Thank you, she sent back as she turned her attention to what she’d find once she reached Mount Eredren. At least crossing the menhirs would not be a problem given her Litherian blood, but she had no idea what she would face when she arrived. What could possibly have spooked Gaia enough to take interest in this corner of the world? It must be something bad indeed.
Tempting Repentance
J.C. halted. Sins fouled the air and stained the walls. The further he went, the heavier his cross became. How could the Adversary call so many to him? Yes, sin was the easier road, but there were still righteous men and women—Sarn was one, though even he wasn’t sinless. But the good he did should have overpowered the Adversary’s lure.
Something was fueling the Adversary. What could strengthen his call so even good people couldn’t resist him? Sorry Ran, but a many-armed monster couldn’t do it. Something else happened. J.C. pushed through choking darkness, and it resisted, sapping his strength.
A light flared in the dark as a soul dared to defy the Adversary’s call. The hooded figure, slight enough to be a woman, darted into the mesmerized crowd flowing into the mouth of a half-collapsed tunnel. Piles of rubble lay on either side of a gaping hole wide enough to fit a dragon. A cross blazed above his or her head as she swung a censer, wafting incense at the throng while shouting prayers. Only a few woke from their trance, but in the press, they were forced into the cavern with the rest.
Still, the hooded figure kept trying to save them, nor was she alone. Others tried to turn the tide, some by main force, others by reciting religious texts, but the Adversary’s call trumped all their efforts, and it was maddening. How could the Adversary have become so powerful in so short a time?
J.C. scoured the blank minds of the crowd for answers, but all he found was the Adversary’s call rattling around their minds. What’s giving him such an edge?
The throng flowed to the edge of a wide cliff in ranks of thirteen and stepped into darkness. No! J.C. extended his hand to save them, but they were caught between two spells.
Instead of falling, those thirteen men and women struck a thin layer of white fire and it eviscerated them. J.C. fell to his knees. Nails punched through his hands and feet, spilling his most precious blood, and a crown of thorns bit into his brow.
What could be so terrible the Queen of All Trees left such a deadly guardian behind?
Thirteen more people approached the edge.
“Come, children of light, repentance is in sight.”
J.C. extended his hand and his power to stop them and slammed into the covenant. Without hesitation, those enthralled innocents jumped, and the shield vaporized them, sending their souls flying into—oh, my God, no. The Adversary created a soul trap.
And those souls winged into its black web. Woven from demonic spiders' silk on a hoop made from a suicide trees' wood, the perverted dreamcatcher, too, was bound to a lie.
I must break it down. But when he reached for that fell weaving, its threads passed through his fingers. No. J.C. cast about for an answer as rank upon rank of vacant-eyed people shuffled through his spirit toward their doom.
Why can’t I touch it? He kept trying until his hand touched an invisible thread anchored to someone in the crowd.
The Adversary had help making this atrocity—mortal help. J.C. pushed to a stand. I need a mortal to break it. Not just any mortal, he needed a curse breaker.
“J.C.!” Ran shouted and his voice came from a long way off followed by a gentle tug.
It couldn’t be, but it was, and in a flash of insight he understood why the Queen of All Trees was so bent on protecting the potential curse breaker and his son. They were a light in the dark.
But there—two men moved through the throng unaffected by the Adversary’s call. Their souls were in turmoil, crying out for help, and one of them had a soulcatcher.
Ran tugged on his heart again. Sorry lad, I need another minute more to stop the killing. Just hang on, I’ll be right there.
Keeping his head down, Jersten backed away still gripping the strange stone in his pocket. I must get out of here and find Sarn. He’ll know what this thing is and why it’s protecting me. That dark voice buzzed in the back of his mind, but it was a soft murmur easily ignored. I’m not throwing my life away at the whim of some mage.
Not when he knew a mage—granted Sarn wasn’t all that powerful, but perhaps he could explain all this or craft some method of protecting others from it. Others, the word repeated in Jersten’s mind raising an unspeakable fear—were his loved ones caught in this vile nightmare? Were they throwing themselves at the thin sparkling line separating them from a deadly fall?
