The Path Of Destiny

The next morning the two awoke to a surprise. Red and Mouse woke them up and lead them downstairs with secret smiles and refusals to tell them what was happening. The two parents found all children seated on the lounge room floor in a group, facing the televisions huge screen, waiting. Corin stood beside it, a video disk in hand and still and silent as a statue. He spoke to them softly and almost unemotionally “sit down.”

“What’s going on, Corin? What’s happening?”
“Sit down” he repeated to them “you will soon see.”

The two did so and when all were seated Corin turned on the set and put the disk in. A few seconds later a picture flashed on the screen and a voice spoke. The voice belonged to an American Indian Idar of about thirty when looked remarkably like the man Amanda had seen the night before-Corin’s Chellina.

“Greetings Young Ones” he spoke and the children chorused “hello.” The figure smiled at this, a gentle and soothing smile that allowed them to ignore the sharp teeth it showed. He spoke again, his voice smooth and seductive, like rich velvet, Amanda had never heard such a voice so richly seductive voice before yet so natural in it.

“I am Eagle Strongheart, second in command of the Idars, second most powerful full-fledged and last surviving original. My current age is one thousand, three hundred and seventeen and I am older brother to Little Eagle- by twenty years-the one who brought Corin into our family.

Corin asked our chief for permission to tell the history of my people so I volunteered to tell it, since I was there to see it all. Would you like to hear it children and Mr and Mrs Anderson?” The children chorused and Amanda looked at Corin curiously “he can see and hear us?”

Corins’ eyes were glowing strangely as he spoke “yes, but not in the way you think. But please leave your questions to later, this is hard enough as it is to keep this link up.” The two parents nodded and looked back at the screen.

Eagle, who had been waiting patiently, continued softly “I was born to Black Bear and Great Fawn Strongheart of an old Indian tribe called Idar, nestled deep in a group of mountains. We were so isolated from other tribe life that we created our own religion and language, our own way of life.”

“No wonder not many people know the language!” Amanda gasped and Corin nodded “only Idars, PADD members and the leader of the Idar Protection Association know it. That’s out of hundreds.”

“Idar Protection Association? I thought you were immortal, why would you need protection?”

“I don’t but some of the Idars like newer ones are weaker and need protection, especially from Renegades of our kind. They find perverse pleasure in torturing and slowly killing the weaker ones. So the IPA and my best friend Ritchie’s group the Renegade Hunters patrol the streets, helping any mortal in trouble and Idar. Go on Eagle.”

The other nodded and continued “I grew up a normal Indian boy with my best friend Sky Highgrass. He was five years my elder but it did not matter to either of us, we were blood-brothers and nearly inseparable. At fourteen he began to notice Dove Opensky and he confined in me he was going to marry her by twenty.

When a plague came to our village and they started to die the chief convinced most of the others it was Sky’s fault and the only way to appease the Great Spirit would be for them to kill him and Dove. Their parents had died long before the sickness came and I was protected by my own, so no one but me-despite my parents protest-could defend them.”

“Did they do it?”


“Yes. They stabbed them both then left them in a field to die and rot. When the sickness continued those left beat the chief to death for his lies and killing their possible future cure and now I was exposed and dying without him to keep me safe. For you see Sky was what you call mutants now and his mere presence kept me healthy.”

“How did you all heal?”

“One of our father race was traveling our land on his way to the humans he protected hundreds of moons away and heard Sky moaning and felt his pain. He found them close to death and made him his blood-child. Only instead of becoming like him he became something different and when he changed Dove to save her she became like him.”

“What’s the difference between half and full breeds?” Amanda asked curiously “and how do you get to be full?”

“Half breeds have not died during or after their initiation. It means they can eat and drink normal food like you and in fact except for the enhanced senses, strength and speed and our appearance we are normal humans. Like Corin is.”

“It also means should anything happen to the source of the virus inside me-gods forbid-I can become a normal Child of Hauleric again, I can change back. As I am the virus is only coexisting within me and my body systems.”

“And who is the source of your virus?” Amanda asked and he answered “Little Eagle.”

“So if he was to die properly you would become a normal Child Of Hauleric again” Hank asked and he glared at him, eyes saying “don’t even consider such a thing.” However he glared back, saying, “I only was trying to clarify this thing. It’s confusing.”

“What about full breeds?” Amanda asked to distract him.

