Brandon felt himself go cold inside, felt the Storm King’s pain as the Curse’s words fell home. But not all of his house were dead. Two sons survived, along with their guardians.
His grip tightened on the hilt of the sword he held and Brandon took a step forward. He felt stronger than before. He was prepared for his fate. Prepared to meet his end. The soldiers with him raised their own weapons, prepared to follow their leader to the abyss.
The Curse laughed, a sound like breaking glass, and threw back the length of his cloak, revealing its twin pairs of arms. Each of the thing’s four arms held blades. Circular blades, the edges serrated and razor sharp, held by holes drilled into their centers. The men around Brandon charged it, though he tried to call out for them to wait.
The Curse didn’t move, standing its ground as the men ran forward. The grohlm made no move to defend the black creature among them. They were as frightened of the curse as they were of the Storm King. He was not their leader, nor was he of the mountain. Another had sent him.
The Usurper.
As the first of the men reached it, the Curse sprang to life. It spun into the men, steel flashing as it moved, and everywhere its blades touched, blood flowed, poured onto the ground. The nine all fell, screaming and dying as they had lived.
As soldiers. And Brandon waited.
As the last of the nine lay on the ground, twitching his last, the Curse stood, not a scratch on him, and faced the king. The last king of the old world.
The Storm King said nothing as he hefted his sword and charged his doom, using the last of his strength to drive through the curse’s defenses and knock back the creature’s hood. Brandon gasped, not from the pain as all four of the Curse’s blades went to work on his body, but from the face of the demon. It stared down at Brandon, a thing birthed in the blackest pits of hell. Eyes the color of freshly spilled blood filled a face carved from blackened stone, surrounded by a long mane of tangled black hair. It smiled, its teeth cracked and yellowed. Then the pain came, crashing down into Brandon like the wake of a giant wave covering everything in its path. Darkness washed over the boy and he felt his body jump, as if hit by lightning.
Chapter 25
Brandon’s eyes opened. They were his eyes, not the eyes of the dying king, but he was not home. Was he dead? Had he followed the Storm King, after all? Into Heaven? Or Hell?
He stood in the center of an enormous glass chamber. Only it wasn’t glass, he saw, but water. Water everywhere. Featureless, but moving with inner light, the floor and walls were solid water. Brandon looked around, relieved to have control of himself again. He was alone, as far as he could tell, and there didn’t seem to be any way out of the chamber.
He took a step, not sure if his foot would come down on solid ground or sink, and breathed a sigh as his foot came down and planted firm. He walked a slow circle around the room, feeling his body for any cuts or bruises. There were none. But where was he? And how did he get here?
“Put away your fears, Brandon Merryweather, Son of Storms.” A voice said, from behind him. The voice was feminine and had a musical quality that rang familiar in Brandon’s ears, though he couldn’t recall ever hearing it before. “You are as safe here as in your mother’s womb.”
Brandon spun around and bit back a shout of surprise and momentary terror.
Stepping out of the far wall, made out of shimmering water, was a woman. Perfect in every detail, except that she was not flesh and blood, she walked to the center of the room and beckoned to Brandon. “Please, come to me. We have many things to discuss.”
Brandon didn’t move, his feet rooted to the watery floor. Except for the musical quality of her voice and her silvery skin, the woman was the image of his mother. “Who are you?” He asked, proud that his voice still worked, even if it did sound a little weak. “What are you?” “I’m the Goddess, Nin’e’Veh.” She said. “I am your protector, Brandon Merryweather, Last Son of Storms. I love you.” “Nin’e’Veh?” Brandon said, testing the name out and finding that it rolled off his tongue like he‘d known it his entire life. “Where am I?”
“Please, call me Nina.” She said, bowing her head. A light twinkled inside her clear and shimmering form. It was in the center of her chest. Where her heart might have rested. It was soft and reassuring. Like the light of Heaven. She said. “That is the name your family gave to me, generations before even your grandfather lived. That is what your father called me and your father’s father before him.”
“Is that your true name?” Brandon asked. He took a slow step towards her.