Jersten scanned the faces of the people pushing past him seeking his wife and slammed into Dirk.
“Why aren’t you a mindless slave like them?” Dirk seized Jersten by his upper arms and shook him.
He brought both hands up to push the brute away, but the instant he let go of the rock in his pocket, the summons crashed down, crushing his will.
“I must go to him. He’s calling me.”
“First you must tell me how you thwarted his will.” Dirk shook the weasel and kept shaking until he realized he wouldn’t get an answer. Jersten’s legs pistoned in a futile air march until Dirk hurled him at the nearest wall. Jersten knocked two blank-eyed marchers down and the three ended up in a tangle of limbs.
Before they could detangle themselves, Dirk knelt on Jersten’s chest and searched his pockets. He withdrew a white and black stone. On contact, the Adversary’s foul voice vanished from his mind.
Another voice took its place and with it came a divine white glow that divided into a cross.
“Cast the stone into the fire. It will break the shield, so you can save your friends and release the crowd. No one else needs to die here. Cast the rock into the pit.”
Dirk regarded the rock in his hands. He’d sold it for a pittance of its true worth, though at the time, he hadn’t known that. The impure rock fit in the palm of his hand. “It’s so small a thing, yet we suffered so much fear and doubt over it.”
“Cast it into the pit.”
Dirk nodded, but instead of doing as the voice bid, he turned into the crowd and let it propel him toward the edge. There was no end to the bodies cramming into this cavern all for a shot at a deadly swan dive into the Adversary’s fiery embrace. And that foul beast floated over the chasm unharmed by the white fire jetting up from the shield. The ashes of the dead were a black plume rising in the wind whipping the Adversary’s black robes. And their pale, silently screaming ghosts swirled toward a dark web the Adversary wove.
When Dirk reached the edge, he hefted the rock and threw. It sailed out into the middle of the pit then dropped, striking the shield, and it darkened on contact. All light dove into that crystal as it spun.
“What have you done?” the Adversary bellowed.
Darkness shot out of the pit and slammed Dirk to the ground. He grappled with the leathery thing squeezing his chest but couldn’t get any purchase on it. He screamed, and darkness poured down his throat. Deeper it went, ripping the light out of him as the tentacle dragged him toward the pit.
What’s happening?
“You’re dying. Did you think you could release the Ægeldar and live?” The tentacle shook Dirk.
He pounded on it. “You can’t have my soul, Beast.”
“I don’t want your soul, just your body.”
“What for?”
But the beast didn’t answer. It tossed Dirk’s body into the pit, and he fell past more tentacles shooting up toward the Adversary and his soul trap.
“With magic, why identify? Be normalcy personified. Come, sinner, thy time is nigh,” said the black shape wavering between a hooded wraith and a birdlike creature with cloven hooves. It couldn’t maintain its shape.
The sight gave Sarn pause. So, did J.C.’s absence. Why did you abandon me? Is it because I hesitated?
“Ran?”
“Come, sinner, to your dark Father
fly. At my side, thy time is nigh,” said the black shape spreading its bell-sleeved arms like a long-lost lover, but its words were just a catchy rhyme now. They no longer had any power over Sarn.
Sarn shook his head. “No, you’re the Adversary.”
“You called me.” The creature’s wings dropped over its shoulders and melted into a cloak. A hooded head lifted and eyes like burning coals sought him and kept searching. “Where are you, boy? I hear you. I feel the conflict raging within you.” It cocked its hooded head to one side like a listening bird. “I know you’re here, and I know what you want.”
Sarn tried to rise, but the mark was flowing down his left side. It was past his groin and shooting down his left leg, making it jump. But he no longer had command of those muscles.
“Where’s my son?”
Sarn felt to his right where he remembered Ran was standing, but his hand didn’t encounter a set of miniature boots, nor snag on a child-sized cloak. In fact, his hand touched nothing at all.