“Half breeds who die for some reason or overindulge when they feed. It both has the same affect. The virus is able to overpower the immune system and take complete control of the host’s body, everything. They can’t die except for two certain ways and are forever at their age and appearance, immune to age, disease, sickness, mortal injury and most other things. But they can’t breed like us or humans because their way of reproducing is to turn others to their life. Also someone who is being turned can go straight to full if they are completely drained instead of only to a certain point-like Renegades do.”

“What happened next? What did he and Dove do? They obviously couldn’t go back to the village…”

“No. They moved into a cave in one of the mountains surrounding our village. There apparently HE taught them what they could and could not do, what strengths and weaknesses they had. How to control the abilities and powers and themselves, and even though we are different then what he was he seemed to know what Sky could do differently to him and how to use and control them.”


“How do you mean?”
“Using mutant standards we are active while he remained passive.”
“How so?”

“We can make fire by thought alone as well as use our mind to make other than our own kind do what we wish without they knowing it. We can summon a storm by will and make the earth shake-or worse. We can fly like the birds or run like the wolves and kill as easily as well. We can change our forms into that of any of the Great Spirit and mother earth’s children who we are named from. Unless our heart is torn from us and completely destroyed we survive. The earth gives us her strength and heals and nurtures us of a night or when we are badly injured just as blood does in desperate situations.”

“And your father race?”

“They were faster and stronger than us. They walk without discomfort in the daylight while we sleep like the dead. They feed while we do not have to. They can hypnotize and must be staked; decapitated completely and burnt before they are destroyed fully and even then there is no guarantee.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the body is not surrounded by the proper runes while it burns and the humans are far enough away the spirit escapes and possesses the one nearest. He or she lives on in that body, slowly taking control and pushing out the other soul until they own it fully and changing it their original form.”

“Had your…had HE ever done that to someone?” Hank asked, thinking he would never like to be faced with one of these guys.

“Once. His creator had charged him centuries before with guarding his human line. At the time the current of that line was a king of a large land and the woman he loved and planned to marry. Just after the two’s children were born a waring country tried to invade and there was a huge and bloody battle, the people of that land wishing to protect the good king with their lives. Only the king felt it would be wrong to let his people die for him and joined in.”

“What happened?”

“He had to protect the king in battle until he was suddenly hit in the back with a fire-arrow. While he burned, the king was cut down in front of him. He was forced to enter a nearby enemy soldier in order to save the queen and her son and daughter.


Afterwards he contacted his creator and told him he had failed him and was going to leave and travel the world to find himself and the reason to go on. He told him he should have one of his other ‘children’ guard them-someone he could trust. His guilt was so strong his creator couldn’t change his mind. He had gotten close to the king and his family during the time he was their guard and he felt it was all his fault the king had been killed. His grief and guilt was all he could feel.”

“What happened to the village to make them and you the same as them?”

“He had been watching the village and me for a while. Finally Dove persuaded Sky to go and see me and so that night he sneaked in.”

“What did he find there?”

“The village was filled with the dying and dead. Those who had died lay were they were when the life left them as even the hunters and warriors were too weak to move them out any longer. When he saw no one was around-not a soul-he became afraid and ran the rest of the way to my Tepee. I lay shivering under the furs, not even the strength to wipe the vomit from myself, so fevered I did not know him even when Sky shook me and screamed my name.

He examined me as he had been taught closely and found my heart struggling to beat and knew I wouldn’t even last the next few hours. He had no choice but to do what he did or loose me. My change was not as skilled as his had been-as painless as it should have been.”

“My first need was to clean myself up when I realized what I looked like. Now except for my different looks like him I looked normal. My first feed-when I was taught by him to hunt and catch a deer-was impressive he said, I learned fast. I then suggested we turn the rest of the village-everyone who still lived that was. When he asked why I said that the three of us wouldn’t last long by ourselves and we were a village after all. When he reminded me about their murder I said that as the most powerful he would rule and they would never be able to hurt us again. “Besides” I shrugged “if you want you can think of it as revenge. You rule, make them think you saved them but control them forever.”

Although he didn’t want to admit it he agreed with me for that and did so with his help. We all moved into the caverns where Dove and he were living. Sky was the most powerful of them all and became the unquestionable leader and I think the villagers accepted them out of gratitude for saving their lives.”

“Then came Sky’s big mistake. Dove and he wanted children but discovered they couldn’t and as the years went by they became desperate and because of the friction between them because of it they began to avoid the subject and drift apart mentally. I think they blamed themselves for it but couldn’t admit it out loud to each other in case the other denied what they felt was true.”


