Age of Souls

by Garrett Stevens

  The room grew silent, the sounds of the battle below turned to whispers and into nothing as she hung her head and took a deep breath. The air grew dense and heavy as she knelt, sitting on her feet. Closing her eyes a final time, she hugged herself and curled into a ball with her forehead on the floor. The light from the window began to darken further and all the light within the room slowly flooded towards her with a darkness that all reality seemed to drain into. The tables and chairs surrounding the edge of the room began to fade from sight until they ultimately disappeared into a void. The darkness tickled its way around the room edge, filling the spaces not covered by the carpet until it was all around her.

  Slowly lifting her head and stretching up toward the ceiling, her arms unfolded from her body, expanding her hands out to the side. Her eyes slowly opened and let out a soft blue light that oozed out like a morning fog from a pond. The darkness surrounding the rug started to make its way into the still frozen waters as the fog from her eyes bled down over her body to the floor. A gentle waterfall of a beautiful energy.

  Suddenly, a bright pulse from within made her release a blood curdling scream, erupting straight up to the ceiling and pulsed throughout the room colliding with the fringed void. The dense air rippled with the collision and began to swirl around her in a torrent of fog and darkness.

  • • •

  “We don’t have long Mya.” Bravin was looking up at the palace towards where Tharissa’s tower should be but the dark smog blocked his sight and majority of the palace.

  “I feel it too, Tharissa must be close. We need to find Turi.” Mya followed his gaze up through the smoke.

  The three were not quite running, but still making good time through the streets towards the main gate. Odd skirmishes could be seen between buildings as they zigzagged their way through lanes or buildings to bypass any potentially delaying conflict. No time was wasted with dispatching a blocking enemy who popped up in surprise when rounding corners or skipping by open doors.

  “Up ahead.” General Cotie pointed past a blockade of carts that were set ablaze to an old man in a robe kicking a downed body. Their paced quickened with his remarks. “Rocksell, where is Trimble?”

  “General! He should be down near the bridge. He heard the Gurge rampaging this way and wanted to head it off.” The gruff man spoke in a very deep voice and nodded down the road.

  “That might be a stroke of luck for us. We need to get these two some space.” The General looked at Turi who gave another kick to the corpse.

  “Room for what?” Turi stepped over his kicking bag of flesh to get closer the newcomers.

  “Tharissa is almost ready and we need things to end before. Can we move things along?” Bravin butted into the conversation.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. Mya, shall we?” Turi put a hand on her shoulder and stare into her eyes.

  Mya shrugged against his hand. “What do we have to work with?”

  “I don’t have my satchel, but we could use one of Cotie’s blades.” Turi stretched out his arm towards the armoured soldier.

  “What?” General Cotie recoiled a step. “No way.”

  “If this is to be done, we need something now.” Turi gave the man a pout filled glance. “Unfortunately, you won’t get it back.”

  “That’s what I am afraid of.” General Cotie pulled both his blades from their sheath with a heavy weight of sadness about him. “Which would you prefer?”

  “Ice would be quickest and less destructive to the city. If you are saying we don’t have time, let’s go with it.” The old mage raised his eyebrows and smiled.

  With a sigh, General Cotie stretched out his icy blade and slipped the other back into its home. Turi grabbed it by the hilt and placed it on the ground at his feet. Taking a step back from it he lowered his hands with open palms toward it and closed his eyes before muttering a few words.

  “Rocksell, we need to keep things away while they work, head down and help Trimble.” General gave the burly soldier his order.

  His acknowledgment was a quick nod before turning down into the sodden mud camps beyond. Pulling his massive mace from his back, the lightness of his footing made him look like a glee filled child excited for a first day of school.

  “Alright,” Turi opened his eyes from his incantation and looked up at Mya. “Same thing as last time.”

  Mya sighed and nodded.

  “Be ready Bravin. Remember, don’t look when they cast.” General Cotie never checked to see that his order was acknowledged.

  Taking a step closer to the sword on the ground, Mya stood tall and closed her eyes before extending her arms to the side and started to chant under her breathe. Turi reached down to the blade, uttering a few more words before picking it up. Standing in an attack stance, Turi began chanting under his breath, echoing the sounds Mya was making. The air around them filled with a chill, making everyone’s breath visible with the temperature change. Steam floated up from the surrounding corpses and all visible blood began to crystalize on the fringes of their pooling.

  With a few more passages of mirrored chanting, Turi shot open his eyes and plunged the blade deep into Mya’s chest. The blade passed right through her torso as if the cold air had frozen her solid and she was already dead. No scream came of death, no death rattle, only silence.

  Mya’s head fell forward but her arms never dropped. Turi started into another verse of his chant and intently stared toward Mya, still holding the hilt of the blade. Within a few passages, Turi shifted his feet quickly and pulled the blade from her chest. Before the tip could leave her body, her arms shot toward the blade and grabbed hold, making Turi let go and backed away. As soon as he let go, he spun around and closed his eyes huddling into himself like a hunch back.

