Beyond the Dark Gate

by R. V. Johnson

  The clothes they wore confused her. Her dad was dressed much as he was now, but his black leather shirt and pants were brown instead of black. Her mom’s customary Terran outfit of gray silk suit shirt and skirt had vanished; in its place, she wore the supple brown kell shirt and pants of a warrior. In her hand, she carried a staff topped with a clear orb of crystal.

  Had Jade a voice, she would’ve gasped with surprise when her mom spoke. “Are you certain you wish to do this, beloved? It is not too late for us to change our mind. I will tell them we have reconsidered.”

  “You heard the Lore Mother, Durandas, and the rest of the Elder Voice,” her dad replied. “They have read the omens and believe our sacrifice will have the best odds of sending the land toward the greater good, only Camoe is against it. Is this not why we joined the Green Writhe?”

  “You are right, though I wonder—”

  Her dad interrupted. “I do not fully believe in the rightness of my words, for I share your trepidation. How can we know for certain we do the right thing, the best course for us and our future family?” Her dad put his hand lovingly on her mom’s stomach briefly, a look of awe crossing his young face. “Perhaps we should tell them we cannot go through with this. I shall stand beside your decision, beloved.”

  Taking him by the hand, her mom pulled her dad to a stop, hope shining in her green eyes, so like Jade’s own. For a while, they stood gazing at each other. Then a look of resolve clouded her face. “We cannot, there is too much involved with this, so many have put so much into it.”

  Her dad’s shoulders slumped with sadness. “As long as you know how much I love you, I shall bear it.”

  Sureen’s smile was brief. “The precise act of what we have agreed upon with the elders permeates all things with the cries of our love.”

  Her dad’s quick answering smile matched her mom’s.

  They walked off, moving slower, as if going to their doom. There were more images, but Jade found her vision shifted to the external, and she faced her dad. The horrified expression on his face disclosed he’d seen what she had.

  “What are you? What have you done to my daughter?” her dad gasped.

  “Your inferior human mind would not comprehend the properties of the Over Mind though an attempt at a small explanation shall be completed. Your offspring’s ability and unique unlimited neural capacity permits the One Mind to read humanity without the necessity of assimilating all neural functions. The Over Mind now has the capacity to view memories. With this significant capability improvement, the One Mind has only to consume those whose influence controls many of you by having authority over others. The One Mind’s capacity is now great enough to consume this world; no single mind will be hidden,” Jade heard herself say, though her tone was clinical and alien to her.

  Her dad gaped, his jaw dropping as he grappled with the enormity of it all. Jade had no doubt hers would’ve dropped too if she had control of it.

  Reaching over his shoulder, her dad slipped his sword from the sheath on his back. “I am not certain my daughter is even alive in there. How do I know she hasn’t fully succumbed to your evil?”

  Her arm extended toward him.

  Moving backward, her dad pointed his great sword at her like an accusatory finger. “Stay away or you’ll force me to slay her to kill you.”

  The voice spoke then, the same alien voice that echoed oddly along the beach. Gone was the mild, medium-pitched tone of a young woman moving into adulthood. In place of it, a woman’s husky voice resonated through the air, sounding as if it originated from some cold and desolate place. “I am here, Dad, it’s still me.”

  Though he tried not to show it, her dad was horrified. His mouth worked, but for a long while, no sound came out. Finally, he lowered his sword slightly. “So you say, but how can I truly know you still exist?”

  The power controlling her hesitated, roiling with confusion. A flicker of many minds, people she had never known, shuffled through her thoughts. “You cannot,” it finally said. “There is not a way to provide proof the One Mind has not consumed your offspring’s memories and now speaks to you with them. You shall have to rely on what you humans refer to as faith.”

  Her dad raised the great sword again. “But how can I be certain, blast you!”

  “The One Mind will now release the host’s vocals for a brief period,” the alien voice said, abruptly.

  “Dad! Listen!” Jade shouted, louder than she intended. Having her voice returned to her was so unexpected. “I’ve managed to protect a small part of me in a tiny corner, but it’s so strong!”

  “Jade! Is it really you?”

