by J E Mueller
Several people gave me confused looks before Asher nodded. “The demons and angels are continuing their call for help.”
“Oh,” several people replied, sounding rather bored.
“We’re used to hearing them this close. Several of us have had trouble getting them out of our heads, but they eventually move on. There’s only so many no’s they will take before finding a new target.” Asher smirked. “Open communication on such matters makes a huge difference so people cannot be influenced so easily.”
Benz rolled his eyes but nodded. “Makes sense.” He looked frustrated and annoyed, likely since he had been tricked by them.
So most can hear them… Lee commented, his voice curious. I wonder… what do they even think you can do?
Marella jumped in. Possessing someone isn’t that hard, though they can only hold it up for so long. Still, there is a lot of damage that can be caused with the right person under control.
Are you really on our side? Emmyth mused.
Blessed know it all… Was her only reply.
I tried to ignore them, ignore all the voices I was hearing, but the group of voices seemed to be getting louder, as if they were right in my skull.
“Free us!” They chanted, their demanding tone thunderous. I couldn’t even hear the gravel underfoot anymore as we walked.
“We need you, we brought you your sister. So much safer now away from disease and death,” they explained, their half-truths not painting a strong enough picture for me.
“We can destroy this realm, leave your magicless place forever,” they stated.
“We don’t want that realm, and we can destroy this merciless plane…” The voices were nonstop. A constant loop of the same few things.
By the time we actually reached the tunnel I was covering my ears.
Benz tried to pull at my hands but I wouldn’t budge.
“They’re just so loud,” I explained, nearly in tears.
Melly frowned. “They shouldn’t be that loud…” She glanced over at Asher, looking for a solution, concern evident on her face.
“We press on. They’re stronger here, and there is nothing we can do about that.” Asher motioned to keep everyone moving. “The further we get away, the sooner the voices will lessen.”
“How can you be sure?” Benz asked, still concerned.
“I can’t be, but if they were getting louder as we got closer it makes sense that they would lessen as we got further away,” Asher replied, letting logic rule.
They were so loud, though… A nearly maddening level. Still, I tried to keep with the flow of people. Someone, likely Melly, seemed to be leading me along.
I don’t know if we can help that, Lee admitted. The artifact is doing all it can as it is.
That was concerning. If the artifact was already working against this noise, I didn’t want to think how loud it could be. I had three Creators and there was nothing additional they could do.
We have another concern, Marella stated rather happily for a problem.
Yes, I feel it too. Emmyth sighed.
What problem? I demanded of the group.
There’s an artifact nearby, Lee supplied.
Fan-freaking-tastic.
I stopped in my tracks and everyone gave me a concerned look. Ears still covered, not that it really helped much, I said, “The Creators say there’s an artifact nearby.”
“Why didn’t they notice it when we first came this way?” Benz asked curiously.
It wasn’t there before, Emmyth replied.
“Apparently it just recently ended up near here.” That sucked. Either someone moved it over here, or someone died. Either way. “I’m assuming it’s one of them if they can sense it.”
You’ve got it correct, Marella agreed.
Was there any way to tell the difference from someone bringing the artifact here and it appearing here?
There is, but only once the artifact is in hand, Marella replied.
“Can they tell us where exactly it is?” Asher pressed, “While this tunnel isn’t terrible, creatures can get in here just as easily as we did.”
You are going to love this answer, Marella was far too gleeful. It was very doubtful any of us would like this answer. It’s up a few chambers.
Right where the demons and angels were being held captive, right? The artifact might even be enhancing their power just by its presence.
Yeah, I’m going with that answer too, Emmyth agreed with me.
But why would it work so well like that? Lee wondered.
Because the magic that flows through that Creator is one that was once their own… Marella replied ominously.
So, you’re saying my beloved is trapped there, Lee replied tiredly. Guess we’ll need a plan to save her. But what?
I wondered that too since I seemed to be the vessel for getting from point A to B. They silenced at that thought.
I finally thought to answer Asher. “They can, but we all shouldn’t go. In fact, I think I can get by with just me going,” I replied, not wanting to subject any of them to these forces of chaos. With that said, the voices stopped. The echo I had heard since we approached the tunnel was gone. This was exactly what they wanted.
“Do you really think I’d let you go alone?” Melly chimed in.
“I’m with her. You can’t go alone to get an artifact. It’s going to be dangerous. Especially if it’s where I think it is.” Benz gave me a sharp stare. He definitely knew.
I gave him an equally hard stare back. “You shouldn’t go back there.”
“I can handle it,” he threw back easily.
“No.” I shook my head, my mind made up. “There’s too much at stake. You need to get back to Mare and see how things are progressing with her. Take the others with.”
“We are not letting you g – ” Melly started but I interrupted.
“Yes, you both are. Asher is the least impacted and has the best know-how of this area. If he wants to assist me, he can.” I glared at the two of them.
