by J. R. Wagner
In his state of intense concentration, James realized his hearing had returned. He had been so singularly bent upon the finger-like sensation that he’d ignored everything else. It had a familiarity, this new sound, but James could not place it. The fingers abruptly stopped along with the noise he was so desperate to identify. A new sound, different from anything he’d heard previously, filled his ears. He realized along with this sound, his body was moving. He could feel his body writhe in synchronization with the sound. He could feel his hands beneath his body. He tried to move them, but they would not respond. His feet, splayed out to his side, were likewise unresponsive to his commands.
He tried to open his eyes once again. He wasn’t sure if he’d accomplished his goal because the world around him remained dark. His body stilled. James grew anxious as his continued attempts to gain control over his body failed. Is this what the Never is? To live in darkness without feeling? he wondered. The horror of it consumed him. A sound pierced the darkness. It took a moment for James to realize he was crying out, wailing in the darkness. He forced himself to cease. He slowed his breathing, concentrating on the air passing over his tongue and mouth. It made a raspy bubbling sound as it escaped his body, and he realized that he must be lying in a shallow pool of water. He exhaled hard and his suspicions were confirmed as he heard the water blow away from his mouth. He could feel the dampness and began to shiver.
Light, beautiful, immediate, and warming, filled his eyes, and he could see. He took in his surroundings. Everything was green. He could feel the warmth of the light filling his body. He tried again to move his hands, and they responded. He could feel his fingers twitching beneath his body. He tried his toes. They likewise responded. In an instant, he could move his entire body.
James rolled over and sat up. He realized that he was surrounded by plants with leaves wider across than his outstretched arms. Above him towered trees larger than any he had ever seen. The trunks of these giants were shrouded in green moss. The lowest branches hung stories above. The canopy was so far away he couldn’t make out any details. He shivered again and realized that he was completely naked. He looked down at the place where he had been lying. A bed of leaves still held the imprint of his body. Several inches of water filled the depression.
James scanned his surroundings. All he could see were tree trunks and the giant-leaf, ground-dwelling plants. He tried to determine which direction the light was coming from, but, curiously, there were no shadows. He took a deep breath and struggled to remember an incantation that would have come easily to him previously. Finally, he plucked it from the recesses of his mind. He held out his hand and expelled the ancient language from the depths of his lungs. “ Errelebatu,” he said. Nothing happened. He stood perplexed for a moment. He wondered if he had mispronounced it, so he tried it again. Each attempt was met with the same result: nothing. He tried other incantations, dozens of them. Each yielded nothing.
Frustrated and cold, he realized he needed to move. He picked a direction and headed out. As he brushed past one of the giant-leaf plants, he jumped back in pain and alarm. He looked down at his thigh. Blood seeped from an incision that stretched from hip to knee. He instinctively raised his hand and attempted a healing incantation, but he was again unsuccessful. He cursed, frustrated. James lifted the giant leaf and inspected its underside. Thousands of needle-sharp protrusions stood ready to ward off any animal foolish enough to be lured by the succulent-looking foliage. He looked up again hoping to find a direction less choked with the giant-leaf plants. They littered the forest floor in every direction. He let out a breath and continued more cautiously on his way.
— 3 -
The Accident
December 1894, England
Margaret felt a hand on her forehead. She opened her eyes, hoping against hope that it was all a dream. The moment her vision focused she knew her nightmare was a reality. Her husband was dead.
Tabitha Ogilvy stood over her with a concerned look on her face. “You must rise. We cannot delay any longer,” she said.
All Margaret wanted to do was grieve for her slain husband. He had fallen just hours ago and already she was being told it was time to move on. Those past few hours had torn at her insides. She’d questioned everything that had directed her life for the past eight years. She questioned whether the fight was worth such loss. Alvaro had risen to power and the followers of Akil had been forced into hiding. She, her husband, and their son had spent the better part of the past eight years moving from place to place in order to protect James from Alvaro’s people. Men and women had died to protect them. In the end, even her husband’s life was lost in protection of her son.
She had no doubt in James’s superior abilities. Within a year her husband had to search for a more suitable instructor because James’s talents had surpassed his own. Over the past eight years, James had been instructed by nearly fifty teachers. Each had been certain James was gifted. Some even suspected he may be the Anointed One, the one spoken of by the Seer. Still, Margaret would not tip her hand.
Margaret had insisted that none of his instructors tell James of their suspicions. She believed he should discover his gifts on his own. In the end, it was his father who had shared the information about the Seer’s declaration with James. Stuart found it impossible to refuse the boy-the love of his life.
James took the news of his father’s death with shock, quickly followed by indifference. Margaret was amazed at his resilience. The only constants in his life were his parents, and now at the age of ten, he had lost his father. Not wanting to show him any weakness, Margaret rose at the beckoning of Tabitha, and mustered the strength to finish what her husband had begun.
James sat alone in the cavernous hall. His shoulders slumped in grief. At ten years of age he was already taller than his mother. His long, dark hair hung in his face. Margaret approached, allowing her footfalls to be heard so as not to surprise him as she so often did. Long ago they each had perfected their silent travel abilities. James lifted his head slowly. Margaret whispered an incantation that brought natural-looking light into the hall, reducing its gloominess.
