Myths and Magic: An Epic Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  Rocks shifted.

  Boulders aligned, clay reformed, the mountain earth rose, filling the hole in the building with a vague shape. Thick dirt reached out of the darkness. A massive hand pulled its way up, out of the collapse. And then another. Finally a head rose, clear of the hole, dull of expression. Clay eyes blinked, waking from a long sleep.

  The dirt creature focused only on Mathilde and Fritz.

  One by one, more formed, ready to climb out of the earth, to answer her call for help. Things born of wax, blood, earth, and stone pushed out of the heart of the mountain.

  She stepped forward to greet them.

  Called by magic, brought to life by sacrifice and need, a towering golem rose. It stood as tall as three men and filled the hole in the middle of the building entirely with its arrival.

  Trusting H--V--N without fear to cloud her vision, Mathilde leaned toward the teeth that would grind any flesh to dust. Reaching up with the broken mug handle in her hand, on the earth creature’s forehead she wrote one word: EMET. Truth.

  There was no paper, no spellbook to bind the earth magic. So Mathilde leaned forward and kissed its cheek. “Achiezeer,” she asked, “Save us.”

  A promise Mathilde sealed with her life.

  Giant stone eyes looked around the room, at the pipes that delivered poison, at the broken roof. The full height of the golem stretched almost to the ceiling.

  Gently, it picked up two children and three mothers and held them in one hand. They were so startled, they didn’t even scream as the earth magic lifted them high in the air.

  With the other arm, the golem punched a hole right through the sidewall, splitting the corner of the building. The force of his blow broke the end post and its connecting structures wide open.

  The camp buildings beyond the holding room were clearly visible.

  Piles of clothes—their clothes lay on the tables. Prisoners sorted through the fabric. Dogs paced around with rifles, forcing captive vidaya to pick through the rags, sorting out anything valuable hidden in the seams.

  Everyone stopped when the wall broke open.

  Lines of uniformed prisoners waited for the gas cycle to finish.

  Surprised, they stood with buckets and mops in their shaking hands. Mathilde understood how deep the lie went. Surviving prisoners were forced to clean the holding room spotless after each use. So no new arrivals would suspect.

  No one would fight as the gas poured down on their heads, stealing their last breath.

  Outside, surviving vidaya waited to remove the dead bodies.

  But Mathilde refused to die.

  With a carefully placed foot, the golem stepped onto the tiles.

  With the next step, it exited the torn building.

  Prisoners scattered, running as far away from that thing as possible. Slowly, it set down the women and children that had blocked its path out of the building, cradling them in its massive hand.

  Then, it turned to the shouts of the dogs of war.

  Mathilde smiled the same grim expression that Fritz shared.

  “Love is the only real power,” she shouted, “But truth definitely can pack a punch.”

  Behind them, in the broken earth, another dirt head arose, clawing its way out of the mountain.

  Once it was free, the second golem turned to where Mathilde and Fritz stood and waited, leaning down. Fritz took the mug handle and wrote Emet on its forehead with a steady hand. “Achiezeer,” he spoke solemnly.

  The golem bowed. And then, the rocks turned to protect the vidaya.

  Outside, dogs shouted. Sirens blared. Guns fired. Golems did not stop at the smattering of bullets that flew at their faces and chests.

  Earth had no heart.

  With the footprint of a giant, the first one moved. Slow to respond, patient as the mountain, the magically-animated ground cleared a path beyond the intake building.

  Killing any enemies that fired upon it, the golem disregarded any fence. Nothing could hold back moving earth.

  With a ruthless efficiency, the golems smothered the Hollyoaken forces. Unstoppable, immovable in its purpose, earth magic lifted its foot and stomped down on a cluster of five more dogs. Encasing them in mud, earth and tons of living rock, the soldiers suffocated before the giant stepped away.

  Blood seeped out from under each step the golems took.

  The sound of gunfire rang out. Swiftly followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire.

