The Souls of the Ocean (Book Two in The Tamarack Series)

by Ross Turner

  But then, the odd serenity of the sight before them: the clear sunbeam-kissed sky, Compii Tower standing regally in the distance, the quiet, unmoving waters, all began to change.

  By now, they had stopped ascending, about fifty metres above the ocean’s surface, and the sky above them darkened impossibly. Fortified cloud surged in around them in great storms, and fierce winds and lashing rains struck down from the blackened clouds. The monstrous tempest ravaged the skies, unleashing its fury in a frightening display of magnificent proportions.

  Isabel and Zanriath were barraged endlessly, the wind and the water whipping them harshly, but they did not move. They could not move.

  The sudden gale-force storm lashed the waters far below them in a ferocious churning mass of angry foaming and frothing waves. The angry swells reached enormous heights and crashed down with such force that only the thunderous claps of the raging storm above equalled the noise of their impact.

  Then, the rage concealed within the storm was unleashed, and it bore down upon the now churning, black waters with all its might, continuing to strike its surface with wind and rain and thunder and lightning, furious with the lost souls for their endless, vengeful lusting.

  Barely able to even see through the driving force of the attack, Isabel and Zanriath looked on at the unworldly spectacle unfolding before them in awe, as the water below them began to twist and surge and a deep hole began to take shape amidst the pounding waves, drilling down deep into the ocean itself.

  The hole soon widened and began rolling the great masses of water around its edges, creating a swelling and rushing bore of a current, soon growing so large that it became a vast whirlpool, spitting angry foam and swallowing enormous volumes of the ocean within it.

  In the centre of the spinning, oceanic vortex, far below her, Isabel could just about make out two shapes amidst the steaming vapour and spray. Her breath caught in her throat, reminding her that she was in fact breathing again, as she realised what the two figures were.

  Suspended just as she and Zanriath were, only far below them, in the very centre of the colossal maelstrom, was her son and his demon.

  Cole and Rose both looked calm, considering the circumstances. Although, the raging fury all around them was Cole’s doing, so Isabel supposed any concern would have been wasted at that point. Whether he had full control of his abilities now or not, was another matter entirely.

  Rose had resumed her favoured four-legged form, having no longer the need for flippers, being suspended above the ocean, and her head was bowed almost submissively in front of Cole, as he affectionately rubbed her neck and ears. They both had their eyes closed, as if they were ignoring the massive noise and surges of the bore that Cole was sustaining all around them.

  Cole’s unearthly power was something that, only now, Isabel was beginning to comprehend. She realised that, impossibly, it originated from a source much older than she could ever have imagined, and far surpassed the extent of even the God’s abilities.

  It was then that Thorn appeared, storming from the twisting wall of black water with an ear-splitting roar, he leapt into the surging fury within which Cole and Rose were suspended. He screamed with untold ferocity, commanding the sound of thousands of lost souls within his one voice, and launched his colossal mass towards Isabel’s son and his demon, harbouring only the intent to destroy, to obliterate, driven only be vengeance.

  They opened their eyes to face the enormous monster, obsessed and twisted by millennia of revenge, cascading towards them, and Cole sighed regretfully. Rose’s eyes too, identical to her Cole’s, were filled with misplaced sorrow.

  Thorn was almost upon them when something yanked his enormous mass back and his charge was abruptly halted. His arms and legs were dragged back by some invisible force and he writhed and lashed out and struggled to break free from his restraints. But there were no escape, and so his efforts were rendered useless.

  His form altered and shifted as he tried desperately to find some way out, but by that point, there was by no means a way he could do so.

  His seething black mass became human and animal shaped, and even the figures of several other horrendously powerful monsters, but all of their strengths, even combined, quailed in comparison to Cole’s.

  But then, the combined knowledge and power of the Souls of the Ocean surged to the forefront of Thorn’s thinking, overwhelming him completely. Within mere moments, nothing remained of the demon Cole had created, his mind entirely overtaken, and his power increased ten-fold.

  The effect of the invisible restraints ceased and the monstrous creature before them now loomed over Isabel’s son and his demon like a great devil. The connection Cole had, only a few seconds ago, still felt to the monster he had created, however small, was now entirely gone, as Thorn submitted and gave himself wholly to the Souls of the Ocean. Their malevolent desire for vengeance consumed him entirely, and his Thorn disappeared forever.

  Thorn had indeed now become Rose’s opposite, and it saddened them both immensely to think of what Cole was now required to do.

  Rose closed her eyes and bowed her head into Cole’s arms, unable to watch what was about to happen. Cole’s gaze however, remained fixed on his adversary. Thorn, or rather Thorn’s body, laughed the evil laugh of revenge, and it was not Thorn’s voice Cole could hear, but the combination of all the lost souls’, pouring their every effort into their glorious retribution.

  They reached out to claim their prize, and Isabel and Zanriath screamed in denial from their exposed perch high above, casting desperate attacks at the colossal beast in a futile attempt to protect their son. But their strikes fell away, useless against the beast, and it laughed again, a deep earth-shaking rumble that shook even the ocean.

