The Well of Many Worlds

by Luke Metcalf

  Mitchell left his amour where it was and made his way, shirtless, toward his fathers castle, which was now his, past the bodies of warriors that lay scattered on the battlefield like fallen autumn leaves. The skirmishing continued in places and as he approached the rear of the enemy forces, he drew his sword. Coming up behind an enormous catapult with a speed and dexterity he had never achieved before, he slashed at the soldiers manning the machinery. They were about to ignite a large ball of pitch, a mixture of sulphur, ground limestone and pine tar that would explode on impact, setting practically anything ablaze, its fiery resin clinging to everything it touched, flaring even more fiercely when doused with water.

  Mitchell lifted the ball of pitch, which was nearly four feet in diameter, and attached it around the end of a ten-foot length of chain, which he tore with ease from the catapult.

  A mounted soldier rode up. Upon seeing Mitchell returned from the dead, the man’s face contorted in horror. His eyes widened, and he screamed as his horse reared. Mitchell slew the soldier as he fell and leaped onto the back of the horse, hoisting the chain over his shoulder. He marveled at how he was able to pick up something this heavy as easily as lifting a tankard of ale.

  The fires that had sprung up around the castle were so immense that the clouds overhead glowed orange. His people were defending the walls well, raining arrows down upon their foes, but the enemy was relentless. Using a torch that an infantryman had left plunged in the ground, Mitchell ignited the pitch. Once it was fully ablaze, he swung it above his head and spurred his horse into a gallop, crying out, “Hell has come to claim your souls!”

  The enemy soldiers in the rear whirled around as he thundered down on them, the great, flaming ball of pitch circling high above his head. Spurring his horse into their midst, Mitchell released the chain, hurling the burning orb straight at the new captain of the guard, who sat astride an enormous, chestnut-colored stallion in the center of his troops. The captain was turning to see what the commotion was about when the ball of flame hit him square in the face. The force of the blow tore his head off. The pitch exploded on impact and as the chestnut stallion bucked wildly, with the captain’s headless corpse still in the saddle, dozens of the surrounding soldiers were ignited in liquid fire. They dove to the ground, screaming and rolling on the grass, desperately battling to put out the flames.

  As his stolen steed crashed through the ranks of foot soldiers, Mitchell swept out his sword and killed them by the dozens. Chaos spread through the enemy ranks. Many recognized him, crying out, “The dead have risen, the dead have risen! Run, this is a cursed land!”

  Many threw down their weapons and ran in every direction as Mitchell continued to hack his way through them. Within minutes the entire enemy force was fleeing the castle. Mitchell pursued them, slaying the soldiers at will, until he had chased every one of them past the borders of his land. He then turned and rode back to the castle.

  The soldiers upon the battlements could not tell who was terrorizing the enemy forces below but they shouted in joy at the sight of them fleeing. As the battle ended the storm clouds disappeared, leaving behind an eerie calm. Some soldiers had come out to help the last remaining injured back into the castle, and Mitchell found he could actually smell the blood congealing on their wounds.

  He heard a harsh croaking sound and spotted a raven perched upon the limb of a dead tree, gloating over the field of death. As Mitchell dismounted and walked up to the main gates he could hear commotion spreading inside the castle, sounds he would never have been able to hear through such thick walls before. He knocked at the gates and waited for a moment then cried out.

  “Mitchell knocks! I am alive! Open the gates!”

  With his heightened sense of hearing, he listened to the murmurs of fear from inside the castle.

  “Open the gates!” he shouted again, impatiently, and pushed at the door with all his strength. There was a loud crack, and the great beam of wood that bolted the two doors shut snapped in half. The doors swung open.

  For a moment, Mitchell looked down at his hands, eyes wide, marveling at his newfound strength. The soldiers gathered behind the gates gasped, drew their weapons, and shrank back at the sight of Mitchell’s glowing, inhuman, crimson eyes. Only one stepped forward. It was his younger brother.

  “Charles, it is I, your brother,” said Mitchell.

