by Sean Golden
But Lirak’s experience was far, far different. First, Lirak felt pain. He smelled burning flesh and hair as the robe funneled incredible energy from the swirling, pulsating colors around him. His body was at the focal point of unimaginable raw power. Now we learn the truth. The words in his head ripped his thoughts away from the pain and for the first time in his life, he sought their source, focusing his mind on the words, chasing them back from where they had come. At the same time he felt his body accept the energy and redirect it, allowing it to flow around, within and through his arms, leg, chest, every part of his body was infused with and holding the energy, but was not being consumed by it. In his own mind, his body cooled instantly. The burning stopped. His skin was red and blistered from the previous heat, with raw burn marks along his forearms, but there was no more heat, no more burning.
But Lirak had forgotten the pain. His mind was no longer in the camp. Instead he tried desperately to make sense of his new reality. Sound, light, taste, touch, all were jumbled together into a chaotic froth of sensations. Through it all he felt the cool, slick sensation of the familiar voice in his head; the voice that had been with him since childhood. The voice of Kathoias.
“Well done.” Kathoias’s voice tasted sweet and fresh, an earthy, fulfilling flavor.
“What is happening?” Lirak rolled the words in his fingers, molding them, placing just the right inflection and urgency he desired.
“You are learning the truth.” A sensation of palpable solidity, as if the words were formed from mountains of solid granite.
“Has it always been you?” Spoken words manifested as musical notes, the question became a complex song with layers of tones and overtones, syncopated with a rhythm like a heartbeat.
“Me?” Humor exploded above/around Lirak like a rising sun, mirth that seemed capable of boiling the sea or flooding the desert. “You are just beginning to learn, Lirak. Some questions have no answer you can yet understand.”
With each passing moment, Lirak’s world became less violently chaotic. His head began to ache with an effort he did not even realize he was exerting. The swirling vortex of sensations was slowly fading into a gray, formless void, but Lirak somehow knew that all of those sensations were still there, and that he could recall any part of them at any moment.
“There, that is good. Very good.” Kathoias’s voice seemed again to be the same as the voice of the young woman in the forest, and yet Lirak could taste, feel and see every nuance he had been experiencing before simultaneously.
“The robe,” Lirak simply said.
“Yes and no,” Kathoias answered. “The robe is merely an amplifier, the world is as the world is.”
Out of the gray mist a bundle of sensations floated before Lirak, and he reached forth with his mind and touched it. Instantly he saw the Hanorian camp, as if he was both inside and outside himself. Dedrik was just reacting to the blinding heat emanating from Lirak’s prone form, and his face had already begun to set into shock and something like resignation. Mayrie was still trying to move towards Lirak, oblivious to her danger, but Patrik’s hand was on her arm, and he was already pulling her back to safety.
“Is that all you want to see?” Kathoias asked.
“No,” Lirak replied, pushing down his sudden desire to leave the gray void and rush to Mayrie’s side.
“Good,” Kathoias said, her satisfaction reaching Lirak with a sensation like the taste of forest berries.
“No,” Lirak repeated. “I want to see more.” And suddenly the gray void was gone, and the chaotic mass of sensation was no longer chaos. Instead Lirak was at once nowhere and everywhere, over the forest, and under the sea. He rode the sensations like a leaf in a windstorm, watching, hearing, touching, tasting as the world bombarded him with its immensity and variety. Lirak allowed his expanded awareness to be carried along for what seemed like days, his mind assembling the sensations into a comprehensive picture of a world turned inside out and upside down, desperately trying to make sense of what he experienced, and knowing that the picture was constantly filling in with more and more clarity. His mind seemed to encompass the entire world, and his understanding of the nature of that world was suddenly clear and undeniable, an understanding in and of itself that shook his world view to the core. He found himself lost in exploring that vastness, although his vision was sometimes faint and distant, and at times and places, seemingly deliberately obscured.