  “Yes. Listen, Dad, you have to make me a promise.”

  “Anything, Jade, tell me. You have my word.”

  Jade had to be strong, as strong as the strongest person she knew, her sister, Crystalyn. As strong as the two people in the image, her mom and dad, had seemed. “I don’t know how long I can hold on, and this thing is so deadly. You have to kill me.”

  “No, Jade!”

  “Do it now, Dad! I love—” Jade’s words reverberated as silent thoughts through her little bubble of awareness. The alien, imperious woman voice rang throughout her mind. “Destroying your offspring will serve only to slow the inevitable. The Over Mind, the One Mind, shall prevail.”

  Her dad’s chest rose and fell rapidly. Jade’s wanted to cry over the agony in his blue eyes and the distress of his quickened breaths. He raised his sword high. “So you claim. My daughter, however, has resisted you. My beautiful, wonderful daughter, the noblest, most selfless living being anyone could ask for believes otherwise. You shall die with her.”

  The malice inside her recoiled, flickering through memories. A moment passed. Jade’s arms spread wide. “Then strike your descendent. The One Mind shall live on in the father.”

  Her dad lowered his sword and his head. “I’m sorry, Jade, I cannot,” he whispered.

  The black wind of the Over Mind’s triumphant satisfaction rippled Jade’s protective bubble.

  TRUE SENSE

  Camoe eased the pressure of his sword tip from the hooded man’s chest only when blood dripped below the man’s black cowl, flowing down his bare stomach in tiny teardrop rivulets. “We go no farther, Dark One. With Tarn’s ailment and the girl whom I sought to rescue by using your knowledge to aid her no longer a factor, there is no good reason not to push slowly through your flesh and watch the darkness fade from your eyes. Answer all that I ask quickly, or die.”

  With the bottom of the cliff at his back, the Alchemist attempted to shrug off Camoe’s companions’ grip on his shoulders to no avail. Experienced warriors, Peers and Kerna tightened their hold, ready to break a shoulder bone if necessary. The hooded one grunted with pain or distress when Kerna pulled his hood back, exposing his brown broad face to the shade of the cliff and the filtered light of early evening sun. After finding and burying Tarn, it had come to this.

  Camoe respected the Alchemist’s courage. One light push from him, and the great sword’s weight would finish the rest. “Making me repeat the command is not advisable. My weapon of choice is getting heavier, my patience thinner,” Camoe said mildly, though he seethed inside. The blasted Dark One had cost him friends.

  The Alchemist relaxed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Very well, choose your questions with care, and we may all yet survive,” he hissed.

  Camoe tensed.

  Though the Alchemist pressed backward into the cliff wall as far as he could, the red drops increased. Pain glistened in his dark, golden eyes.

  His movements more abrupt than he intended, Camoe sheathed his great sword. Running the man through would not serve his purpose at this time. “You believe this a game, Dark One? That belief may yet be your last. Speak or die. From the time of your capture, creatures of this world have come seeking your demise. What hunts you? What foul thing have you angered with your colossal arrogance?”

  Kerna’s light-colored bu
rgundy eyes glared at Camoe. “This is why we have lost so much, for him? For answers to your questions?

  Abruptly, the Alchemist jerked with such strength Peers and Kerna lost their hold.

  Camoe’s sword was out in an instant.

  Cursing, Peers and Kerna fought to reestablish a grip.

  The Alchemist took no notice of them or the sword tip a finger’s breadth from his heart. His hourglass eyes widened as he gazed off in the distance. “A great fool I have been,” he said, the tone of his voice a fierce hiss. “Our pact is broken. The creature has sought my extermination!”

  Camoe had to hold himself back from a killing thrust. “What comes for you, filth?” he snarled.

  The Alchemist regarded him as if meeting him for the first time. A tint of red outlined his golden irises vanishing inside his dark pupils. “A power greater than anything the world has ever seen. Old when Astura was young, the ultimate embodiment of stealth and cunning has come. Slumbering near death, it has recovered and is now awake.”

  Camoe prodded another hole in the man’s chest, over his dark heart this time. “Stop speaking in riddles, dark scum. What is coming?”

