AWOL

by Traci Harding

  ‘Get a medium in here, now!’ Captain Vishketah ordered through her headset.

  Finally! Clarona was exulted when a Valourean entered whom she knew to be qualified.

  ‘Do you see me?’

  ‘Qusay!’ The clairvoyant knelt and alarmed her comrades. ‘Qusay?’ the captain queried, turning pale.

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed the medium, ‘I see the spirit form of the Qusay Clarona right there!’

  ‘But?’ The captain couldn’t understand it. ‘Why would our Qusay be in spirit form?’

  ‘Because my body is trapped in the vault you are trying to shut down! Prochazka put me there!’

  The medium conveyed this to her superior, who gasped and got straight on her headset to alert the rest of the queen’s guard. ‘In the name of the Qusay-Sabah Clarona, General Prochazka is to be apprehended, all her orders and powers of command are revoked!’

  An alert sounded from the control panel. ‘Power out in the vault, Captain,’ the Valourean monitoring the system was alarmed to advise.

  ‘Then reboot!’ the captain ordered, and then spoke into her headset. ‘Get the vault open —’ She paused, looking shocked. ‘It is open!’ She marvelled at the stroke of luck. ‘Did you say a little boy?’

  Clarona felt her control over her spirit form lapsing. ‘Oh no …’ Her conscious awareness slipped into darkness.

  The sound of moaning stirred Taren, and when she moved, her entire body cried out in agony and her own moans joined the chorus in the room. Her muscles ached, her head was throbbing and her heart was beating way too fast. ‘Argh!’ She managed to roll over, and realised where she was: the blast had landed her here on the outer wall of the Qusay’s room of court.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Swithin peeled himself off the floor in front of the throne where he’d been thrown and dragged himself up onto it. ‘I feel like I’ve had the life sucked right out of me.’

  Ringbalin, close by him, nodded in complete empathy with that assessment.

  Clearly all of them were experiencing the same lethargy.

  ‘My power is zapped,’ Jazmay droned, having made it to a seated position.

  Upon hearing this Taren tried to exert her Powers to help get herself upright, and her fear was confirmed. ‘Prochazka has taken Kalayna’s weapon to a whole new level …’ Taren pulled her Juju stone from her armband, to note that it now looked like a regular piece of shale. ‘Oh damn.’

  They had no protection whatsoever! If the blast had been powerful enough to neutralise their Juju stones, only heaven knew how long their Powers would be impaired.

  ‘We have to get out of here.’ Taren managed to stagger her way up to standing, but it was an effort even to talk. ‘They will kill us all.’

  Even the threat of death couldn’t roust enough energy from the crew to drag their heavy bodies off the floor, some of them were still not even conscious, and the thought of rallying them all caused Taren to stagger in her stance — all she wanted was to fall down and sleep for a year!

  ‘Get up!’ Lucian made it to his feet and gave Yasper a nudge with his foot to get him conscious. ‘That’s an order.’

  ‘Thurraya!’ Aurora grabbed the doorknob of the door she’d been thrown against, and hauled herself up to check the door was still locked. ‘Open this door!’ She slammed her hands against it when it would not open.

  The sound of all the doors unbolting at once sent an alarming cold shiver through Taren’s entire being. Too late.

  Time and perception slipped into slow motion as the doors to the courtroom burst open, and Valoureans entered, laser guns blazing.

  Aurora, being so close to the door, was hit point blank in the forehead — her brains shooting out the back of her skull as she fell to the ground.

  Mythric turned and wrapped his arms around Satomi, and was shot three times in the back before he collapsed to the floor on top of her.

  Jazmay pulled her weapons, and managed to stun three of the Valoureans, before her weapons were drawn into the hands of her enemy, who then shot her in the chest.

  In the horror of the moment, her heart and mind both screaming in objection to the twist of fate she was helpless to prevent, Taren had a blinding moment of clarity — she had to protect the healers.

  Swithin had already jumped behind the huge throne he’d been seated upon and was returning fire. Amie was shot as she ran to join him.

  Ringbalin stood stunned, like an animal caught in headlights awaiting its death.