  “Your son has failed.” The thousands of voices boomed all at once to Isabel and Zanriath, the sounds of them all overlapping each other becoming the combined, enormous voice of a single mass, even fighting the sounds of the storm for domination.

  Tears streaked down Isabel’s cheeks as the inevitable loomed and she sensed the will of every lost soul in Tamarack pouring into the body of this one colossus, all other pathetic vessels abandoned.

  The creature struck out at Isabel with an immense demonic strike and she doubled over in the air, screaming in agony. Zanriath held his wife close as she shrieked and cursed, unable to aid her, only looking on at the unbelievable spectacle unfolding between them, and at Cole and Rose, and at the great beast before them.

  His son was in great peril, yet there was no protection either of them could offer, and it seemed indeed now that this was the end.

  The Souls’ second attack was much more powerful, and was cast with much greater intent. It would have destroyed Isabel entirely, without issue, if it had reached her. Seconds before it struck her, the demonic strike suddenly dissipated and rolled off amongst the swells of wind, dispersing harmlessly into the storm still raging all around.

  The monster’s gaze swept down to Cole in a mixture of confusion, anger and denial, only to find the young man looking calmly back up at him.

  “NO!” The Souls voiced their denial in a single booming syllable. “You have failed!” Cole smiled remorsefully in response and shook his head gently, stroking Rose’s giant head still resting in his arms, her eyes closed tightly shut.

  “I will not fail.” He replied quietly, though somehow his voice resonated powerfully all around, not so much rising above the raging storm, as becoming a part of it.

  “We are more powerful than you!” The Souls’ voices cried from Thorn’s mouth, only confirming the fact that Thorn was no longer there. “You are but a child!” Their angered voices screamed.

  Cole sighed again and once more shook his head.

  “Your power is of no matter.” He said resolutely, as though his voice was not his own. “I will not succumb. I cannot.”

  Her son’s young, piercing, unyielding gaze frightened even Isabel, and she felt the quake of the Souls of the Ocean shake the very water
within which Thorn’s colossus stood, as the extent of Cole’s power became at once all too evident.

  When he spoke again, his voice carried with it the solemn sound of eternal remorse, and yet, also a relentless fortitude that was forever unbreakable.

  “I am the voice that is not of a God.” He said gravely. “I am the voice of fate, and my will be done.”

  45

  Riled into aggressive retaliation by Cole’s words, without thinking, the body that was once Thorn’s charged forward blindly, seeing nothing but Cole’s outright defiance. Mid-stride, the enormous, hulking monster descending upon the tiny young man, met an invisible barrier, and crashed into it with tremendous force and searing agony.

  The torturous pain writhed inside the monster that had once been Thorn, and inside every other of its evil kind, until it finally became all but unbearable. They were all diseased, infected, and now that same disease, festering within each of them, was going to kill them.

  Cole seized their wills with his own, by now virtually unstoppable, and cast Thorn’s immense mass back as if he had delivered a great blow to his adversary, sending him reeling with great black sprays frothing up all around.

  Building his will, Cole gathered up every demon and every lost soul in Tamarack, and in one fell swoop, cast them from the kingdom.

  His will be done.

  Countless numbers of vengeful souls, both lost and demonic alike, soared through the fabric of time and space, returning through the bridge between the two worlds, and descended back into the demonic realm, banished by Cole’s immense will.

  And even though the lost souls had thought that they would be safe from the demonic realm, having been trapped within Thorn’s body, Cole was able to banish them also.

  With a single thought, the powerful young man sealed the gap once again between the realms, cutting off the demons and the Souls of the Ocean, freeing Tamarack from their plight.

  The surging ocean below them did not quell however, and in fact its rage continued to intensify, but at least now, with the sudden absence of infection, the waters turned from a grim black to a deep, rich blue, pleasing Cole as he surveyed the fruits of his efforts.

  Nonetheless, his work was not finished.

  Thorn’s power was still great, and it was still combined with that of the lost souls, and Cole could sense, even feel, with his awareness and with his soul, the pressure between the two realms building. The barrier between Tamarack’s realm and the demons’ world would not hold for long, and then history would repeat itself for a third time.

  No, he decided. This he would not allow. He could not just hide the threat away, as had been done in the past. He had to quell it forever, as their horrific need for vengeance and domination would never cease without such intervention.

  And so, the burdened but determined young man set his unrelenting will to its greatest challenge yet, and it was then that he realised exactly what the High Priest had meant.

  It was his own power that would be the cause of the third eventuality. If he could not complete this final task that he had just committed himself to, without letting his power overcome him, Tamarack, and indeed the rest of the universe, would cease to exist.

  This was his only chance, however, and he had no other option.

  Rose opened her eyes again then and looked up to Cole lovingly. He smiled calmly and knew that she understood exactly what needed to be done.

  ‘Are you ready?’ He asked her silently, the storm still raging all around, the only sound that could possibly be heard.

  ‘Yes.’ She replied simply. ‘I’m here. Be careful.’ He nodded in response and turned all his thoughts back to his will, combining it wholly with hers, their immense strengths and even souls becoming as one.

