by Mel Odom
“No,” another said. “Those are the people who killed the Wayfinder and destroyed the Way of Dreams. Hang them!”
“We’ve got to go,” Taramis said.
Was this what Kabraxis wanted? Darrick wondered. Would his death at the hands of a lynch mob allow the demon to step back into the world of men? Darrick didn’t know.
The mother rose to his defense, holding her child to her. “Don’t you men dare touch him. He brought my little Jenna back to me. If he is the one who killed the Wayfinder, then he had to have done it for good cause, says I. This man is a miracle worker, a chosen one of the Light.”
“The Wayfinder was leading you to demons,” Taramis said. “If he had not killed the servant of the false Prophet of the Light, all of you would have been doomed to the Burning Hells.”
Darrick felt sickened. He was no hero, and he was no saint. He forced himself to release his tight hold on Stormfury.
Grudgingly, the lynch mob mentality gave way, surrendering to the people who were looking for something to make sense out of all they had been through with the Church of the Prophet of the Light.
In amazement, Darrick watched as people came forward with wounded friends and family, beseeching him to heal them. He turned to Taramis. “What do I do?”
The sage gazed at him. “The choice is yours. You can board that ship and tend to your own needs as best you can, or you can stay here in this moment and tend the needs of others.”
Darrick looked out over the huge crowd. “But there are so many.”
Already two dozen litters with men and women lying near death were spread across the docks. People called out to him, begging him to aid their fallen family and comrades.
“But the power I have,” Darrick said, “it isn’t from the Light.”
“No,” Taramis agreed. “Listen to me, though. How do you know that in this moment the Light hasn’t had a design in placing you exactly in the position you find yourself in now?”
“I’m tainted with the demon.”
“You also possess a demon’s great power, and you can do a lot of good with it if you choose.”
“And what if in using that power I also lose myself?” Darrick asked.
“Life is about balance,” Taramis said. “Balance between the Light and the Dark. I would not be able to champion the will of the Light so strongly, so willingly, had I not been exposed to the Darkness that waits to devour us in the Burning Hells. Just as steel must be tempered, Darrick, so must a man. You’ve come a long way. Your present is balanced between your past and the dreams you might have. You stand between the Light and the Dark as Kabraxis’s gateway, but it is your choice to remain open or closed. Your choice to hide the power or to use it. You can fear it or embrace it. Either way, it has already changed your life forever.”
Quietly, thoughts racing inside his head, the demon whispering somewhere at the back, Darrick looked at the crowd that waited so expectantly. Then, taking a deep breath, he went forward to meet his future, his head high, no one’s unloved bastard child anymore but a man of compassion and conviction. He went to the wounded and the dying, and he healed them, listening to the demon scream at the back of his mind.
