“Ah, well, I was tortured incessantly by my elders until I was in my upper teens. Busted out of their lockbox at 17 and committed my first Bone-Puppet massacre. It was a glorious day. It’s even better now that I get to rub your nose in it. Thanks for totally screwing the world over.” Elias glared over his shoulder at the wave of darkness that was settling like cold gelatin over the Savannah.
Only then did he remember that he was trapped in some sort of post-drowning vision. All of this, this conversation, everything could be the Witchdoctor’s personal agenda. For all Elias knew, none of this was real, not even the well that he’d fallen into or desert outside of it that he had known.
“So, I admit, I have made mistakes. You can’t blame a man who fights to protect what he loves.” Cain’s voice grew distant and contemplative. Elias felt his ears prick up and his lips set to trembling. Here was one tiny bit of information. Elias grinned. He was well on his way to drawing this sucker out. He could feel it.
“So speaks the man who impaled his wife and damned her to Eternal death.” Elias waited for retaliation. He had half expected his own heart to burst into a full-blown attack, but it didn’t happen. Abel’s blood had empowered him somehow. He could already feel a slight change.
“All men love what will die. I am the man that embraced that love would fail me even before it happened. In so doing, I avoided the disgrace of weakness. I never laid down my pride for mourning, Elias Walklate. Unlike you. Just now I have read your entire soul. You are nothing more than tears and a child of ashes.” The Witchdoctor remained invisible even as the landscape grew wider. Elias held his breath. He found himself standing on a snowy mountain peak.
“Yeah, but there’s a price I’d have to pay in return that’s more than I’ll ever want or expect to have to pay. I feel sorry for you, man. I guess I don’t really have to be worried about you as well though, which is a relief. If any higher power came to swallow your soul for your insolence I’m afraid they’d starve.” Elias rubbed his forehead, feeling a fever rising in his skin.
Elias turned on his heel, suddenly startled by a swirl of white snow cloud around his face. He saw a wraith form of Riff reflected in it. The image shrieked, tearing at his clothes and skin, which caught green fire and wholly consumed the hologram. Elias stopped short, spinning in tight circles. How was the Witchdoctor doing this?
“I can save your brother.” The voice echoed back to him again. He was strategically playing every card he had in his deck.
“If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t need saving. You honestly think all humanity is composed of circus apes, don’t you? Like I’d fall for your manipulation traps!” Elias kicked the sled as hard as he pleased. It didn’t threaten to tip in this zero time/gravity place he’d been spirited off to.
“If you don’t want my help, then you’ll have to taste my fury.” There were tremors through the ground following the sound of the voice. The darkness began to ripple away from the cliffs, quivering like grape jelly sliding off of a cracker. Elias rolled his eyes.
“I’ve already tasted a few free samples, man. You’re going to have to do better than this if you want to scare me off.” Elias looked back as the darkness began to break.
“I can take your brother’s life. His will’s not strong enough to stop me.” The tremors grew louder. Elias saw clouds of smoke in the shape of human skeletons rising up, racing forward, ready to clamp their long fingers around is throat.
“Maybe not, but my will is,” spat Elias. “You haven’t tasted my fury yet. I wouldn’t mess with me if I were you. Keep it up. Touch my brother and I will make whatever hell you’ve sunk into look like a happy place.” Elias fingers groped the seam of his belt, looking for his Desert Eagle. To hell with negotiations! This man was called the Author of Sedition for a reason, was he not? Elias had best put an end to this and fast before the worms bore deep into his ears and his brain was lost in lack of communication.
“Mm, I like you…I think I’ll help you anyway…Maybe if I spare you I can use you later. Don’t think you’ve got any power to save yourself. That would be presumptuous on your part.” The Witchdoctor chuckled. Elias felt the mountain’s cracking beneath him, sliding away into the ravines below.
“I’m glad we’ve hit off so well, that’s good. I belong to myself, thank you very much.” Elias straightened up. He was prepared to tumble from the cliffs.