  The golem stepped forward, and again. There was no fear. The will that animated the creatures demanded protection and truth. Clods of earth rained down everywhere, destroying the manicured gardens and the perfect cleanliness of Gelshiesen. Bullets flew across the ground, striking buildings, prisoners, and the giants made of stone.

  Even as bits of dirt fell off, the first golem did not stop its attack. It would not stop defending the vidaya until there was not one rock atop another. The earth fought against the hatred of Hollyoaks.

  Pushing back the lies, magic swept the world clean.

  “The dogs know no truth,” Mathilde whispered to her brother, keeping Fritz near her at all times. “Cloaked in lies, they cannot stand against us.”

  Suddenly, following a giant formed of earth and magic, she realized that simple fact: lies cannot exist in a world of truth. That was why the battles and the wars raged on, after all these years. Everything Melchen stood for: kindness, love, sacrifice, truth—those things did not allow a place for lies, for hate, for darkness, for spite.

  Melchen and Malakhian stood against the Shelke in the exact same war that Mathilde fought now. Love was not weak. Love was not powerless.

  Love conquers all.

  It was hate that made men brittle.

  And so the golems charged ahead, decimating any Hollyoaken soldier they found. Following the enormous creatures of mud and stone, the women left inside the intake room were very much alive. They streamed out of the false building, grabbed any clothing they could reach, and then they followed the gigantic thing.

  Just not too close.

  Mathilde and Fritz followed the third golem, as soon as she named its purpose by marking its forehead: Emet.

  Like vidartan priests of old once did, she called it by name, “Achiezeer.”

  No one was safe.

  Not the prisoners who had been spared, not Mama or Johan, wherever they were. Everywhere, the camp soldiers fought living rocks and dirt. Every second, another soldier died.

  Every minute, the golems advanced. The fearsome magic that animated them pushed outward, clearing the camp. People died.

  Gelschiesen was torn upside down. Earthen-men made mistakes. They could not always see enemies from vidaya. Chaos consumed the camp. Buildings fell. Bullets flew.

  People collapsed, injured.

  She could not protect anyone, not even the vidaya. Magic was a wild force. Nothing would stop accidents in the heat of battle.

  “We are not safe here,” she told Fritz.

  He was busy making “Smash!” “Grab that!” and “Boom!” sound effects as the giants advanced, like any ten-year-old boy would. “Take that. And that. You deserved that!” He cheered when dogs died.

  War changed her sweet little brother. There is only so much I can do to protect him from seeing the cost of lies.

  She kept one eye on Fritz and the other on the falling buildings and sporadic gunfire that kept firing at their protectors. Cautiously, they walked behind the third golem, the least damaged of the three.

  Suddenly, Captain was with them again. He meowed as he stepped out of some garbage cans and walked a little in front of them, leading Mathilde and Fritz. The cat sauntered ahead, as if he had never left.

  “Nice of you to show up, Captain,” she couldn’t help but chide him.

  “I noticed you weren’t there to save us. Not there when your men sentenced over two hundred women and children to die. Not there to stop the courageous dogs of war from killing defenseless people. These are your loyal troops, Captain. This is how you
r people fight.”

  The black cat meowed twice, licked its injured paw, and ignored her.

  He continued on, leading the way through the camp, following the golems’ wide path of destruction. When will the captain ever learn?

  Captain Richaron’s heart was as cold as the golems.

  Mathilde couldn’t fix anyone that broken. I doubt magic can either.

  He didn’t care one whit what she thought.

  The cat walked ahead, unafraid. He went in roughly in the direction Mathilde would have gone anyway. So she followed the black cat’s trail.

  Behind Mathilde, bewildered prisoners followed her lead.

  First one. And then another, and then another. Each one laid down their tools, set down their hammers, dropped their inks, stopped the work they did to survive, to be valuable to their Hollyoaken guards.

  One by one—gaunt, skeletal men and women walked behind the living earth, the black cat, and the young woman holding tight to her brother’s hand.

  Fritz looked back and said, “Ten. There are ten behind us.”

