by Peri Akman
“Magic, mostly,” Kole replied, unfazed.
Quinn’s gut wrenched. This was wrong. There was something dreadfully wrong here. The atmosphere felt terrible.
Kole apparently noticed something too, and immediately took a step back away from the man.
She had barely completely this action when the man gripped his club and slammed into her stick-holding hand, causing her to drop it.
Kole gave a yelp in pain as she gripped her hand and stumbled. Quinn blinked, and the next thing he knew, the guard had slammed Kole’s head into the hard road, and was standing over her.
“Try casting magic on me again, and I will use lethal force,” the guard spat.
Kole went limp and muttered something.
“What was that? I can’t hear you!” the guard yelled.
“Sorry… it won’t happen again,” Kole spoke, nearly stilted.
The guard stood up, but slammed his foot into Kole’s chest. He turned to face Quinn.
“You! Kid! Get over here!” he roared.
Quinn took several steps towards him, but it still didn’t feel right. His instinct was to turn around and run. It felt oddly familiar, but painfully different. He couldn’t place his finger on it.
What he could place his finger on was that it felt like he was being suffocated. Like he just couldn’t cast magic. It was there, so obviously there, and he wasn’t being cut off or anything, but it was like… it was like his free will was being eroded.
“Now, you gonna behave, kid?” the man snapped.
Quinn nodded. “Yes sir! There isn’t any reason to hurt Kole, she’s just grumpy, that’s all, she didn’t mean any h—”
“Did I say you could talk back?” the man pressed.
Quinn paled. He shook his head.
The man grinned, and removed his foot from Kole. Kole heaved, gasping for air. Had he been suffocating her? What type of guard was this man?
“Now, what did Tarry tell you, when the papers were signed, kid?” the man asked.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t there. I don’t—” Quinn started.
“So you’re lying then.”
The feelings strengthened. Quinn felt like he was spinning. Kole started to struggle to stand up, and, without warning, summoned a knife and slashed the guard across the face.
Red blood spurted out.
“You’re not a demon,” Kole whispered right before freezing.
Demons. Demon-Sennta. He had made Quinn feel that same way. Like using magic was especially hard. The man was a demon!
But… he wasn’t… a demon.
Panic flashed through his mind as he realized what just happened. Kole had just attacked a guard.
They had just attacked a guard.
They had just attacked a guard.
The guard yelped and slammed his club down on Kole’s skull. There was a sickening cracking noise. And then he hit her again. And again.
And the feelings stayed, and they emanated from him and only him.
“Stop it!” Quinn yelled. “It was an accident—” He rushed over to them, and without even thinking tried to push him away.
The guard pivoted and slammed the club into Quinn’s nose, knocking him back. Quinn hit the floor, blood spurting everywhere.
The world spun as Quinn tried to make sense of what was going on. He tried to stand up, but winced from the pain, and winced at the sickening noise of the club making constant contact with Kole’s skull. Kole tried to move away, but she wasn’t a runner, and the guard had the advantage.
They were helpless. They could barely cast anything, and they didn’t even know why and Kole was going to die.
Oh gods she was going to die. By all accounts she should already have been dead.
Tears ran down Quinn’s face, hot and full of seething hatred towards this man. This stupid horrible man. He wanted this man to die. He had never wanted anyone to die, but right now, all he could do was hope and pray, paralyzed with fear and horror.
“Gods… please…” Quinn pleaded under his breath.
Kole stopped flailing.
And suddenly, the guard stopped hitting.
He stared at something behind Quinn, eyes wide. He dropped the club.
“Holy—”
The guard’s exclamation was punctuated by the loudest and most vicious roar Quinn had ever heard.
A monster.
A monster at least twenty feet tall, white eyes bigger than Quinn’s head. It was feathered, had three heads, and was the purest white Quinn had ever seen. Its arms were pincers, and it even had some sort of pronged prehensile tail.
The guard took a few steps back, blanched with fear.
The monster charged, ignoring Quinn completely, and slammed into the guard. It skidded to a stop, the man being flung back as if he was a rag doll.
Immediately the feelings stopped. Quinn watched in horror as the monster utterly ravaged the guard’s body, leaving not even the vaguest of traces.
