by Jean Johnson
The Fae mage reached up and touched his earring, shutting it off, and gestured for Ban and Krue to do the same. When they had, Éfan spoke softly. “Is there any way you can teach us how to do that? To catch and confine Udrin without him draining us dry? I saw what you were doing on the aetheric level. You nearly had him contained. It almost worked.”
Ban shook his head. “You would have to be born a mage in my universe. My magic is generated by me, not by any external means, so I always carry the source of it with me wherever I go. Even in realms with very little magic, I still have plenty. Beyond that . . . the rules for this type of magic state very clearly that if a mage swears an oath upon their powers, their own magics will enforce that oath.”
Krue nodded slowly. “Which is why we have never heard you swear an oath of any formal kind.”
Ban nodded. “The first group of Efrijt I encountered discerned which universe I came from, when considering opening a portal to return me to my old home. For a price. When they realized which realm I came from, they tried to get me to swear myself in eternal servitude to them instead.” He met Éfan’s gaze steadily, his words matter-of-fact. “But they were not the first to try to steal my power. I had long ago bound my powers so that I alone control them . . . and can control anyone trying to use them, with or without my permission.
“As a result . . . death is the only thing that shatters the absoluteness of Death’s control,” Ban added, shrugging at the twisted irony. “Even if only briefly.”
“Then I do not know how we will get him herded and contained,” Éfan muttered, raking a hand over his wheat gold hair. “We cannot help you, because he will just continue to drain us, maybe even kill us. We have no way to fight him.”
“Yes, we do,” Krue countered. He eyed the other two males. “The only reason Udrin can drain us is because he is more powerful than us. But we are Fae, and we gave him that power, by being near-perfect receptacles for storing and manipulating the anima-magics of this realm. If we do what he has done . . . we can become exactly like him, with all the same powers and abilities . . . but with far more experience at fighting.”
Éfan stared at Krue. “What you are suggesting, Fae Gh’vin,” he stated, stressing the other male’s title, rank, and all the implied law-abiding honor wrapped up in it, “is that we should become gods in this realm. That is forbidden.”
“That is a necessity, if we are to contain Udrin,” Krue countered flatly. “We chose to allow him to be born. We did not supervise him closely enough as he grew. We did not check the boy’s growing arrogance and ambitions. We did not think to check him constantly for exposure to mercury, and for any magical concealment of his consumption of it. We are at fault, and must stop him before he damages this world.
“That is the law of the pantean, which I will uphold as its Guardian. Besides . . . we might be able to undo it,” he added, though the Fae didn’t sound very hopeful. “But even if we cannot . . . this world needs protecting, and I will protect it. Even if it means a permanent exile and shunning by everyone back home.”
“You don’t have as much skill in magical combat as I do,” Éfan pointed out. “You are also mated. I will not allow you to make this decision without consulting Shava!”
Krue had the grace to look abashed, but he also drew in a breath to argue. Ban interrupted it.
“Both of you have forgotten that neither of you has the authority to make that choice. Jintaya is the head of this pantean, and she will decide. Éfan, did you figure out how to correct the debilitation Udrin caused by draining the others? You did get Fali on her feet and armored up for this confrontation,” he pointed out. “Even if it failed, you did get her moving.”
Éfan nodded. “Jintaya and I figured out a way, yes. I’ll . . . go get everyone on their feet. If you could help me channel the energies needed, Krue, it would help. We can’t wait for anyone to recover naturally. Time is not on our side.”
“Ban, go explain everything to Jintaya while we get the others on their feet,” Krue ordered. “Including the fact that one of us does need to fight him on his own level—we’ll argue which one of us later, when we’re all able to think and contribute ideas to our battle plan,” he added at Éfan’s pointed look.
Nodding, Ban turned around, oriented himself on the plaza, and headed for the nearest hidden entrance to the pantean. He touched his earring as he moved, and organized his thoughts. Explaining all of this was not going to be easy. Being worshipped as a god was bad. Becoming a god was worse. And they had no backup from any other realm, other than the magically weak Efrijt.