  With a death raising scream, Mya plunged the blade back into her chest which instantly erupted a frozen shockwave from her body with a flash bright enough to fade her from sight. The white and blue light filled the street, sending corpses sliding away in a clean circle and quenched nearby fires. Everything within view instantly froze over as if they had been dumped into a lake before winter.

  The pulse shot out quickly and expanded through the city and out into the valley, freezing everything it touched. Pulsing its way through the streets, it froze structures, beasts, soldiers and the air itself became a snowy winter wonderland. Pushing against the palace walls, the shockwave faded into stillness of the mountainside and palace walls. Beyond the city gate and on the other side of the camps, it kept seeking across the mud and grasses, solidifying the trees and any manner of beast. Finally fading against the hillside, the stillness of the Uridine province was like it had been touched by the ice goddess Taijok herself. Life stopped, frozen in time.

  The epicenter of the wave faded back into reality, fading Mya back; slumped over, arms at her sides. Slowly picking up her head in a groggy state, she couldn’t help but notice everyone around her frozen in place and the old librarian, Turi, standing with his back to her huddled over in his frozen fear.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Mya stepped forward, almost slipping on the frozen blood covered ground. Skirting around him to get a look at his face, she recoiled in his expression.

  “What have I done?”

  • • •

  The darkness crept closer and closer as the blue fog swirled around the room. Tharissa’s body lifted from the carpet, her toes sliding like they were petting the smooth waters until it looked like she was balancing on her toe tips.

  The torrent sped up as she left the ground, causing her to spin gently with it. The misty light crying from her eyes brightened with each rotation until the light engulfed her head. With each growth of the brilliance, with each level of intensity, she began to groan with a pain until it erupted to a scream. Louder and louder with every spin until her speed caught up to the swirling torrent. Her body slowly disappearing into the light.

  After a few seconds, the ball around her seemed to stand still and then suddenly popped like a
liquid balloon to reveal her naked form; silent, sitting on her feet and curdled into a ball around her knees. Before the liquid light could hit the ground, the dark void twisting around the fringes of the room rushed toward the center of the room, swallowing everything in its path. Nothing could be seen. Nothing held the spark of life. Nothing made a sound.

  A distant screaming echoed through the void, bellowing louder with each breath. Another pulse pushed through the black, rippling the existence of reality through the darkness as if a drop of water hit a still dark lake.

  An explosion of light shot through the rippling waters, filling the room with realism again. All gloom faded, all shadows, anything touched by the flood of black lit up as if there were the sun itself within the room. Tharissa burst into view, floating above the ground again, with all her limbs extended as wide as they could. Waves of light bubbles extended out from her body as she hovered above her fabricated lake.

  Each pulse surged through the walls of her room and beyond, into the palace and into the city, cleaving through everything and anything. All the Uridine army slowly came to life, shivering off the ice and cold. The first few helping up any of their comrades that were on the ground or brushing off nearby friends.

  The dead woke from their eternal sleep, each of their wounds beginning to heal over and regenerate their body. Not every soldier woke from their deaths, handfuls of frozen corpses remained scattered about the city, sleeping with their foes; their damage too great to heal. The pulses of the light reached far out of the city walls, into the land beyond the camp, beyond the tree line, beyond the hills before dissolving into the day.

  “Tharissa!” The Queen burst through the door to find her daughter curled in the fetal position, laying still. Lifeless.

  • • •

  “Turi!” Mya exclaimed as she helped the old mage up from being keeled over during his thaw.

  “But something went wrong, something terribly wrong.” Turi coughed cold air. “Your sister. Quickly.”

  Turi stretched his neck through a few cracks to strain himself to look up at the palace. The smog cloud had been pushed aside and replaced with a mass of white fluffy clouds that started to litter the city with a light snow.

  “General, Bravin, take care of Turi.” Mya shouted her orders as she took off towards the palace.

  Making her way through the city as fast as she could, she passed by soldiers shattering their unfortunate enemies in random ways, still helping friends up from the ground, temporarily putting others to rest that were not affected by the resurrection spell. The ground was still slick in some spots making it difficult at times for her to find footing.

  “Mya!” King Uridine called out from beside the Palace steps.

  “Father. It’s Tharissa.” She slowed her pace slightly to respond to her father who had not made it back to the palace before the frost hit, his hair still wet from the thaw.

  Without another word, he filed in behind his daughter who charged up the palace stairs and through the massive doors to the foyer.

  • • •

  “Tharissa.” Crying over her daughter, the Queen held a blanket over her daughter who had started breathing again.

  “Mya?” She could barely get the word out.

  “She’s not here child. It’s just me.” The Queen curled some of Tharissa’s hair behind her ear to keep it out of her face.

  Tharissa never opened her eyes, took in small weak breaths while she lay in her mother’s arms.

  “Rosen?” King Uridine ran into the room and staggered to a stop at the discovery.

  Mya skidded to a halt beside him and took only a glance before rushing to the center of the room. Her father slowly stepped closer and closer, eyes focused on the three women.

