by Jeff Hale
Lightning crackled and thunder boomed throughout the cavern as Azryel appeared twenty feet in front of me, his back towards me as he searched the far tunnel with his eyes. I just hoped that what Lucien had told me was true, or even with my new-found abilities, this was going to be a short fight.
“So, I guess you thought you had killed me, huh?” I asked in a nonchalant tone.
He whirled around to face me. “You survived! Good, then you will provide a challenge for me. No mortal has ever survived that blast. You must be truly gifted.” He smiled grimly in anticipation.
“So you’re hoping Baba Yaga will cause your home to merge with ours?” I was hoping to throw him off guard.
“So you know my mistress, and therefore you know who seeks your destruction. It is good to know why one dies when they leave this world. I would not have to deal with this chore if the lich and werewolf had done their jobs,” he said with a sneer. That took me a moment to register. The symbol they both had on them must be Baba Yaga’s.
“I also know the name to call you by.” I pointed one sword at him. “Azryel.” As I spoke the name aloud, there was a loud popping sound that echoed through the cavern.
Sudden agony contorted his face and he dropped to his knees, howling. Then he went silent, slowly rising to his feet, and as he stood, he seemed to grow taller and larger in size. A moment or two later and he was an easy ten feet tall, with proportionate muscle mass, his skin now deep black, little flickers of red energy playing off of it. Horns curled back from his brow ridge and his hands and feet ended in wicked claws. His eyes glowed a disturbing fel green.
“So be it, mortal. I grew tired of hiding myself anyway. Now I can destroy you in my true form!” His right hand lunged sharply towards me.
I jumped straight up, and back, avoiding the blow entirely, his hand grabbing nothing but cavern floor, claws embedding deeply into the rock. I landed in a crouch, then rushed towards that hand as he tried to pull free. Before I could reach it, he held up his left hand and bolts of harsh red energy flew at me. I rolled to my left to dodge, came up running, jumped into a forward flip to avoid another attack, and then double stepped to my right to avoid yet another.
He almost had his hand loose when I reached it. I didn’t give him a chance. I planted both swords into it as it broke away, pulled them free, and did a side roll to my left to avoid his backhand blow. I didn’t quite get out of the way in time and his fist caught me in the stomach. The blow hurled me several feet back, and while I was in midair, two of his energy blasts hit me. Burning pain erupted all along my body, the same type he’d hit me with before, but this time my shield held and managed to absorb most of it. I knew that I was stronger than before, but I had the gut feeling that Lucien was right as well, and Azryel was weaker in his natural form in this realm.
I was a good twenty feet from him again. He roared at me and lifted both hands in the air again, red energy crackling about his fingers as he prepared to loose more bolts at me. I needed to find some way to keep him from pelting me with that shit, but from here I had no answers. Then, in and odd flash of realization, it came to me. If I could somehow restrain his hands entirely, it would negate his ability to focus energy through them. I controlled water now, and water could be made into ice.
I dropped my blades and held out my hands in front of me, concentrating on lowering the temperature around each of Azryel’s hands. The air cooled around him, foggy in the warmth of the cavern and his breath came out in little frosty wisps. Realization of what I was doing shot through his eyes, but without further warning, a sheet of ice formed around each of his hands and the energy he’d been calling forth fizzled away. He roared again in sudden frustration and pain, and I snatched up my blades again and rushed him.
He charged towards me as well. His hands might have been coated in ice, but he looked to use that as a weapon against me. His right hand was cocked behind him, preparing to deliver an ice-encrusted haymaker. He swung when I got close, and I leapt over the swipe, planted a foot in his chest, and projected myself towards his left hand. I flew just to the right of it and brought my left blade out to my side, the fiery blade slicing through his wrist and severing the hand from his arm. I landed behind him and he whirled with a growl of pain, bringing that right hand down towards me. I side-stepped and brought both blades out as I did so, removing that hand as well as it swung past me.