The arrogant, law-twisting Efrijt, who were now in danger of whatever Udrin might do to them. Seven decades ago, Ban would have rejoiced in their suffering. Exulted in it. Even just five decades ago, he had been too angry, too unforgiving at having been left a slave in a demonic world by the Efrijt, who had tried to bind him in eternal servitude to their race.
Now, however . . . he could only feel pity for them. He, too, had been targeted by a power-hungry god. By a handful of them, scattered through his three-thousand-plus years of immortality.
I wouldn’t wish this mess on anyone.
***
“It’s never going to open, is it?” Rua asked softly. “We will never see our homeland again.”
She, Jintaya, and most of the others in the pantean stared at the subtle arch of stone in the innermost, garden-like cavern of the pantean stronghold. The spot where the portal to their homeworld should have been. Jintaya, far too familiar with every striation and microcrystal of that corner of the grotto, shrugged.
“It might. It might not. I do know that there was nothing we did to deserve being exiled. The few times we managed to bribe Sefo Harkut for information . . . every other Fae outpost has been similarly cut off from Faelan. So it isn’t just us,” their leader reminded them. She stood there with her hands cupping her arms, feeling cold in the depth of the cavern. For a long moment, Jintaya stared at the empty spot, then finally said the words that had to be said. “We don’t have centuries to wait for the portal to be restored. We certainly don’t have the right magics to open one to the homeworld, and we don’t have the right magics to open it to any other.
“We also cannot abandon this world to the mess we made, in the form of the Dai-Fae-Efrijt child, Udrin. Who is now one with the anima of this world, and is . . . for lack of a better term . . . a newborn god. Ban could contain him, but can no longer get close enough, nor move fast enough to capture him. Nor could he contain Udrin forever, since the moment he dies, his control over Udrin’s energies ceases to be. The Efrijt are too weak to help, and the humans equally inadequate. Our choices are to let his chaotic self wreak havoc on this world unchecked . . . or change ourselves to meet and match him on terrain of the aether.
“Which means one of us will have to break the moral laws of the Fae Rii panteans, by becoming a god. Or a god-thing. I’m still not sure how much power Udrin has.”
“Or how much he will gain, as he learns how to control his new form,” Éfan cautioned gently. “He is still untutored in many of the ways of magic, but he has all the power he can access now, and it is untempered by the limits of a mortal existence.”
“I know.” Touching her two fingers to her brow, Jintaya winced. “I know . . . One of us has to . . . to do what he did, just to be able to face and fight him. And it needs to be someone with the skills to face him, the education he still lacks. Which means it has to be one of the seniormost of us.”
“I volunteer myself,” Krue stated, lifting his chin a little. “Guarding this pantean, and by extension its human settlement, and all the settlements that will be affected by this danger, is my responsibility.”
“Krue, no,” Shava protested softly. She touched his arm, trying to stay him.
He covered her hand with his own. “Did you really think I would abandon my vows as a Guardian? If I did, I would not be the soul you
wanted for your mate.”
“I won’t stop you. But if you go, I go,” Shava told him. She turned her pale yellow gaze on their leader. “You have two volunteers.”
“With respect, neither of you has studied the phenomenon of the anima of this world for as long or as in-depth as I have,” Éfan countered. “I am the most logical choice . . . and I am only one person. It would be better to exile just me with this step. The rest of you will be clear to return to the homeworld when the portal does reopen. As it will. Eventually.”
“I am a fully trained Guardian,” Krue argued. “I am prepared to find a way to kill him. That, I think, has become a necessity.”
“You don’t know that!” Muan protested. “He was unbalanced because of the mercury!”
“You do not know that,” Ban countered, giving her a hard look. “He was not completely balanced in his heart and mind even as a young child. Besides, it doesn’t matter if he was poisoned beforehand. He has no body anymore. We cannot cure what literally does not exist.”
