by M. M. Reid
A light answered, blinding me momentarily before it framed a doorway. Upon reaching the door, I recognized the old architecture instantly: this was Lokus’s mansion. I stood a few metres away from Ben as he pressed his back against the door, sweat dripping from his brow and chin.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I reached for him, but found my fingers could not penetrate into his realm. I was trapped behind an invisible wall.
“How did they find us?” he asked Trosian.
“I don’t know,” said Trosian. Concern marred his face as he readied Gungnir. “How many Shadows are there?”
Parts of the door blew apart abruptly as my two friends dropped to the ground in an attempt to dodge the bullet storm above them.
“Ben!” I screamed, while the chunks of wood rained down upon them. I took a few steps back and threw my full weight into my prison. The invisible wall bowed against me but threw me back. It was useless. Like my visions before, I could not help them.
“Three, maybe four, dozen,” Ben said, pulling a gun free from his belt. “They’re too organized. It’s like the battle with the Pagans—oh man, Trosian, you’re bleeding!”
Trosian attempted to stand but then fell back onto his hands. Blood stains began to grow and fester, staining his white shirt.
“Stop!” he said with a commanding tone as he pushed Ben away. “Find Selene, warn the Underground Ring. Tell them Laucian has found us.”
Another volley of ammunition struck the house and bits of glass and wood sprayed everywhere. My two companions hit the deck once again to avoid being struck. I roared in frustration. I could not sit idly by and watch them be murdered!
“I’m not leaving you guys,” Ben said as he helped the injured Trosian to his feet.
“Do as I say!” Trosian threw Ben back. “Lee can only hold back the breach for so long.”
Ben hesitated, staring at his stalwart companion, then nodded grimly before running towards the side door.
Trosian waited until Ben was out of sight then collapsed onto one knee, gasping as he clutched his chest. He knew that his injury, if left untreated, would be fatal. The door began splinter and split as the Shadows attempted to break through it. Trosian raised his Fire and Vitae as he rose to the challenge, Gungnir gripped tightly in his hand, ready to meet his fate. “Help us, Augrais,” he whispered to himself.
As he said this, I awoke in my tent with a start. Scrambling outside, with Balmung in hand, I paused allowing my Vitae Lord senses to feel the energy in the air. I could feel them, even from this distance. The battle must have just started as the energy was getting more and more potent.
“Yayel! Up, now!” I commanded as I attached Balmung to my hip.
Yayel’s head poked out of his tent flap. “What is it?”
“My friends are under attack,” I said.
“The ones who left you? Didn’t you say they didn’t want you back?” Yayel asked as he took my side.
“Well, I’m the only thing they’ve got right now and I’ll be damned if I am just going to let them get killed,” I said. “Are you in or out?”
“In.” Yayel nodded. “Definitely in.”
“Let’s go. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to make it.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect as Yayel and I exited the car we had stolen and entered the woods near Lokus’s house. I didn’t know how much time had passed since the scene I witnessed in my vision, but the battle had clearly only just ended as the air was so saturated with Vitae that my Air gift couldn’t make out any individuals. I didn’t sense any large masses of gifts heading towards the battle, so I assumed that the Underground Ring hadn’t arrived yet.
“What happened here?” Yayel asked, whispering as the ramshackle remains of Lokus’s mansion lay before us.
I couldn’t respond. The house was smoldering and falling apart. There were dead bodies scattered in the yard. Bullet casings and chunks of wood were strewn about the front yard, the corpses their only bedfellows. It was a terrible sight.
“Augrais,” Yayel whispered as I slowly walked out into the open, as if caught under the Water gift. “There might be more Shadows. What are you doing?”
I wasn’t listening as I approached each body that didn’t have one of Lee’s arrows sticking out of it. The yard was silent as my heart began to pump faster and faster. I prayed that I hadn’t been too late. The bodies were still warm to the touch. I could hear Yayel puking behind me, as questions rolled through me like a thunderstorm. An endless pit began to form in my stomach as I turned over each body. What if I find one of my friends’ empty eyes staring back at me?
