Dawn Of Darkness

by Amy Hopkins

  “Sorry, Lilly, you just missed him. I think he's gone off to find some lunch.” Bastian pulled two more chairs into the circle, hoping that the five men Danil had pissed off last week would all return.

  “Oh. I came to see if he still needed any help with the class. Is it not on, Master Bastian?”

  Bastian frowned. “Lilly, please. Julianne is our only Master, and she's told you that you don't even have to call her that. We're not your masters, none of us are.”

  She ducked her head and turned to go.

  “Wait! I mean… I'm taking the class.” Bastian wiped sweaty palms on his robe, cursing his bad luck that it was this class Danil had stranded him with. “I'm taking the class today. You can go play for a bit if you like.”

  “Of course, Ma— err, Bastian.”

  He gave her a grateful smile as footsteps alerted him to the student’s arrival.

  “Master Bastian, Tollin is birthing one of his sheep, so he said to tell you he can't make it today.” Francis twisted his hat in his hands as if expecting to be yelled at.

  Bastian couldn't blame him. Last time, Danil had become so frustrated during their lesson he had nearly snapped the man’s head off. He had a suspicion the sheep was more excuse than anything, but didn't push the issue.

  “It's fine, Francis. You're all here by choice, you don't owe us an explanation if you miss a lesson.” Bastian gesture to the seats. “And please, don't call me Master.”

  The men filed in and sat, looking around nervously. “Where's Danil?” Jarv asked gruffly.

  “Couldn't make it,” Bastian said without explaining.

  “Got sick of us, did he? I don't blame him. We can't shield for shit.” Mack leaned back in his chair, unworried. “If I were him, I wouldn't waste the time either.”

  “Then why are you here?” Bastian asked mildly.

  “S’pose even a slim chance is better than none. If those bastards come back, I don't want to be licking their boots again. Rather kill myself first.”

  Bastian nodded. “Danil isn't sick of you; he's sick of himself. Back at the Temple, we go through these exercises over years, slowly coaxing the power out of people. It took me a whole season just to learn how to shut my bloody head up long enough for a basic meditation, and I was dying to learn.”

  “But you're an expert now, aren't you?” Mack asked. “I mean, you helped fight off those bastard Dawners.”

  “Barely,” Bastian laughed. “I passed the last of my tests just before winter. I'm just a baby compared to Danil, and a worm next to Julianne.” He left the honorific off her name, knowing she wanted the town folk to call her by name, not her title.

  “So, he left the baby to teach us?” Jarv looked skeptical.

  Bastian nodded, trying to act confident. “He's low on sleep, and mad as a bear. He knows his teaching skills are out of date because he hasn't held a class in over two years. And he knows that his failure is putting you at risk.” Bastian met each man’s eyes, one by one. “He's trying. Trying and failing. That's why he's so frustrated.”

  “He's a good man; we know that.” Lewis spoke quietly. “Our heads might be broken, but we can see his heart is in the right place. Maybe that's why some of us snap back at him. We see him trying, and we just can't keep up.”

  Bastian pressed his lips together, breathing deeply. This was the most conversation either of the mystics had gotten out of any of the men, except maybe Francis. “Maybe we all need to take a step back. This isn't the kind of thing you can force.”

  Then, he narrowed his gaze on Lewis. “But you're not broken. Danil has examined all of you, cleared you for learning. We wouldn't be here otherwise. You four were the first to get that ok. You know what that means?”

  The four men exchanged confused glances.

  “You're strong. You had an entire group of psycho mind fuckers get in your heads, rummage around and screw things up in there. They did it for months! And despite that, you're still ok. Guys, that's incredible!” Bastian’s voice rose as he let his excitement show.

  Lewis frowned. “You sure you're not just saying that to make us feel less shitty about all this?”

  Bastian raised his eyebrows and spread his hands, as if inviting Lewis to examine the proof himself.

  “Boy has a point,” Mack said. “Either way, I got a field what needs some work. We gonna do this or what?” He leaned forwards in his seat, face creasing as he tried to slip into a meditation.