  Taren drew her weapons as she threw herself at him. ‘Live!’ She pressed the guns into his arms and barged him out of the line of fire and behind the cover of the throne. Her body rebounded violently from several shocking impacts in her back that tore right through her body, and she fell face-first back to the ground.

  ‘Taren!’ she heard Lucian calling from somewhere behind her, but all she could see in her eye line across the floor was Ringbalin’s mournful face as he cried in protest to her deed.

  Her body, emotions and mental reasoning felt frozen — she was numb to the pain of her injuries, and even to the outcome of their struggle. Yet, as her perspective suddenly shifted and she was flipped onto her back to find Lucian leaning over her, she panicked. ‘Take … cover …’

  He was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t hear him; there was so much yelling going on in the room, everyone was shouting.

  ‘… it’s over —’

  She heard that much. Was he giving up?

  ‘Look!’ Lucian directed her to someone else who was now crouching over her, and with her last conscious breath Taren recognised the face. Mother.

  ‘Why did you land us so far away from our target?’ Thurraya complained as they traversed the dead forest in near darkness. She was dragging him forwards in the direction he’d said they needed to go, as he had a firm grip on her hand.

  ‘Because I want to observe what we are walking into,’ he explained, having a mental battle about running with the whim of a six-year-old girl while there was a crisis going down in the palace.

  ‘Hold on.’ She stopped still and looked to the silhouette of the trees ahead against the fading light of the evening sky. ‘This place is significant.’

  ‘Significant?’ Not really the kind of word that was part of his daughter’s everyday vocabulary. He felt his daughter tremble, but it was not from cold. ‘You’ve never been here before,’ he advised. ‘Not in this timeline, anyway.’

  ‘Yes I have,’ she replied, her trembling intensifying. ‘A very long time ago.’ She withdrew her hand from Zeven’s grasp with a single tug that was beyond her tiny capability. ‘The pit where we finished our bloody revolution is just through those trees.’ She pointed in the direction of the sacrificial altar that was not yet in eye shot.

  ‘Thurraya?’ Zeven suddenly got the feeling that he was not addressing his daughter any more.

  ‘This is the Cathedral of Trees,’ she said mournfully. ‘Once the most renowned and beautiful natural formations on this planet, or anywhere in the United Systems! It was a place of worship to our ancestors for countless eons, before my generation damned its vibrational energy with our wars and hatred of one another.’

  Now Zeven knew it wasn’t his daughter he was reasoning with. Prior experience had taught him that the conscious awareness of the late queen of Phemoria had been lying dormant in her young namesake, in wait for the opportunity to set her past mistakes to right.

  ‘But as dead as it appears to mortal eyes, there are still elementals here,’ she noted, ‘waiting patiently in the sub-planes to restore the balance.’

  ‘Thurraya is an adaptor, yet she talks about elementals all the time.’ Zeven had wondered about this. ‘Does she get this talent from you?’

  ‘She draws her power from her environs,’ she replied, ‘and nature has more Powers than any human.’ She strode off towards the edge of the tree line.

  ‘Please.’ Zeven was hot on her heels. ‘That’s my six-year-old daughter you are using to seek recompense
with. If you intend to slit her throat in order that you might lead the souls of your people out of here, I need other people present to save her life when you de—’ Zeven was struck dumb as he caught sight of their destination.

  The sacrificial platform was ablaze in a ring of fire. The Soul Keep bubbled away in the centre, and a huge flaming entity was rising from the molten liquid as Prochazka and Khalid cowered before it.

  ‘—part,’ Zeven finished his sentence, stunned beyond rational thought for a moment. ‘She combined the curses.’ The notion sent shockwaves through his being, and then a sudden shock of pain stabbed through his arm where his Juju stone was placed. ‘Argh!’ The pain paralysed him, and as an intense feeling of dread swept over him, it took a few deep breaths to prevent himself being sick. ‘Something very bad has happened.’ Was this woeful premonition a result of the scene before him?

  This was not at all how this situation had looked the last time they’d gathered here to banish the Phemoray, and Zeven’s first instinct was to grab his daughter and get her the hell out of there.

  ‘Thurraya.’ He looked down to explain his misgivings to find her absent. ‘Oh, shit no.’ He turned his harrowed sights to the event unfolding in the distance, where his daughter had reappeared in between Khalid and the general. ‘I’m there.’ He shifted location just as swiftly.