“He’s not part of the Question. He’ll have his own in due time. That’s the way of things for mages if he’s a mage.”
The ground receded into a fog bank rolling closer with every breath, bringing with it the Adversary. He was surfing it.
Sarn rubbed his eyes with the hand he could still control. Am I losing my mind? “What’s the ‘Question?’”
“It differs depending on the mage. For you, it’s whether you want to be a mage. Next time it’ll be something else. Everything must balance and all that rot. So, we’ll dance this dance again in a few years.” The Adversary shrugged, and his body flickered as if he were shifting between two locations. “Have you made a decision?”
“Ran? J.C.?” Neither answered, but they were both right there not a moment before. They must still be here but hidden somehow by the Adversary’s power. “Sovvan? Some advice would be great right now.”
She too must be there, but he couldn’t feel her presence or hear her voice. Damn. She likely knew six ways to defeat the Adversary.
“Who are you talking to? You’re alone with me. We’re done with the witness portion. It’s down to the question. What do you want?”
That hooded head turned and kept turning as the Adversary searched for him by sound alone.
It still couldn’t see him. Maybe if I shut up, he’ll bother someone else. That was unlikely given the throbbing pain in his marked hand. This ‘Question’ business sounded serious.
“Unlikely, since I’ve spent several hours looking for you. You’re a hard mage to find, Sarn. Good name by the way. Short monikers are hard to work into incantations. You need at least two syllables to work up a good rhythm. A catchy rhyme scheme helps too. Spells take hold better if the subject can’t get the rhyme out of his mind.”
The Adversary’s smile was as crooked and sharp as a scythe and bore more than a passing resemblance to one.
Sarn shuddered. The splinter swelled until it drove itself through his palm, pinning him to the shrouded ground. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, but it was no use. The Adversary could read thoughts, and the devil was cocking his hooded head as if it listened to his internal dialogue again.
“I know what you fear—being different. You want to be normal—mundane. How quaint. Take my hand. I can give you that. I can take it all away and give you the normalcy you crave.” The Adversary retracted his six-inch claws into the back of the skeletal appendage he extended.
“Imagine it! No more voices in your head. No more strange interludes like this one. No more hiding. No one will chase you. No more fearing mobs. They’ll have no reason to corner you. You’ll be as benign and boring as a slice of bread. And best of all, we won’t have to rehash this in a few years. You can live a small life of absolute boredom doing whatever it is mundane people do.”
“You will figure out what normal is and you will spend every minute of every day trying to be it,” Jerlo said in his head again, as a miniature version of the commander retook the observer seat in his mind.
Nolo stood, arms crossed, beside his boss. His black face was stern, but his eyes challenged Sarn.
“Are you taking the easy way out? I thought better of you, Kid.”
Nolo’s phantasm turned his back on Sarn and faded, but his aura lingered. Death’s Marksman may have left this bizarre conversation, but the avatar of Death Nolo served fixed dark eyes on Sarn, and they swelled into portals to the past. Sarn fell through them into a child’s body.
Sarn’s bare feet struck the cold tiles then he launched into a run, gauging the distance to the next roof as he neared the gap. Miren clung to his back in an improvised harness. He couldn’t be more than ten in this memory, which made Miren about four years old.
Fat snowflakes swirled around them as Sarn leaped. Magic punched him in the back, giving him that extra push, so he sailed over the silent street below. Ahead a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer landed on another roof six buildings on. He was catching up. Soon he’d find out how reindeer knew how to fly.
But for now, the exhilaration of the jump warmed him from head to toe as his feet struck stone and he bounded onward, always chasing, always racing with a shining green doppelganger running at his side. Its whispers told him how he too could fly, and a smile lit him up. It was good to be a mage.
That glimmering city faded into the black eyes of Death right before it too faded out. Its Marksman’s words echoed back.
“Are you taking the easy way out?”
Stunned, Sarn sat there. I once reveled in my power? The idea was as alien to him as that daredevil kid he’d just visited in memory.