Didn’t Hank and Amanda know how that felt.

“One night a scout returned to our home to tell Sky that there were intruders in the old village. What we found was five teenagers boys almost dead from exhaustion in the only tepee still standing. As we nursed them back to health Sky thought maybe they were on their spirit walk-or the trail of manhood. But when they were able the oldest told him that strange men in animal skins and with flesh the color of the clouds had taken the land from their village and killed everyone off and nearly them.

They were orphans now who had taken it on themselves to travel to other villagers and warn the people of the land so the same wouldn’t happen again. They had been on horse-back just before they had reached our mountain range except they had been ambushed by a group of the strange skinned men who had had strange thunder sticks which had killed three of the other boys with them before they were able to flee on foot into the mountains.

As far as they knew the men hadn’t followed them in but the idea that they were had made them continue on in terror of the thought that they were.

When they had found what was left of our village they were near-collapse. Even though it was filled with rotting bodies and skeletons but they had had enough strength left to find the closest standing tepee and go inside. They had been there, too weak to move, only a few days before we found them.

What we didn’t know was that he and his gang were going around to each village and infiltrating it, working their way up until they had the chief then either convincing or forcing the village and chief to give the land up to the white men.”

“How was he forcing the villagers to give it up?”
“Various ways but their favorite was hostage situations, as in kidnapping the chief’s children or love.”

“What happened to finally make him realize the truth?”

“Dove and I sensed it wasn’t right from the start but Sky was too blinded by the excitement and desire to have him as a son so ignored our suspicion. They drew close for the next five years, at least he thought they were.”

“What happened to change it?”

“A villager from another turned up and recognized them. Dove and I were told if Sky didn’t believe us to go see for himself and so we persuaded him to do so, leaving Dove and I in charge of our people without telling Hawko where he was going. While he was gone Hawko found out and confronted us. A fight issued.”

“What happened?”


“Dove was killed by Hawko, only he blamed it on the villager who had told Sky about Hawko and his people, telling him he should have known better than to trust someone’s word over his. Then he found out that this villager also had captured me and was holding me hostage for our land. Hawko then told Sky that he had loved Dove as well even though she hadn’t returned it and that her murder was an insult to him and his friends as well as him. He told him if he gave him the power and strength he would hunt down this rogue and kill him for the crime against us all and bring me back to him alive and well. All he had to do was trust him with the strength and power of our kind.”

“It wasn’t the villager was it” Hank said softly “Hawko’s men had you and he wanted Sky to give him the power and abilities so he could lord over other people.”

Eagle nodded solemnly “and when he turned him he made the greatest mistake he could or would ever made in his existence. He created a monster. When he followed him and watched him enslave his gang and then that innocent villager, then kill me when until then I had still been half human...well he lost it.

He attacked him, fought off his slaves and grabbed me, taking me back to the village. He found not only was he more powerful then Hawko but when faced with him and his slaves my people all banded together to force him away and reject him for his actions. When I finally awoke, a living dead like he was he found he couldn’t forgive Hawko ever for his act and not only exiled him and his slaves from our land but formally announced to the others from that day on, for his crimes Hawko and his slaves-and any others they made were Renegades and to be killed on sight. He would no longer be his heir.

And then he left us to sleep that of the emotionally and physically wherry. A few times over the next few hundreds of years he awoke but found the world outside no better so soon returned to his sleep.”

“Who woke him?”

Corin spoke out “our current ruler, a boy called Richard Simpson. He had been one of Hawko’s little play things and managed to escape him and hide inside an iced cave. His hot blood melting the ice layer around Sky and awoke him."

“And tasting his blood allowed Sky to see who he was inside and just how much a truly good soul he was. He realized he wouldn’t be corrupted like Hawko and decided he would make a better heir. So he helped him. However Sky was killed protecting his new heir.”

“How did Corin come in to your group?”


“One day about three hundred years ago my younger brother Little Eagle and my first fledgling Little Plains had an argument, a serious one. Little Plains stormed out of the caves we called home and we waited for him to return. When he didn’t we started searching for him. Little Eagle insisting he go, for he felt it was all his fault. You can imagine our surprise when he returned not leading my first but carrying a young red headed boy in his arms.

