by Sever Bronny
“Forgive me, Mrs. Hawthorne,” Augum whispered at her as concussive black lightning bursts began to emit from that darkness. He did not know if she heard him or not, though she let loose a great battle cry before wrapping herself in a howling tornado and whipping through the horde, sending many smashing into the walls with sickening crunches.
Augum centered his consciousness on the large group of remaining Resistance fighters. He tapped into the scion, the tuning, and a deep well of wild arcanery, focusing everything he had on the most difficult teleportation of his life. He prayed they would all link up in time, for anyone not holding a hand would be left behind to their a dark fate.
Every morsel of his being quickly felt like it was being stretched upon a rack. His soul endured the piercing of a thousand arcane ether blades. Yet as he performed this great feat of arcane endurance, phrasing each word precisely, he caught a final glimpse of the tornado being penetrated by Sparkstone. It disappeared in a puff, leaving behind a gasping Mrs. Hawthorne, held firmly by a snarling Lord of the Legion.
As Augum timed the final word of the spell to coincide with everyone holding hands, he glimpsed a haunting sight.
Protruding from Mrs. Hawthorne’s back was the glistening point of Burden’s Edge.
In the Quiet
Augum had teleported the group to the only safe place possible, for his boundary was the outline of the bailey. Beyond that boundary, his Spirit Form held no power and he was no more than a 5th degree warlock who happened to have a scion. And thus they appeared in the bathing rooms, to horrified yelps of surprise.
Augum could not discern what anyone was saying, for he writhed in agony on the tiled floor. Every part of him was on fire, having dipped into the deadly inkwell of wild arcanery. He had used the scion to probe unknown dark depths, dangerous depths of power and energy. But it had cost him dearly. He was bleeding from his ears, nose and mouth, and his head was being mashed to a pulp by a screaming headache. Shadows were slashing at him with claws, daggers and swords. People were grabbing him and shaking him angrily, spitting and cursing into his face. Strangely, some were administering a balm on his wounds while relentlessly punching and slapping him.
He did not recognize anyone and had to close his eyes, for their grotesque visages frightened him. He was a child lost in a living nightmare, unable to discern familiarity from fear through the maelstrom of pain. And throughout, ghostly voices garbled together in a soup of acid.
“We have failed …”
“Valiant effort, son …”
“Gods, he’s a mess …”
“Aug … you have to listen …”
“He’ll come here, we have to go …”
“No, he has to go …”
“Gutterborn fool …”
“I don’t love you …”
“Soul-bound …”
“Aug … break through … focus … it’s urgent …”
“Murderer …”
“Not real, not real …”
“Come back to us …”
“Quarrel, quarrel for the light …”
“Glow …”
“The book … the spell magnifier …”
“He’s gone, look at him. It’s over …”
“Castle’s on fire …”
“It’s in the 20th degree chamber …”
“Let down his ancestors …”
“Need to teleport one more time …”
“He’s on his way as we speak …”
“Know naught but darkness …”
“The rod …”
“Let’s just give the scion up …”
“He’ll kill us anyway …”
“Let the kingdom down …”
“You need to get us there …”
“Let Mrs. Stone down …”
“Should you lose the fight …”
“My love … wake up …”
“Leera, that you—?” Augum gurgled weakly, tasting blood in his mouth. It was difficult to discern which voices were real. His insides burned with fever and his stomach roiled. He desperately wanted to throw up. He was sick, on the edge of death sick. And he understood why. The arcane fever had hit him instantly. That’s how deep he had reached into the unfathomable arcane well of wild arcanery. The only things that had prevented death were the scion and the tuning. Had he been in mortal form …
“Feat of legend …”
“Impossible …”
“Should have killed him …”
“Undeserving of that crest …”
“Dead anyway …”
“I don’t love you anymore …”
“Let us part alone …”
A gentle and loving embrace suddenly held the shadows at bay. A voice whispered into his ear, louder and warmer than the others.