“Son, I know your distress-”
“I killed him.”
“What?” she asked, shocked.
“It’s my fault. I’m the reason he’s dead.”
“James, you had nothing to do with your father’s death. Why do you speak so?”
“You weren’t there. I killed him. I killed all of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were trapped. There were nearly two dozen of Alvaro’s men in the forest. They had cast some kind of spell that prevented us from transporting. Father said he would create a diversion and I was to run to our safe point and wait for him. I ran and waited, but they captured him. I heard him arguing with them… then they were gone. I went looking for him.”
Tears began to stream down his face. Margaret’s sympathy for her son as well as her own grief kept her from pressing him for details, from asking him why he went looking for his father when he was explicitly instructed never to do so in the event his father was captured.
“It was easy to find Alvaro’s men. So easy that I thought that they were laying a trap for me, but I didn’t care. I dispatched three guards outside with enchanted arrows. I snuck inside and saw father. They were hurting him. Then it happened.”
“What happened?” Margaret asked, more than a little frightened at the detached manner in which her son was describing taking human lives.
“I saw that he was hurt and needed my help. I tried to run to him. They attacked me. I felt this power in my chest. It burned. I screamed and everything went black for a moment. When I could see again, everyone was lying on the ground dead, including father. I killed him. I killed all of them.”
Margaret was shaking. She hadn’t been there when James returned with his father’s body, but Tabitha had. James sent messengers to Tabitha to deliver the news. Before Tabitha had found Margaret in the city library, where
Margaret had been looking for a book her husband had requested, she felt it. The bond had been broken and torn from her chest as if someone had reached inside her and pulled at her heart until it ripped free from her body.
James had sat alone with his dead father for several hours. The thought made Margaret’s body quiver. Now he was telling her he was responsible for his father’s death. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it.
“Son, you don’t know what happened. You cannot blame yourself for something over which you had no control,” she replied.
“I felt it. I felt the power in me. It exploded out of me like… like water from a geyser. I know what happened.”
“We will figure this out. Know this, my son. Your father would have died without a moment’s hesitation or regret a thousand times over to save you. You’ve brought so much joy and pride into our lives, and I will do everything in my power to continue his work. We must honor your father by continuing along the path he’s laid for us. Now, rise, my son.”
The boy paused for a moment, then stood with the stiffness of a much older man. He met his mother’s eyes through locks of charcoal-black hair.
“We must go. We are no longer safe here. We’ve stayed too long already, and I bear the burden of that blame. We must not be consumed by guilt. Let us be motivated by our quest to honor those who have fallen. Gather your things, we haven’t much time.”
— 4 -
The Black Castle
Blood wept from wounds covering most of his body. With each step, James left a puddle of blood in his wake. Despite his best efforts to protect his skin from the ferocity of the giant-leaf plants’ underbellies, he had failed. There were too many. He only hoped he could find the edge of the forest before he bled to death. If the needles of the plants were poisonous, he surely would have felt it by now. He knew he must keep moving, so onward he trod, to his death or to salvation from this godforsaken forest. The forest began to spin, and his breath came in short gasps. He focused on something in the distance and realized he was looking at a body of water. He began to run. The feel of air passing over his injuries brought tears to his eyes. He plunged through the last line of plants and onto the sandy shore. He ran for the water, which rippled in the breeze.
The instant he submerged his ankle he let out a cry he believed himself incapable of. The seething, burning pain of his wounds dwarfed anything he had ever felt. His legs weakened, and he fell into the water. For an instant, the pain reached its apex. He tried to cry out again, but water rushed into his lungs. He quickly got to his knees and coughed up the salty water. Blood surrounded him like a halo on the water’s surface. Small fish began nibbling at the shorn flesh of his legs. He tried to focus his eyes, but he could only make out blobs of white. He closed them tight. All he could feel was the gentle pressure of the water encasing his body. James opened his eyes. This time he could make out the beach and the forest behind. To his right, the sandy shore wrapped around and out of sight until it was consumed entirely by the water. To his left, the sand tapered into small rocks, which grew into boulders until cliffs rose up in geometric pieces as if a beast fell dead and all that remained of its carcass was its spine.
Could this be a lake? he thought. He couldn’t imagine a lake being so vast that the opposite shore wouldn’t be visible on a perfectly clear day. He decided he was lying in an ocean.
He trudged slowly out of the water onto the beach, not noticing that the wounds covering his body only seconds ago had healed. James hadn’t seen anything living-save the oversize plant life-since he’d regained consciousness hours, perhaps days earlier. Suddenly he began to feel his body move. Before he could resist, he was lured down the coast by an invisible band toward cliffs far in the distance.
His body acted yet his mind lay dormant. It was neither present nor aware of the actions of his body as he crawled over the rocks that gave way to boulders, and then to the base of a cliff. When he’d reached the cliff face, whatever had a hold on his mind withdrew.