He claimed the boy was the one who had helped him a few nights ago when he had been attacked by one of Hawko’s slaves, he had found him near our home, unconscious and still and a quick examination showed the strange mortal had been beaten severely and was dying of some sort of magical poison, the burnt skin of his chest must have been how it got into his body…”

“Burnt skin, poison…” Amanda looked thoughtful then burst out “It was the scorpion spell, wasn’t it!”


Eagle nodded “correct. We knew the only way to save him was to turn him. Little Eagle insisted he wanted to be the one to do it, he cared for the boy since he had first met him and refused to let anyone else touch him. We only agreed because he was so worked up about it and we knew the longer we waited the more chance he would die before we could save him.

When we discovered his fire blood Little Eagle was not surprised in the least and the boy did not even stir as it happened, not move in any way and even did not waken until days later. We all took it in turns feeding him, even Little Plains who had returned that night we turned him would feed him.

In fact it got that way that the boy would only let Little Plains near him, every one else would panic him, even Little Eagle. My first loved nothing better than to rise of a night, get some calla and help the weak boy drink it, then sit with him for hours and just talk to him.

But soon the boy grew sick again and we panicked. “What were we doing wrong?” Little Plains would exclaim helplessly. “Maybe he was smothering him,” Little Eagle said in a nasty voice, “he was and always will be just a big idiot.”

Little Plains and Little Eagle started to argue again and I interrupted after I had a sudden idea. “The boy is still human,” I said to them “we have only been giving him calla, not human food.”

“But he’s one of us” Little Eagle argued with me “WE can not eat food.”

“WE do not,” I said to him “Think for a minute brother. Did you kill him? Or did he die during?”

“No” he answered. Then “I see what you mean. What do we do then?”

“There is an orchid of wild fruit nearby. Go and pick some, make a paste and feed it to him. He is too fevered to panic. Go, before he awakens.” Little Eagle nodded and left. Little Plains went to follow but I stopped him “I want to talk to you fledgling.” I said to him “about this whole thing.” I told him to let Little Eagle do this, to stay away from the boy for a while because my brother was getting jealous.

“Why?” Little Plains asked curiously “jealous of me, why?”

“Little Eagle turned the boy and so feels he owns him. He turned the boy to save him but since the boy seems to prefer you over him it makes him jealous. What is worse is you can get near him without causing him to panic.”


“The boy senses Little Eagle thinks he owns him, that is WHY he will not let him near him. If you talk to him and tell him…” I understood this and nodded to him “I will talk to him when he returns.”

To my surprise, after he had fed the boy the mashed fruit Little Eagle came to me himself. “I am sorry, brother. I guess I forgot for a while that I do not own him-I OWE him-not just for his help when he saved me before but now for the honour of being a sire and a kind of father. I was obsessing and forgot the simplest reason. I was acting no better than a Renegade. I own him as much as you own Little Plains of Sky owned you. I have apologized to your first and now I do so for you.”

“Little brother” I said to him with a pleased smile “ in five hundred years that’s the most mature thing I have heard you say or do. I am proud of you. As for your obsession, I understand it. You have no fledglings other than this boy, no family other than Wild One and I and after five hundred years it was inevitable you would start to yearn for a child or such to follow in your steps, to be proud of-I even understand the reason you and Little Plains are always at ends with each other.”

“Why?” he asked me curiously.

“Little Plains has the love of White Bird but none of the squaws have ever shown interest in you other than a friend or my brother. Inside you are jealous of the unquestionable love they share. So you resort to sarcasm whenever he acts older and more mature than you and it leads to arguments. If you accept your place-this boy will be your son because he cares for you, not because you control him-then everything you want will come to you.”

“You are right brother” he said to me softly “after all, I was not trying to get a son and here he is.”

As the combined efforts of my first and my younger brother made the boy well again we discovered another problem. He was silent and sullen, refusing to talk and any questions about what had happened, who had beaten him and ones about his past-say family-sent him into a small ball of horror, fear and shock which sometimes lasted for days and nights, refusing any mortal food or even calla.


So we learnt not to question him and named him ‘He Who Hides Inside Himself’, but Little Eagle called him ‘my son’. He had adopted the boy as his offspring without question and when the boy was in those circles he would guard and care for him. He would feed him-sometimes forcibly-care for him and gently speak to him and we noticed the more he did the less he would stay in the state.

