by Philip Read
I snort and Asriel’s comment and I glare at Keir though I have no idea what the man/thing can do about my little dilemma.
“So that was disappointing, what’s plan B?” Joseph asks coming to stand closer looking at the circle carefully before walking around me creepily.
“You do know your fascination with all things spiritual is the reason you are now on the hit list of a group of cultist sorcerers determined to accelerate the ending of the world right?” I remind him just in case he is thinking of any other snide comments.
“What are my options?” I ask Keir who is looking at me with his imposing impassive visage, he being my expert on this stuff.
“You could take back the energy keeping me rooted in the material plane, I will slowly and painfully starve here of course but I will endure in the spirit plane. You could wait for your spirit energy reserves to naturally grow larger which shouldn’t be too long considering you have enough energy to keep me anchored here at your age.”
“How long would you estimate that to be?“I ask, wondering at the back of my mind why he reminded me of that first option.
“With your natural talent and the amount of spirit energy you’ve already acquired somehow, I’d say within another 10 years you will be able to complete the ritual unless by some cosmic fate you manage to Awaken within the next 10 years of course.”
Asriel looks at me askew at that, I don’t have to face him to know he is scowling and he didn’t need to face me with his spacial awareness being a ever active passive skill. I know what he is thinking though, he still has an aversion to ‘overpwered little shits’ as he likes to call the naturally gifted but we both know I’m not that. I’ve worked my ass off for everything that has come to me and I still barely survive these confrontations that I come into as I live my life.
That hag witch was way beyond us in power and should have decimated us all those years ago; that Sandorian warrior should have cut me in half yet here I am worried about spirit energy. Zillah would have eventually killed all of us ‘çause we are too fucken’ stubborn to retreated sometimes and that Albert guy was a monstrosity I had no business trying to face at the end there. Those are just the times I can think of at the top of my head where I clearly should have died but didn’t.
”I cannot go around unprotected and without spirit energy for the next 10 years, I do hope you realise that much about me.”
”Of course Master Sachihiro.”
”And enough of that ‘master’ shit, I actually don’t like being called master especially by such an old and powerful thing like you. Sachihiro or Hiro will do just fine.”’
”Of course Sachihiro, there may be another way though.”
”And you are dramatically saving it for last because you suspect I will not like it, but you will probably relish it won’t you? I’m learning your personality quickly sly creature and don’t think for a moment that I trust you.”’
”Master Sachihiro is too wise.” He says with a quick bow.
I scowl and face Asriel who is now grinning watching me interact with the creature in human skin. “How is it that a man your age is so childish?” I send to him before facing Kier again.
“Well, you may as well tell me.”
Í have reason to believe that the recent spirit probes into your person have been the attempts of one of Master Alberts previous summons testing to see how strong you are as a prelude to an attack.”
”Yes I’ve been wondering when you would mention your other brothers and sisters. I’m glad you’ve also felt them getting closer. Why pray tell would they want to attack the only person that has any possibility of keeping them alive in the physical world?” There are 4 more creatures in Alberts repertoire I’m yet to meet and I doubt any of them will be as pleasant as Katya or as debilitated as Keir was, Keir who put up quite the psychic fight himself.
”If a summoned creature manages to break free from its summoners hold it will be able to consume him, and if it manages to consume and possess him then it can remain in the world, I’m sure young master Sachihiro already knows this.”
”I didn’t summon any of you.”
”Yes but you stand as proxy do you not? You may as well have summoned us.” Kier says, his personality showing it’s ugly head again.
“What’s the upside for me then?”
”Besides the fact that it is possible for you to take possession of us once you overcome us there is also that possibility of banishing us instead of claiming, using that displaced spirit energy as your own. Though it can only be used a single time.”
”That could work, but you would be facing a creature of spirit clothed in flesh while you yourself have no spiritual means of protection. No reliable protection at least, you’ll be a penned cow awaiting the slaughter blade.” Asriel sends not painting a pretty picture.
“You trust anything this creature actually says?” I send back while also considering.
“Whatever else it is it’s self-serving and having you die or weakened doesn’t serve it in the least. Though it may be able to rattle the bars of its cage within you the thing is still closely and tightly bound. I have consulted a number people on the unique circumstance you find yourself in and they all agree that once bound to you only you can release it or it can simply give up its place on the physical world and never be able to return. Do you see this one giving up the physical body it’s wearing?”
“What’s in it for you if I banish the remaining summons?” I ask Kier looking straight into his eye not that they give anything away either.
“I would be very grateful if the young master would gift me the remains of the creatures once the spirits are banished,” he says softly, he must really want that.
“What’s stopping me from just sending you out to kill these creatures?” I should really start thinking about delegating these tasks now, maybe Soal was onto something way back when.
“Then the energy would be lost and you would be unable to harness it.”