I slowly stood. None of my friends were among this massacre. Among the 20 or 30 bodies outside, none were a Pagan and I was reasonably sure they were not fighters from the Underground Ring.
“What happened here?” Yayel asked. His face had an ashen tinge to it. I had to remind myself this had been the first time he had seen a dead body before.
I put up a hand to ask for silence. I still could not risk talking to Yayel or calling out for the others as there might be more Shadows waiting inside the ruins. The broken door lay snapped in half as we crossed the threshold into Lokus’s home. A coppery smell hung in the air. The entire dimly lit foyer was covered in the bodies of Shadows. Yayel began to heave again as I quickly surveyed the area, making sure that none were still breathing. The paintings and furniture were torn asunder. The desecration of this once beautiful place overwhelmed me, deepening the panic that ran rampant through my bones. The eerie silence became worse as my footsteps squelched through the pools of blood.
Where are you, guys? I thought. I slowly began to raise my energy and sung out two dove calls. I waited thirty seconds, a minute, no response came. Then…the creaking of boards above. They were upstairs in Lokus’s library! Abandoning my caution, I raced up the stairs with lightning speed, hoping, praying that I would burst into that library to see the smiling faces of my Mystic friends.
“It’s good to see you’re still alive!” I said as I burst through the door.
My friends were in the room, but it was not them who made the noise. Four fully armed Shadows turned to face me. All of the library books and their wooden cases were strewn everywhere. The only thing left standing was the great mirror in the back of the room.
“Augrais?” came a voice in a hollow, weak whisper.
On the floor lay my three friends. Ben staring innocently up at me, his face pale and his chest bloody and ripped open like a piece of meat at a butcher.
“I knew you would come,” he said, smiling at me.
I roared, the Fire and Vitae exploding from my very cells like wild lightning. The light bulbs above us burned bright then shattered and the walls vibrated from my sheer power. The Shadows lifted their arms but I was already upon them, drawing Balmung with such strength that the first Shadow I struck was flung into the wall in two pieces. The others fared no better, as body parts and blood were strewn across the room like buckets of paint colouring the walls with crimson. I tossed Balmung aside and knelt down, tears dripping from my cheeks onto Ben’s still smiling, but lifeless, face.
Ben,” I said. “Ben, you’re going to be OK. Stay with me. Say something. Don’t leave me here alone!”
I cradled him close to me, sobbing as I realized my worst fear. Lee lay on his side, eyes listless, multiple bullet wounds to his stomach, chest, and head. Trosian was just beyond, slumped against a wall, Gungnir still in hand. I screamed out again, the walls reverberating around me. I had failed them. I should have been here. If I had, maybe I could…maybe I could…
“Augrais!” Yayel said as he ran into the room, then stopped as he saw me, a broken man.
“Come on guys,” I cried out again. “Get up. You can’t leave me. He’s still alive—the Violet-Eyed Demon! We were supposed to kill him and save the world together. Don’t you remember? You can’t—you can’t…”
My voice broke as I rocked back and forth, the deadweight of Ben’s
body hung limply in my arms. There were no signs of life in any of them.
A sympathetic hand rested on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Augrais,” Yayel said. “We did everything we could.”
I looked at him and a slow smile crept onto my lips as I realized. It all made perfect sense in the swirl of grief and sorrow. “You’re right,” I said. “But I can do something now.”
Yayel looked at me questioningly as I slowly placed Ben back onto the ground.
“See you soon,” I said, patting his shoulder. A minute later, I stood above my friends who were now in a perfect line in front of me, contemplating what I was about to do. I didn’t have much time to decide. Remembering the Lion’s book, I only had a short time before death and I did not know when Trosian and Lee had met their end. I remembered using Shin to revive Selene, how difficult it was, and recognized that there were three people now, not just one. This feat may be more that I could give. No, I thought shaking it from my mind, sacrifices had to be made in war and this was mine. Suddenly I became aware of the growing Vitae a few hundred metres away. It was dark, powerful, and moving away rapidly. Laucian. The Vitae that hung in the air began to subside as I realized that Laucian’s power was not alone. Lokus’s energy was also nearby.