  Mathilde looked around, trying to see danger. “They are vidaya, levav. They will not hurt us. They just want to be free. Let them follow.”

  The number grew.

  As they rounded the end of the last set of factory buildings, Fritz said, “Three hundred, maybe more.” Mathilde didn’t look behind them. What could she do? She concentrated on staying alive, looking ahead to the battlefront, where golems stepped on humans and squished them like slugs.

  One golem fell over.

  The crashing sound of it landing shook the air for miles, filling the valley with thunder. Mathilde was nowhere near the earthen man when it lost its leg to a rocket and tipped over. It crumbled to the ground.

  She could not mark its head.

  Instead, she whispered the release, “Met.” It was the only real release for men or magic: Death. A cloud of heavy dust rose on the far left flank of the camp as the first golem returned to the ground.

  “Mattie, there are too many to count now,” Fritz pulled at her shoulder, insisting she see.

  “Too many what?” she asked absentmindedly. Her focus was on the dangers around them, on the hidden snipers, on the gunfire ahead. On the mass of earth that protected their every step towards freedom.

  Fritz replied, “Too many vidaya behind us.”

  Her brother spoke with a calm tone, but she could tell he was scared.

  Curious, Mathilde turned and looked at the massive crowd of red-headed people who walked behind her footsteps. Maybe a thousand or more, she guessed. Far too many to count.

  Everywhere the golem had broken the streets and the land, the cleared space filled up with vidayas. Captives marched behind her. Hundreds were badly underfed, beaten, broken—some for years, it looked like. All of them, all those people focused their hope on her and her little brother. Even in the distance, they lifted their faces to the sky and wept with eyes long empty of tears.

  The awe she saw on their faces mirrored her own wonder.

  Ahead of them, the monsters of earth and magic slammed their way through barbed wire, concrete walls, and steel supports. Breaking logs as thick as five men with one blow, the third Golem refused to stop for anything in its path.

  Determined, and as stubborn as a mudslide, the golem pushed onward, past dogs’ gunfire, past cars that tried to ram it. Past every obstacle. Its mission consumed every action the creature took.

  All the golem wanted was to break the vidaya out of the prison fences that held them. The earth answered Mathilde’s prayer: To set my family free.

  “To set my family…” Mathilde looked behind her again. Vidayans. All of them.

  And a wave of courage came over her broken heart, despite her losses.

  She shouted to the sound of distant gunfire, “We are vidaya. We are not trash!” Defiant, she threw her fist in the air when she declared those words. Every single man, woman, and child who followed her footsteps mirrored her action.

  Down the ruined streets, throughout the lie of a camp, Mathilde heard echoes of her declaration. “We are not trash.”

  “We are not trash!”

  “We are vidaya!” Words of liberation rolled in thunderous chorus across the buildings. Shaking the concrete, smashing wood structures to the ground with the combined sound of their belief.

  The vidaya awoke.

  17

  Discernment

  A storm grew in the valley, a boiling pot perched on the mountainside. Centered on the tiny hamlet of Gelshiesen, tourist resort.

  A thundercloud that knew no bounds, a gathering of ancient magic surged down the mountainside.

  Both golems reached the heavily-reinforced fences and barbed wire that surrounded the main camp. Plowing through the last physical barrier, the golems stood still, their purpose finished.

  There were no more dogs in the way. No one stopped the vidaya from leaving the camp. All the bullets had been spent. All the ammunition exhausted, the soldiers of Hollyoaks held empty guns as they watched the flood of vidaya walk out of camp.

  Mathilde held onto her brother’s smaller hand as they walked free.

  “Where do we go now?” Fritz asked. “Where can we go?”

  Mathilde answered him, completely out of her element. “I am not a leader. I am not a priest. How do I know what to tell these people?

  “There is only death here in the mountains, from the weather, from a lack of supplies” she spoke carefully, thinking about their very few options. “They have brought us to a prison made of barren land, a wilderness where there is nothing to feed us. Nothing to warm our tired bodies.

