Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  Great Sun Trilogy, Part II

  Bands of Brass

  William C. Cronk

  “Bands of Brass” describes Finyaka's journey as he tries to come to grips with the immense burden he carries. The Radiance that the Great Sun has granted him has set him on a course that is unpredictable and terrifying. He needs to discover what his purpose is, and what his powers can do before they destroy him.

  “Bands of Brass” has been a bittersweet excursion of rapidly learning the writing arts and putting together a story that has depth and character. It has been a journey full of blood, sweat, and tears. Much like the story of Finyaka and Matasa thus far.

  William C. Cronk

  Trying to prove himself worthy, Finyaka must explore the unorthodox Radiance that Anuu has gifted him, all the while trying to navigate the politically charged landscape that surrounds him. Will he become the mage-priest he is destined to be, or will those factions aligned against him see him fail? When all is said and done, what role does his cousin Matasa hold?

  Bands of Brass

  “Between the Light and the Darkness stands the Wayward Soul, at constant conflict until, in the end, it chooses a side.”

  Proverb of the Seven Peoples

  Dragging his unconscious cousin through the desert was not Matasa’s idea of a simple life. He longed for his family. He would never see that day, not after what had happened. How could they go back to their village, when Finyaka’s father had instigated the mob attack on the Elder Council that wound up with Matasa and Finyaka fighting his father and brothers at the Jut? At least they weren’t running for their lives anymore, thanks to Finyaka’s new-found Radiance.

  “Onubaki. I need to find a witch.”

  Matasa spun his head around, surprised to hear Finyaka’s voice.

  But it had only been a hallucination, a memory of what Finyaka had said not long before he had fainted. He was out cold. The solid gold band he wore that once belonged to their slain wise woman, Elder Sinaya, glinted teasingly on his arm. For his part in their escape, and how he had uncovered his ability to wield magic, Finyaka said nothing. His head lolled to the side.

  Matasa had removed his tunic and used it as a sledge to pull Finyaka through the sands after his cousin had fainted. He paused for yet another arid breath. The deep sighs of fatigue came more often now. He didn’t know which burned more, the late-day sun searing his exposed torso, or the betrayal of his cousin Nahrem, Finyaka’s older brother.

  How long ago was that? Had it only been one day since they’d lost such a large portion of the goat herd to ghost hounds, and then flagged for death by Finyaka’s father and brothers? For all the aches in Matasa’s body, it felt like years. He leaned against the ebony staff that once belonged to Sinaya.

  “Great Sun Anuu give me strength,” Matasa prayed aloud, facing the scrub dotted, coarse sand of the mesa valley that lay ahead of them. He couldn’t believe the audacity of Finyaka’s father, calling the village wise woman, the venerable Sinaya, a witch. She was a devout adherent to the Great Sun Anuu and accomplished mage-priest. How could Tsimunuu, Finyaka’s father, use such a derogatory term against her?

  Dismay that he was connected by blood to abusive Tsimunuu motivated Matasa to push through his fatigue. Finyaka deserved it. Even if Matasa had a sliver of Finyaka’s newfound magical ability, he wouldn’t use it, not after seeing how it had completely exhausted his young cousin. The Radiance had given Finyaka the capacity to squeeze the life from their attackers with a mere thought, he didn’t even have to sing as Sinaya did. But Matasa knew his cousin was a better man than Finyaka’s father and brothers put together. He’d shown great mercy, healing his father before demanding his return to the village. Finyaka kept us alive. Now it’s my turn to keep him alive and help him find the wise woman Asho, as Sinaya had bade him to do.

  Matasa was surprised to find the water skin empty. Finyaka must have drained it before he passed out. Finyaka’s Radiance may have healed his undeserving father, but the magic couldn’t conjure water from the dunes. Unsteady, Matasa put one foot before the other and moved on. They needed water. And soon. Sweat still appeared on Finyaka’s brow, which was good, but the unresponsive state he was in was a sign that time was of the essence. By all that the great sun touches, what am I going to do? If we can make it to the caravan road, there’s hope. I just wish I knew where it was. If Matasa didn’t find water or help, their triumph against Finyaka’s family was going to die with them in the desert. He tugged on his tunic-sledge, his burden getting heavier with each weary step.