“Do you feel that?” Yayel asked, his voice shaking.
“That is the Violet-Eyed Demon chasing my old teacher. The monster must have evaded the Underground Ring,” I said, recognizing now that both energies were moving away from the mansion.
“Do you think he killed them?” Yayel said.
I nodded.
“What are we waiting for then?” Yayel said, heading for the door. “Time to lay down some justice on that asshole!”
Turmoil bubbled up in me. I could leave now and potentially head off the Master of Shadows to engage him in battle, but that would most certainly mean that I could not return in time to bring my friends back—assuming that I even survived. If I revived my friends, it would certainly cost me my life. I had come to another fork in the road: my vengeance, my entire reason for pushing through this war; or the love for my friends.
“Look, I’m sorry about your friends but we have a shot to take out Laucian,” Yayel said, his voice rising with intensity. “I can’t do this without you. So, let’s go!”
I stared into Yayel’s eyes, hearing his words, even feeling as he felt now. I understood the cycle of rage, hate, and the wish to get even for all the cruel things done to him and his mother. But in this moment, hearing the words come from another, a revelation hit me.
“Not this time, Yayel.” The words rolled from my lips.
Yayel was taken aback. After all, all we spoke of was training and what to do if we ever found Laucian, and how we would make him pay. Why, when we could actually make our wish a reality, did I run away?
“Yayel,” I said resolutely, “there are things more important than your vengeance. The lives of your friends, the legacy of your loved ones, you must cherish them above your own selfish needs. Despite what happens next, remember those words and learn from my mistakes.”
I then knelt down and opened my palms above the three bodies of my friends.
“What are you doing?”
“Bringing them back,” I said as I called forth the remainder of my Shin to set out on my final task.
Unlike last time, the energy came relatively easily, pouring and oozing from me like chilled metal out of my pours. My breath began to mist in front of me as I concentrated harder on all of their beings, willing—no commanding—them to return.
“I feel cold,” Yayel said. His teeth began to chatter behind me.
I was excited as shards of metal and wood suddenly popped out of Trosian and Lee and everyone’s wounds began to slowly close and mend. It was working and I didn’t even feel it! And that was when it hit me. As if I had just ran around the world twice, fatigue gripped like fish hooks into my skin. Piercing and butchering my muscles, mind, and body. My head began to feel warm and light. My strength could barely hold me as I slumped forward.
“No!” I said aloud, fighting on. “I will bring them back.”
From the very depths of my being I summoned all of the Shin that I could muster, forcing it out of my body and into my friends. Time slowed, I felt my heartbeat begin to flutter. It was then that I saw what was happening to me in the nearby mirror. My face, my own face, began to contort as if I were in a nightmare. A gruesome, evil smile spread across the lips of this person in the mirror, and then came a laugh, a chilling laugh.
Arms flung themselves around me and squeezed tightly around my chest attempting to stop me from this task. Yayel.
“Stop it, Augrais,” he called to me as he struggled to make me budge. “You’re killing yourself!”
“Release me,” came a voice that sounded like mine, but I did not know. Yayel’s body was thrown from me. Much like an old abused toy, he struck the wall and fell limply to the floor with a thud. He did not move. The laughter echoed the in the room like sickening music.
Whatever was left of my humanity pushed on as my friends were nearly healed. I just needed a little more time and Shin. But I had no more. I had been running on so little to begin with, how could I give them any more? The choice I had made was painfully apparent. My time had come to an end. It was my life for theirs. Upon realizing this, I gave my final stand, repeating the only thing that mattered to me: I have to do this.
A scream—my scream—echoed out, the last death throe of a wounded beast as I slipped onto the cool wooden floor. I died then, with the monstrous laughter within my only company as I slipped into the darkness forever.