“We shall see…Go now. Out of my presence, mortal fool.” The Witchdoctor’s voice simmered with sudden thunder. The ravines cracked and turned to sand, slowly pulling Elias down into the pits.
Oh, God…I guess it’s over just like it began. Abrupt and uncertain…
*****
Chapter 21
All too soon, Elias was expelled from the vision. He was leagues away from where he’d found the well. Somehow he knew that even without knowing the well’s exact locale. It was an impression only, a heightened intuition. The best he could figure was that the Witchdoctor had intimated the fact to him to dissuade his purpose further.
There could be no great dissuasion than the one already at hand. Elias found himself up to his neck in liquid ashes. Whatever section the Witchdoctor had ejected him into was a brutal one.
Elias knew that he was going to have to fight to get himself free. What he hadn’t expected was the resistance of many different breeds of bone creatures. He’d never let his mind entertain the notion that there could be so many varying kinds as he soon learned there were.
Mummified hands shot up. The Bone Puppets screamed hollow screams. Yellowed eyes glared at him from the mixture. Hands and fingernails serrated his skin, dragging him down to their lows. If they could not escape, then no one could. Never mind the prospect of being redeemed from this misery. Never mind that the Kilimanjaro Sacrament may hold the essence of redemption. They didn’t want resurrection. They wanted revenge.
“Back! Back, now! That’s my brother out there.” Elias’s thoughts were wild. He saw a thousand faces. Dead friends that had been snuffed out as soon as they were made. His mother’s haunted eyes. Yim and all her ambitions. Rising to the top of this seething pot of lingering visions was Riff’s image. Riff with an iron collar clamped down on his neck. Riff being led away to die by Nali’s protocols.
Never mind the mission or the fact that it would fail if he didn’t come through. His brother held the secret to the restoration of life. Elias had to prove it to him. The Kilimanjaro Sacrament was the only way he could do that. He agreed that the divine power Ezekiel had given him indeed held the keys to his destiny, but Riff was the keeper of the future world’s soul. His life outweighed the mission. Elias must find him, and now! It was more important than escaping this pit!
A wild woman whose neck had been reconstructed with pieces of elephants’ tusks rose from the pit’s dregs. She whooped and shrieked. Her fangs clamped down and through his ankles, imploding his tarsal tunnels.
A warthog man puppet shot forth, eviscerating Elias with his tusks. He worked them back and forth with the speed of a jigsaw. Elias groaned. His eyes rolled looking at the dull blue sky. Crows were circling. It was almost over now.
Elias shrieked. These demons scaled him, pinning him in midair. They crucified him with their teeth, with their fangs, drawing him out in X’s and T’s.
“No!” Elias gnashed his teeth, biting the edge of his lip. Blood effervesced from the bite, anointing his neck. He thrashed as the bone serpents uncoiled from the tree roots. They wrapped his waist. He could not fight the fire that was a crucifixion, no matter how strong his constitution had been rendered by his childhood.
No. Elias closed his eyes. His hands stretched to the sky. Iron teeth of the Bone-Giraffe women pierced through the backs of his knuckles, moving his fingers out of place. Blood oozed from these slits. Mingled with sinew and flesh, they formed a bloody webbing. He tossed his head, swimming like a tiger shark against the current of serpents climbing him.
I have this. Elias closed his eyes. His brother wasn’t a strong eno
ugh motivator now.
That thought hit Elias like a sack of bricks. What? But everything he did was for Riff’s safety.
Yes, Elias. That’s your problem. You want him to be safe. But the world isn’t safe. The world will have to be torn down with teeth and claws, wits and warfare. Where does Riff fit into that plan if all he can be is safe?
Elias thrashed. Spiders crawled from the mouths of the Giraffe Bone-Women, settling in his gums. They filed through his teeth with their quick pinschers, shooting poison into the roots. His gums turned black. Each of his teeth was changed by the obscure alchemy of this wasteland. They became like a spider’s hands, effusing spider web that stuck tooth to tooth. Elias’s aspirated on spit and spiders, hands clawing to break free of the crucifixion shape.