  Nahrem didn’t think he’d ever see the day when his father was at a loss for words. Yet here was Tsimunuu, the most powerful man he knew, able to say only one thing: I want Matasa’a head.

  “We know the goat lickers are making for Onubaki, Father,” Nahrem said. Matasa, his sun-forsaken cousin was with that doe of a brother, cowering just over the rise. His other brothers, Fadya and Tamika, emerged from their places of concealment. They, too, had been wounded but remained travel-worthy. “If need be, we get there before Finyaka and Matasa do. The doe and his insolent lackey will never make it on their own. Not even Finyaka’s Radiance could save them in the desert.”

  “Mention that again and I’ll gut you.” Tsimunuu paled at the suggestion of Finyaka’s powers. He looked upon his eldest son with strange eyes, not the disappointment he usually cast upon Nahrem.

  “Where did they go?” Tamika climbed to the top of a nearby pillar of rock and scanned the horizon. Fadya eased himself against the same outcropping, gingerly testing the integrity of his broken nose.

  “By the Darkness!” Tsimunuu suddenly lashed out, catching Fadya by the collar. “Help your goat-spawned brother search for them.” He turned to Nahrem, invigorated by something. Nahrem wondered whether revenge or fear of his youngest son stirred him. “Do what you want to the doe, but Matasa’s head is mine.” Tsimunuu ran a hand across ribs which had been broken by his nephew earlier that day. Finyaka’s Radiance had healed them. Nahrem chuckled at the irony. “What’s so funny, boy?” His father fixed him with hardened eyes. Nahrem knew that look all too well.

  “Matasa broke you and Finyaka healed you. Now we go to break them. It appeals to me.” He unsheathed the knife that he had stabbed his younger brother with earlier. He would sink it into the little witch again, soon.

  “Let’s gather the others if they’re capable,” said Tsimunuu, stern and authoritative. “We head for Onubaki,” Tsimunuu continued as if the plan had come from him. Nahrem bit his tongue in bitter silence.

  The big man turned to head back toward the Jut where the entire incident had started but a few hours ago.

  A low growl came from the rocks.

  Nahrem froze. His hair stood on end. Like a rising shadow, the large, scarred form of the bristle-backed female ghost hound appeared atop a cluster of boulders. She was the same alpha that had mauled him, at Finyaka’s command, a short time ago. Fresh blood trickled from gashes on her flanks and muzzle.

  She jumped down, her gaze intent on Tsimunuu. She slowly skirted the group of men, taking her time. Tsimunuu hefted his staff. Tamika grabbed two stones and tossed one to Fadya. They slung the stones in their slings. Behind them all, Nahrem slid into a small crevice in the stone where he could hide. He shook uncontrollably, barely able to hold onto his knife.

  “There’s but one of the sun forsaken beasts,” Tsimunuu said. “Crack its skull boys, or I’ll crack yours.” He eased himself away, putting his sons between himself and the hound.

  Fadya let fly the stone and it whizzed through the place the hound had just vanished from.

  No longer feeling safe, Nahrem slipped from his hiding place. He didn’t want to be caught in the crevice without a means of escape. He brandished his knife and crept toward the mesa’s edge.

  “By the darkness,” Fadya swore from behind him. He knew his brother would be setting another stone as quickly as he could.

  “Any more of the beasts?” Tsimunuu asked.

 
As if in answer to his question, Nahrem heard not one, but a dozen hounds, growling and snarling. Swallowing hard, he glanced over his shoulder at his family.

  A pack of ghost hounds surrounded his father and brothers. Blood matted the fur of many of the beasts. The alpha perched nearby on a raised boulder. She waited until hers and Tsimunuu’s eyes met. She barked once. The pack dove at the three men.

  Nahrem broke into a dead run. Rabid snarling and the screams of his family chased him into the unforgiving desert. He didn’t know it, but the Darkness Behind the Light ran with him.