“I love you so much. All is not lost. Draw upon my energy. I know you can do it. Please try, my love. Please.”
Something clicked. Somehow, Augum knew what she meant.
“Everyone, open yourselves!” a voice he thought was Bridget’s shouted. “Give my brother strength!”
“Now, my love, go spirit,” Leera whispered.
Augum groaned with effort until he split his tired, barely-conscious self. He saw and felt little, for his Spirit Form was as weak as his body. Shapes were a blur, voices as distant as the pinprick pains of a castle carcass being picked over by vultures. Yet he opened himself to his beloved allies and soon felt warmth begin to fill his mortal form. A tidal pool of love drowned out the sores, the pains, the fever, the cuts and scratches and bruises and horrible memories. His severely depleted arcane reserve drank in that love like a thirsty desert wanderer. New voices came, voices of support.
“You can do it, Your Highness …”
“One last stand …”
“Listen to Bridget, Prince …”
“This is it, this is it …”
“The magnifier …”
“20th degree Trainer …”
“Only those of 19th degree can get it …”
“Or the Keeper of the Keys …”
“And the Keeper can take people with him …”
“You have to do it now, before they find us …”
“Now …”
“Now …”
“We love you …”
“I love you …”
Augum Stone, Augum Arinthian, Augum the phoenix, soul and body held aloft on a stretcher of love, rose triumphantly from despair, from hopelessness, and from agony. Still in Spirit Form, he glimpsed the room with complete clarity. The mass of wretched people lay huddled together by the pristine waters of the bath. Faces were anxious. A few colored palms were dimly lit. In the center lay an unconscious Augum, tended to by Bridget and Leera. But there were other bodies too.
“Thank you,” Augum softly said to them, voice filling the room, his heart extending to each and every one of them. “Thank you …”
The sacred phrases came with delicate ease. They were his second tongue, the wellspring of a fragile and weathered soul, yet a soul that knew determination and beauty.
“Centeratoraye xao xen.” He reclaimed his body and the scion, fusing both with the castle and his consciousness, becoming pure spirit. His soul descended upon Bridget and Leera, who held hands in readiness. For a moment, he felt their hearts beat as one, in time to his own. Then he spoke the powerful 17th degree incantation, perfectly visualizing the spot in the castle he had glimpsed through his all-seeing consciousness.
“Impetus peragro grapa lestato exa exaei.” Sacred words, sweet as honey.
He teleported Bridget and Leera with him to the location of the final battle. Together they would stand or fall. But this time … this time they would be armed with love.
The 20th Degree Trainer
The room was infinite and bright. It had a white floor but no walls, for they disappeared into an eternity of white. Before the trio stood a giant glass globe three times the size of a man. It sat on an elaborately gilded stand etched with all sorts of
weapons, armors and ballistae.
“Thank the fates you’re all right,” Leera whispered into Augum’s ear, giving him a soft kiss on the cheek and embracing him.
“We’re all right,” he whispered, kissing her forehead and giving her midriff a squeeze before glancing to Bridget with a kind smile. “We’re all right …” For now.
“So where are we?” Leera pressed.
Bridget approached the great globe. “The 20th degree Trainer.” She placed a hand upon it. “This is the great spell magnifier …” She turned around, face grave. “I read about it in the An Arinthian Odyssey book. Arinthian used it to fashion arcane weapons using various powerful spells, one of which is the 20th degree spell Indestructible Object. The Dreadnoughts built it for him as an additional token of thanks so his people could defend against future enemies with powerful weapons.”
“You’re talking about the armory,” Leera said.
“Exactly. He fashioned all the non-Dreadnought equipment with it.”
“But how can we use it?” Leera pressed, holding Augum’s hand tightly, as if savoring the touch. “Because it won’t be long until that divining rod brings him right to us in here.”
“Precisely,” Bridget said, pacing. “That’s what we want.”