You will not end this way. You will be tested by the desert but it will not prevail against you. That was Ezekiel’s final prophecy. You will from these ashes and this place of death. Riff will not be safe. He will be empowered. He will become a conqueror. Destroyer, supplanter, and restorer of worlds. The words in Elias mind didn't sound like his own. They sounded like Ezekiel. He listened, knowing the prophet's spirit was close.
Elias screamed. If Ezekiel could hear him out there beyond the sky, he needed his assistance now. The Kilimanjaro Sacrament lay on his chest on its chain. A pair of nails that were trapped in dark red amber seemed like the last thing of value in a world of nothing but crimson iron. Yet a fire kindled in the heart of this strange emblem. A fire that shot little sparks, prickling against Elias’s skin.
“Spirit of the prophets!” Elias shrieked. Why he didn’t know. Words were coming to him now from somewhere else. He imagined it was the divine power giving him new strength and a greater intelligence. He gnashed his teeth. His tongue became a sword, tearing away the spider web as quickly as it was made. He would thrash. He would fight.
He would live.
“Spirit of the Prophets! Ether of Atonement!” Elias tossed his head from side to side. He fought with the filth in his hair that made his once golden locks into rusted scourges. He fought with his nostrils, snuffing the spider web out, snuffing it back into the face of those that had caused it to be in them in the first place. He fought with his eyes, blinking to crush each spider as it ascended his face.
Elias fought with every tissue cell in him. Because it was alive. He was alive.
As long as he had life, he had a chance. A chance to call down the spirits of righteousness upon this reign of perdition.
Elias shrieked. His screams were bear-like now, sub-human. He screamed anyway. Slowly, they tried to turn him into them. Yet with every scream, with every epileptic thrash, he reclaimed himself. He would not be their Puppet.
Spirit of the Prophets…His mouth was sealed shut now. He could only shriek in his mind. From the depths of his soul, he cried out. He cried out for justice.
The darkness was coming. Soon it would all be for nothing. Elias was losing his sense of being. His thrashing had less strength to it now, closer to the end that he came.
Just when he was moving with the random vibrations of a dying fish, Ezekiel’s voice returned to him from beyond.
They have heard you, son of dust.
Elias felt his eyes floating up. There was a white mist. Ezekiel’s effigy appeared in the flash.
Elias felt his stomach leap to his throat, partially from fear but majorly from elation. Ezekiel may have dissipated into space/time and the elements, but he had not really left him. He would be his guardian. His guiding light.
Elias heard a shriek like a thousand eagles crashing to Earth.
A bolt of lightning hit him straight in his teeth. The webs caught fire. A white, holy flame raced through his soul.
Elias breathed. His eyes were wide open, consumed in holy white flame.
The fire lifted him up. Pillars of lightning shot from his hands. The earth was torn from top to bottom beneath him, blasting his puppets into the air. It was raining dead men and beasts and hybrids alike.
Go now. Finish it. Ezekiel’s spirit overshadowed Elias. He felt his hands grappling with his shoulders, giving him a mighty thrust forward.
Elias woke up on his hands and knees. His clothes were charred black and steamed. He was fully healed. Somehow he’d found the path again.
*****
Chapter 22
Elias was in a frantic last dash for the goal now. Finding the path alone was not enough. His mind and his memories were clear. He knew that his little brother was here in this wilderness, along with young Madeline. If he wanted to use his powers for good, he would have to go and collect his team.
I’ve had enough of your arrogance… What made you think that you could escape my hands just because you attained some arcane power?
The Witchdoctor’s malicious voice cut through. Elias clenched his teeth, electing to ignore him for the time being. All would be well if he could find Riff.
Fire fell from heaven in large hailstones. Every time they struck the ground, a cloud of locusts rose from the spot. The voice of Cain’s hatred continued to pelt him like a relentless cat-o-nine.
Yet said voice that was cutting into his colorful strain of forgetfulness was barely heeded. He no longer cared if the world was coming to an end. If there were wars or rumors of wars, he didn’t know anything about it now.