“I am wishing we had gone after him, instead of sending you three to the Efrijt,” Jintaya muttered. She stared one last time at the point where the portal had once been, and turned away. Turned her back on all hope of getting an answer from Faelan. They were on their own, which meant this decision was hers alone. “We will not risk more than one of you . . . and that one will be Éfan.”
“Jintaya,” Krue started to argue, polite but firm in his tone.
She held up her hand, cutting him off. “From the recordings Jinji made and the testimony of all of you who saw it happen for yourselves, he could not contain an infinite amount of power. Once the anima started drifting out of him, he remained stable, but still mortal. To make the transition to pure aetheric anima-being . . . he had to die. That means Éfan will have to die, once he has achieved saturation. Éfan . . . are you prepared for death?”
He drew in a breath, hesitated a long moment, then nodded slowly. “I have only lived three hundred fifty years. One tenth of my longest possible life span. Death is the unknown shore, in most cases. In this case . . . I will not be leaving you. I simply will not be leaving this world.” Another hesitation, and then he dipped his head a little, acknowledging a point none of them had voiced yet. “It is also possible that this transformation is temporary, not permanent.”
“Not permanent?” Muan asked quickly. “You mean, my son may regain his body, in time?”
Éfan shook his head. “I meant, dissolution and dissipation may occur after a while—it is theoretically possible that a body could be shaped and imbued with an animating spirit, but . . . I do not know if that would be a real body that his soul would return to inhabiting, or just a . . . a sort of meat-puppet. Dissolution is more likely, particularly as time goes by.
“But . . . I am prepared for that. I have no mate to drag into exile, to risk this new form of life. I am relatively young, but I have lived well, and I leave behind a legacy of kindness and care toward the use of magic among the animadjet whom I have taught, care for its side effects and its aftermaths as well as its applications.
“It is a decent legacy for someone who has dedicated himself to the arcane arts.” He faced Jintaya, chin level and shoulders squared. “I stand ready to exile myself and risk this new . . . existence . . . in the need to stop Udrin from wreaking chaos and injury across this world.”
Jintaya dragged in a deep breath, looking at the others. Krue looked like he wanted to argue a bit more in favor of himself going instead of Éfan, but it was true that Shava would not let him go into any discorporeal exile alone. As was her right as his lifelong mate. Jintaya looked at Ban a long moment, then dragged her gaze to the others.
The only one not present was Zedren, Muan’s brother and Udrin’s uncle. He had returned to the plaza to gather up the damaged pieces of his artifacts, along with Udrin’s father, Dakin, and the Efrijt healer, Chadesh. It was in some ways a risk, letting the two Efrijt walk around with only a single Fae for protection. Should Udrin come back, they would be no match for someone now so intimately a part of this world’s magics as to be essentially inseparable. But Dakin had insisted on going to the plaza to gather up the body of the fallen human boy, and to check on the other one, the youth who had turned his son into an unstoppable, unkillable force. Chadesh wanted to assist, to make sure the latter youth was unharmed.
The Efrijt were sticklers for the letter of the law, and a pain in the neck to deal with . . . but they were honorable in their own way. Daro Dakin might be third-ranked at best in his people’s version of a trading pantean, but he was the father of Doldj’s killer, he was a good person under his gruff exterior, and he felt some small responsibility to make at least some minor amends to the boy’s family. Despite being greedy and selfish in many ways, the Efrijt, too, had rules against doing what Udrin had done.
They just had no way to stop him. The Fae did, even if one of them would have to break one of their strongest taboos . . .
“I think I know why you hesitate,” her niece offered. Jintaya blinked and eyed Jinji. The youngest Fae in the pantean shrugged. “It’s that law about not letting the natives worship us as gods. The thing is . . . we’re not normally gods. To be worshipped as such is false advertising, and that is the spirit of the prohibition. We are not to falsely promote ourselves as something we are not. But Éfan will become a god, the same as Udrin. Or at least godlike enough to nullify any violation of the spirit of the law.”
Kefer eyed his junior law-sayer assistant. “Have I told you recently how much your mind twists and turns like an Efrijt’s?”
“Not lately, no.” She flashed him a grin. “Thank you for the compliment.”