Leera shook her head. “I don’t understand—”
“Yes you do,” Augum said. “We even practiced a little something like it using our imagination—” but just as he finished speaking, there was a black flash. They turned to see the Lord of the Legion striding toward them, black demon body stark against the infinite whiteness. Blackened bones protruded from singed flesh. The divining rod was tucked in his belt, glowing subtly. Burden’s Edge hung sheathed on his hip. Six scions revolved around his head, each tinted by its element.
“Slippery, slippery,” the man said, wagging a finger. He idly flicked a piece of dirt from one of his armor spikes. “I do not know how you escaped me, nor how you entered a 20th degree Trainer—and I would be lying if I told you I was not thoroughly impressed—but run again you shall not. Your friends are being held hostage by my minions. You understand, of course, that one word from me and they perish. That is why—and this is for the last blasted time—you shall now hand over the scion and the body of my wife.”
Augum calmly paced to his spot around the great sphere. “You want to know where my mother, the wife that you murdered, is?”
“Tell me and I may spare you.”
“Very well then.” Augum straightened. The moment had come. He looked to Bridget and Leera. They had edged to opposite sides of the magnifier, taking their positions. This was it. One final shot. Live or die. Triumph or defeat.
Augum glanced to the girls one last time, expressing his love for them with his eyes, and feeling that love returned with soft looks. He then summoned all his courage and leveled a steely gaze upon his former father, Sparkstone, the Lord of the Legion, the Lord of Dreadnoughts, the Lord of Death. The scion repeatedly flashed with silent bolts of lightning by his ear. The buzz was wasp loud.
“As per her wishes, my mother, Terra Titan Stone, was burned in a sacred memorial fire. She was burned in the old way.”
The Lord of the Legion staggered as if hit with a mortal blow.
“You will never bring Terra Titan back,” Augum added in a near whisper. “She will never suffer you again. The mother I did not get to know because of you … is gone forever.”
The Lord of the Legion gave an anguished cry before unleashing a mighty roar of pain that seemed to fill the eternal vastness of that white space.
Augum tensed, readying for the blow that was sure to come.
“You … you took the last part of me that was human,” Lividius said in a wavering voice. “You … you took her from me. You took her from me!” The man began to expand. Long black claws exploded from his fingers as his skin scaled over. Giant black wings burst from his back. His skull head elongated into a scaly snout with rows of jagged black teeth. “YOU TOOK HER FROM ME, AND NOW I SHALL MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE!”
The demon wraith slammed his wrists together at Leera, roaring, “ANNIHILO MUERTO!”
But Leera was ready. She had understood the plan. She extended her hand, pointing the reflecting prism a certain, precise way, shouting, “MIMICA!”
Everything that happened next was almost instantaneous. The powerful blast shattered the prism and sent Leera flying backward—but not before rebounding straight into the magnifier, shooting out from the other side, brighter and more ferocious, directly at Bridget, who had strategically placed herself across from Leera.
“MIMICA!” Bridget shouted, catching and reflecting the blast once more through the magnifier. She too was sent flying, her prism shattered.
And lastly, the thick black bolt of lightning reached Augum, for the unwitting Lord of the Legion had not noticed that he too had placed himself in a triangulating position.
He caught the massive bolt with his carefully positioned reflecting prism. In that brief instance, he summoned every iota of his arcane strength, applying every teeth-gritting breakthrough he had ever achieved, every lesson read or uttered by Mrs. Stone and Jez and Bridget and Leera and all those who had loved him and been his friend. He took this enormous well of power and love and added the scion and the tuning and his Spirit Form into it, amplifying the bolt to Unnameable proportions.
Strangely and also in that instant, he caught a brief flash of three figures dancing a final mortal dance, a man and two women. All at once, they came together with explosive force. The sight burned into his brain in afterglow.
The reflecting prism shattered in Augum’s hands, sending him flying, but not before he witnessed the now man-sized bolt smash through the magnifier, instantly scaling to the size of a house, before crashing through the demon wraith like a meteor blasting through a cockroach.