Okay, maybe it was a stupid question but I really don’t want to face off against any more of Alberts creatures especially ones able to drag themselves all the way here after being disconnected from him for so long. I may get lucky and they may also be dried up desiccated imitations of their former power though, could be the reason for the probing attacks. “You are to never lie to me Kier, never.” I reinforce with the meagre spirit I have and it disappears like smoke leaving me empty again.
”Yes Master.” he says quickly and without hesitation.
”Good, now tell me everything you know about Alberts other summoned possessed creatures.”
* * *
Om
There is something wrong with me, there is absolutely no way I should be this powerful and versatile with my Awakening. I’m supposed to be just a hammer wielder in the periphery of Sachi’s story, of Dee’s story. But these images have been taking me over, and the devastation they can cause has me very worried for my loved ones.
I have found myself day dreaming about the ocean waves and power only to come back to myself in an upturned field with trees split apart or uprooted. I have had a bad dream of my brother rising as an undead draug and woken up with a cold specta of death standing in the room with me and my family as they slept. At some point I was angry at a spectacle I wasn’t even involved in directly and invisible hail started falling killing the rare flower over which they were arguing. .
Master Black has been absent for months trying to find me a trainer for my unique ability, my family is struggling because they either don’t understand or don’t believe the things I say to them. Especially Kiera that is sure I’m being paranoid because ‘everyone knows Barbarians don’t Awaken to magic’. No matter how many times I tell her it isn’t magic. At least Vuyo is sceptical and keeps her mouth shut about it instead of trying to make me sound like a lunatic.
Sachi Awakened to magic but he doesn’t wanna tell ‘anyone outside the family’ about it, which I initially thought was paranoia until I ex
perienced first hand how someone you love and trust can slowly start turning on you. Is it my fault that Kiera can’t have children, is it Vuyo’s fault or little Andrew’s? The woman seems to be going insane and finding little almost insignificant things to be mean or petty and vindictive about.
Most times she loves little Andrew and takes care of him as though he were her own, other times she is as mean as a snake and will drop him or say something just to make him cry. No Barbarian woman would treat a child this way, it isn’t our way. No Barbarian woman would mind not having children of her own if her sister wife was able to make up for that lack. Not to this extent at least.
I don’t know what to do with her and ma isn’t any help with her optimism and advice for me to be patient with Kiera. Vuyo is about ready to give birth again and there is no way I will have the patience to risk putting another child through the whirl-storm that is Kiera’s mood these past several months.
I look up from where I’ve been sitting as Pleo with his two cousins walks into the clearing from the forest. The seven Volvacine relatives are known to be great talents that stand out even in this place where every other person is a protégé of some kind. But by their grandfather’s instructions they’ve been ganging up on me and of the 28 times we’ve fought each other I’ve only lost twice.
I stand slowly from my previously seated position hefting my hammer easily with me as I rise. So it’s three against one today, better odds for me than last time when Pandorina was also present. To be fair though they’ve been instructed to give me a fairly great handicap.
“Are you ready?” Pleo says with a grin untying his weapon’s belt, Gonium and Chlomadominas do the same.
“No weapons today?” I ask feeling the solid dependable edges of the heft of my hammer in my hand.
“No, no weapons today.” Chlomadominas says cracking her neck and loosening her shoulders.
I let go of my weapon and it falls on the grass lightly with a bounce before settling on the ground as though it weighs nothing. I have a developing Image of the air being dense, so dense that birds can swim through it, so dense that humans have to fight against it and displace it’s influence already affecting everything around them. This is a true Image, an image that is taken directly from nature as is instead of enforced on nature to change it.
And so it solidifies quickly as the three move towards me, but their movements are slow, odious, against the force of the air they are trying to displace. I launch myself between them and I am all elbows and chops and knees as I flow smoothly through them as they struggle against both my ability and my Image. Though they aren’t exactly sure what I’m doing or how, they can feel it’s effects.
And though they use aura to dispell some of the worst effects their grandfather instructed them not to use magic directly on me. A great handicap on their fighting arsenal but nothing in light of their versatile ability, and the fact that only a few years ago I couldn’t beat even one of them yet now I take three together.
Chapter 129
Om
‘’I think you should consider something before doing anything permanent husband.” Vuyo says placatingly with our recently born son yawning in her arms.
I sigh, ‘’Vuyo you more than most knows I’ve been patient with her, I’ve spoken to her about her behaviour. If she was a warrior I would have fought her just to get her head straight again. What more is there to do but cut ties between us dissolving our mate bond before witnesses?’’
‘’There is a possibility I have been hesitant to mention due to its unorthodox and well… it’s a superstition really but my people have this belief that a marriage may be bewitched.’’
‘’I learnt long ago not to underestimate the power of witchcraft and superstition, tell me.’’