Chapter 20
The world was different. Light attacked me from all sides. I didn’t want it. I didn’t need it. I wanted the darkness to cradle me, to lull me into an everlasting power, into an everlasting rest, until I was ready to awaken and destroy the light once and for all. I wanted to destroy meek humans. To kill, yes, killing was what I needed, what I wanted. I floated in and out of consciousness, catching parts of conversations from those around me.
“Is he OK?” Lee asked.
“I don’t know,” Trosian said. He was alive! But at that moment, it didn’t matter. I didn’t even care. “I have never experienced such things before.”
“What’s happening to him?” asked Ben.
I knew my heart should have leapt for joy, but I did not care. I did not even want them around. Foolish children, they have no idea what they speak of. They speak of a legend. A myth. An immortal. A God.
“I don’t know,” Lee said solemnly.
“I do,” Lokus’s stern voice answered Lee. The coward actually returned. How quaint. “He is changing. He is becoming something much like Laucian before him.”
“Augrais? Evil?” Ben disagreed. “A loose cannon, sure, but a demon? He’ll be OK, just give him a few days. He’ll be back to normal…right, guys?
“What do you think?” Lokus responded quietly.
Ben took a moment to respond but when he did he sounded the most defeated I have ever heard him. “I don’t know.”
“Did you take Balmung as instructed?” I could sense Lokus’s arrogance dripping from his voice like condensing water.
“Yes, and the chain as well,” Trosian answered like Lokus’s little soldier.
“The chain? Why the chain?” Lokus sounded disappointed.
“We thought the chain would be better hidden away. If the worst were to happen, Yayel has been instructed to retreat to a rendezvous point with Selene.”
“I do not intend to let the worst happen, Trosian,” Lokus responded simply.
“Wait, what do you mean? I don’t get it,” said Lee.
“Augrais needs to be killed before he kills us.”
I was not shocked. I saw the logic in the old man’s point. If I had been in his position, he would already be dead.
“Hell no!” Ben exclaimed. “You can’t be serious! You want to kill him over something he hasn’t even done yet? This is our friend. This
is Augrais we’re talking about, right? We’re not talking about some monster. We’re talking about family here.”
His voice trailed off and there was a silence among the Mystics. All of them were probably trying to balance the situation morally.
“We can’t kill him. We don’t even know if he’s going to change yet,” Ben repeated in a frenzy. “He is our brother, he bled for us. He was the first one into the battle and the last out. He is the reason we are still alive!”
“ I will not see this happen again!” Lokus roared with such intensity that I heard some glass near me shatter.
Ben, however, was not intimidated. “What do you mean again?”
Lokus didn’t respond.
“What the hell did you mean, Lokus?” I could hear a shuffle of movement. Ben was going to fight for me… How sweet.
“Stop it, Ben,” Trosian said as he held him back.
A sword was drawn where Lokus was standing. I struggled to move but found that even with my greatest effort, I could not.
There was a clang then something smashed.
“What do you think you boys are doing?” Lokus’s voice sounded completely surprised.
“Stand down, Lokus. This is not your decision,” said Trosian.
“You all are insane. Do you realize what will happen if he rises from that bed? He won’t see the difference between friend or foe! He’ll kill us all!”
“Maybe he will and maybe he won’t,” Ben said, “but we don’t take orders from you anymore. Not after what you did at the mansion.”
There was a deadly silence. So, Lokus had run when the mansion was assaulted. Was he that scared?
“I will bring the Underground Ring here and they will see reason,” Lokus said as he strode by me.
“You do that,” Ben yelled as the door slammed.
“Lokus is right,” Trosian said after moment of allowing Ben to recompose, obviously trying to remain civil. “Sense him, Ben. Can’t you feel the darkness emanating from him? Can’t you feel the evil turning him slowly into something that is too terrible to even fathom? We cannot contain his power. And with the Shadows to fight as well, there is no way we can survive.”