James looked around quizzically. He remembered being in the water, but he couldn’t recall how he came to be standing atop a large rock at the base of one of the lower sections of the cliff. He looked out over the water and considered his situation.
He had been exiled to The Never. He had only learned fractions about The Never during his studies. One of his instructors had surmised it was created by the greatest sorcerer history had known. The instructor had also said while people could go there, only one had the ability to return: the creator himself. It was for this reason those convicted of the worst crimes were exiled there. Akil had said even less about The Never, most of which was shrouded in underlying meaning James had been unable to comprehend.
He thought about everything that had been taken from him. Without given a chance to explain, a chance to defend himself, he was cast out never to see anyone he cared about again. That which he and all of Akil’s followers had been fighting for would fall to ruin. Alvaro would have his war and anyone who refused to join him would be killed or exiled. James wasn’t sure which one of those choices was worse.
Anger swelled inside him. Barefoot and naked, he climbed. Despite his uncertainty about his motivation for climbing to the top and what he expected to accomplish once he got there, he continued. Nearly falling to his death on two occasions- once when he grasped a loose stone and the second when his legs started to cramp-didn’t deter him from reaching the top of the first stone formation, the lower end of the spine.
Not waiting to catch his breath, he moved along the vertebral protrusion that extended toward the water until he reached the end of the first stone formation. The space between it and the next was well beyond any distance he could jump, and the fall to the rocks below would surely be fatal. He turned, hoping to gain a clear view beyond the high-growing trees. James was taken aback at what he saw sitting less than a half league offshore at the end of the stone spinal formation. A magnificent castle hewn into the granite on which it rested sat at the end of the spine like the skull of the ancient beast. He nearly stumbled down onto the rocks below trying to get a closer look. Its walls, battlements, and towers were carved from the darkest black granite he’d ever seen. It stood alone in the water. Waves pounded the base of the island, which James found odd because no waves fell onto the shore or against the cliffs below. Protruding from the stone at the base of the castle were thornlike juts of rock that curved slightly upward, daring anyone to attempt entry.
James knew instantly that he must get inside. The moment his eyes took in the black, polished stone he felt a longing for it. It pulled at his every emotion, quickly supplanting his desire to find a way home. He could feel his yearning as if it were a living thing pulsing through his veins. It coaxed him forward again, nearly pitching him off the side and into the rocks below. As he looked down to make sure his footing was stable, he realized he was still without clothes. He also knew he needed shelter and food before beginning his journey to the black castle.
Considerably further past the castle in the water was a large land formation. From his present vantage point, he could see that it connected with the main land upon which he now stood. It was a vast distance away and offered no geographical advantage to gaining access to the castle. Of the mainland, James could only see the massive trees in the forest and an outcropping further down the beach that blocked any view of what lay beyond.
Looking into the sky to determine the time of day, he realized he couldn’t see the sun. The entire sky was bright white. He couldn’t hold it in his gaze for long without his eyes beginning to hurt. No shadows fell on the ground beneath him, or anywhere for that matter.
Perplexed, he climbed down the opposite side of the cliff to the shore, always keeping the castle in sight. He wanted to be inside it more than he’d wanted anything in his entire life.
The muscles in his legs began to cramp, reminding him that he must find fresh water. He reluctantly decided to walk along the shoreline until he found a reentrant that may
lead him to fresh water. He rubbed his chin as he walked and realized that the facial hair that had eluded him up to this point in his life had grown thick since his exile.
The beach curved away from the spine. Grudgingly, James turned his back to the black castle. But every minute or so, he looked over his shoulder to make sure it was still there. Looking ahead, he realized that he would have to enter the forest once more in order to find water. He glanced back at the castle, resisting the temptation to run into the water and swim to its base. He bid it farewell, promised a swift return, and then stepped into the forest, leaving the black castle behind.
— 5 -
The Seer
April 1886, India
A young woman walked hesitantly into the room. The dark and confining entrance opened into a large, vaulted chamber. Sconces lined the walls. Their dancing light gave life to the shadows. In the center of the room was a circular stone fire pit. Embers cast an orange glow onto the face of the man who sat on the far side of the pit.
He was so old she couldn’t guess his age. The closer she stepped, the older he looked. By the time she reached the pit, he looked as if his flesh would blow away with the slightest breeze before he could mutter a word. She’d heard of him, her husband had seen to that.
He had summoned her, and she’d been told that he hadn’t summoned anyone in over a generation. Rumors spread like wildfire around the small village where she had been staying. Onlookers peered out of darkened doorways as she passed. Whispers in far corners resonated like cicadas on a summer night.
As was tradition, according to her husband, she bowed ever so slightly as her bare toes touched the edge of the pit. The man let out a slow breath, and Margaret sat on the stone floor. The moment her legs touched the ground a shadow danced across the old man’s face, wiping away the fragility and leaving behind that of a much younger man. She smelled an unfamiliar fragrance emanating from the fire, and her head began to spin. Shadows and light blurred together. She reached for her head, but before she made contact, the feeling subsided.
