by Tiger Gray
He felt a certain kinship with Liucy. She'd never had an easy time of it. He hoped the little gifts and shows of support he'd given over the years had made a difference. The books he had a habit of leaving at her door always disappeared, anyway, presumably to be read.
After an hour or two longer of being locked away in the study with Mal, Ashrinn looked up from his notebook and cleared his throat. "Mal? Are you ready?"
Mal nodded, but when he spoke his voice betrayed the barest note of nerves. "Do I need to do anything special?"
"No, I can pull you through this time. I'll teach you how to step on your own later. It has a steep learning curve for most and I don't want to spare the time." Ashrinn fished a pocket watch from the pocket of his pea coat, folded over the back of his chair. When he opened it, however, it revealed not a clock face but a mirror.
"What's that for?"
"It's a focal object. Helps me concentrate my will." Ashrinn watched his reflection. "I can cross without it on my own, but it's a bit more difficult to drag someone else along with." An affectionate smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "It was a present from Randolph. He has one just like it. Maybe he's hoping it will catch on."
He moved his chair closer to the couch and offered Mal his hand. Mal took it, and he noted that Mal still had his gun calluses. It would be like Mal to keep himself in fighting shape. Ashrinn took a deep breath, focused, and cast his spirit into the other world. The image in the mirror whirled into nothingness.
A feeling like having his arm wrenched in its socket as Mal fought the sensation of crossing, but Ashrinn had the stronger magic after a solid six months of training and he dragged his friend along anyway. He spared a second to look back at their bodies, frozen in place, their hands clasped. When he could see again he stood in the near astral, Mal at his side. The faint reflections of the house were all around them, but he phased them outside of the spectral walls with a mere flicker of will.
Normally he would have taken them right to the astral proper, that endless night with its paths of stardust. Mal needed the full tour though, so here they were. The near astral tended to be quite a bit more dangerous, but the whole block had been so tightly warded he didn't think they were in much danger, especially with Raietha's impressive and intricate wards so close by. He glanced over at his friend.
Mal's subconscious had clothed him in the uniform he'd often worn for missions where he didn't have to appear as though he weren't military. Trousers, an undershirt barely glimpsed under a long sleeved shirt, combat boots, and a Kevlar vest. A field jacket in a color that had no real name hugged his broad shoulders and trim torso. A pair of what looked like night vision goggles hung around his neck, though Ashrinn wondered if, in the astral, they would serve some other purpose. A long, thin sword was at his side, sheathed in a plain scabbard. The handle had delicate silver scrollwork that made it look quite incongruous against everything else. A combat knife rested on his opposite hip, featureless by contrast.
Mal looked down at the sword and Ashrinn only just managed to avoid laughing at Mal's put out expression, despite the envy squirming in his guts. Mal hadn't struggled at all. His identity and spirit blade had resolved themselves without Mal even having to try. "What the hell?"
Ashrinn extended his magical feelers and scanned for threats as Mal spoke. He didn't detect anything in the immediate vicinity beyond Raietha and Kiriana. Raietha's alien aura pulsed with quicksilver light, while Kiriana's was that flickering fire he was becoming so used to living beside. He withdrew his psychic hand as though he had burned its physical counterpart.
"Swords and paladins just go together," he answered, trying to keep his voice free of resentment, "and your blade is an expression of yourself."
"An expression of myself?" Mal drew the blade, though he sounded skeptical. Ashrinn whistled. A shining weapon, the silver-blue light it emitted not unlike the color of Mal's eyes. Sigils squirmed along the length, but Ashrinn couldn't make sense of them. The blood channels burned electric blue.
"Ha, I always knew you were a little ray of light."
"Shut up," Mal sheathed the sword again. He folded his arms and in a rare moment of ribald humor, raised his eyebrows and said, "I showed you mine. Show me yours."
Ashrinn pulled his sword from the decorated scabbard on his back, the jewel-hoofed doe depicted there forever frozen mid-leap. The snake familiar appeared as an etching on the curved length of the blade itself, entangled with a rose. The design shimmered, outlined in fire.