He just stood there, his expression stupefied as he stared at the frozen stumps where his hands had been. I didn’t hesitate. I leapt at him and brought both blades across in front of me in a horizontal ‘X’, swiping both blades through his neck. The look on his face didn’t change as I landed and watched his head slide from his shoulders. His physical body started to dissipate, dissolving away into darkly iridescent motes of Aether since it no longer had enough essence to hold it on this plane. Then I heard rumbling laughter that seemed to originate from all around me.
“You may banish me, mortal, but know this; your lover’s soul has not been returned to the Aetheric cycle. She still has the possibility of returning to you, but I hold the key.” Azryel’s voice echoed throughout the cavern.
“You’re lying!” I yelled at the empty space. He was only trying to fuck with me, but what if what he said was true? “Wait! Come back! What the fuck are you talking about, demon?! Answer me! Is she still alive somehow?! Answer me!” But I got nothing but silence in return. I shook in frustration over not getting any answers, then growled in anger and plopped back down in the center of the room, trying to calm myself again. I needed to concentrate on the task at hand and I could drive myself crazy later.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, maybe an hour, when I felt the energies shift in the cavern again. These were familiar signatures however; MAGE had sent agents. This was going to get really interesting now. I hopped gracefully to my feet as five full Circles appeared within the cavern, twenty agents in all, five of each element. I didn’t recognize any of them. I hoped that my rank and some diplomacy might work, but I somehow doubted it.
“I’m Detective-Agent Kerensky, with the Las Vegas MAGE branch. All is well here, I ask that you stand down and return to your base,” I stated, using an authoritative tone. I didn’t want to have to kill MAGE agents if I didn’t have to and I desperately hoped they would just turn around and leave.
One of them, a female with short blonde hair and plain features, stepped forward. “Sorry, sir, but we can’t do that. We have orders directly from our Councils to disrupt the energy source that is tearing down the Barrier. Now stand aside, DA Kerensky. We are authorized to use lethal force,” she warned boldly.
“What are you, Agent? About a Third Circle… Master? At best?” I asked, half smiling.
“Yes, sir, we are all around that level of development,” she answered proudly, but she didn’t drop her guard.
For a sorcerer, it was a high achievement to even reach Circle Three. I did it in the first couple of months. I decided to try intimidation. “Agent, I will tell you now, and not as a boast, but as a warning, that I am evolved past even a Council member. I have reached beyond sorcerer mastery. The man enacting the ritual in there… is none other than Merlin himself,” I said, keeping my voice low and even.
“Sir, you must have taken a leave of your mind. No one can possibly go beyond mastery in any application, that is the limit of sorcerer potential and why it is required to become a Council member. And Merlin is long dead,” she said, slowly drawing her daggers.
I watched as the entire team followed suit. Yep. This was about to get interesting. I didn’t want to hurt them, but they might end up leaving me no choice. “I’ve given you fair warning. If I were you, I would put the weapons away and return home, while you still can.” I called my own daggers to my hands and ignited them into the swords of flame. I renewed my shield and waited.
She gave me a long hard look, then nodded to the others and took two steps back. “Alright, men, he’s not going to stand aside. Take him out. We will bring hi
m back to HQ as a traitor.”
I didn’t even think, I just moved, became one with my weapons and my abilities and let it flow. It was the only way I was going to be able to take on this many agents at once. They were a threat with as many of them as there were, as well as the fact that they all belonged to a Circle. I ran towards them as they bombarded me with elemental attacks of all kinds: rays of prismatic energy channeled through crystals from the earth sorcerers; fireblasts from the fire sorcerers; lightning bolts from the air sorcerers; and shards of ice from the water sorcerers. My shield held and deflected everything they threw at me, though I tried to dodge what I could. It wouldn’t hold against this kind of onslaught forever.
When I reached the first agent I ran him through with my right blade, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt with my left hand as best as I could, and pulled him to my right, blocking a lightning bolt. Then I swung him into the sorcerer who threw the bolt at me. The body landed on top of her and knocked her unconscious. The next agent I punched with a left hook, freezing him when my skin came in contact with his. I planted my right hand on his chest and used the frozen statue for leverage as I kicked backwards, sending another agent flying through the air to land with bone-shattering velocity dozens of feet away. I then plunged a blade through the frozen person and ended up running my blade through another agent’s head on the other side who had been trying to use the statue as cover. The statue couldn’t handle the stress of a flaming sword being thrust though it and it shattered.