  Matasa surveyed the barren rock and lifeless dust of the mesa. It was a miracle of the Great Sun that anything survived this heat-blasted place. The hardiness born from such an environment created a people with a sense of purpose and an unyielding will to survive. It also made them rather headstrong and stubborn, and right now those were the traits that kept pushing him forward. He was as strong as the mesa, as unending as the wadi; he would survive, and he would ensure his cousin did as well.

  Water was scarce, save the few oasis villages, and small caches among the hidden aquifers of the mesa. The closest he knew of was the small well at the Jut. He'd never been this far into the true desert before, and he was unsure where to find the next source of the life-giving liquid which was more valuable than gold among the various tribes that called this forsaken place home.

  Several times, water materialized out of nowhere just ahead of him. His hope for success dried up further each time the mirage vanished. He didn’t know how long he had been trudging through the wadi. His world had shrunk to the young man he hauled to safety, and the all-consuming pain of his extremities.

  On the fabricated sledge, Finyaka shouted out, “Sinaya! Will I hear the Song again?” His limbs thrashed wildly.

  Matasa dropped his staff onto the uncaring sand of the wadi. He eased his cousin’s torso to the ground and summoned what energy he could to soothe Finyaka’s ailments. This strange malady needed the skills of a wise woman or a mage-priest, not a second-class goat herder.

  “Shh, you are safe,” Matasa, said, not knowing what else to say. How safe is anyone in the barrenness of the desert? He pressed his hand against his cousin’s temple. Finyaka burned with a stronger heat than any caused by the Great Sun. How long would the young man be able to last without water? “Your dah and brothers went back to the village. They are bitter men, but they will respect you now that you have the Radiance. You’ll see, cousin. You’ll see.”

  Finyaka moaned, forlorn and haunting. His body slumped back into unresponsiveness.

  Is Radiance worth this? Matasa could only imagine what dark entities the younger man wrestled with. To be chosen as Finyaka had, by the Great Sun, was something every child of the Seven Peoples yearned for. It meant the path of the mage-priest, and the chance to control the flow of the Great Sun’s Radiance. Matasa always thought it would be amazing to have that power, to be able to control the six elements and be sought out by the village elders and those in need. The tortured face of his dying cousin made him rethink those ideas of childhood folly.

  Trembling, Matasa fought his aching muscles, picked up his staff and forced himself to his knees. They had scraped against the rough stone and sand of the mesa valley. He winced aloud and collapsed onto his hands.

  The cousins lay sprawled on the coarse sand of the valley, the Great Sun beating down on them relentlessly. It’s like we’re being challenged. What do you have in store for us Great Sun?

  Matasa’s head flopped to one side. Weaker than a newborn kid, he had nothing left to give.

  An upright shadow formed on the horizon. His vision wavered at the growing silhouette.

  Is that someone approaching? Matasa’s lips cracked and bled when he called out to rouse Finyaka. Tsimunuu? Nahrem? He squinted, but his eyelids felt heavier than the weight of dragging a body across the expanse. Is this how it ends?

  Blackness took him.

  Brother turned enemy, Nahrem carefully brushed sand from his face. He didn’t have much water left after he narrowly escaped the ghost hound attack. What remained would have to last for his return to the village after he sorted out his brother and cousin.

  Finyaka’s magic had healed their father’s ribs, ribs that had been broken by Matasa earlier that day, only to be eaten by beasts. Despite himself, Nahrem chuckled at the thought. Radiance or no, Finyaka would answer for that, too.

  Neither of the younger men knew what had happened. They were so full of themselves after they’d won their fight at the Jut that they didn't so much as investigate to see if Tsimunuu went back home as Finyaka had told him to.

  Intent on fulfilling his father’s wishes, Nahrem continued stalking his prey. Surely Finyaka, doe that he was, wouldn’t last much longer under Anuu’s harsh gaze. Knives and dehydration both killed witches.

  Not that Nahrem considered Finyaka a witch. How could he be? He hadn’t taken the pilgrimage to the Golden City where the true mage-priests were chosen by the Great Sun. At sixteen summers, Finyaka was barely a man. Their father didn’t even trust him to look after the flock on his own.