  “Mya.” Tharissa whispered.

  “I am here sister.” Mya leaned down to get closer to her sister.

  Out from under the blanket, Tharissa’s weak hand stretched out and came to rest on her sister’s cheek. Mya’s eyes shot open as if a shock of electricity slammed into her head. Suddenly, she was whisked through space and time towards a dark place, a dead city; Necrolis.

  The vision whipped around from place to place through the city, bones of all sorts littered the streets. Darkness and shadow lurked around her as she skipped around uncontrollably. Finally coming to rest at the foot of a massive stone tower. It stretched up further than she could see, fading from view through a sky of blackish-grey. The walls were surrounded by two massive chains, circling around it like it was holding together a prison.

  Another skip through the vision flushed her through the walls and into the tower itself, putting her beside a massive cave and in front of a small boy. The child dressed head to toe in a clean black suit sat in the middle of the cave crossed legged. He did not move and only watched with solid black eyes through deep black hair that looked to drip a misty shadow. A small smirk filled the child’s face before calmly closing his eyes.

  “Bring it back.”

  A haze in her mind blurred the reality around the child as he spoke.

  “Brach igh vaush.” Everything shook again with each word. The depth of his voice was ancient, authority and obedience engulfed the cavern with every syllable.

  She could not respond.

  “Brach igh vaush.” The child calmly said again. “The last time. The war begins.”

  Before Mya could try at another attempt to speak, she was whipped back into the tower room. Both mother and father knelt beside her, starring.

  Mya, with wide eyes, looked at both of them between blinks and dropped her gaze to her sister, who had fallen asleep

  “We have a problem.”

  Chapter 5

  The sun was starting to push its way through the cloud formations, battling with little sunbeams that danced over the bodies strewn around the city. A thin blanket of snow could still be seen in the shadows of buildings and tried to hide in the crevices of corpses. Buildings had a wet look about them from the frost which slowly was fading in the warmth of the day. Life was starting to come back to the frozen city.

  Two heavily armour soldiers danced around the still battlefield, seemingly the only two left alive. One wielded a massive sword, and the other swung a huge mace. They would ping pong themselves back and forth between their frozen enemies as if it were a game.

  “Rocksell, we should collect the General and get back to the palace. This ape of a monster won’t be hurting anyone now.” Trimble spoke in a deep gruff voice.

  Turning to the massive ape like monster beside him, he pushed over a couple nearby ice sculptures, making room to get at the beast. Trimble was pre-occupied with a gleeful bounce between enemies, shattering them in a childlike manner.

  The monstrous Gurge hulked over everything with its fist ready to strike. The frost nova had struck at the perfect time, hovering over Trimble with its vacant fierceness. Rocksell, very unconcerned with how the battle got to this point was so much more focused on the thrill of breaking a part what he could. After running out of the quick group to be broken, Rocksell slowed himself down and stopped at the foot of the large frozen block of an ape. In a childlike excitement, Trimble couldn’t help but laugh at the battle worn aged man so full of happiness.

  “Alright fine, you can break it.” Trimble laughed again at the face Rocksell carried.

  Again, like a child, Rocksell bounced closer to the massive ice sculpture and started bashing away on its leg with his mace, chunks of ice flying all over. As he worked his way through the supports of the beast, the rest of the body came tumbling down, shattering across the muddy ground into big blocks as it landed. Rocksell turned to Trimble with a huge smile on his face.

  “The rest of the troops and can deal with everything else, let’s go get that old fool and the General, head back to the palace.”

  Rocksell was silent in his response but acknowledged with a nod.

  • • •

  “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. That strong of a spell usually takes it out o
f me.” Turi stood, leaning against Bravin.

  “Trimble, Rocksell. We should get up to the palace.” General Cotie tilted his head around Bravin and Turi to watch the two gruff soldiers trotting up the road.

  Rocksell still had his goofy childlike grin on his face while Trimble could only shake his head at the curious glance General Cotie had towards the peppy soldier. The small group gathered their things and sheathed their weapons before making their way along the roadway. Turi handed over the hilt of the General’s weapon back to him and was greeted by a woeful pout.

  “We are lucky that Eirolin has blessed the princess with his spirit, gives our people new chances after death. Unfortunately, Necrolin is still able to gather their souls before the spell takes place.” Turi pivoted his head left and right as they walked, watching the reborn soldiers helping each other. The rebuilding of the people and the city had already started around them.

  “Glad you didn’t use the fire for this one?” General Cotie gave the old mage a side glance.

  “Fire would have caused too much damage and would have been harder to contain after the revival.” Turi glared at him.

  “We are lucky as well that Mya is able to perform such magic.” Bravin cut in.

  “She has a gift like no other, most likely why everyone thinks Tyrolin has blessed her. Very well be true, but that blessing should be only for a melee combat, not extravagant spells. Her father is an accomplished mage and along with the Uridine bloodline, but there is definitely something else hidden there, something dangerous. The two sisters are a pair not to be taken lightly.” Turi spoke as he used Bravin as a crutch.