  Bastian bit his tongue, then cursed at himself. If Danil wants me to run this class, I'll damn well run it my way.

  “Not like that,” he said. Mack sat up, startled. “You're trying too hard. It's… it's like a pretty girl. You go in with a glower and start demanding she dance with you, you're gonna go home alone. You have to ease in, gently.”

  “Last time Mack eased into a girl she threw him off a building,” Jarv snorted. “What, you never wondered why he was so ugly? She rearranged his face!”

  Mack did have an unusually asymmetrical face. Bastian let out a chuckle, but stopped at Mack’s sad look of defeat. “Wait. You mean he wasn’t joking?”

  “Oh, it weren't like that! Her pa came home early, and she was so eager to hide me, she weren’t still in the downstairs bedroom.” He grimaced as Bastian laughed even harder. “Broke my nose and half my jaw on some stupid statue her Ma had on the front lawn.”

  Bastian’s lungs heaved, trying to catch his breath. “Bitch’s britches, Mack. That's the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!”

  Mack turned up one corner of his mouth, a smile that had just a hint of pride to it. “I dare say so, Bastian. I dare say so.”

  “Old papa Jefferson felt so bad he paid the surgeon to fix it up and didn't even cut his balls off for diddling his daughter,” Francis piped up. “Now, that's an achievement to be proud of. When Jefferson caught young Hannity in her room, the kid came out with one bean halfway to his throat and the other one in his left boot, and I don't think he ate sausages for a year after.”

  With that, the whole room fell into loud, raucous laughter. “Oh, hell, I'm glad Lilly wasn't here for that one,” Bastian whimpered as he wiped the tears from his face.

  By the time they had themselves under control, their lesson time was half over.

  “So, we just ease into it, right?” Lewis asked.

  Bastian nodded.

  “Sounds easy. Or it would if I knew what the fuck that meant,” Jarv grumbled.

  Bastian sighed. Danil had been driving most of the students, but these men especially. As victims of the mind control spell the New Dawn had mastered, they were the most vulnerable if it happened again. After a forced period of rest, they had been deemed strong enough to try using the magic that was innate to all.

  However, their eagerness and Danil’s impatience both worked against the magic itself. Mental magic required a calm mind, an inner stillness that was more elusive the harder it was fought for.

  “Let's try something different,” Bastian said. He thought back to the very first time he used mental magic.

  It had been after class. A month of training, trying as hard as these men to force his will over something elusive and intangible. Finally, one afternoon it had happened, and not at all how he had expected.

  Tired, crabby and sick of the press of people that always seemed to be around, he had snuck off up the mountain. He hadn’t gone far, just enough that the air didn’t smell like bread and the view over the Temple made it look like another world.

  He had made himself comfortable in the crook of a tree branch and almost fell asleep, listening to the birds and letting his mind drift. That’s when it had happened—a sense of oneness had crept over him as his breathing settled and the universe became just an extension of his fingertips.

  Bastian blinked, clearing his suddenly-white eyes and letting go of his magic.

  “Let's try it with whiskey,” Mack suggested.

  Bastian grinned. “Actually…” He walked over to Annie's liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of
amber liquid. “I'm not getting you drunk, just loosening things up a bit.”

  He poured a shot for each of them and watched each man down it with pleasure. Francis had told him a few days ago that the New Dawn had destroyed most of the alcohol in the village, probably because it could make the effects of mind control unpredictable.

  “Now, instead of trying to make the magic happen, let's take a few minutes to meditate. You've been practicing every day, haven't you?” He eyed the men.

  Mack looked away, pretending to examine the drapes. Lewis shrugged. Jarv grinned and nodded eagerly and Francis stayed quiet, knowing as well as Bastian did that he hadn't practiced once.

  “That's fine,” Bastian said easily.

  Mack, Lewis, and Francis let out sighs of relief, glad to be spared the tongue lashing Danil was prone to giving when they admitted they hadn't been putting any extra effort into learning to shield.

  They settled back in their chairs, eyes closed, hands limp in their laps. One minute passed, then another as Bastian skimmed their minds.