"You're making fun of me for having a fruity sword? A rose, Ashrinn?"
"I like flowers, you rube. Now shut your hole and pay attention."
Mal smirked but fell silent.
"This is the near astral," Ashrinn explained, sheathing his sword, too, "and often times you will see reflections of real world things here, especially things that have a lot of emotion poured into them. That's why you can see our houses."
He gestured at the buildings, thanking the divine spirit that Kiriana had warded their home so tightly. The meta math shivered and twisted over the walls and roof, and he avoided watching it too closely; his mind wasn't capable of dealing with too much of it. Without those symbols the place would be crawling in nightmare reflections and he would have had to answer some very uncomfortable questions.
Raietha had done the same to her home, and once more he wondered. Simple caution, or something else? She couldn't be like Kir. He couldn't imagine manly Mal letting someone treat him that way. Mal had always been the stronger one.
"Come on. I'll take you to the astral proper." He said, eager to be away. He took Mal's hand, their magic reaching for one another even as their fingers touched. He pulled, and they were through on to one of those glittering, endless paths, standing in pure possibility.
Stardust danced before them, the paths of the astral stretching out before him. He felt revitalized just being here. The divine power within him stirred in response to the magic inherent in his surroundings, and his heart lifted. Armor materialized and settled on his body. He'd grown used to the strange hide.
He turned back to his friend and found himself transfixed by the look of child-like wonder on Mal's face. Mal so rarely showed his emotions that he always found himself struck speechless when Mal did. He couldn't even find it in him to envy Mal's positive experience after that.
Ashrinn tugged his hand back before things could get awkward. "Further in," he continued, "a skilled magical can find his or her way to the many realms that make up the deep astral. The Nightmare, the land of the Fae, the space between the stars. Below us, the abyssal realm and the void. The divine realm, and so on. Every magical draws on one or more realm to fuel their powers. Think of it like pearls on a string. Where we are now is the string."
"So, how much danger are we in here? Feels damn exposed. And what about our bodies?"
"Oh yes. We're pure spirit right now and if we're destroyed, that's it. That's the end."
"Is there a way to bring your whole, I dunno. Business?"
"Yes, but it becomes easier to get lost in the space between paths, because you have nothing to anchor you to the mortal world."
"This shit is complicated. Go on. Tell me the rest."
"Bollocks. You're impatient." Ashrinn teased. He was the only one who could get away with teasing Mal, and he knew it. "All right. First we ought to deal with your powers. Come with me. I'll find us a space to practice."
Ashrinn walked down one of the paths and focused. A moment later and their corner of the spirit world had transformed itself into a garden that would have been straight out of a Victorian wood cutting, if it weren't so wild. He felt Mal's surprise as easily as if it were his own.
"How did you do that?" Mal said passing under an archway dripping in roses. Ashrinn reached a sunlit patch of grass and waited there. Mal looked quite out of place in his military gear.
Not that you look like you belong, in your blackened wrappings.
"I just imagined it. It's only half-real. Y
ou could take an individual flower with you when you left, if you concentrated enough, and if you get hurt here it actually hurts, but mostly it's just pleasant window dressing. If I had more time I could ward it against intrusion, too. As it is it's obscured by my will."
"It's..." For a moment Ashrinn thought Mal might tell him how beautiful he found the place, but Mal shook his head instead of finishing the sentence.
"Come here," He beckoned Mal like he might do to a skittish animal. "I'll teach you how to call your powers."
"Jesus, you're foggy," Mal said as he walked down the path as bidden. "Look at this place."
Ashrinn hoped Mal wouldn't notice the thorn bushes, the creeping vines, and how, here and there, swollen purple-black plants rose from the earth to show their dripping teeth.
Mal came close enough to touch, the sun making his hair even brighter than usual, picking out every fire-colored strand. Ashrinn reached out to flatten a hand on his friend's chest, but Mal stumbled back.