He saw an immense world shaped like a perfectly round boulder, covered in nearly equal amounts of land and sea. He could exactly pinpoint the precise location of Luh-Yi, and most of the lands attached to Luh-Yi. But across the Dragon Sea, the view was dark, foreboding and oozing an aura of despair, terror and evil. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the difficulties, Lirak repeatedly attempted to learn more about the mysterious realm beyond the sea. He could sometimes make out great reptilian shapes looming in the shadows. And there were more visions of great battles with mind-numbing casualties. Lirak’s sense of time was so strange that at times he felt that he had always been here and always would be. Other times a strange urgency would warn him that he had been distracted too long. Eventually he stopped trying to penetrate the barriers and paused in thought. It was time to go back.
“The wall,” he said. And he was there. The Groln warlocks were hurling their great energy blasts while the soldiers massed for a final assault. Lirak realized that the scene at the wall had changed dramatically since his last vision. “It must be days since I put on the robe!” he understood with a shock. Lirak immediately saw what an impact his band had been having on the Groln, because now, without Lirak’s warriors to worry about, they had amassed their entire army, including several warlocks, into one final massive assault. On the wall a sense of panic and resignation rose like a stinking yellow cloud. Lirak knew that the battle was almost lost.
“I have to get there.” His thoughts shimmered with urgency, and the gray void returned, but this time Kathoias was there, her face beaming with joy, her body radiating a seething sexuality and something like satisfaction.
“Yes you do.” Regret dripped for a moment, but then transformed into proud anticipation. “You don’t have much time.”
Lirak sat up in the center of the Hanorian camp. Around him, for several feet in all directions, the ground was scorched and devastated such that only the bare rock and dirt remained, and that had been melted and cracked and still radiated a heat that Lirak only remotely felt, but still with no sense of pain or danger. He heard shouts as the camp realized he had awakened. Dedrik slid to a stop in front of him, just beyond the dangerous heat, and threw a restraining hand to stop Mayrie from throwing herself onto Lirak.
“Don’t. The ground is still hot,” Dedrik warned.
Lirak stood and walked towards Dedrik and Mayrie. He held up his arms, allowing the sleeves of the red robe to fall, exposing partially healed red flesh and blisters. The pain was there, he could feel his skin’s burning heat, but he simply pushed it away as if it were of no consequence.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You need that tended to Lirak.” Dedrik’s words were calm, but his face betrayed a sense of shock.
“Not now. We have more important things to do.” He gestured around the clearing. “Bring your men. We have an army to attend to.”
“What?” Mayrie’s shocked voice was equal parts anger and fear. “You can’t go! You’ve been unconscious for three days Lirak! We couldn’t get near you! Your body melted the rock! I thought you had to be dead.” Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she looked like she had not slept well for days.
Lirak nodded at Mayrie. “I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was gone that long.”
“Gone?” Mayrie’s voice cracked. “Where did you… go?”
Lirak could find no words. “It will take some time to explain, Mayrie,” he said. “And time is something that we are just about out of.”
Lirak reached out with his red, blistered fingers taking Mayrie
’s hand. “Time to end this.”
Rage
And blood will flow like rivers.
– The Prophecies
Lirak led the small force of Hanorian soldiers along with Mayrie and Patrik through the forest, toward the massive pulsating knots of power that he knew meant the Groln warlocks were at work. Nothing was said. Dedrik occasionally issued a terse command to the men but otherwise there was only the sound of marching men. Lirak wondered idly if he was heading to his doom, but something drove him forward. Embrace your destiny echoed in his mind as he walked.
Finally they reached the edge of the forest where all could see the devastation before them. Four gray warlocks stood with one red warlock on a large mound of earth, well behind a sea of armored Groln warriors. The Wall was cracked and groaning. Large stone fragments fell into a growing pile of rubble and the Groln commander was already arranging his men for the final rush into the growing breach, and the inevitable conquest of Hanoria. Above the Groln warlocks a maelstrom of multi-colored power that dwarfed anything Lirak had yet seen bulged down from the sky as the warlocks called forth their deadly power.
