 |
| - Biography |
 |
Name: Dagin Kelosan
Age: 22
Nationality: Tar Valoner
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 175
Hair color/length: Brown, cut short
Eye color: Brown
|
Athan Kelosan brought his son with him to the lonely asylum, miles from their home in Alindaer, the bridge-town on the road to Caemlyn outside the Shining Walls. He hated the necessity of it, but there was no place to put the child this time while he made his monthly trip to his father's place of residence. It was just plain bad luck that his friends were out on business and his wife was with the healer, too ill to move, much less watch their child. As he approached the rusted iron gate, a shiver went through his body, and he pulled his cloak around himself tightly. Approaching the largest house, a spindly, sickly looking man stepped out of the front door and gave a smile like a vulture at seeing a rotting corpse.
"My friend, how are you today? Why have you come to visit poor old me all the way out in the middle of nowhere?" the man said as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the purpose of Athan's visit.
"You know perfectly well why I'm here, Devin Malure. I'm here to pay you off, and see my father," Dagin's father said with disdain. "I brought your sum: three Tar Valon marks."
"Ahh, but that is not enough, anymore. Your father is raving mad, and it is so difficult to settle down the rest of the lunatics when he begins to scream. Five marks, or I put him back on the street, unless, of course, you want to take him into your home. Your landlord has already forbidden you to take your father in, but what's that compared to the duty of kin?" With a sign of utter frustration, Athan dug out two more silver coins, and handed them to the asylum warden. The man snatched up the silver and dropped them into a pouch, then directed him to his father's cell.
As they passed down the hall, they saw men and women of all descriptions, some muttering to themselves, some screaming as the two pass, others so far sunk into their insanity that they did not know where they were. Finally, at the end, a man in his fifties sat, in a cell devoid of furniture or embellishment. Killian Kelosan had tried to commit suicide before, but Athan could not stand the thought of allowing his father to kill himself, until he had finished gathering the sum the Aes Sedai had demanded to heal him. As they approached, Killian turned and walked to his bars. "The smell, is like roses and perfume amidst the putrid odor of the sin surrounding me. What innocents have stumbled into my personal hell that surrounds me, consumes me!? Why can't you smell it? It smells like the odor of fish guts left in the summer sun, and the rot of flesh in a dark, dank hole. And He is the worst. He smells of Those Who Walk With Death And Bow Before His Throne. I smell you, Son of Shai'tan! I smell you and point you out!"
Devin Malure once again gave his malevolent smile, and said, "You see, he calls me the Son of the Gr... Dark One. He is sinking further into the madness, as they all do, with time. There are some truly devilish murderers and rapists in here, you know; people who have committed acts of depravity that would curl your hair and turn it white... but enough of that.
As the warden spoke, Killian kneeled down, and reached through to bars to take ahold of his grandson's hand. Whispering in the boy's ear, he said, "You can smell him, can't you?" The boy looked fearfully at Malure, sniffed the air, and then looked his grandfather in the eye and nodded.
**********************
"Listen to me!" the man in white said to Athan as six-year-old Dagin hid in a cabinet. His daddy was the biggest, strongest, toughest man in the whole wide world, and even Todren Morash's daddy, who was a constable, couldn't beat up Dagin's daddy, or so he said to himself. For now, though, he decided to listen to what this strange man in white had to say.
"A few months to refresh your memory, and you'd be worthy of the herons again, Athan, think about it. We can finally finish what your illustrious father started, may the Creator have mercy on his soul. A strike at the heart, led by the son of the great man who once led our noble struggle."
"What difference will it make, Rensen? Will I end up just like him, stark raving mad, while a leech like Malure drains my own son dry with his exorbitant fees? The cause is dead, Rensen, it died when my father lost his mind. Go back to Amador, and never come back. I've given up the sword, both as a way of life as a means to kill men, and I finally have given my son a chance to live a peaceful life. You haven't seen first-hand
what your 'noble' crusades do to real people. I have lived this tragedy for most of my adult life, and I will not... I repeat, will not allow my son to be put through what happened to me. I'm a peaceful man now, but if you threaten my family, you will see if I'm still worthy of those herons you seem to want me to seek."
"Athan," the man responded, "You're making the biggest mistake of your life. You're turning your back on the Cause, betraying the ideals you said that you held dear, many years ago. You're betraying the men who owe you their lives, and to whom you owe yours. Does their sacrifice mean nothing to you?"