  Charles, still wearing his armor, was drenched from head to toe in mud from the battle. A nasty gash ran across his right cheek. He gazed at Mitchell with eyes reflecting pain, fear, and rage.

  “Demon possessor!” he cried.

  “What? Charles, no, I…” stammered Mitchell. “It is I, Mitchell.”

  “Lies! No man could have survived those wounds. We watched my brother die, and now you, demon, have possessed his body. I see the demon in your eyes. In the name of God, we cast you out!” He thrust his sword forward.

  Mitchell took a step back, catching images of the confused thoughts racing around in Charles’s anguished mind. What he saw there made his stomach collapse – an image of a boulder hurled by a catapult smashing through a huge section of the tower, followed by a flaming ball of pitch, his mother along with two of his sisters being burned alive.

  “What… No…” he muttered, staring at his brother. “No, it can’t be.”

  “Release my brother, demon imposter!” shouted Charles. “I will send you back to the pits of Hell where you belong!”

  “I am no demon,” Mitchell cried, trying desperately to disconnect with the images inside his brother’s mind. “I am…” He had no idea what was happening, but he understood that there was something desperately wrong.

  Afraid of being drawn into a physical confrontation with his brother and horrified by the images of his mother and sisters being burned alive, Mitchell turned and fled. Ahead of him he spotted the great black horse he had been riding. He needed to see Marigold and make sure that she was safe. He vaulted onto the horse’s back and rode into the night, never looking back, even as the realization dawned on him that he might never come home again. He spurred his horse forward. As he rode, confusion filled his mind. He tried to gather his thoughts into some semblance of an understanding, but everything that had happened to him after the cold steel plunged through his chest seemed strange and blurry, like a dream that fades from memory upon waking. The dagger had pierced his heart and he had been left to bleed to death on the ground beneath the storming skies. Who could possibly survive such wounds? It was as if he were peering across a great chasm at something distant, just beyond his reach.

  Had a demon really found him on the battlefield and fed him with its own blood? What did demonic possession feel like? He didn’t feel as though any other entity had taken over his body. His thoughts were still his own and yet he felt something stirring deep within him, a force in his blood. Something powerful was awakening, hungering…

  Perhaps I am possessed, he thought, a cold shudder shooting through him, a hunger he’d never experienced before washing over him. Maybe this was how possession began.

  He spurred the horse on and soon he was approaching the palace of the Lord Protector. He slowed the beast and dismounted, jumping nimbly off its back, landing silently, weightlessly. The last of the thunder rumbled across the landscape as he tied the horse to the stump of a nearby tree and gazed up at the palace walls. All was quiet, he had arrived before the Lord Protector’s scattered and wounded troops could organize themselves to return. It was time to test his new abilities. He stared up at Marigold’s bedchamber window, aglow with the light of a candle. He scaled straight up the walls with little effort, like a spider. When he reached Marigold’s window he peered inside. His love was lying on her bed, her face buried in the pillows, sobbing. He climbed in through the window and approached the bed.

  “Marigold,” he whispered. “My love, I am here for you.”

  Her body stiffened. She stopped crying at the sound of his voice, as though unsure of both her ears and her sanity. Slowly, her head turned,
her long golden hair stuck to her tear-soaked cheeks. Her eyes were red and swollen from hours of sobbing. She blinked, trying to understand what was happening. She was wearing a white nightgown and the beautiful pearl necklace with the ruby-and-diamond pendant he had given her. Mitchell was standing in shadow, out of reach of the candlelight, and she could only make out his silhouette and a pair of glittering emerald eyes.

  Emily was thunderstruck that she was now back in the scene from her recurring dream.

  “I am asleep,” Marigold whispered aloud to herself. “I am asleep, and this is a dream. I hope I never awaken.”

  “No, Marigold, you are not sleeping. I am here. Something has happened to me that I cannot explain, but I am here. It is I.”

  “Can it be true?” she whispered, sitting up. “Mitchell! Is it really you?”