She laughed, music much different from the horrible sound that the thing from his dream had made. “Nobody has ever asked me that before. Nobody since the first, who named me, over a thousand years ago. My true name would be impossible for you to pronounce and hearing it aloud would shatter your mind. Nina is close enough.”
“Is any of this real? Or is it all just a dream?”
“It’s as real as you are, Bran.” Nina made a gesture and two chairs grew up out of the floor, forming out of the same substance that the Goddess was made of. She sat down and beckoned for him to do so, as well. He did, surprised at how comfortable the seat was. Nina smiled as she looked at him. “It is nice to actually meet you, Bran. I have watched over you for so long that I feel as if I am a part of you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect your mother and father, Bran. But in this world, I am nowhere near as strong as in the old kingdom.” Her silver expression grew sad. “The rain can only do so much.”
“You made the rain?” Brandon asked, a numb feeling beginning to settle in his face and hands. “Every time something bad happened to me? When I was going to be hurt? When my dog died?”
“Skip was a good dog.” Nina said, smiling sadly. “I wish I could have saved him.” Brandon shook his head. “But why? Why do you care so much for my family?” Nina’s smile grew warm. “Because your family is my family, Bran. Your family loved me, as much as I loved them. We protected each other. I protected your father and his fathers with my power. And they, and all of their families, protected me. With their belief. Your family's faith kept me alive and powerful. I love you and your family. I hope that someday you will love me, too.”
Brandon didn’t say anything. He was still trying to digest what he was hearing. That he was so horribly wrong to hate the rain. To fear it. His mind felt like it was splintering. He was afraid he was about to flip out. He ran a hand through his hair and said. “What about that thing from my dream? That thing that killed my grandfather? What is it? Why did it kill my parents? Why does it want to kill me?”
“Sha’ha’zel is its name, Bran. The Walking Curse. He was once a man. One of the best men alive in all the old kingdoms. A Knight, like your Uncle Gerrick, Jarek Fel was the chief of your father’s protectors. A warrior without peer. But he was taken by the Usurper and twisted against your family. Bound by arcane arts, by magics that are beyond even my powers to unmake, Jarek was changed into the monster you saw through your grandfather’s eyes. He hunts you because he has no choice. The Curse is a creature to be pitied, as much as feared.”
“How can I stop him?” Brandon asked. He thought of his father and his mother, dying beneath that thing’s curved blades, and was suddenly filled with fury. An anger so strong that the white hot power of it blew away most of his fear. Most. But not all. “How do I kill it?”
The Goddess was quiet for a moment, looking thoughtfully into Brandon’s eyes. She leaned forward and placed a hand on his cheek. It was warm; not cold, as he had expected. And felt so like his mother’s touch that the anger subsided under the love that he felt flowing from the goddess. “I’m not sure that you can, Bran. I’m not sure that anybody can.” “Then why am I here? Why even show yourself to me, if there’s nothing you can do so save me?”
“Because there are some things that I can do for you, Bran. That can help you to stay alive. If you die, Brandon Merryweather, then nobody will live to remember me. To love me. And I will cease to exist
.” She sighed. “I will die.”
“I didn’t know that gods could die?”
“Everything dies, Brandon. Even gods.” She cocked her head and peered at him, silver eyes unblinking. “And if I die there will be nothing to stand in the path of the Usurper and his armies.”
Brandon met Nina’s level gaze and said. “Do you mean that those little monsters are going to come into my world? Swinging their swords at men with machine guns and rocket launchers?” He almost laughed, but stopped at the serious look in Nina’s eyes. “They wouldn’t stand a chance. Not here.”
“There are worse things than Grohlm, Bran.”
“Like what?”
“Things like the Curse.” Nina said, her voice becoming a whisper. “Things that cannot be destroyed by weapons forged by man. There is almost no real magic left in this world. It’s been cut away, burned, and covered in concrete. All for the sake of progress. So that mankind can eat meals from cardboard boxes and stare at make believe images on the flickering screens of their televisions.”