"What's wrong with you? I need to touch you to show you how to do this. All those times I had my hands on you back when we were enlisted and you're going to startle over this?" Ashrinn tried to suppress his annoyance. He'd told Mal about being bisexual a long time ago, but he supposed it was never too late to develop a little insidious phobia. "You don't think I'm going to try and seduce you under the guise of teaching you something, do you?"
"No. For Christ's sweet sake, what the hell would make you think that?" Mal cursed, turning almost as red as his hair. He came closer again, and Ashrinn could see him shake. Well, it shouldn't be such a surprise, Ashrinn thought, not after his own traumatic awakening. Just because Mal had done this with relative ease didn't mean the experience had no effect.
Ashrinn reached out, putting a hand on Mal's chest once more. Mal drew a deep, steadying breath and shifted his weight in a way that showed Ashrinn he was still uncomfortable. "Randolph teach you like this?" Mal had the tense tone of someone trying to distract himself.
"No. He didn't know me well enough to teach me like this."
"It was different back in the military," Mal said, almost as if he were talking to himself, and Ashrinn realized he was referring to the two of them touching. "It was different."
"I'm not going to hurt you." He offered a tendril of his red-gold signature to Mal. Hecalled could feel Mal's breath hitch and freeze in his chest as Mal perceived the energy. "Focus. Take it."
Mal swallowed audibly, but a moment later Ashrinn felt him reach. Their signatures met and braided together under his hand. Mal outright whimpered. He found the lock Mal had unwittingly put on himself and clicked it open with only a second's work.
Mal had his eyes closed tight, a fact that made Ashrinn feel a guilty, as though he were spying. But he wanted to see this, he found, see the moment where Mal finally felt the divine energy that would soon be his to control.
He remembered what it had been like to have Randolph show him this very thing. Now he was directing it, making certain the divine didn't swallow Mal up, but even his influence couldn't keep that unique terror and ecstasy from suffusing his friend. For him it had been the panic of being strapped to a Little Bird helicopter in the midst of a storm, and the filthy rapture of his first threesome. He wondered what Mal might be thinking of; Mal's signature sparked and leapt under his psychic fingers as he anchored them both. Mal clutched at him, shuddered. Ashrinn felt transfixed. He liked those hands, hard on his upper arms, too much for comfort.
No point pining after the straight man. That would be just like you, making things more difficult than they need to be. He squirmed. Mal stepped back, signature steady. He made himself touch Mal again, just the tips of his fingers to Mal's breast bone this time.
"Right here." He said, feeling the well of power there. Mal looked at him uncomprehendingly, as endearingly baffled as he was when being nudged out of a dream. "That is the divine within you. If you can master it then you can do any number of things. You've the first step now, so let's see you use it. "
Mal held his hands out and inspected them. They glowed with blue-white power. "Now what?" he asked, eyes large and bright in his pale face. Ashrinn looked around. Whether the dead tree had always been there or whether it had arisen in response to his half-conscious wish for something to practice on, Ashrinn didn't know. He supposed it didn't matter, only that it was there now, its desiccated branches spiraling towards the astral sky.
"One of the easiest things to learn how to do is throw a bolt of power. Aim for that tree. It's as simple as throwing a grenade."
He watched as Mal furrowed his brows and lifted his hand. The tree exploded in a shower of sparks. For a moment the motes of magic hung in the air like fireworks, then dissipated.
"Fuck." He didn't swear often --- not in English, anyway --- but this deserved it. "Nicely done." He clapped Mal on the shoulder. "Though we'll have to teach you a thing or two about restraint."
Mal grinned, the broad smile that rarely appeared. Ashrinn returned it. He loved it when Mal thought something worth smiling about. "Since when do you know a damn thing about restraint?" Mal said, nudging him in the ribs.
"Oaf. Well. You make a salient point," He couldn't pretend innocence when Mal had known him through all of his most reckless years. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the borders of the glade rippled. Something had crossed the lines of his shelter.
He chastised himself with a stream of internal cursing. Too caught up in the practice, too focused on Mal, and as a consequence he hadn't paid enough attention to external things. Green recruit's mistake.