I swung to my left as a fire blast went sizzling past me, and as I spun, I brought both blades out and caught three agents with my spin. All of them dropped. I took stock of the situation. I still had twelve agents in the fight. I sighed, held my right blade out and down, brought my left arm across so the blades were parallel, and charged the person who had spoken to me. She was in the process of healing the air sorcerer who I had thrown the body at. I charged her, leaning forward in an almost running crouch. When I got within blade range, I brought the blades up, the right and lower of the blades across her chest, and the left and higher of the blades across her neck. As the blades connected, I jumped with the upswing, cutting her body into three pieces. I landed behind her, spun, and threw both blades at two agents rapidly approaching me. Eleven down, nine more to go, and I was getting bored.
I backed away from the remaining nine agents, giving them a chance to rethink and, hopefully, give up. But they didn’t give up that easily. They all nodded at each other and then charged me as one, pinning their hopes on strength in numbers. It just made things easier as I caused a wall of flames to erupt right where they were stepping, incinerating them alive. Then I felt another energy shift and four more MAGE agents appeared. Only this time, I knew they were Council members because I recognized them.
Dan and Chris stood there, the former in one of his usual suits, and the latter in an Iron Maiden t-shirt with the arms cut off and a ripped up pair of jeans. Desirae and Nychelle were on either side, dressed in a similar fashion to what I had seen them in during the assembly.
Fuck.
“Okay, I beat the agents you sent, so now what? I have to kill you, too? I don’t want to do that, guys,” I protested, recalling my blades back to my hands.
“No, Kerensky, put the weapons away, mate.” Chris held his hands up. “We didn’t send those agents. Other branches did. You’re in Colorado’s jurisdiction. We want to talk this out. We want to know why you are helping this to happen.”
“Because it needs to,” I replied.
“Why does it need to?” Chris asked, confused.
“Because if it doesn’t… this world will come under the rule of Baba Yaga. The Barrier should have never been built. It was a mistake. Merlin knew it. He tried to prevent Arthur from working with the Church to create it. Arthur and his subjects were afraid of the darker aspects of the Aether. Though the Knights of the Round Table, Sentinels like myself, were created to fight the rising tides of darkness, it was never enough. The Aether would have its balance. For every good, there would be an evil,” I told them, then explained the whole thing as best I could. They gave me the courtesy of listening, all of them, and I noticed Nychelle, especially, seemed to be watching everything I did with her blind eyes as I spoke. It was a bit disconcerting.
“Look, mate, that’s a pretty bit of yarn you just spun there, but how do we know it’s the truth? How do you know?” Chris looked unconvinced.
“Because it’s true, Chris,” Dan spoke up, his voice deeper than normal.
I looked at Dan. He was slowly shifting, taking on the form of a leathery skinned green dragon. Not a true dragon, but a lesser one that was still enough to make us all stare in shocked surprise.
His skin was mottled tones of green, and he looked like the stereotypical portrayal of a Western fantasy dragon. He settled strong but fragile looking wings along his back and sat back on his haunches, gazing down at us out of huge eyes that swirled through all the colors of the green spectrum. He towered over us, probably close to fifteen feet high at the shoulder. “I apologize for my deception, but it was necessary. I needed to keep an eye on Aerick and make sure he was guided in certain directions. It was all at Merlin’s behest,” he said, his voice now deep and rumbling. And then he disappeared from sight.
“Well, shag me with a bloody coat hanger!” Chris folded his arms over his chest. “Looks like we’ll need a new earth Councilor now.” He glanced at me. “So, any other reason we should believe you outside of the fact that I just got told it was all true by a lizard the size of a bloody house?”
“Because, he sees it in his dreams. Though he dreams of his love as well, what he does not know… she is not lost. Despite what he does not know, he speaks of things that were pre-destined in the weave of fate and time. The three tell me that this is meant to be,” Nychelle intoned, her voice distant and echoing with the sound of ocean waves.
“Wait? Not lost? The demon said the same thing. What are you talking about? Speak! What do you—” I was stunned. What did it all mean?