  In the distance, he saw Matasa suddenly drop. Nahrem squatted out of sight. Had Anuu taken his cousin to live among the stars? Father had sworn an Oath to the Darkness Behind the Light. Was now the time for Nahrem to be the answer to his father’s plea? He’d spike Matasa’s head on Sinaya’s staff just like his father had wanted, then kill Finyaka for siccing the ghost hound on the most prominent member of their family. A Darkness within him, one that burgeoned with each passing moment, swore that he would cause excruciating pain as he ended their existence. Then, perhaps, his father would finally be proud of him.

  Finyaka sat cross-legged. The air tasted bitter and smelled of salt. Beside him stood Sinaya, her colourless translucent form reminded Finyaka of the haze of the midday horizon and how it tricked the eye into seeing a mirage. She was dressed in her official robes as a mage-priest of the order of Resolution, wearing her gold armband and holding her ebony staff. He could feel the same armband secured about his bicep. How can we both be wearing it? She smiled at him and started walking, her clothes wafting around her like an earlier morning mist. The parched ground crunched under her footsteps. Finyaka found that odd. He floated along beside her. Wait, floated?

  “Am I dead?” The calm of his Radiance filled him.

  “Not exactly,” Sinaya replied, her voice more a thought than a sound.

  “What do you mean?” He projected the words toward her as he would his Radiance. Using his mind to communicate in a way he never thought possible.

  She nodded approvingly. “Do you feel dead?”

  Do I feel dead? What kind of question was that? He touched his face and felt…nothing. He held his hand up to look at it. Golden light glowed within him, making the flesh of his hand the colours of the rising sun. The entirety of his body gave off that same golden luminescence. The effect left him more amazed than frightened. It’s my Radiance!

  “Yes, your Radiance. It’s what holds you here on the cusp between the two worlds.” Sinaya’s smile glowed eerily with an inner light, causing her wraithlike features to brighten.

  “Where am I?” he projected, puzzling the source of the old wise-woman's illumination.

  She gestured with her staff towards the distant horizon on their right, where the white sky and the parched, desolate landscape merged into a shimmering haze of nonexistence. Viewing that blasted monotonous panoramic left Finyaka feeling insignificant.

  “Travel too far in the direction of the rising sun, and you will be one with the Light, spending eternity among those who have passed before you, basking in the glow of Great Sun.” She raised her head skyward, closing her eyes. Involuntarily gliding towards the place where she had gestured.

  Finyaka watched as she opened her eyes and set her jaw; she conveyed the horizon to the left with a similar gesture. “Travel too far towards the setting sun, and you become part of the Darkness Behind the Light, alone for all eternity
haunted by the cruelty you have inflicted upon others.”

  The place my family was bound. He shuddered. His forgiveness and compassion should’ve ushered a new beginning for his father and brothers, setting them upon the eastern path. Though, a niggling at the edge of his conscience told him to expect otherwise.

  Sinaya began walking again, the sound of her non-corporeal feet perplexing him.

  “Why are you here? In the place between worlds. Why haven’t you gone to be with the Great Sun?” She more than deserved it, having been an effective and caring wise woman, always placing the needs of the village before her own. Surely, she was worthy of the Great Sun’s Light.

  “I have been asked to help you one last time, though soon, I must go.” Her eyes closed. A small smile lit up her face. “Can you hear that?” She asked with wonderment.

  Finyaka detected a steady thrum. A soft wind blew against him with each beat. He touched his face again and still felt nothing.

  "How can I feel the wind when I can't feel my flesh?" This place made no sense.

  “The wind is your breath; the thrumming of the ground, your heartbeat.” Her face suddenly softened. She uplifted it to the heavens in appreciation. Finyaka basked in the serenity that emanated from her, even though he didn’t understand it. “Oh Finyaka, listen! The Song of the Great Sun.” She gasped in breathless excitement.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said, almost apologetically.

  “Interesting.” Sinaya tapped a finger on her lips, considering his apparent ineptitude. Even then, only the slightest wrinkles graced her becalmed visage. “You’ve been gifted the Radiance by Anuu, and you are here, but you do not hear.” She rocked from side to side, lost in music only she heard.