‘’Well there are customs that my people follow, rituals that strengthen a person against spiritual attacks and witchcraft. I’m not sure how it works exactly but there is a witchdoctor that we could go to, I’d like us to take the children as well if you aren’t opposed to it.”Vuyo says in a quietening voice.
‘’What does it entail?’’
‘’Usually there is divination then what is needed is decided after.”
I look at my young strong quiet mate and study her as I like to do at times when thinking. She doesn’t like to face my eyes with her own when I stare at her so but she enjoys my eyes on her, she’s said so. Our son Alex is only hours old and with his birth my growing concern over the contentions with Kiera have only grown. Kiera is also only here on Pangaea because of me, she has no other family here besides me, she has no one to turn to besides me, and abandoning here lost like that would a sour taste in my mouth.
‘’Let’s all three of us go through it first and after I will decide whether or not the children go through it.”
* *
I sit with my legs crossed before the creepy painted faced man with the bone charms and the aura of silence around himself. Vuyo sits to my left with folded legs on the grass floor mat with her head down and her hair covered in a light shroud things made of light clothe intricately tied on her head. To my right sits Kiera also scowling for having to be ‘dragged’ here to the ‘rural’ Alderman lands with their ‘primitive’ way of looking at women as lesser beings in their society… it hasn’t been a happy trip but we all managed to come here because I do not know what to do anymore.
I’ve only been a father for 6 short years and I’m still not sure I’m doing it correctly, Andrew seems to be growing up fine to me but I try to talk to him as I do my friends than the way I see other fathers treat their sons. No one told me it would be this confusing and no one has even hinted at fathering advice as though they expect me to know what I’m doing naturally. I’m also not going to ask lest i sound stupid but I’m watching every father i know as an example, especially Damage, I feel Damage is a goo da. Though Kiera is scowling and pouting she is also wearing a head-dress with her eyes away from the creepy man.
The man looks back at me with dark irised eyes and very white pupils. His hair goes up and up and is twisted into dry knots before being held upright by twisted sticks sticking out of it though I doubt the locks would fall even without any support. He has dark caramel coloured smooth skin as far as I can see but his hands are old, thick and wrinkled. We are nearly the same height as we sit across from each other making him the tallest Alderman I have yet come across in my time knowing Vuyo’s people. We sit and stare at each other a good five minutes before he blinks and nods his head.
“You are not of the people by blood by you have been found worthy by the people to rear our sons and daughters. So I will do this that we do not do for outsiders, blow into the bones.” The man sends to my mind in smooth flowing Universal that shouldn’t have been able to pass into my mind without my permission.
I look at the animal skin pouch of bones held up before me with scepticism and hesitation. There is something wrong with that nondescript pouch of bones and this man that sits across from me. I feel no threat from him directly but there is ability like ‘spirit suppression’ or something active because I feel… weak, unsure…., scared…? I’m not sure what I’m feeling but I know that it has to be from some kind of ability, it has to.
I lean forward and blow calmly into the sack of bones and I can immediately feel spirit energy surface me and flow with my breath into the pouch before it closes like a vacuum. I sway feeling unbalanced like the fluid in my inner ear is swirling around inside me. I try to keep my eyes on the man that has just basically emptied me of spirit energy, something I’ve never consciously tapped into before but never felt its lack until now.
Kiera eventually stops my swaying with a hand on my shoulder after what feels like a while and I watch the man closely as he shakes the little pouch before us thoroughly. He eyes are closed as he murmurs inaudibly and sneezing, there is a coldness creeping into the grass hut that bellies the warmth of the sun outside. The atmosphere in the room changes perceptively becoming dangerous but still non-th
reatening as the man shakes and chants in the darkening room.
The mouth of the pouch opens and bones of varied different animals and pieces of wood spew out between us in a canvas of a cold familiar power laced with pieces of my spirit energy and the cold darkness of the beyond. There energy is easy to feel all around us low on the floor centred on the disproportionate number of bones compared to the size of the pouch on the floor. There are even a few humanoid and some human bones scattered in the confusing beautiful mess of objects. A stick is produce from somewhere and used to tap some of the bones and shift others as though the man were solving a puzzle.
My eyes are captivated by whatever he may be doing, my spirit energy seeping back within me but depleted, tired somehow. “You have a long destiny filled with peril and potential lose, but also potentially great gain. You are destined to walk most of it alone but there will come a time when you may walk it with a soulmate… There is fork in the road ahead that will determine where further development is for you, ahhh… here.’’ He says tapping a combination of what looks like bird bones.
‘’You have a dark spectra of death following you and feeding itself off your guilt, a blood relative you feel responsible for. We will need to severe that connection as soon as is possible, yes… You have many people that love you and you will be a refuge for them, there is much here, much death, much blood. There is a deity at your periphery watching your life but all else about it is shrouded, but beware the attention of the gods.