“You will learn of what I speak in time, though you will pay a heavy price for the knowledge… and her freedom,” Nychelle warned.
“I really hate prophecies,” I muttered irritably.
Chris finally seemed to believe me. “Okay, mate. I figured you had to have a good reason to do this and I can’t say I haven’t felt it too. Go, help him. We’ll stand guard to make sure nothing else comes through. The world needs this, we’ve all known it, we’ve all felt it.” He glanced at Nychelle. “Although having a bloody dragon for backup would have been nice!” he yelled at the empty air around him.
“Thanks for listening, Chris.” I turned and jogged towards the far tunnel. Just as I got to the entrance, Talon appeared.
“You have impeccable timing, chief. Time to go,” Talon said as he turned to lead me down the tunnel. I followed and entered the ritual room. Merlin looked up at me and nodded.
“I will need to translate the ritual once you write it down. Don’t worry, you will know what to write. Or rather, your soul will,” he told me, pulling out a quill and parchment from a drawer within the table.
“What? Am I going to automatically start writing because of what my soul remembers?” I asked in disbelief.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, if you want the short answer. The long answer has to do with the enchantments overlaid on that quill.” He gestured that I should at least try.
I leaned over the table, picked up the quill… and started immediately writing. It wasn’t in any language that I was familiar with, and once I reached the end of the first page another magically appeared beneath it. I wrote for what felt like hours, and when I finished, there was a stack of at least fifty pieces of parchment.
“Well done, lad. Now, help me translate this, to Latin, if you please.” He put his hands over the sphere and conjured up the image of the cycle of elements.
Luckily I knew Latin, and somehow I was able to read this other language as well. I read
the lines to him and I heard him chant them back. Sometimes the words were instructions, at which point he would follow them to the letter: adding drops of his blood to the oil, waving a wand over specific glyphs on the walls, things of that nature. Several hours passed, and soon I felt a strange pulling. Then it was as though my ears popped, but all over my body, and I felt… free. The Barrier was gone, no longer restricting my access to the Aether. It felt… wonderful.
“Now, lad. People are going to need your help. Gather your loved ones and take them to Lucien’s. It will be the only guaranteed safe place in your city. The chaos begins.” Merlin traced out a quick circle on the ground, then he grabbed my arm and a moment later we were in my living room. I could hear sirens echoing throughout the city and when I looked to Merlin, he had vanished. I headed outside the apartment to see what was happening, and as I glanced upwards, a creature flew overhead, several news helicopters fighting to keep up with it. Its body was feline, but its head and wings were those of a bird of prey. A griffon.
Holy fucking shit.
I ran back into the apartment and grabbed my cell phone, then darted back outside. Dave’s car was gone and I tried calling him but got no answer. I tried Jessie’s as well, but still no response. There was no telling where any of them were. Jessie’s was more centrally located and we’d all hung out there in the past, so for want of a better idea I headed there. I ran most of the way and found that Merlin had been correct; fantastical fauna from small fey-like animals to bus-sized drakes were roaming the streets and wreaking havoc.
The police were doing their best to try and keep the citizenry calm, but to no avail; they were panicked, running around and rioting. Some tried ignorantly to attack the creatures, but quickly found themselves outmatched by them. I heard, and felt, a large explosion towards the Strip, and a pillar of flame erupted into the sky from near the Luxor. I shook my head and continued towards Jessie’s.
Her neighborhood was relatively quiet in comparison to all the chaos I had seen on my way. At least I thought it was, until I saw an army of ogres and bogarts marching up the street. Considering my new access to the Aether, I decided that an aerial view was best. I willed the heat of the area to intensify, then to lift me from the ground, something I had read about in the old journal. Once I was above the houses, I saw several more patrols of ogres and bogarts. Bogarts were house fae, but not the kind you’d want around. They were the ones blamed for milk going sour, crops failing, and illness. Ogres, on the other hand, were just what you would expect: big, dumb, and very strong. The fae armies were on the move, just like Raven had warned me of. Many of them were attacking random houses along the way, and as I watched, one group rounded a corner and aimed for Jessie’s house.