  He caught the scent of her body, the unmistakable perfume of her hair, her ivory skin, and hesitated. Desire possessed him, followed by a wrenching pang of hunger. Hunger for what, he wasn’t sure. He always longed for her body, her kiss, her heart, but this was different. He realized he was aware of the sound of her heart beating in her breast and her blood pumping through her veins. The smell of her flesh grew intoxicating, and the sight of the soft, pale skin of her neck filled him with a dangerous lust, making him fall back on his haunches. His mind reeled as he fought to control himself. He would never hurt her. He took a step forward, needing to hold her.

  Now Emily was living the memory through Marigold and it was identical to her recurring dream. She dreaded the encounter with the demon that she knew was to come. As in her dream lightning flashed outside and thunder cracked and rolled. The windows blew open, knocking a vase off the windowsill, shattering it. Mitchell took a step forward and his glittering green eyes changed, blazing with a deadly, inhuman, crimson glow. Mitchell reached out to caress her face.

  “Marigold…”

  “Your eyes!” she gasped, her face contorted into a look of horror and loathing. “Stay away from me, you are possessed! Oh God forgive me! Have mercy! I offered my soul to bring you back to me, and they brought you back from the dead… but possessed by a demon! The demons are mocking me! Oh God, if a demon has possessed your body that means your soul is in Hell!”

  He reached out for her again. “Marigold…”

  “No!” She stumbled from her bed and backed away from him, shaking like a cornered animal. “Get away from me, demon!”

  Mitchell tried to follow her, tried to reassure her, then he caught sight of himself in a mirror. He stopped dead in his tracks. There, looking back at him was the reflection of the Mitchell he had always known, the handsome, young lord. But how it had been transformed! His bright-green eyes now blazed with an inhuman, crimson glow both mesmerizing and unsettling. A wolf-like, predatory fire burned within them. His skin was as pale as a corpse, the blue of his veins showing through it like a delicate spider’s web. Most horrifying of all, he now saw what his tongue had felt on the battlefield – two deadly canine teeth. Is it true? he wondered. Am I a demon?

  Mitchell approached the mirror and touched the reflection of his face. “Dear Lord, what have I become?” he whispered.

  A commotion arose in the next room. Alerted by Marigold’s cries, six guards burst into her bedchamber with swords drawn. “Tell my father he can burn in Hell,” snarled Marigold at the stunned guards. “I won’t give him the satisfaction of hanging me.” She ran across the cold floor, climbed onto her windowsill and cried out, “If my love be dead and damned, then so shall I be!”

  “Marigold, no!” Mitchell shouted.

  She hurled herself from the window before he could reach her. Emily felt herself falling, falling, falling and saw the ground rushing toward her.

  Now Emily was back in Mitchell’s memories. The guards gaped, astounded, as he dove out the window after her. He saw her far below him, lying on the grass between the castle wall and the moat, her gown spread like the petals of a white rose. He landed beside her like a cat. He took her broken body in his arms. With his heightened awareness, he knew that her heart had stopped as he held her. He felt her soul leaving her body like a wisp of innocent light, floating away. She was gone.

  A low howl of agony escaped his lips as he cradled her in his arms. Somewhere behind him, a wooden door opened and a cohort of guards poured out, rushing toward him with swords drawn. He gently laid Marigold upon the earth and sprang to his feet.

  “Stay away from her,” he snarled. “You will not touch her!”

  The guards took no heed of his words and Mitchell fought with incredible ferocity, his fists crushing their jaws and breaking their ribs. When a dozen of them lay strewn about the ground or struggling in the grimy water of the moat, the rest drew back, unnerved by the devastation Mitchell had wreaked upon their fellows. Seizing this opportunity, Mitchell took Marigold into his arms and leaped up onto the back of the stallion. She belonged to him, dead or alive. The horse reared and snorted then charged like a thunderbolt into the night.

  With Marigold’s lifeless body draped over his horse, Mitchell rode to the hilltop above the burial ground of his ancestors, a couple of miles from his father’s castle, where he and Marigold had made their blood oath. It was a peaceful place with a beautiful view across the countryside. He had gone there often as a child when he needed time alone to think. The cemetery was at the base of the hill on the western side. Mitchell lifted Marigold down and sat upon a large, flat stone where he’d often sat before. For a long time, he cradled her in his arms, tenderly kissing and caressing her face. He let out a tortured groan.