  “Most of us can’t walk more than a few feet. At most, some can walk a mile or two. That is plenty of time for the guards to rearm, and casually round us up, like scooping up ice cream. We have nowhere to hide and no way to leave.”

  Mathilde didn’t know what to do about any of that.

  Her mind was on other worries.

  Instead, she spent every second she had scanning the faces of the escaped vidaya, looking for just two. She would not stop hoping. Not until she had looked in the faces of every single vidaya.

  Another one. Not her. Not her. Not her.

  Grabbing Fritz, Mathilde decided narrow the search. Time was too valuable to waste.

  I have to think more efficiently. Calling the magic, she listened to Fritz’s heart beat. And then asked the powerful magic, “Pneuma.” Find. “Find my family… find this twin. Find the one who matches this.”

  Mathilde wanted so badly to hold Johan, and to hug Mama again. They have to be here. I can still save them.

  Magic went through the escaped throng, rippling like a wave.

  It found nothing. Not one match among the freed vidaya.

  Broadening the search, the power flowed through the valley. Drifting through the train yard, the train cars, and then the ruined camp, magic covered everything. The force did not stop searching.

  Mathilde could feel it spiralling out, looking for the answer she desperately needed.

  Up to the top of the distant mountains it traveled, and on again until it disappeared from her sight. The ripple grew into a wave.

  The magic did not fade.

  There. Right there: in the heart of the ruined camp. Finally. One heartfire, stronger than anything else. Like a beacon, magic lit the connection with enough power that Mathilde gasped.

  So did her little brother who saw the magic through her eyes.

  “In that place? There is still a vidaya? Why have they not escaped?” Fritz’s confusion mirrored her own.

  “The golems cleared the way. Everyone should have left—even if they had to limp out. Why are they still inside the hideous walls?” Mathilde furrowed her brow, trying to understand. Failing miserably. “Who is left in there, Fritz? No one would stay a prisoner of such a heartless people, with only death as their constant companion? Any sane person would run. Right?”

  Fritz nodded. But the problem remained. The ma
gic said Johan was back at the Hollyoaken camp. And that meant their mother was there. “The magic doesn’t see her! I wonder why not?”

  “Maybe because she is not vidartan like you are, Fritz?”

  “That’s probably right.”

  “Levav,” she tried to say the words gently, “I have to go back. You know I do.”

  “I know,” he whispered looking at the mountaintops in the distance. Unable to accept another parting. Unwilling to let her go, he was ready to follow her into Shaeol itself.

  A shining star of courage shone in her little brother’s eyes. Not so little anymore, she thought, admiring his backbone. “Achut, you aren’t going in there alone.”

  “No, Fritz. No. This has been too risky, rescuing you… exposing you to the evils of these people, over and over. Fritz, you are our future. You. Not me. Even without the spellbook or Papa’s glasses, you are still the heart of the vidaya. You are the cause they rally around.

  “You are the magician they have waited decades for—the leader they need to stand behind for all of this to end.”

  Mathilde felt her father’s courage reinforce her own stubbornness.

  “If I could be with you,” she reassured him, “...to help you, to teach you the rest of what I’ve learned, I would, levav. But—” Mathilde knew what was demanded of her. “I can’t leave without Johan. I can’t leave our family behind. Not when they are so close.

  “This time, you cannot follow. You must survive.” She had to swallow the beating of her own heart to finish. Just enough to push him away.

  “Whatever that old woman is, whatever power she holds… You cannot fall. You are the beating heart of vidayan hope.”

  Fritz threw his arms around her.

  “I love you, achut, “ he sobbed. “I always have. I know you can do this! I know it.”

  Mathilde held him close. For the last time.

  “Go to the trains, levav. Even as weak as the vidaya are, together, you can take control of the trains. Right now, they are our only hope to freedom.”

  “Be brave, Fritz,” Mathilde finished, roughing up his unruly red hair. She looked at her little brother and whispered, “Be strong.”