Alright, I’m picking you up now,” Haganto said before he crossed the short distance between them and bent over before gently placing the bard over his shoulder. Alanus didn’t resist as Haganto stood back up and searched for another ghost light.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long at all to find a light-blue glow. Taking a deep breath, Haganto walked quickly to the ghost light, once again ignoring memories of being accused or abused popping up beside him. When he reached the ghost light, Haganto wasted no time in finding and heading to another singular ghost light.

While he felt like he was making good time, Haganto found himself going even faster when he heard Alanus suck in a breath before clenching the back of Haganto’s tunic.

Then, almost miraculously, after he reached the ghost light, Haganto found another cluster of them.

And it seemed much bigger than the one earlier.

Without a word, Haganto rushed to the cluster, hoping that his eyes weren’t deceiving him and that they really were almost out of this forsaken mist. When he reached the tall rock pile surrounded by ghost lights, Haganto quickly counted how many spirits there were. He ended up counting them a second time to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.

Twelve. There were twelve ghost lights.

“We’re almost there,” Haganto said in relief as he felt tempted to laugh. “Hang on Alanus, we’re almost there.”

Alanus squeezed Haganto's tunic in response. As if they realized that the duo plus animals were ready to continue, the ghost lights left the rock pile and formed a single file line.

A line that would lead them straight to the gate.

At that moment, Haganto saw out of the corner of his eye an ogre denying his child self food for not being strong enough to lift a small club. But Haganto ignored it as he choose to run forward instead, knowing that their destination was within reach.

And in seemingly no time at all, they were by the twelfth ghost light and the gigantic front gate was only a few steps away. Alanus groaned and knowing that time was of the essence, Haganto nodded to the ghost light in thanks before he rushed forward and touched the dark, wooden gate.

In an instant, the mist blew away, leaving them alone in a barren field once more.

“Gone! Safe now!” Grimoire, who had been flying with them this whole time, cried. As if proving the raven’s point, the gate started to open, as it was magically designed to do once a visitor touched it. Haganto sighed in great relief as he bent over and set Alanus down on the ground. Once he was standing, Alanus opened his eyes and looked around him.

“I . . . No wonder you didn’t want me to come,” Alanus both darkly and breathlessly chuckled as his body trembled slightly. “I . . . believed you but . . . that . . .”

Alanus didn’t continue his thoughts as the gate continued to open slowly, and Haganto didn’t blame him. Haganto took another deep breath as he figured out how to say what he needed to tell Alanus.

“I’m sorry about the blindfold. I shouldn’t have assumed that you'd be okay with that,” Haganto said. Alanus looked a bit confused at first before realization made his eyes go wide.

“Oh,” he said. Haganto knew he didn't have to explain as a myriad of emotions flickered through Alanus’ face, one of which was old fear. Then Alanus sighed as he massaged his right wrist like he was rubbing the memory of rope away.

“Not your fault. I didn’t tell you,” Alanus said softly. “I . . . shouldn’t have slapped you. I’m sorry.”

Before Haganto could tell him that he had nothing to apologize for, he heard the gate stop moving.

“Haganto! What are you doing back here?!”

“And you brought some human bard with you?!”

Haganto gasped as he swiftly turned to see two elven guards standing there, their hands grasping their spears tightly as they angrily stared at Haganto with no small amount of hate.

And clearly not dead.

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