  The hooded man snarled, “Kill me, and then destroy each other, go meet your deity. Death is preferable than allowing it to control you; you will only feed its power.”

  Camoe’s patience fled. He raised his sword and then hesitated, giving the man one final chance for redemption. “Your next words decide your fate,” he warned.

  Though his golden eyes widened, the hooded man did not plead. His stance grew relaxed. “Four centuries and four decades ago, a friend and I traveled to a place of ultimate evil on a dare. We foolishly rode to the Stair of Despair.”

  Peers tensed. He shifted his grip on the hooded man, clamping tight. “The short version, Dark One, your life’s story is of no concern to us.”

  The Alchemist struggled halfheartedly. Then he relented, his broad muscular arms growing slack. “As you wish. The White Lands, the Dark Citadel, the northern, western, southern domains, all of us face the greatest threat our world has ever known. Even with all of us working together it may not be—unnnh.”

  Kerna rammed her elbow into the hooded man’s side before he finished. Collapsing to his knees with a groan, he pulled away from the grip Peers had on his arm. “What makes you believe we would ever join forces with you? You destroyed the Vale, our people, my friends. Do you carry the hope we shall allow you to live?” Kerna hissed. Drawing her long-bladed dagger, Kerna gripped the Alchemist by his stringy black hair, yanking his head back. Her dagger glinted with a stray ray of light against his throat. “I say we end this now.”

  Gasping, the Alchemist groped the air in front of the sleek woman. His left arm hugged his stomach. “Wait!” he croaked. “You have not heard what it is we face.”

  Peers too, gripped a handful of hair, bending the Alchemist’s head farther backward. “We have listened to your lies long enough. I say kill him now!”

  Kerna’s hand whitened from the tenseness of her grip on the long blade, but she looked to Camoe, as did Peers.

  The Alchemist dropped his hands to his sides. Raising his neck slightly, he allowed a much wider target. The hooded man’s golden gaze fixed on Camoe.

  Camoe lowered his sword though he did not sheathe it. The man should not live. He was a fool for insisting on keeping the Alchemist alive, no matter his instinct. If not for him, Tarn, Girth, and Long Draught would still be alive.

  Jade was safe, and whatever rubbish the man spouted about the danger stalking the black plateau, he had no care for. Whatever had awakened and attacked the vile place, those within Virun deserved such a fate, if it was true. The man had played him for a fool, answering nothing, even giving a life friend a racking death. Though the rock beetle had mercifully ended it was small consolation.

  Camoe pulled his sword back, preparing to sever the hooded man’s head from his shoulders and end the world of an evil stain. All of sudden, as was the foretelling’s want, the true sense struck him with the force of an upper canyon wind.

  Staggered, he lowered his sword and then sheathed it. The Dark One had a role unfinished with fate; killing him would corrupt it and destroy many innocents, more than the Alchemist would if left alive.

  How is that for irony? Camoe asked himself. Everything inside him screamed against the foretelling; it felt so wrong. Yet such a powerful grip of the true sense was not something to ignore. He had once, at the cost of someone too dear to him. Thinking of it, he despaired, the grief and guilt still raw. His loving daughter’s beautiful sweet smiling face flashed in his mind. Maialene, forgive me!

  Underlying the foretelling, a foreboding as light as a midsummer breeze caressing the hair on an arm, the feeling Jade was not truly safe brushed against him. “Untie him,” he said.

  Peers and Kerna looked at each other. Then turned to him. “What!” They exclaimed as one.

  “Do as I say!” Camoe said tersely. “We run from here. If he falls, he has to catch himself. I need him alive to lead us past the Black Road.”

  Stunned, no one moved.

  Camoe drew his hunting dagger and sliced through the cords binding the hooded man’s wrists, gazing into his golden, hourglass eyes. “Know this, Dark One, fate has kept you alive for now. As soon as I receive a different intimation, I shall eradicate your pestilence from this world.”

  The hooded man pulled his cowl over his head. “I would expect no less,” he said, standing.