However we thought he would not last. But my brother did not care about our opinions, he refused to let the boy go. Then one day, when we had decided to tell him to put the boy out of his misery it happened. Being the leader I had to tell my brother, a position I did not like. I was approaching my brothers cave room when I became aware of crying and a low soothing voice. I found him holding the boy close as he cried, finally allowing someone to help him. Little Eagle saw me and made a small gesture to leave them alone so I silently did.


When he found me a few hours later I was with the others and he was smiling. “He is finally opening up” he said to us “I knew he would-it would just take some time and patience. He let me link with his mind, it is like he feeds mentally on my calm. He needs it from what he let me see there.”

“Why? Have you found out what is wrong with him?”

Little Eagle nodded solemnly “yes. His name is Corin, he had another name, a secret name, but he hid it from me” he shrugged “everyone needs their secrets, it makes life more interesting. He is the last of his race, mortals called Fire Witches, which is why his blood and tears are flame-their entire body is make from flame.”

“But a human body could never handle that sort of thing!” I protested, confused but my brother shook his head “he is, and his entire race was until some humans started killing them off for the power they have-they're born with. His father was one-right in front him too. His father was all he knew, he never saw anyone else.”

“That explains the shock and desire to hide from us” I said and he nodded “it did not help that after they killed his father they tied him down and tortured him for the location of his fathers books. Something about them being hidden from them so they cannot use them to strengthen their power and influence. But he honestly did not know where they were.”

Amanda and Hank remembered the books Jason had got after his parents were killed and how he had used them to train and guide his ‘younger brother’ Joel. If he could use them to train and teach an amateur Son Of Hauleric about whom he was then what else could be inside them to use when the beings weren’t exactly as pure in soul as the Child Of Hauleric were? “The trouble was, he did not know where his father kept them so he could not tell them even if he wanted too, they did not believe him when he told them and kept torturing him for what he does not know.”

This surprised Amanda and Hank, Children Of Hauleric couldn’t lie, and the Dark Ones hadn’t believed him? But wait a minute, Joel had been able to lie rarely and he had been a Child Of Hauleric-the term now used for those half-witch was Fire Withes. So of course with Corin being half Son Of Hauleric and half-HUMAN they wouldn’t believe him.

“How did he escape?” I asked him and Little Eagle frowned at me “I do not know. His mind was clouded then with pain and fear and he remembers hearing his father’s voice in his head telling him to get up and go, to escape and find a way to continue their line. Even though he was full of agony and could barely think around it he managed to get up and struggle to escape. That was when they got him with the spell that was killing him. They let him go because they knew the spell would kill him before he could find the right help.”


“Why did he come to our mountains?”

“He did not mean to, he was so fevered he did not know what he was doing then. He had managed to do last rites over his father and then was just moving, only knowing he had to get away. It is only thanks to the Great Spirit I found him and on time.”

Two years later Corin was speaking fluid Idar and although many thought of him as a human he had mentally become every bit one of us, even if he was a little strange. His relationship with Little Eagle only deepened as time went by.”

Corin spoke next “Five years after they found me HE joined” and Amanda asked curiously “who?”

“Richard Jared Simpson, Idar name Lionheart, an American teenager of about fourteen. Sky had awoken and changed him from a fevered Renegade to his last fledgling. When Hawko destroyed Sky, Richard inherited all that raw and incredible power, especially since he had also been a mutant before being turned, more so and stronger power than Eagle ever had or has. I remember Eagle was so hurt that Sky chose a ‘impudent and impulsive little shit’ to receive that power instead of him, the friend he had grown up with.

But as Eagle got to know Richard he saw why he did. Eagle had only become leader from necessity but Richard was a born leader, a quick thinker and strong willed, he used his emotions and feelings to help dictate his decisions. Not only that he was an highly intelligent person, just as Sky was.” Eagle interrupted “he wants to speak to you, Corin. Use the videcom. I will continue while you are gone.”

Corin sighed “all right” and went up to his room. “Excuse me Mister Eagle” Amanda said as she stood “I’ll get the children some drinks. Hank can fill me in on what I miss later.” The figure nodded and Amanda went into the kitchen and closed the door.

She was about to start up the kitchen stairs to the hallway and bedrooms when she suddenly stopped. Hank’s words echoed in her head over and over again “that’s how you lost Jason in the first place, by forever watching him! Now you are doing it to Corin! Do you want to loose your grandson as well as your son?”

After a long and confused pause Amanda changed direction and went to the fridge.

* * *