Yes. We played together when you were young, said his magic, and it spoke in a full sentence containing more than two words.
“Be normal. Those are my orders.” Jerlo’s phantasm stepped forward and his words reverberated through the oaths Sarn had sworn. They were chains, binding Sarn to his commands.
My orders…
Obey. Obey. Obey!
Yes, Master.
Sarn extended his unmarked hand to the Adversary but stopped before their hands connected. Do I want to give it up? The question gave Sarn pause, so he withdrew his hand.
Little fingers felt along his neck for something then jerked on it—Ran. His son was here, but the fog hid him until white light peeled back the darkness revealing Ran’s confused face inches from his own.
“Papa! Magic is a good thing, and we need it now.”
Truth, said his magic, and Sarn felt the rightness in his son’s words. But Ran was receding into the fog.
And I like playing with it, said a ten-year-old scarecrow of a boy—his inner child. A green flame divided on his outthrust palm into a miniature man. Magic is my friend. Don't take him away from me.
Sarn shook his head. “But all the trouble I’ve faced comes back to magic. Demons, devils, ghosts and other supernatural things would leave me alone if I was mundane.” And Shade might still be alive if I didn’t have magic.
Magic is normal for us. We are Magic Kind, not humankind, said the green man-shaped blob of fire jumping off his inner child’s hand.
As it approached Sarn, it grew until it could slap his hand away from the Adversary, who still hadn’t seen him. In fact, the Adversary seemed to be muttering to himself about tentacles. Oh Fate, I promised to help J.C., not get mired in my own doubts.
We are power. We are magic. We were born to wield the life-fire of the universe. Don’t deny us. Together we can do great things. His magic extended a glowing-green hand to Sarn. Choose us. Choose magic.
Shade, veiled and hooded as always, appeared next to the magic-made man. “I loved you, magic and all. It’s who you are. It’s what you do. Even if you gave it up, you’d still be different. No one is normal. Everyone is as unique as those ice pellets that beat us up after we saved your son. Don’t chase someone else’s lie. Be you and let the world be itself. Be the man I’ve always loved.”
Shade gestured to the magic, and its luminous hand shook as Sarn reached
for it.
“You were always right, old friend. I loved you too, but I’m still mad at you.”
Shade shrugged as a wave of darkness rolled over them, snuffing out the magic-man before Sarn could grab its hand.
No, screamed his magic then it went silent.
“This isn’t over yet, boy.” Skeletal hands seized Sarn and forced something down his throat. “Magic-stealer, take his light. Live ‘till again we’ve shared slights. My mark binds you to this plight: life you’ll have while you feel my bite.”
Ran screamed and the world blackened.
Foiled Plans
“Live free of the magic, you despise. At my side, thy time is nigh. Come, sinner, to your dark Father fly. At my side, thy time is nigh.”
The Adversary held out his hand to the doubly-gifted mage still hidden by the Queen of All Trees’ spell. Soon that little technicality wouldn’t matter. Sarn was already darkening and succumbing to his spell.
“Come, sinner, reclassify. Take my hand, thy time is nigh. Embrace the lie, you glorify. Take my hand, thy time is nigh.”
Sarn was wavering. I feel you waffling, boy. Just a little push and he’d fall. The Adversary smiled and took a moment to check in with the bit of himself in the Ægeldar.
Everything looked good there. Thirteen entranced fools leaped to their fiery deaths every minute. That second shield only needed to last for thirteen minutes and he’d have all the souls, and the power he needed to reign supreme. So why aren’t you trying to stop me, Queenie?
Her absence perturbed him more than he wanted to admit. What are you doing? Why aren’t you here to witness my triumph? And what happened to that Divine One I sensed earlier? Why is no one trying to stop me?
A game was only fun when your opponents put up a good fight but his weren’t. What do they know that I don’t? Aren’t I the biggest threat? The Adversary tried to put such thoughts away, but they wouldn’t go because he knew little about black lumir crystals.
Falls Page 24