  ‘Stay back.’

  Zeven had no sooner arrived on the scene than his daughter rebounded him out of the way, using his own PK against him.

  ‘Will you kill your Qusay?’ The child confronted the general, who was gripping the grimoire under one arm, whilst her other hand, crippled in agony by the ring burning hot on her skin, struggled to maintain her aim at Khalid — the girl was blocking her line of sight.

  ‘Thurraya,’ Prochazka uttered — although they had never met, Prochazka clearly recognised her and diverted her aim. ‘You should not be here, Highness.’

  ‘This child should not be your Highness,’ Thurraya retorted, ‘but since you have made it so, I command you to yield!’

  ‘Kill her!’ the entity of fire raged. ‘Then we will have done away with them all.’

  ‘You need to leave.’ Prochazka raised her weapon, her hand trembling as it struggled against her intention.

  ‘No!’ Zeven got himself to his feet and moved to intervene, but an unseen force was holding him back and Khalid also.

  ‘If you kill this child, you wipe out the royal line you swore to protect, then the curse will have you. I penned that book you are holding as safeguard against a situation like this unfolding.’ Ray eyed it over with regret. ‘I was deluded to think I could wield such power over the dead without recompense, and the price Phemoria has paid for my foolishness is already insurmountable. Hence I have returned to this world to relieve you of the burden that should never have been yours to carry.’

  ‘Thurraya … slayer of men?’ Prochazka’s eyes boggled and welled with tears, at a child’s suggestion that she was addressing the great sorceress incarnate.

  ‘Not a title I am proud of any more.’ She glanced back to Khalid and Zeven. ‘There are some amazing men incarnate at this time, and I was wrong to judge them all by the standards of the king I slayed.’

  ‘She is a lying little bitch! My father was a great man!’ the entity fumed. It will be my pleasure to send my mother to her grave all over again … so do it!’

  ‘Argh!’ Prochazka resisted the demon’s painful compulsion to comply, and dropped the book to the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ Thurraya encouraged her. ‘Now drop your weapon and give me the ring, lest you become another victim of this curse.’

  Prochazka shook her head. ‘I have this.’

  ‘That’s a girl.’ The demon felt he had the upper hand.

  ‘You are too important to risk,’ Prochazka told Thurraya, even as battling her inner demons brought tears to her eyes.

  ‘This curse is not contained,’ Thurraya warned. ‘Part of it is still on your finger, you must toss it to the flames!’

  Prochazka wept when she realised the oversight, and then laughed in the face of her own undoing. ‘My first priority has always been Phemoria.’

  ‘I know,’ Thurraya replied in earnest. ‘This moment would never have been possible, were it not for your devotion to freeing your Qusay from the curse that I unwittingly unleashed. Phemoria is in your debt.’

  ‘Kill her or I will consume you,’ Chironjivi threatened, and when the general dropped the weapon and served him the finger, her entire hand burst into flame, and she cried out in agony. The flaming limb reached out towards Thurraya.

  ‘No!’ Prochazka threw herself backwards to the ground, to struggle with the entity that was fast consuming her. The ring was melting into her burning flesh, and was impossible to remove. ‘You want me?’ Prochazka raised her half-flaming body to its feet and turned to confront her attacker. ‘Then consume this, motherfucker!’ She took a running jump and launched herself into the molten vat.

  ‘NO!’ the entity wailed — there was nothing this curse hated worse than the blood of a fearless martyr — and as her body disappeared into the smelter, the entity diminished significantly.

  ‘Thurraya!’ Zeven continued to bounce off the invisible barrier, wanting to shield his daughter from the gruelling sight.

  ‘Fear not,’ she called back to him, seemingly serene as she watched the flaming entity flailing and cursing its loss of control. ‘Our success is assured now; the good general has supplied us all the names we need to reverse this curse.’ She walked over and retrieved the grimoire from the ground where it had fallen, and then looked back to Khalid. ‘I believe between us there is not a soul who cannot be accounted for.’

  Khalid moved passed the barrier to join Thurraya, and yet Zeven was still restrained.

  ‘I want to know what your intentions are regarding my daughter.’ Zeven felt unprepared for what he knew was coming.