  It was no surprise they had trouble letting go of their thoughts. Each man had been through so much pain and loss over the previous months. Bastian withdrew from Jarv’s mind, which was surprisingly clear and right on the edge of expanding into a true meditation. He didn't want to inadvertently distract him at the critical moment.

  He pushed his mind out to Francis, whose face was pulled into a slight frown as he tried to force his mind blank. Bastian watched him push thoughts of his wife away over and over again.

  Danielle had been mind-controlled into thinking the growth in her throat was cured by the New Dawn. Bastian knew that wasn't possible, not for someone with mental magic. Healing was the realm of the druids.

  She had died just a few days after Julianne and her people had liberated the town, the growth now so large it strangled her. Francis had laid her body, thin and frail after two weeks of being unable to swallow, to rest in the small family graveyard. He had vowed to destroy the New Dawn if it killed him to do it.

  I will burn them for what they did, Francis thought, unaware that Bastian was listening in.

  Uncomfortable eavesdropping, Bastian pulled away just as Francis’s fingers twitched. As Bastian turned back to Mack, something sparked in the corner of his sight. He looked back to see a tiny flame flickering in Francis’s upturned palm.

  “Fuck!” Francis snatched his hand up and shook it, his eyes wide with panic. Bastian missed the telltale change in color that happened when someone used physical magic like that. “What the fuck was that?”

  The others jumped and when Bastian, bemused at the turn of events, looked to Mack, his heart gave an excited thump. The man’s eyes glowed white.

  “Uh, Mack? You feeling ok there, bud? You look a bit…” Jarv’s face was almost as white as Mack’s eyes, which cleared as he focused on his friend.

  “What?” Mack asked, seemingly unaware of what he'd just done.

  It was too much for Bastian, who felt a bubble of laughter rise from his belly. His four students looked on as their teacher dissolved into hysterical laughter.

  “Danil…” he gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. “Danil will never believe I got two of you to cast magic!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Artemis paced back and forth, the small, abandoned stable only giving him a few steps to move each way. His feet kicked at the bedroll jumbled in a heap on the straw and Julianne wondered, not for the first time, why he had chosen to sleep there.

  If she thought he was capable of feeling guilt, she would have guessed that was the reason. Artemis, though, didn't feel things like normal people. He wasn't a bad man. Just… wired differently.

  Julianne hadn’t known him back at the Temple, but some of her friends had. They’d warned her he was different, that even though his heart was usually in the right place, he had trouble showing it.

  His mind was a mess of information. Memories, facts, musings and questions leaked out of his brain as if there was so much to ponder, he couldn't keep it all in. His passion was for information. People were just things that either provided it, or didn't.

  “Because I can’t abide people,” he snapped, reading her thoughts. When he looked up, his white eyes seemed surprised. You don’t think I like being back here, do you? Surrounded by people with their noisy lips and shouty heads, interrupting my peace!

  The mental sending struck Julianne sharply, the clear thought forming a hard edge in the man’s otherwise scattered mind. For all the time she had spent trying to understand his mind and make sense of the way his thoughts fluttered around like a cloud of butterflies, she was no closer.

  “Artemis, it has nothing to do with liking people. It’s about what’s right,” Julianne said patiently.

  “Right for who?” he quipped. “Certainly not right for me. No, what’s right for me is disappearing, vanishing into the woods and never coming back. Just think, Julianne. If I’d done that to begin with, none of this would have happened!”

  “We’ve been through this!” Julianne snapped. “It doesn’t matter what you did. You never meant to kick off such widespread destruction, I understand that. But you bloody well need to do your part in fixing it.”

  It wasn't like she was asking much. She, Danil, and Bastian had their hands full trying to teach the townspeople how to create mental shields. Without that vital skill, they were defenseless against future attacks by the mystics who had enslaved them before.

  She put her hand on her hips and drew herself up. “Artemis, your place with the mystic community depends on it.”

  Artemis stilled. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally, he slumped. “Fine. I'll help. On one condition.”