“So be it,” Asher agreed. “Benz, lead them back and get things set up. We’ll meet you back.”
I pulled off the gauntlet and handed it to Benz. “Asher is a healer, you might need this more.”
Perfect, leave me with the goody-two-shoes, Marella grumbled.
Weren’t they all technically that way?
No, but this lot does fit that note, Marella grumbled some more.
“You need to be safe.” Melly grabbed my hand tightly.
“I will do my best. You as well. Don’t trust anyone Mare doesn’t trust.” I smiled at her.
She frowned. “I don’t know who that is.”
“We’ll find her soon.” Benz sighed as he turned toward me. “Don’t get yourself killed or possessed.”
I nodded at him. “Take care.” The others started to continue down the tunnel, giving a few backward glances before focusing on what was ahead.
Chapter 29
With the group slowly disappearing into the distance, I turned to Asher. “I don’t think we can make a plan until we actually get there, but the voices are thrilled I’m coming so they stopped making noise.”
“That’s lovely.” He shook his head. “Let’s be off then. I actually do know where the entrance to their chamber is.” Asher headed back toward the outside.
“How?” I asked as I caught up to him.
Asher shrugged. “I needed to see what was making all that noise. It was disappointingly not the Creators.
That sounded suspicious.
Everyone is always suspicious, Marella said thoughtfully. Doesn’t make them terrible. Then again, maybe it does.
I really hated how she simply threw out mind games and paranoia sometimes, but I ignored her for now.
Best bet. She can be a handful, Lee chimed in happily. But good news, we’ll nearly have everyone together soon.
Hopefully, not in my head, but yes, everyone together, physically, sounded great.
As we reached the outside once
more, Asher led us up and around the top of the tunnel. The rocks were jagged and annoying to climb, but not impossible. Slowly, but steadily we made our way up and around until I could feel a very sharp shift in magic – negative and almost painful.
“So, I’m assuming this hole here is it.” Asher pointed it out. “I never actually went inside, since I’m sure you can already feel the difference.”
I nodded as I slowly walked around the circle. “We really don’t know what’s inside there.”
“Nope, but I’m guessing it won’t actually be interesting.” Asher gave a slight shrug. “They’re locked away in something after all. It’s not meant to be much else other than a holding cell.”
“I guess this means we’ll find out the old fashioned way.” Carefully I lowered myself into the hole and let go, sliding down the rock like a slide for a short way. When I didn’t hear anything behind me I shouted up, “Bottom is not that far, come on down.”
“I can’t,” I heard Asher’s voice echo down.
“What? Why not? Afraid of tight places?” Everyone had some sort of fear.
“No, there’s… some sort of barrier. I can put my feet in, but I can’t get any further down,” Asher called back.
“Oh… well that complicates things.”
“Think you can climb back up?” I heard him ask almost desperately.
“Probably not. I bet the barrier works both ways. I do know there is another way out. Benz mentioned it dropped him out in the tunnel.”
Asher cursed for a moment. “I guess we’ll have to meet back there.”
“I’ll be fine. See you soon. Hopefully.”
Not allowing myself to think too much into it, I pushed forward. The last thing I needed was to overthink this and try to fumble my way back out. It was truly doubtful they’d let me just climb back up and leave. I wondered what they were really capable of here…
Once more, I pushed the thought out of my mind and tried to follow the increasingly dark path without falling. The lack of light did nothing for my mind, and my imagination enjoyed conjuring up hundreds of terrible fates for me. When a dim, dingy, green light finally came into view around the corner in the distance, I was already terrified, dirty from the slide and cave, and my hands were starting to shake. Nothing like a good dose of an overactive imagination to throw things back in perspective.
As I rounded the corner, I saw that the almost olive green light was coming from a hole in the side of the wall. It looked more like an eerie night series of glow bugs than something menacing and I almost breathed a sigh of relief that there were no creatures directly in my view.
Just past the light the tunnel turned and kept on. As I went to continue on voices came from the light.
“Staaay…” a voice begged.
“You must hear us…” another demanded.
“You’ve come so far. Listen…” the voice changed once more.
I sighed. Of course, I knew this would eventually be coming so I wasn’t surprised. At least it was a creepy fog. “All right, get your words out. What do you want from me?” Did these things even know or care that I just wanted to find the artifact and get out? Probably not. I could be stuck here for three moons.
“Free us.” Ah, yes, good motivating speech.
“Instead of just flat out saying no, how about you all explain why I should? Clearly, you are here for a heck of a lot of reasons. Probably all terrible. So why should I listen to the evil green light?”
At first, it didn’t say anything. Likely talking amongst itself, but the wait was fine as I started to really search the room around me. Nothing was sticking out after several minutes, though.
“Shouldn’t you have thought up a good story by now?” I called it out on its lack of reply.
“You wouldn’t understand,” a voice called unexpectedly.
“Your land hasn’t known magic in centuries,” another voice called.