Furiously, Antyr grabbed a chair and flung it against the wall, shattering it into splinters. Dagin suddenly felt the urge to cry, but did his best to hold it back, because men don't cry, and his daddy never cried. Antyr leveled a finger at Rensen's face and glared, "How dare you! After the years I served with you, after the years we fought side by side for justice, honor, and right, you level this against me. The time for wars is over. How many ruined lived must there be before you see the utter pointlessness of your struggle? Is my father not a good enough example? Must I and my son join him before you'll see?"
"All I see," Rensen said coldly, "Is a man consumed by fear. A man I once respected, who stood against the tides of darkness, and shouted, 'I will not bow to evil. I will not submit. I am a free man, a good man, a noble man.'"
Turning away from the man in white, Antyr lowered his voice, speaking softly, almost whispering, "That man is dead, Rensen, he died when his father went mad, and the truth of this world overcame his naivety. Now get out of my home."
**********************
At sixteen, Dagin had shown an aptitude to the outdoors, a thing which was more helpful to his parents than an apprenticeship or any other job in Tar Valon, since a laborer would be paid almost nothing, while Dagin managed to bring home at least something every time he went out into the woods. On a good day, he could bring down a boar or a buck, but even a rabbit or squirrel could be made into a stew. Between his trips to the forest, however, his father had enrolled him in an academy, in order that he might gain an education. Athan's deepest desire was for Dagin to become a scribe or merchant, and any money he could scrounge up went to pay for Dagin's education, and to save so that one day, he could afford the price that the Aes Sedai had set to heal Killian.
As Dagin returned home from writing lessons, however, one of his father's workers was waiting for him, and waved him down. With an impish grin on his face, the young man ran over and grabbed the older worker's calloused hand. "Hey, Jheldin, what're you doing here? Aren't you and pa working on that new merchanthouse being raised in Daghain? I didn't think you'd be done by now, but I guess that's why my pa and his men are the bloody best carpenters in the City, eh?"
There was an awkward pause, and Jheldin pursed his lips, hating what he had to say. Finally, he managed to get it out, nearly weeping in the process, "Dagin, boy, yer father... he passed away on the job this morning. We was workin' on the site, and he stopped for a second, and grabbed at his chest, and was yelling that his arm was numb. We knewed what that meant, so one o' the boys went running down the street fer an Aes Sedai, and he even foun' one, but when he tried to get her to save yer pa' her big thug of a bodyguard slammed him in his nose with a mace. Ol' Neb is in the healer right now, and she dunna know if he'll survive." The grizzled man spat on the ground, and muttered a curse about Aes Sedai witches, then wiped his eyes, and grabbed the boy by his shoulders. "Yer pa told me that if'n anything were to happen, ye need to make sure ye take care of yer grandfather. He was a great man before the madness took him, and if you can save him, there'll be revenge on the people who ruined your family. Talk to yer mother; she'll tell ye everything now, since ye're the man o' yer family."
That evening, Rhyssa Kelosan took her husband's oaken chest, and unlocked it using the secret only she and her husband knew. Turning to her son, she drew out a white tabard with a golden sunburst on the front and an amulet of gold with the emblem of a hound, and presented it to the young man. "Your grandfather was a famous man, Dagin. He was a hunter of evil; a member of the Children of the Light. I do not mean the ignorant mobs who scrawled the Dragon's Fang on the doors of old widows; he tracked down and destroyed those who swore their souls over to the Dark, specifically, he believed that there was a nest of Darkfriends hidden deep within the Towers here in Tar Valon. He wasn't a fanatic like most of the Children; we're Tar Valoners, not Amadicians. He knew that the Aes Sedai and Asha'man were not evil for their use of channeling, but there were a great many who, being blinded by the power they wielded, became corrupt, and Killian sought to seek them out and destroy them. They said that he could look at a room, sniff the air, and know which people were innocent, and which were guilty, like a bloodhound chasing down his prey. Maybe it was that legend, and the stress he had to be under, that made him mad, made him think that he actually was sniffing their sins. In the end, your father had no choice but to place him in an asylum, since the landlord evicted him, and banned us from housing Killian. The Aes Sedai and Asha'man, perhaps out of vindictiveness, or maybe out of the corruption Killian suspected, continually raised the price of their healing of Killian's condition, to such heights that your father could never pay them off, though you know how he was. He would never have given up on his quest to save your grandfather, no matter the price." Taking the two items, she folded them neatly and placed them back in their hiding spot.