  Julianne raised an eyebrow. He wasn't exactly in a bargaining position. Still, she didn't want him offside, so she nodded for him to proceed.

  “I'll take three classes a week, no more. Children only. They don't argue as much as their parents.”

  Julianne hesitated, then nodded. It was all she had intended to ask of him, but she would let him think it was a win.

  Artemis stepped closer. “And one lesson for you, and one for your friends. You will let me test you. And, maybe, try some things I’ve been working on.”

  Julianne sighed. Artemis had been badgering her to let him test her strength for weeks now. She wanted to—she was just as curious as he seemed to be. She just hadn’t had the time.

  “You’ll take four lessons with the children, and one per week with each of us. Fair?”

  Artemis grinned and nodded eagerly. “Wonderful. The other two can double up, they’re not particularly interesting. I can’t wait to get in your head, though!”

  Julianne shook her head in exasperation. Artemis had a knack with words that would send most people around the bend. “Whatever you say, Artemis. Just… try to be nice to the children at least?”

  He shrugged, his innocent expression so earnest it was almost comical. “I adore children. It’s their parents I can’t stand.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Higher. Higher, ye soft-cocked little man!” Bette heaved her side of the barrel, trying to lift it into the cart.

  “Hang on, the stench is so bad I canna breathe. Just…” Garrett’s grip failed, and the large tub started to topple. He snatched at it with both hands, jerking it too high in his haste to catch it. “Look out!” he yelled.

  His warning came far too late. The carefully harvested pile of cow, horse, and sheep droppings slipped to the ground, the wooden barrel exploding on impact. He flinched as dung splattered his face, then cowered as a shit-covered figure rose before him.

  “I… will… KILL… YOU…” Bette growled. She used her shirt to scrub at her face, but it was as dirty as the rest of her. She spat, almost gagged, then stripped off her shirt. The linen chemise beneath it was only marginally cleaner. “And stop looking at me tits, ye clumsy bastard. I know yer doin’ it.”

  She finally found a clean strip of cloth to wipe her eyes and glared at G
arrett. Bette kicked at a pile of dung on the ground, splattering it over his pants, then stormed off.

  Garrett watched her go, eyes wide. “Oh, I'm in the shit now,” he muttered, then laughed at his own pun.

  “What in the Bastard’s name is that stink?” Danil laughed when Garrett jumped at his voice. “Sorry, friend. Didn't mean to startle you. What's wrong? You look like you're expecting the hangman’s noose. And what’s that smell?” He screwed up his face, sniffing the air.

  “Get fucked,” Garrett growled. “Ye’ve read it in me mind already, haven't ye? Ye just wanna rub it in by making me say it out loud.”

  Danil laughed. “You got me there. I caught Bette’s thoughts on her way out, too. Bloody glad I'm not in your shoes.”

  “Aye, well, you be getting out of me head, ye cheeky prick.” Garrett scraped his boot on the bottom of the wagon, only succeeding in spreading the mess around. “Ahh fuck. I'll have to shovel this shit back up meself. She's not coming back, is she?”

  “I doubt it,” Danil said with a laugh. “But can you blame her?”

  He lifted one of the shovels from the cart and tentatively began to load it with dung. He used his magic to look through Garrett’s eyes, but politely stayed away from the rearick’s deeper thoughts.

  It was slow work, as Danil had to pause each time the rearick looked away, but they soon fell into a rhythm.

  “Thank ye, Danil. I do appreciate the help, even if yer an asshole.”

  “Anytime, you snarky little bastard,” Danil replied dryly.

  Garrett grinned at him. “While it's just us,” he began, looking around to make sure that was true, “I thought maybe ye might have a wee bit of advice for me.”

  Danil raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was about to get himself into.

  “Well,” Garrett continued. “It's about… well, it's about womenfolk. Ye seem like ye may have a bit more experience with ‘em than I do, if ye know what I mean.”

  Danil laughed. “I doubt that. I mean sure, I live with a bunch of them and I've dated my fair share, but that doesn't mean I understand them.” Even his mind reading ability didn't eliminate that hurdle.