  ‘Chironjivi,’ Thurraya turned to the smelter and held out her hand. ‘Come to mother.’

  A tiny drop of liquid rose from the smelter and cooled into the amulet that had once bound the evil entity to Khalid, then the item flew into Thurraya’s possession.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Zeven objected, as Prochazka had just given her life to contain the curse. ‘Khalid, you have to do something!’

  ‘I am doing what I know is best.’ Khalid took possession of the amulet.

  Thurraya looked back to Zeven, disturbed by his objections. ‘Your daughter shall remember nothing of this rite, I promise.’

  ‘She won’t if she’s dead, you mean?’ Zeven barged the invisible barrier, only to be bounced back.

  ‘Best that there are no witnesses,’ Thurraya outlined, as Zeven’s consciousness suddenly took leave.

  As Zeven stirred he was looking at the stars in the night sky, sparkling brightly, as they darted all over the place. What? He shook his head and looked again, and the moving stars vanished. Only the usual nightscape of fixed stars were glistening about the moons shedding light upon the landscape. ‘Weird.’ He sat up and realised where he was. Thurraya! The thought compelled him to his feet.

  The smelter was in darkness now, all the commotion had died down and Khalid was kneeling by the sacrificial altar, where a single tiny body was laid.

  ‘What have you done?’ Zeven scaled the stairs and pulled Khalid away from her; he went down beside her in his stead. ‘Thurraya?’ She was very still.

  ‘She’s only sleeping,’ Khalid advised. ‘We’ve spent hours drawing the individual souls and their offerings from the furnace to free them from the curse and then we burned the grimoire. When we were done, I dismissed the spirit of the first true Qusay to its eternal rest … Ray is just a little exhausted from the channelling.’

  Zeven gave a deep sigh of relief on one level, but this was a worry on another. ‘But if you dismissed Thurraya’s spirit, who shall lead the souls of the dead out of here?’ As he asked this, Zeven wondered if these souls were the moving stars he thought he�
�d seen upon his return to consciousness.

  ‘I shall lead them,’ Khalid advised, sounding completely at peace with that decision.

  ‘What? No, you can’t!’ Zeven objected, realising it meant the end of the road for their friendship.

  ‘Why not?’ Khalid challenged with a grin. ‘Afraid you’ll miss me?’

  ‘I will miss you,’ Zeven insisted. ‘Isn’t there another way —’

  Khalid shook his head. ‘This is the only reason I came back from Karmandi … now I can return.’

  ‘Aw, man,’ Zeven was disappointed. ‘I saved your life just so I can watch you off yourself?’

  ‘I’m not going to off myself.’ Khalid found this amusing.

  ‘You’re not expecting me to do it?’ Zeven hoped. ‘’Cause killing was never really my thing.’

  Khalid was laughing out loud now and Zeven had no idea what was so amusing.

  ‘Look, I know I’m a little cosmically challenged,’ he freely admitted, whereby Khalid laughed even harder. ‘You wanna tell me what’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing really, you’ve been a good friend, Grigorian,’ Khalid granted. ‘Without you I would never have remembered any of our adventures, or who I really am.’

  ‘Our time in the last universe was pretty radical.’ Zeven grinned as he reminisced.

  ‘Our time in the dark universe was even more so,’ Khalid added.

  ‘But you weren’t one of the Grigori?’ Not to the best of Zeven’s recollections.

  ‘No,’ Khalid concurred. ‘Not one of the Grigori.’ Khalid shook off his physical form, as easily as Ahura once had, and the light-filled apparition of undulating colour who remained was so brilliant that Zeven was forced to shield his eyes. ‘I’ll be waiting for you in Karmandi.’

  ‘Samyaza?’ As Zeven lowered his hands to take a guess, the site fell back into darkness and he was left with his sleeping daughter and an empty metal smelter. As his eyes adjusted to the moonlight, he noted how quiet it was here — even the insects avoided this place.

  There was nothing to indicate that any huge transformation had taken place here this night, but being here no longer made his skin crawl — on the contrary the ambience was quite serene. The Juju stone on his arm was not aching any more, his daughter was alive, Khalid had found his people and there was now nothing to hinder Azazèl-mindoscoomra-dorchi from withdrawing to another universe unencumbered one year from now.