“What will happen if they come? How can I stop them, when even my grandfather couldn’t? I‘m nowhere near as strong as he was.” Brandon said. He stared at the golden light in the center of Nina’s body. It flickered slowly, in time with the beating of his heart. “Can you stop it?” “I stand guard over the doorway into this world not by choice, Bran. But because there are no gods left here to do it.” She sighed, looking at Brandon from underneath a sweep of translucent hair. “The gods of earth and fire are dead or sleeping. The gods of the ocean have been poisoned. By the machinery of industry. The winds have gone mad, destroying with no pattern or will to rule. The god of Spirit has fled into the realm of perversion, taking with it hope and reason. There is nothing left, but me. And a few of the older gods. Those too tough, or stubborn, to fade into the nothing of oblivion. None left in old world, or the new, to stop the Usurper when he decides to conquer.”
“Why tell me this, if there is nothing I can do about it?” Brandon said, his voice rising. “If all I can do is wait to die?”
“But, there is something you can do, Bran.” Nina said, standing and holding her hand out to him. He stood, facing the goddess, and felt the chamber around him tremble. The water began to move faster, swirling with an inner torrent. “You can fight to survive. The blade of your fathers can help protect you. As can the rain. It will strengthen and heal you. And there are rules that protect you from Sha’ha’Zel. Rules that the Curse is bound to obey. All of these things can help you to do as you must.” She bent and kissed his lips, her hands warm against his face. As she pulled back, her silvery gaze locked on his, she whispered. “You must live, Brandon Merryweather.”
She fell, her body melting and sinking into the floor, just as the chamber melted around Brandon, the floor becoming insubstantial under his feet. Brandon tried to step back, but his feet sank into the water, the liquid sucking greedily at his legs. Suddenly, the walls and ceiling crashed down on him, the water surging around him as if whipped up by a storm.
Brandon should have panicked. Should have tried to swim and save himself. But, for some strange reason, he was completely calm. He knew why all these strange things were happening to him. And what he was supposed to do. Letting the water twist and pull him in its raging current, Brandon let his arms stretch out on either side of him, his fingers cutting gleaming trails through the water. He could feel strength filling his body, overflowing from within him.
The liquid around him was no longer water. He could feel it moving inside of him as he breathed it deep into his lungs, letting it fill him with its comforting warmth. It was the goddess, surrounding and protecting him. Nina was making her life his own. Showing him what he now knew was true.
He wasn’t just plain, ordinary Brandon Merryweather. Not anymore. He was much more. He was the Son of Storms. The last of the Storm Kings.
And he had to survive. To defeat Sha’ha’Zel and his minions. No matter the cost.
Chapter 26
Tina was riding her skateboard across the cracked and uneven pavement of the old mill’s parking lot when she first heard the sound. It came from the larger of the two empty silos. A low keening moan, like an animal in pain. But, to Tina, the sound was eerily human.
Tina was alone, as she almost always was, and skating across the litter strewn lot with no particular thing on her mind. Except, maybe, trying to slide down the handrail flanking the steps that led to the abandoned work building. She had never grinded anything that tall before and was feeling brave.
When she heard the noise, the low moaning sound, Tina changed course, rolling over toward the silo. She didn’t feel any sense of foreboding as she moved toward her impending death.
She was curious. And a little worried. The doors to those silos were welded shut, but that didn’t mean that some stupid kid couldn’t find a way to get stuck inside. Kicking her board up and carrying it in her right hand, Tina stepped through the overgrown grass and approached the silo on the door side. The ladder (The same one that Brandon and Claire used to climb to the top of the silo) was on the other side of the bin, out of Tina’s sight.