Lirak strode forth from behind the warlock mound, his bloody red robe glowing in the sun like a flame. Dedrik and his men formed a shield in front of Lirak, but their small force was not even noticed. If anyone did see the group, they seemed to assume that a red warlock was not to be challenged. Lirak reached forth with his mind amplified by the robe, probing and massaging the massive energies roiling above and around him. He pulled the red warlock’s wand from his belt, and the feeling intensified to the point that he felt his entire body was vibrating.
The warlocks were working together to pull down a monstrous whorl of power. Lirak thought it likely they were combining their efforts to create a final blast of raw power to open a massive breach. Their faces were rapt with raw bliss, reveling in the feeling of power.
Lirak watched as the sky filled with a huge red-orange swirling bulge, centered directly over the warlocks. He raised his own hands and reached out with his mind to caress the bulge, gauging its strength and flavor. He could feel the Groln warlocks as they shaped and pulled on the forces, preparing to redirect the massive energies against the wall. Lirak’s group continued forward, still unnoticed as all eyes were focused on the crumbling wall. Soon he was within yards of the warlock’s mound. The raw power moving in the area was such that the Hanorian soldiers’ hair began to stand on end, and they stopped at the base of the mound in sheer terror. Mayrie, Dedrik and Patrik stayed with them. Lirak went on.
At the front of the massive battle lines of the soldiers, on a small rampart of earth, Vopryt, the Groln commander watched, obviously anticipating the final blow. Raising his flag high he shouted to the troops around him, bringing their blood-lust to a crescendo. Spears and swords bashed against shields to create a wall of sound that reverberated across and beyond the great wall where the Hanorian soldiers watched in terror. A sharp, unnatural smell pervaded the area as the sorcery was performed.
Lirak’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he reached forth and examined the bulging vortex of energy. Halfway up the warlock mound, he carefully located the connections from the bulge to each of the warlocks below. Opening up his mind to the sensations, he eased effortlessly into the familiar sense of time compression that always accompanied his entry into combat. Then, without warning, just as he reached to top of the mound, he acted.
Seizing the connection between the vortex and the first gray warlock, Lirak savagely yanked the pulsating energy cord away and toward himself. Instantly he directed a tiny fraction of the energy at the warlock, blasting him off the mound into a bloody heap, his gray robe smoldering. Without pause, he continued forward and did the same to the second gray warlock.
It wasn’t until the third warlock was blasted off the mound, and Lirak was starting to feel the strain of the full power of the bulge, that the final two warlocks realized what was happening. The two turned and Lirak felt their grip on the energies falter, and in sudden panic each of them tightened their hold on the pulsating, surging mass of raw power. In spite of this, Lirak viciously yanked the cord away from the last gray warlock and blasted him off the mound in a single heartbeat.
The red warlock grimaced and Lirak could feel him begin to direct the final cord into a blast that would be far too much for Lirak to avoid. Even with the red robe amplifying his strength, Lirak knew such a blast would overwhelm him. The red warlock’s hold on the final cord was too much for Lirak to grab while still maintaining his hold on the other four, the additional power would overwhelm Lirak and burn him to dust.
Lirak smiled back at the red-robed man, and slammed one of the cords he held into the red warlock’s remaining cord, immediately almost doubling the energy the red warlock had to manage, and then Lirak cut himself free. The red warlock’s smile suddenly vanished as he desperately tried to control the sudden surge of power pulsating through his robe and body. Lirak could already smell his flesh burning.
A great cry of fear and confusion rose up from the Groln army as they realized there was a new warlock battling their own warlocks. But even as the Groln Commander directed his archers to turn and fire on Lirak, Lirak allowed half the power of the massive energy he held to flow through him into a beam of energy directed at the rampart.