He gave the hand sign for Mal to cut left just as the thing came into view. If he and Mal were incongruous against this backdrop, the thing that prowled towards him was firmly in the realm of the bizarre.
Ashrinn guessed it had been a cougar, once. It had hunched shoulders that supported a head not unlike that found on the skeletons of prehistoric cats, lips permanently curled back to reveal a set of teeth too large for its jaw, forcing its muzzle into a fixed, grotesque parody of the snarling animal that had served as the base for some madman's modifications. He knew they had no hope of outrunning it, balanced as it was on haunches of pure muscle.
He glanced at Mal, who had moved at his signal immediately. The construct raised its head and its nostrils flared. No use in Mal hiding, when it had smelled him already. He communicated the same through gestures as he and the beast circled one another.
"What is that thing?" Mal asked. Ashrinn saw him draw his combat knife.
"It's a construct. Crafted by a powerful magical for a specific purpose." He gazed at the thing's fangs. "I think you can guess what that purpose might be."
Mal moved around behind it and the creature leapt without further preamble. Ashrinn performed a controlled tumble to the ground, barely shooting out from between its paws. Its maw snapped shut right where his arm would have been, had he been slower.
"Ashrinn!" Mal yelled. "Move!"
Ashrinn didn't bother to question it. He bolted away from the thing as soon as he found his feet. An outpouring of pressure in the air told him that Mal had once again called on all that untrained power within him, striking out at the creature even as it turned to attack him. Ashrinn spun on his heel and rushed back into the fray. He and Mal had enough of a connection remaining from their practice before that the hum of the divine jangled along his bones.
The construct's fur smoked, a nasty blackened burn mark on its shoulder and spine from where it had taken Mal's attack. It limped, but not enough that Ashrinn felt any better about their chances. He drew on the divine himself as the creature howled in rage and whatever rudimentary pain it could feel. It lashed out at Mal with its front claws faster than Ashrinn could see, let alone react to. Mal took the swipe across both legs.
Mal's howl of agony matched the creature's. He dropped to his knees, but instead of collapsing, he plunged his combat knife into the thing's neck. It snarled and tried to shake him off, snapping at him. It was only a
matter of time before the thing took a chunk out of something even more vital.
He launched himself across the space, power already gathering in his hands. The creature bit into Mal's left thigh, snarling. Mal sucked breath in through his teeth, too hurt to truly scream.
For once, Ashrinn's cool broke under fire. Rage bubbled up inside of him and for the second time in his life, he focused his power through the lens of anger. The divine threatened to crush him, but the bolt he generated nearly fried the thing on the spot.
Not the artery, divine spirit, Ashrinn prayed as the creature, slobber and blood pouring from its mouth, turned toward him again, Not the artery.
The thing's skin had burned away on its back quarters, and Ashrinn could see its exposed flesh. Despite hideous damage, it once more coiled and bunched to leap. He drew his sword and the serpent leapt forth, the size of a python, striking at the beast.
The cat creature fled in the face of its new enemy, dragging its ruined hindquarters. He dearly wanted to throw some holy bolts after it, but he could see the blood gushing up over Malkai's fingers and he knew he didn't have time.
He dropped his sword and ran across the clearing. He went hard to his knees at Mal's side, so full of divine energy he didn't even feel the bad knee hit the earth. Mal had his hands locked around his leg, blood burbling up between his fingers as he tried to stop the spurting.
The femoral artery. Seconds. He had seconds. Ashrinn pawed at Mal's jacket, hoping Mal was literal enough that he'd imagined the standard issue tourniquet that went with it. Ashrinn snatched it from the pocket over Mal's belly.
"Let go, dammit!" He jammed the tourniquet between his teeth as he tried to pry Mal's hands from his leg. Ashrinn wasn't a very good healer magically speaking, but he could do enough to buy Mal a few more moments. He focused through the fury and numb shock and caught the thread of the divine used to smooth away wounds and drive away disease. Whereas the power he'd summoned earlier had been hot and tumultuous, this was cold and calming.