The only person he could see as he marched down the new path he’d found in the Savannah was Riff. Riff Walklate, his little brother, the final remnant of his family. The love he felt for him now was enough to shrivel the earth’s core. He needed no arcane power. For there was no power that could exceed the power of the bonds of family, of brothers.
The destruction I will bring upon you and yours—The Witchdoctor never got to finish his thought. Elias, for one, had had enough.
What can you take from someone that’s already dead? That died a long time ago…Elias laughed. He shook his fists at the air, proverbially going down swinging.
“Cut me…I bleed.” Elias felt the last breath leave his body. He smiled. The sky above him was an intense shade of sapphire. Finally, a white light began to encompass him. He was rising from the ashes of this world. It was alright. He’d never belonged here anyway.
“I can do better than that.” There was a static wave of red frequency electricity. Then, standing in the pathway was the towering figure of a dark figure. Elias had honestly imagined an African when he’d heard the stories about the Witchdoctor. This man was pale, with cerulean-green eyes and hair the color of a jet stone.
He stood over Elias a hand outstretched over his face. There was a henna tattoo in the center of his palm in the shape of the sun with an eye at its center. The eye in the center of the tattoo began to bleed tears that splattered across the ground, sparkling, hissing like a thousand serpents.
Elias drew a breath, drawn out of the midst of his vision. He shook himself. The sky above him was clean and whole again.
Elias’s hands wandered his body. The wounds were gone. His flesh was like a baby’s skin again. He looked up, stunned.
The Witchdoctor blinked. Tears of gold dripped from his eyes and stained his face like a cheetah. He shook himself. There under his eye and in his forehead. There was a red welt mark in the shape of a hand. Elias held his breath.
“You’re not supposed to be alive. You’re being alive alters everything.” Elias drew his gun. The Witchdoctor chuckled.
“All the trouble that went into finding that little sacrament tool…All the heartache you experienced as you gallantly pursued the truth concerning me. Must we waste it this way? You’d really try to fight me with a firearm?” Cain clutched his mouth in a shaking palm, giggling.
“Mm, I agree. You’re not really worth wasting bullets on, are you? Still, it’s a reflex. Mu mind is playing tricks on me, absolutely. Which means you could be a very vivid figment of my lucid dreaming mind. Or you could be ultra-real for all I know. Either way, it doesn’t matter. You’re standing between me and my family. You could be God lik
e they said you wanted to be, for all I care. You could be standing on the trap door to Hell itself. None of it matters, because whatever pain may come is not going to keep me from my family! Stand aside.” Elias felt the newfound power of the Sacrament waking up. The token started quaking, beating him on the neck with the nails’ flat edges.
“Oh, you are precious! Assuming you can defend your little family! Well, let me put your mind at ease and reveal to you a dark secret all at once.” Cain snapped his fingers.
I’m very real, dear boy. You just don’t know how to tell the difference between what is seen only with your spiritual eyes and what is seen with fleshy orbs yet. But we’re going to have a lot of fun together, aren’t we? Especially once you see what’s become of your funny little ol’ family, eh?
*****
Chapter 23
Elias reached and drew his knife. He felt his breath catch as he realized Cain was on the path with him. He made a swift cut at him. Cain caught his wrist, clamping down on it until it threatened to break.
“Yes…I know what you’re thinking. Cain the Accursed. All of the legends are true, I’m afraid!” cried Cain. “Some people are just that wicked.” He smiled. His teeth were jagged points of finely-filed, blood-stained brass! Elias felt his insides jump, made suddenly thin and twisting like thread around a spindle in the wake of this.
Then, slowly, on that thread of strength, he eased himself to his feet. Stood, jaw squared, face to face with the man responsible for all the pain and suffering in the world today.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Elias clenched his hands into fists. Never mind the god-like power this guy boasted of. With the sacrament he’d acquired through blood, sweat, tears and the sacrifice of the man he’d called father briefly, he would teach the Witchdoctor the meaning of human strength.
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