"I suspect, though, that Killian is already dead, since that Asylum Warden Malure was in the pay of the Towers, although he did fear your father more than the Aes Sedai. While he did squeeze us for everything we had, Malure would never have thrown out Killian while your father was alive, since that would have been the last act he ever made on this earth. Athan may not have been a blademaster, though he fought a few duels in his day, and he was never a man to be trifled with..."
The next morning, Dagin stood at the rusted cast iron gates, staring over the asylum. The Warden was gone, as was his grandfather; the only one left was an inmate, who sat upon the front porch of the Warden's house, cackling to himself. "Setting sun on waves of black, gold tarnished by the patina of grime and dust, the road is closed and no way back, so onward go onto the un-trod path he must."
**********************
Something terrible had happened here, something beyond the pale of what the City Guard of Tar Valon saw everyday. Dagin wasn't the strongest fighter in the guard, nor was he the quickest runner, sharpest wits, or steadiest hand. Nevertheless, all eyes were on the grungy-looking young man, because he was the best tracker that the City Guard of Tar Valon had ever seen. Stroking his unshaven face as he glanced at the bloody streaks in the warehouse, he stopped for a second and sniffed slightly. The officers all leaned forward, expecting some great insight, but Dagin merely muttered, "Huh, I haven't bathed for a few days. I ought to remember to do that more often."
Slightly annoyed, one of the officers grumbled, "Hurry up, Constable Kelosan, we don't have all day; and tuck in your bloody shirt, you look like a barbarian." Taking his time, the tracker circled the warehouse, getting a feel for the scene of the crime. The owner of the warehouse had testified that he heard the sounds of a fight the night before, but hadn't thought it important enough to report to the Guard. A beggar, who was also an informant for the guard had been the one to actually discover the mess, and the Guard arrived to find the floor cover
ed in blood, enough for ten men or more, but no bodies. As Dagin finished his round, he knew that this wasn't some kind of organized crime raid, and the bodies weren't in the river. Something worse had happened to these people. When one criminal killed another, or when someone killed an innocent out of greed or anger it... smelled different.
Walking back to the main group, he felt the urge to go east, but there was no logical reason for that urge. There were no tracks, no droplets of blood, no clues of any sort regarding the whereabouts of the killer or killers, but the voice in the back of his head continued to proclaim that their path went off to the east. Leaving the main warehouse, Dagin crossed into the office which doubled as the owner's place of residence, and nodded to the two guards inside the doorway. Sitting in the man's cushioned chair, he rubbed his temples, wondering what it was that made this house smell so bad. He couldn't even describe the smell; it was like rotten seafood and a wet dog dying of the mange all at once.
As the warehouse owner walked in the room, Dagin leapt to his feet, pointed, and screamed, "You murdering scum, you're involved in this massacre!" Drawing his club, he leapt at the man, just to be pulled back by the two guards in the room. Hearing the shouting, the Sheriff and several more constables ran in the room as Dagin continued to point and proclaim the owner's guilt. Hesitating for a second, the Sheriff drew his sword and ordered the owner to surrender immediately, though the man instead drew a dagger from his sleeve. Snorting in derision, the Sheriff charged the warehouse owner, but instead of attacking with his dagger, the man turned the dagger on himself.
"The Great Lord shall reward me, and you shall all fall under his power!" he cried as he plunged the blade into his own heart. The two guards holding Dagin released him, and he placed his cudgel back in his belt, calming down from the sudden burst of rage. He had no idea what possessed him to make those accusations, but somehow, somewhere, he knew that the owner was involved in the murders, and it seemed that his instincts had served him well. As he helped clean up, however, the Sheriff took a walk down the stairs and spoke to a male and female figure cloaked and hooded in the street below. As Dagin finished up, however, he found the door blocked by two guardsmen.
"Constable Kelosan, report to the Sheriff before you leave the premises. He wishes to speak with you." Jogging down to meet his superior officer, Dagin began to speak, oblivious of the two hooded figures beside him.
"Sir, there were four accomplices, and they went east with the bodies out the Daghain gate. I don't like the... smell of this one." He was still uneasy about using that term, smell, but there was no other way of describing what he felt. "The victims were killed ritualistically, I would say, so they won't just dump the bodies until they're done with whatever they intend to do with them."