Augum landed with a thud against the hard, white ground a distance away. He groaned as he scrambled to his feet, immediately checking where the Lord of the Legion had stood. All that remained was a long smear of soot and ash.
For a moment he only gaped, disbelieving that had happened, before finally hurrying to Leera, who was slow getting up. Her hands were as bloody as his. Like him, she had nicks and bruises all over. Her robe was in tatters, face smeared with blood and soot.
“Ugh …” she moaned as he dragged her to her feet.
“All right?” he asked softly, giving her a gentle hug and kiss.
“Peachy. And Bridge?”
They went to her and helped her stand.
“He … he dead?” Bridget asked blearily.
Augum glanced over to the streak of ashes scattered along the white ground. He couldn’t quite believe it, but the man was dead—
Then he saw it. Oh no. No, no, no, no …
Leera had to steady herself on Augum, her voice cracking. “Something’s moving … something’s moving!”
They rushed over.
Bridget’s hand shot to cover her mouth. “The scions …”
The six orbs had popped out from the ash and were working in harmony to regenerate the man, zooming between the ash, rapidly reforming undead flesh. It was some kind of powerful necromantic arcanery that transcended the grave. It had to have been fused with the scions somehow, just like Augum’s scion allowed his Spirit Form to fuse with the castle.
Suddenly Augum noticed the divining rod lying forlorn nearby. Its glow had ceased. Its glow had ceased! A profound understanding abruptly came to him, one imparted by a certain soul who had been trying to reach him all this time. He saw the afterglow of those three figures locked in a mortal final dance. But it had not been a dance … it had been a duel!
“I don’t believe it, he’s regenerating,” Leera said in a faint whisper as they drew near. “He’s invincible …”
Yet as a deathly hand began to form within the ashes, Augum smiled at Bridget and Leera. The girls returned his smile with confused horror, perhaps mistaking it for gallows humor.
&nbs
p; But Augum knew. He knew. He reached out to his scion and drew it near, smiling at it too, and whispering, “Goodbye, ancient friend.” Then he calmly placed the scion into the deathly hand.
“Augum, NO—!” the girls shrieked.
But Augum summoned a great black lightning shield, thickened by the Arinthian vambrace, extending it around Bridget and Leera. There was a monstrous implosion that sucked all the air out of Augum’s lungs as a vortex appeared just beyond the shield, roaring deafeningly. Every fiber of his being felt a great pull. For a moment, he feared it would take them with it, only to suddenly close with a loud snap.
… And then there was silence.
When he disappeared his shield, his former father, Sparkstone, the Lord of the Legion, the Lord of Dreadnoughts, and the Lord of Death … was no more. The ashes and the scions were gone, leaving only two solitary objects—a black rod, and a fine Dreadnought short sword still in its sheath.
Clarity
Bridget fell to her knees, cupping her mouth. “Unnameables, it’s over.” She burst with a cry of relief. “It’s over …”
Leera wavered in Augum’s grip, looking about dazedly. “You sure? I don’t know … what if he again, you know … Aug …? Is it … over?”
Augum drew her near, whispering, “Yes.” Then he placed a hand on Bridget’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, repeating, “Yes.”
For a time, the trio just stared at the empty spot where the tyrant had stood moments before. The white floor looked so clean, so perfect; there was not a flake of soot, as if the man had never existed at all. Only Burden’s Edge and the divining rod remained to mark that anything had even happened.
“The voice I’d been hearing wasn’t Arinthian’s,” Augum finally said. “It was Mrs. Stone’s.”
The girls yelped with joy at this news.
“She had survived the crossing into Ley and had been trying to pass along a message but hadn’t been able to get through. The only clues I made out were the words ‘soul-bound’ and ‘glow’. By ‘soul-bound’, she was trying to tell me that Magua had somehow bound her soul with Sparkstone to circumvent the curse bestowed upon the scions …”