Their laws and protocols expert rolled his eyes and shook his head, but he smiled in doing it. This was not a new twist to their occasional bouts of teasing each other. Given time, Jintaya thought the pair might either become mates and lovers . . . or adopt each other as siblings. Such pairings could go either way, in due time. The Fae could be very patient, waiting to see how a relationship might grow.
“You do realize someone has to kill him at the height of his absorption, for him to make the crossover work?” Ban asked bluntly . . . crashing the good feelings of the moment.
The Fae looked at one another, a mix of shock and guilt at having forgotten that part lingering in their golden eyes.
Krue spoke up after a moment, his tone and expression grim. “I will do it.” He gave Éfan an apologetic but determined look, while his hand gently squeezed the fingers of his mate. “I have the fortitude to strike the blow, and the skill to make it swift and clean. I will make sure you do not suffer, my friend.”
“If you kill him,” Jinji pointed out, her humor from a moment ago vanishing in sober reflection, “then you become an accomplice to turning him into a god. Legal semantics or not, that will be ample cause for your exile. You will never be able to return home.”
Shava sucked in a sharp breath at that. To her credit, she did not hesitate more than two heartbeats at most. “We . . . are prepared to take that risk. Together.”
“It will not be necessary,” Ban murmured. The others glanced his way. He looked at Jintaya. “I have the skill, I can make it painlessly instantaneous, and I am not afraid of censure or exile. With my lady’s permission, I will strike the blow.”
Jintaya hated to ask him to do that. It seemed wrong, particularly after decades of leading him away from a life of violence and harm into a life where he could finally feel joy in his existence. And yet . . .
“Who better than Death?” Jinji asked rhetorically. “Besides . . . he’s the only one here who knows what true immortality is like. And we are risking living forever, with this act.”
“You have a point, niece.” Sighing, Jintaya bowed her head in permission. “Krue, your duty to the protection of this pantean requires you to remain on the right side of the law in this matter. Even if it weren’
t to create a godlike being when such ambitions are forbidden, you would still be in trouble for striking a mortal blow on a member of your own pantean. I do not like any of this . . . but choosing to do nothing is choosing to support every action Udrin takes.
“Ban will . . . dispatch Éfan’s mortal body,” she hedged, using delicate language. “We made too many careless mistakes with Udrin. We did not watch him closely enough, we assumed too much, and now we must find a way to end him before he kills anyone else. I would kill him myself, if I could. But I know that Ban is better suited to this task than any of you. Even myself.”
“Because he can kill without remorse, like I can,” Krue murmured, nodding.
“No,” Jintaya countered. “Because he knows how to mourn the passing of a close friend, then move on with his life. I am sorry for the burden of it, but you do have that experience, Ban.”
He dipped his head, acknowledging the point. “Plenty of it.”
Kefer spoke. “Now that we have decided . . . how soon will it be done?”
“Most of the local anima is depleted,” Éfan said. “I can feel the quietness of the aether around us. Trying to draw up the energies locally would take too long. Either I must travel to a different area . . . or . . . I could draw up energy from each of you.”
Those who had been drained already by Udrin wrinkled their noses, grimacing in distaste. Fali tipped her head, frowning in thought. Finally, she asked, “Do I have to have what little I have left stolen from me? It did not feel good.”
Jinji rolled her honey eyes, and her head sagged back, tumbling her golden curls in exaggerated sarcasm. “Did everybody else stop thinking when Udrin went mad? If we share our energies, he doesn’t have to waste any of his own in wrestling it from us.”
“That would leave us depleted, and thus vulnerable to an attack by Udrin,” Krue pointed out. “Those of us with greater control and greater reserves lasted longer against him.”
“We should spread out,” Parren offered. “As soon as Éfan goes to track him down, we spread out in pairs, taking the skydarts, the barge, the slip-discs, whatever we have, and fan out to spots twice the distance from the plaza as the area Udrin already drained. We go out, we watch each other’s backs, we drain everything we can reach, and we keep ourselves close to saturated.”