Exploding outward and upward from the rampart, the shock wave ripped Vopryt and his men into bloody fragments, dissolving them into a rapidly expanding cloud of dust, blood and shrapnel, leaving a crater twelve feet deep. Troops for several yards in all directions were caught in the blast and either killed outright or stunned from the concussion of the blast. The shock wave crashed into Lirak and for a moment he almost lost control of his hold on the rest of the bulging knot of energy. Grimly he managed to hang on, but to his left he could feel the red warlock’s body flash into white-hot flame as he lost control of the power surging through him. Before those knots of power could dissipate, Lirak reached forth and pulled them together. He now held more power than that which had burned the red warlock to dust, and yet he felt no pain. What he felt was anger, so raw, primal and deep that a guttural howl erupted from his chest. In his mind he simultaneously saw the scene in front of him, and the bloated and brutalized bodies of the Dwon villagers these soldiers had murdered.
On the top of the wall he saw the Hanorian soldiers react with wild exultation as they observed what Lirak had done. He heard Dedrik behind him bellowing an order. To his right a group of great wooden devices hurled rocks at the wall. In an instant they were nothing but gore, dust and splinters as Lirak’s anger was unleashed. Another image flashed in his mind, the stacked raped bodies of Tarii and the others, with the red handful of Mayrie’s hair. To his left was a milling mass of men mounted on beasts. In another instant there was a crater and the air was filled with more blood and gore. Again and again Lirak found targets for the power he held, and with each blast men by the hundreds died or were maimed horribly. As the power drained, he called forth more pulsating energies from the sky, until the sky above was a vast whirling mass of coruscating colors funneling into a blinding column directly into his body.
Into the mass of bloody confusion, Dedrik and Patrik led their force toward the wall, cutting down the Groln in their way. Lirak watched as the great army broke and tried futilely to run away from the carnage. A large group of soldiers led by a man with two fingers missing from his hand formed into a phalanx. Lirak’s eyes met the leader, and in his mind he saw Mayrie’s bloody, bruised body fall into the ravaged streets of Luh-Yi. With a primal scream, Lirak dropped the wand and shaped the forces with his bare hands, his skin smoking with the power as it blistered anew. Energy spewed from his fingertips, vaporizing the phalanx as they stood. Then, as he suffered the vision of Gawn’s arrow-riddled body, he unleashed a final blast at the last group of standing Groln, watching as their flesh and bone evaporated into a red mist and the ground erupted like the earth itself had been wounded.
Suddenly a chunk of the wal
l fell forward, and with a shout a great force of Hanorian soldiers charged forth. In a short time the battle was over, except the grim business of chasing down the few remaining panicked, fleeing Groln.
Lirak looked around the battlefield at the massive destruction and death. The cries of the broken, burned and bloody wounded filled the air. His own body smelled of burning flesh. Acrid smoke rose from within his red robe mingling with the smoke from the battlefield. Turning away from the scene, Lirak picked up the wands lying on the mound and walked down to join Patrik and Dedrik who had returned to meet him. Mayrie had not moved through the entire battle, and the look on her face was a strange mixture of shock, horror, and raw satisfaction.
“Lirak…” Mayrie said, “what… how…” she paused and a shiver ran through her body. “What have you become?”
Patrik too seemed in shock. For the first time ever Lirak believed that Patrik was speechless. Dedrik looked at Lirak with a hooded appraisal in his eyes, but said nothing.
The look of horror on Mayrie’s face was too much for Lirak. The stench of the battlefield and the ache of his own burned flesh overcame him and he sank to his knees, tears leaving hot trails down his raw, burned cheeks, as a sob was forced from his throat. Then, almost with a sense of inevitability, in his mind was again the dry, evil voice saying now you truly see, we are not as different as you think. As the words faded in his mind, a chill sense of shame and guilt rose within his heart. But Lirak also caught from the voice a sense of surprise, and even, Lirak smiled grimly, a little fear.
“Oh Lirak,” Mayrie sighed. “It’s over, it’s all over.”