Oh, now that was interesting. “Well, I understand magic enough now. So go for it. Let’s hear it or I’m leaving. There should be no prep necessary for the truth.” Not wholly correct there, but these things did know I was coming.
“We come from Ammenersy. A world far from here,” a voice started.
“We grew too strong for the world, our magic ripped it apart,” another quickly followed. “We began looking for new homes. Many were too weak. We finally found a universe that could hold us.”
“Shaudrey…” a chorus of voices called.
“They didn’t like us there.”
“If not for us, many would have nothing. We built lives, helped cultures… they didn’t want us though. But we brought so much more magic to the land!”
“We helped the humans gain power over their choices.”
“Fair trades. More magic for more power.”
“Giving some magic helped us live, and their choices – good or bad – kept us fed. We needed their energies.”
“We didn’t control them. They made their own choices, and we were punished for giving them the strength to reach their goals.”
“Punished for nothing. We wanted to help.”
“We gave them strength. We gave them hope. All it took was a little extra magic.”
Silence echoed around me. Now this sounded like a great story, but it was all vague points. “You’re leaving out details. What was the last event that led to your entrapment?”
Somehow the silence was louder than before.
Several moments passed before a reply came. “We wanted to free the souls. They were trapped. Not as you are now, but in a world of blue gray, just waiting until the others could decide if they would be allowed to move on.” The words waiting and trapped echoed over and over for a moment before silence came once more.
“Some were helped quickly, but so many were trapped for years and centuries. All to the Creator’s delight. We moved to free them, to destroy the Creators so the souls could choose to cross or be with us.”
“One of us…” a low voice called softly.
Uh huh. “While I can see moving against the Creators might lead you to this predicament, I need to think on all of this.” I shook my head at the light. “There’s a lot to process here.” Not really, they were skipping too much to avoid being caught in a lie. I knew it was time to get out. “I’ll talk more with you all later.” I headed for the passage and hoped this unexplored area would lead to the tunnel proper.
“We’re not done talking.”
“Save ussss.”
“You need to know what to do.”
“Free us.”
I paused to turn back to the green light. “I don’t need more information until I make a decision. If you are truly trapped here for no good reason, and you did so much to help all around you, clearly you understand the importance of clear thoughts and a sound mind. It’s best to never jump straight to action when so much is in play and at stake.” I had to hand it to myself on that speech.
I finally noticed a jewel near the glowing stone of green light. No surprise, the artifact was likely right in front of me. I took a step forward hesitantly, wondering if they could see me or just tell I was there.
The light even dimmed for a breath before the voices launched a new speech.
“It’s been so long.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like to be trapped here.”
“We cannot move. We cannot walk. So many of us trapped together.”
“There’s no room to go. So many other thoughts.”
“I can hear everyone always.”
“I just want freedom.”
For a moment I did feel bad, but pushed it out of my mind as I grabbed the jewel. It picked up easily, but I found myself stuck, hovering just above where the jewel was. I tried to will any part of my body to move, but nothing would budge.
Something grabbed hold of my leg and I could finally move again. As I turned to look and see what grabbed me, a wisp of green light grabbed onto my arm. So much for being fully trapped and helpless.<
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“We need out now!” they called loudly. Variations in desperation and tone echoed the room as they started to chant ‘save us’.
I flicked my vision over and could see what looked like hundreds of small signatures of creatures. It was probably much less than that. The heat of the light around my arm and leg burned slightly.
“This does not look like something a good being would do,” I called angrily at them, trying to pull myself free.
More lights shot out to wrap around me and pulled me closer. I tried summoning just an arrow but it passed through the light like it was, well, light. These beings didn’t seem to be a part of how the standard magic around here worked. The Creators probably assumed they were locked up well enough and out of the way enough that it wouldn’t matter.
I tiredly tried to fight against them, but it was no use. They brought me right in front of the light, pulled so tightly to the stone that I could feel it cutting into my flesh.
“Now free us.”
I blinked several times at them. “I’m trapped so that is impossible, and I don’t know how, so that’s doubly impossible. Not to mention I won’t be forced into this, so that might be triply impossible.”
“Free us or your soul is ours.”
Well, that should have been expected. I didn’t know how they could consume my soul, but considering I knew nothing about their magic or how to escape that seemed to be within the realm of possibilities.
Truthfully, it ticked me off more than it scared me.
It was like my stepfather, thinking we owed him the world because he was briefly married to our mother. Do this or else. It was not my cup of tea.
“I think not.” I gritted my teeth together in obvious fury as the bindings of light wrapped even more tightly around me.
The pain from the heat and constricting finally got to be too much and I couldn’t help but scream out. I was starting to doubt they could consume my soul, but they certainly had the power and the energy to kill me.
The intensity suddenly stopped and I was able to catch my breath. That’s when I noticed the light wasn’t holding me anymore and someone, a tall being made of pure fire, was now standing between me and the light.
Get going, Marella’s voice commanded.