She moved carefully, not wanting to make any noise as she approached the faint sounds coming from inside the rusted piece of hollow steel. The sounds were strange. Low moaning and something that sounded like growling. Was it a person or an animal? She reached the door, noticing that the welds that normally held it closed had popped, and stopped. Though the welds were broken, the door was closed tight. It didn’t have a handle. Instead, it had a wheel that you turned to close and seal the door. Tina leaned her skateboard against the silo and touched the wheel. The sounds intensified and she thought that she heard her name, whispered somewhere amid the cacophony. “Is there somebody in there?” She asked, trying to keep the sound of her fear out of her voice. The sounds from inside the silo stopped dead. Tina frowned and said. “Hello? Is there anybody there?”
From somewhere inside the silo, she heard a low, long moan and two words.
“Help…us…”
Tina leaned close to the door, pressing her ear against the cold steel, and listened as hard as she could. She spoke to who was inside. “How did you get in there? Are you trapped? Are you hurt?”
She spoke so softly, almost a whisper, that she didn’t think she would get an answer. But one came. A voice that sounded like a child’s. “Yes…”
Though Tina was friends with Claire, she had never met Brandon Merryweather. Or his uncle. She was in the cafeteria the day that Brandon and the Kruegers fought in the bathroom. She got to watch Brandon take his bow. She decided, right there, that Brandon Merryweather was the coolest guy she’d ever seen. She’d not had the opportunity to talk to him, though, and she would never get the chance.
If she had talked to Brandon, or his uncle, and had asked them about the noises coming from inside that silo, Tina might not have been so quick to open the jammed door. But she hadn’t talked to them, so she had no idea of the things that were lurking in the empty hills, surrounding the town. The Merryweathers, themselves, had no inkling of what was loose in Matheson.
Not yet.
Both Gerrick and Brandon believed that they still had time on their side. That things were still in hand. Neither knew how wrong they were. But Tina was about to find out.
Tina decided that the voice belonged to a child. She couldn’t tell if it was a girl or a boy. They had somehow gotten the door to the silo open, then were trapped when the door closed behind them. She called out to the child, never thinking that her life was about to end horribly. And painfully. “I’m going to try and open the door. Just hold on, okay?”
The kid didn’t say anything. Tina was convinced that it was a little girl in there. Maybe hurt? Maybe, hurt badly? She stood up, grabbing hold of the wheel, and tugged it, testing how tight it was. It didn’t want to turn. Not at all. She braced her feet and pulled with all her strength. The rusted metal creaked and squealed but the wheel held tight.
Sweat beaded on Tina’s forehead. She was a pretty girl, with coffee colored skin and silky black hair. Gritting her teeth, she set herself to try again. She had no more than caught a hold of the wheel when the door squealed loudly and fell open, revealing a square of inky blackness. She stumbled back from the dark hole, nearly hitting the ground when the door fell open. She stood in front of the open door and waited for the kid to come running out.
But no relieved child came out into the light. And no sound, either. Tina called out, the fear inside her making her voice crack, and took a step towards the black doorway. “Hello? Are you there?”
No answer.
You’re not going to go in there, are you? A small voice said inside her head. The voice sounded a lot like her best friend, Emily. You go in there and you might not come out. You know that. Tina wanted very badly to listen to the voice. To grab her board and haul ass for home, which was only a mile, or so, away. The door was open and whoever was inside could come out when they wanted to. She didn’t have to go in and get them.
“But what if they’re hurt?” She said aloud, answering the voice of her friend. Emily didn’t have anything to say to that. She took another tentative step towards the opening, her pulse pounding loud inside of her skull, and thought that she would bolt, whatever her head said. She stood at the edge of the doorway, peering into the darkness, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to stir.
There was something there, in the darkness, looking out at her. She could feel its eyes crawling over her body.
“Quit being stupid.” She said. Taking a breath, Tina stepped over the threshold and entered the darkness. She felt the cold immediately; a deep sinking cold that seemed to leech the heat from her body as soon as the darkness clamped down on her. She was only a couple of steps into the silo but, when she turned, the rectangle of light seemed to be miles away.
She heard a sound at the rear of the silo. A rustling noise, low and furtive in the black. Another, to her left. She cried out, her voice muted in the oppressive dark. “Who’s there? Please, say something.”
Rain Of Stone (The Merryweather Chronicles Book 1) Page 12