  With their power combined, they set to work. Cole formed an image in his mind, exactly as he had done when he had created Rose and Thorn. And equally, just as had been the case then, even now, he was fairly certain that what he was trying to do was impossible.

  But what he did know for certain now, was that it had not been attempted before, which, therefore, did not mean that it was impossible, only that he was the first to try, so he would do it anyway.

  Strangely, as before, he was comforted by this knowledge, and Cole pressed on, building his will with all his might.

  It was all becoming so clear now. Banishing the demons had not been his task at all; it had been his mother’s, many years ago. Instead, it was his task to remove them altogether, to destroy them, to ensure they could never threaten Tamarack, or any other world, ever again.

  He felt Rose’s heartbeat and very soul entwined with his own, their strength and their wills forever joined, committed together to confront the epic task that stood before them.

  The power radiating from Cole and Rose now was unmatched by any that had been before them, and the twisting, swirling ocean below them bent and arched away from them, under intense strain. The fabric of the water, the land, the atmosphere, and even the existence of Tamarack itself, struggled to stay pieced together as their will reached out and wrapped around everything it touched.

  Eventually they could feel the very edges of Tamarack and, following the line of the tear, sensed too the demonic realm, encompassing both worlds within their thoughts.

  Burning and emanating from inside the evil realm, the countless heartbeats of Thorn and his minions were clear. But not only that, Cole and Rose could feel them attacking the limits of their home, barraging even the insides of their own bodies, bodies that barely even clung to existence, led even still by the vengeful spite of the lost souls.

  This was it. They were all trapped, but only for now, with no way to escape.

  Cole took a deep breath.

  They would not remain trapped for long.

  So then, slowly, ever so slowly, Cole and Rose focused their combined will more intently, closing in, and began to crush the ensnared realm of the demonic.

  Isabel, Zanriath, the four Gods, and even Depozi, cast astray somewhere in the universe, all sensed the immense power that preceded the epic destruction of the demons and the lost souls. Their combined and threatening evil slowly shrunk under Cole and Rose’s will, their malevolence being gradually removed forever from the universe.

  This was not the type of crushing or destruction that comes from splitting an object in two, or grinding it down into fragments; that would serve only to alter the object’s form, not its existence. And that simply would not suffice.

  This was something more complete - more permanent.

  Every soul, be it lost or demonic, every particle and atom, every thought and feeling within the realm even, was compressed, so wholly and so completely that, before long, at the point in the very centre of the realm, two particles, two specs of existence, were forced into one. And then three became one, and four, and five, and six, until eventually, millions upon millions of tiny elements were forced into the space of only a small few.

  This immense compression continued as Cole and Rose’s unrelenting will forced the entirety of the demonic realm, and everything within it, into a space no larger than the size of a child’s fist.

  The vast energy and sheer willpower maintaining that small space, preventing it from expanding, in this event that had never occurred before, was something quite indescribable, equalled possibly only by the creation of the universe itself.

  There was nothing but Cole and Rose’s seemingly endless will stopping the tiny seething mass from exploding uncontrollably. Their expressions and positions were unchanged throughout the entire cataclysmic event, and yet, there was still much more to be done. Though their strength was drained and their energy was depleted, they could not relent, not even for a second.

  The realm, squashed into the tiny space no bigger than a child’s fist, rose as a seething ball of pure energy from the centre of the maelstrom, still surging beneath Cole and Rose, and came to rest carefully upon Cole’s now outstretched hand.

  His one hand still resting gentl
y on Rose, with the other, Cole cautiously plucked the tiny mass from the air, glowing and shining in blinding flashes of yellow, orange, blue, red and countless other colours for which there were no names.

  He focused his gaze upon it regretfully.

  Isabel looked down upon her son and saw the sorrow cast across his face, and the sight tore at her heart harshly. She instinctively knew what was about to happen, and remembered the pity she had felt for Depozi, and her reluctance in banishing Him from His home.

  But what Cole was about to accomplish was surely infinitely worse than anything she had ever been tasked with.

  Her son, the dearest person to her heart she could ever imagine, would have to live with this act for the rest of his life, just as she had done - just as she was still doing. But just as she had found, he was the only one who could do what needed to be done.

  She prayed for her son’s safe success, not knowing whether he would come back to her or not, not knowing if any of them would survive. But she trusted Rose, putting her faith in her son’s demon, to save him from losing himself to his task.

  Regardless of her trust, there was nothing Isabel could do to assist either of them. She continued watching helplessly from her high vantage point, clutching Zanriath’s hand tightly, with tears standing in both their eyes.

  They looked on as their son and his demon battled for focus, for success, and, more importantly, for control - for if they were to lose it for even a moment, the result would be cataclysmic, and Tamarack would surely be lost, and likely the rest of the Universe along with it.

  46

  Cole closed his eyes once more, and Rose followed suit. He wrapped his fingers around the tiny seething mass in his hand, and slowly began to clench them into a fist. As he did so, the enormous expanses within his grasp compressed yet even further, and massive volumes of energy rippled out in every direction, amplifying even more than before.