"Is that so?" a female voice said from behind him. Turning, he noticed that the two figures had shed their disguises, and before him stood a woman in red and a man in black. "Constable Kelosan, is it? The Towers have taken an interest in your... unique skills. You will come with us immediately and place yourself in the service of the Gaidin until we decide we need your services again. Of course, you can refuse, but why would anyone but a Darkfriend refuse to serve the cause of the Light?" Her implication was crystal clear to Dagin, who merely gulped at the thought of the wrath of the Aes Sedai and Asha'man. Determining that resistance to this was futile, he bowed his head and followed the couple, to only the Creator knew where.
Killian Kelosan stood perhaps as close as any Anointed of the Light had ever been to an Amyrlin Seat, although the fury in her voice was just as one would expect in such a meeting. Of course, Killian Kelosan was an unusual man; three times he had been indicted for heresy by the Hand of the Light, and three times the Lord Captain Commander had intervened to prevent the issue from coming to trial. Lord Captain Kelosan was much too popular to risk convicting him of treason; the uprising among the common ranks would devastate the entire organization, and perhaps even loosen Amadicia from their grip. Killian Kelosan was the most famous, most respected hunter of Darkfriends in the last hundred years, and his reputation was impeccable.
The turning point in his career had been a chance meeting with a woman. Killian had always been a student of philosophy, because he felt that the study of Truth was important for a man who labors to reveal Truth. He had voiced doubts before about the established doctrines of the Anointed, but when he met Halyia Phelias Sedai, he knew that he could never go back to Amador. After writing a religious treatise, stating that channeling itself was not anathema to the Creator, but the abuses of power-mad channellers, the Hand of the Light began to take an active interest in the affairs of the up and coming Hundredman of the Light. Shortly thereafter, a son was born to Halyia Sedai, who she named Athan, but being that her duties would not allow her to raise a child, Killian raised his son on his own. By the time that he was forty, Killian was a Lord Captain in the Anointed, with a reputation for instinctively knowing where to go in order to find the most evil and villainous of Darkfriends, and expose them without resorting to any coercive means. His party of companions traveled from the Blight in the north to the border with Andor in the south, riding in, saving towns from dark plots, and galloping off into the sunset, cooperating with select Aes Sedai and Asha'man on several occasions, although only those who Halyia Sedai assured him were trustworthy.
Standing in the Amyrlin's throne room, Killian looked back at his two lieutenants who accompanied them. Rensen Dauvis was a twenty-eight year-old knight from Ghealdan who had joined his company four years ago, and proven to be a natural leader and warrior. His other lieutenant was his twenty year-old, impetuous, and brash son, well on his way to earning the heron-marked blade of a true blademaster. The boy looked somewhat distracted, though, probably by thoughts of that pretty little girl down at the merchanthouse. Rhyssa, he thought her name was, but he wasn't entirely sure.
As he bowed and kissed the Amylin's ring, he smelled deeply of her scent, but found nothing unusual. It seemed that the woman had not even been in an argument in a while, or so he felt. Killian had completely mastered his unusual ability to 'smell' violence and evil, to the point that he considered his sense of smell more trustworthy than his eyesight. His saving grace had been that when he was younger, he had met a man who, like him, had the gift, and agreed to train him.
It was his pronouncement that had angered the Amyrlin; his Aes Sedai allies had convinced the Amyrlin to hear him out, but when he declared it his goal to investigate the Towers and root out the Black Ajah, she had exploded in his face, denying the existence of any such organization. Of course, he had only thrown fuel on the fire when he commented dryly that her statements mirrored the official dogma of the Hand of the Light. Within five minutes, Killian and his party had been booted out of the Amyrlin's office, and left sitting in one of the great halls of the White Tower. Catching an unusual smell, he told his companions to wait at the main gate for him, and he walked into the narrow corridors of the Tower. Following the smell, he turned a corner, where three cloaked figures waited for him, and all of the sudden, he felt his mind go black, and he passed out. "Best not kill him, lest we make a martyr of him," one of the cloaked figures muttered. "But we have other ways of removing obstacles to His will. Kelosan shall serve as an example to those who oppose us."
Lanten Murrow went out behind the inn to gather firewood for the evening, since he was sure tha
t the innkeeper would curse him if the wood ran out tonight. Grumbling about low wages and hard work, he noticed a prone form in the alley, and walked over to investigate. A warrior, obvious from his scars and build, lay on the ground, muttering to himself about smells and stinks. He wore a white tabard, torn across the midriff where once there was a sunburst.
|
|
|