  “I curse this world!” he roared at the sky. He dropped his lips close to the delicate ear of his love. “I swear to you,” he whispered, his voice quivering, “I swear, I will find him.” He raised his face to the cold, glittering stars above and shouted at the heavens. “Whatever foul creature did this to us, I will find him and make him suffer! I swear by all the powers that exist, I will have my revenge!”

  His voice echoed throughout the cemetery. He knelt again, gently kissed Marigold’s eyelids and laid her upon the ground.

  He tenderly caressed her face.

  “Is this dear person, this bright little world that existed within these lovely features, this dear, dear soul, in all its tenderness, laughter, life and love now snuffed out? Is the voice that could fill the world with song, now silenced? Where have you gone, my love? My bright angel? You leave behind a world now forever darkened.

  “Do not fear, my love. I am coming for you, wherever your soul may be. I will wipe this foul evil off the face of the earth and then I will destroy myself and come to you. You sold your soul to bring me back, then took your own life when you thought mine had been cast into Hell so we would be together again. You embraced eternal damnation… for me. And I will do the same for you. I will never abandon you! Wherever your soul now roams in the outer darkness, or whatever pit of Hell it has been cast into, I will come to you and we will be together again forever where the lost souls of the cursed and the damned dwell. I will never abandon you, I swear it!”

  Droplets of blood fell on her face. Mitchell wiped his eyes.

  “What is this? I weep tears of blood? My heart flows from my eyes to be with you, my love, wherever you are.”

  With astonishing strength and speed, he began to dig in the dirt using his hands in the same spot they had sworn their blood oath. Before long, he had cleared out a hole big enough to serve as her grave. After one last, tender kiss, he lowered her into the earth and covered her over. “What evil was in the stars that brought this demon of destruction into our little world? What has happened to my beautiful England who has borne me upon its proud green shoulders as a kind and loving parent and now lies, dying from some disease within, its noble blood filled with poison as demons tread upon its royal, emerald earth with vile, reptile feet? What foul fiend was it that sank its sharp teeth into my throat? Marigold. One way or another, soon death will send me to thee. Until then, I drink the bitter wine of misery
that makes a man so drunk on its evil vapors that the whole world takes on the malignant, oppressive atmosphere of a nightmare.”

  He knelt down and stared at her grave then gently patted the earth. “Sleep in peace, my love,” he whispered when he had finished. “Not in a cold, lifeless tomb. The grass and violets will grow above you, and the sunlight will shine where you lie. You are my heart and my soul and my everything, in this world and in all worlds, forever… and time and death cannot touch that. I will come for you, Marigold. One way or another, I will find you again. Love gave me everything, but at such a cost. Marigold is my paradise, and my paradise lost.”

  Emily’s memories were now Marigold’s again. She found herself in the endless black void from her recurring dream, and she saw the same horrific demon approaching.

  Twenty-Nine

  Emily came back to the bottom of the ocean to find that Mitchell was dragging her out of the Well of Many Worlds. Once free of the mist her body solidified and returned to normal. As soon as Mitchell could see she was safe he turned to go after Baelaar, but his archenemy had disappeared into the vast, dark depths of the surrounding water.

  For a moment there was silence. When Emily reached up to Mitchell her hand was shaking.

  “Mitchell,” she whispered. “I am…”

  “Mitchell,” Sylvain interrupted with a wry grin as he emerged from behind the vast shell of the dragon turtle, “you certainly have some interesting friends…”

  Mitchell gazed at his long-lost friend as though he had forgotten the rest of the world even existed. “Thank you so much, Sylvain.”

  “It was my pleasure. I have been hoping for a chance to repay you.”

  “What about Tom?” Emily asked. “Where did he go?”

  “Most likely Magella,” said Mercurios. “He went into the Well, and that is where it leads, oh yes indeed.”