  “Peers, stay close, keep watch. If he strays, kill him. Kerna, you have rear sentry. If Peers fails, put your arrows in the Dark One. His life is now judged by how well he keeps up, his complete cooperation, nothing less,” Camoe commanded, meaning every word. The foretelling be damned if the Alchemist attempted even the smallest escape. Dismissing his companions’ looks of betrayal, Camoe set out at a run.

  A jog of two bells brought them to a highland ranch overlooking pastures on a rounded hilltop. A rancher looking to be of middle seasons packed grease in the hub of a wagon. Camoe waved as he neared, stopping beside the wagon when he came close. “Greetings, Goodman,” he said.

  Wiping his hands on a cloth as he stood, the man regarded him with dull blue eyes in a plain sun-browned face. “I am a man, ‘tis true. A good man remains a question yet. Such a resolution shall depend on what you seek.”

  Camoe took a closer look at the man. Propped against the wagon wheel, within easy reach behind the man, a great sword rested in a worn scabbard. “I wish to hire four mounts, if you have them.”

  The rancher eyed him and the rest of the party before returning his sharp, no longer dull, gaze upon him. “I have them, but they are not for hire. A rancher without horses cannot long survive.”

  The man was more than he wanted to appear, yet he had told them as much. The man’s careful wording was subtle but a warning nonetheless. Camoe respected his courage and confidence even though there was no need. He was not a thug. “I have sufficient coin for two weeks, which shall include the return trip to you along with an added week extra for your trouble. Can you manage without them for a fortnight?”

  The rancher raised his jaw, leaning slightly closer to his wagon and the sword.

  The hooded man presented a cloth-wrapped bundle the size of his outstretched palm. “There is a better offer to consider. For purchase of the four animals,” he said. Unwrapping the object, the Alchemist revealed a rectangular glimmer shard, which shone with a bright white light in the early evening sun. “You could acquire another ranch with twenty horses along with the hirelings to work it for you, with such a flawless shard as this,” he added quietly.

  The rancher frowned. “I do not barter with Users, no one around these parts would.”

  The Alchemist opened his mouth, but Camoe interceded. “He is no User, at least not with the Flow that I am aware of,” he said, skirting the truth. The hooded man led entire armies of Users.

  “Then where is his weapon?” the ra
ncher asked, his face flushed with suspicion.

  “We are his weapon. You have seen he holds wealth. What other proof do you require?” Camoe asked.

  The rancher’s features cleared, sliding into his bland features with ease. “Very well, the glimmer is infused. I accept the offer.”

  Slow and shaking slightly, as if reluctant to part with it, the Alchemist placed the shard in the rancher’s palm.

  As soon as his hand closed upon it, the rancher stowed the shard in his kell leather vest pocket. “Follow me,” he said. Grabbing the great sword, he strode past a stable, halting at a fenced pasture beyond it. Half a dozen horses grazed peacefully. “Choose your four,” he said to Camoe. “Select well, there are but three saddles.”

  “My life mate rides bareback,” Peers said to the rancher. “As long as you have a bridle,” he added.

  The rancher’s blue eyes glanced at Peers and then shifted to Camoe. “I shall include four bridles, three saddles, and an evening meal in the barter.”

  “That is generous of you. A night’s lodging and a soaking bin is well within your means with what you have been paid,” the Alchemist spat.

  His right hand reaching up to his shoulder, the rancher gripped the hilt of his sword. “Do you wish to renege on your acquisition?”

  “No one is reneging on anything,” Camoe said hastily. “Please forgive the manners of my charge. He shall restrain himself from now on if he wishes our aid,” he added, glaring at the Alchemist.

  The man under the dark cowl turned away.

  Camoe slipped through the gap under the top pole of the fence, moving for a closer look at the horseflesh the glimmer shard had purchased. A big black roan caught his eye first. A wine-red stallion and a bay-colored horse with a brown body, black mane, and tail, were next. The final horse, the buckskin with golden coat, black mane, and tail, he chose as a mount for Kerna.

  “You have decided on the four,” the rancher said from beside him. “I shall prepare them for your journey. The offer of a meal still stands; my life mate will have it heated within a bell.”