And then it stopped, blood dripping from its fangs, and it started to move to Kole, slowly.
“NO!” Quinn screamed, and immediately summoned a sword to—
The monster vanished.
Quinn dropped the sword in sheer shock. What? What had just happened?
The faintest of noises could be heard from Kole. Quinn scrambled over to her.
“Kole, are you okay?” Quinn sputtered. She was covered in blood.
Kole lightly and blindly reached towards her face, and healing magic came out of her finger tips. Slowly but surely, her skull mended itself. However, she stopped there, and her hand fell off her face limply.
“Quinn… what did you do?” Kole muttered.
“What do you mean?” Quinn asked, wiping away tears. She was alive. Thank the gods.
“Well, I’m not dead. I’m not being attacked. I doubt he had a change of heart. What did you do?” Kole was breathing slowly and in a controlled fashion, like she was afraid her lungs would suddenly fail.
“It wasn’t me. It was a monster. It showed up out of nowhere and ate him, and then it vanished,” Quinn said with a shrug.
“Wait what?” Kole yelped, sitting up immediately. “How?”
“I dunno! I summoned a sword and it just vanished!” Quinn said.
Kole’s eyes widened, and she scooted ever so slightly away from Quinn.
It took a second for him to realize the implications.
“I—I didn’t summon it! I… did I summon it?” Quinn asked, suddenly horrified. If he had summoned it then…
That meant he was the one who murdered the guard in cold blood.
It didn’t seem real. It seemed like some sort of warped dream.
Kole flicked her wrists, a bat falling to the ground and promptly vanishing. She stared at the ground for a second and cursed in frustration.
“I can’t summon a monster. No one can. No summoner can summon living things. I mean they can summon plants but that hardly counts. Technically. And of course you have the Hermit who can—THAT IS NOT THE POINT!” Kole shrieked. She was panicking.
“The point—” Kole started up again, as she tried to wipe the blood off her face, “The point is that we have no warlocks who interact with demons or monsters. Animal whisperers can’t talk to monsters like they can others. Freeform shifters can’t turn into any of them. Warlocks can’t just… summon a monster! It contradicts everything we know about them!”
Quinn stood up, shaking. He extended his hand out to Kole. She got up, shaking. She placed her weight on Quinn. Together, the two walked to her stick, and Quinn kicked it up with his foot, and handed it to her.
Kole gripped it intensely.
“I mean… if I did summon it, I should be able to summon it again, right?” Quinn asked. “Like, it would be a repeatable provable fact, right?”
“No. Don’t try. Don’t even attempt. If you can do it, you’re better off not dabbling in what could get you lynched by all of society,” Kole snapped. “And this isn’t Quirky Kole letting you make t
he decision, I am dead serious, don’t do it. If you think you can summon living things, summon a puppy or a politician or something but do NOT summon a monster!”
A silence permeated the field.
“Fine,” Quinn said quietly. “I won’t.”
“Good. Because we have other things to worry about. Like how that man was able to create that negative field like that,” Kole muttered. “And what we’re going to say if we ever get questioned about a guard’s disappearance.”
“Maybe it’s the demons at the temple? Giving off like… excess energy?” Quinn postulated hopefully.
“Good conclusion. Doesn’t make a lick of sense since he’s not even a warlock, but good idea all the same. Let’s hope it’s that, and not my guess, which is rampant government conspiracy. Although with my theory, we can assume he was doing it on purpose, which should ease your conscience a bit.” Kole said dryly.
“Yeah… let’s hope for government conspiracy.” Quinn spoke quietly.
The two got back into the carriage in shaken silence.
Chapter Fourteen
The scene replayed in Quinn’s head over and over again as he tried to come to an objective conclusion—were they at fault? Was the guard attacking them unjustified? Or did it start with Kole slashing that knife across his face?
What if it was unintentional? The muting of their powers? Were they right to act like that? Paranoid?
But at the same time, that horrible sinking feeling…
He would have done the same thing himself if he had made the connection Kole had. When Sennta was kidnapped, he had attacked that demon who was attempting to look like Kole without so much as a second thought.
He would have done the same thing.
Oh gods he would have been killed.
He looked out the window. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Some sort of albino vanishing monster could totally appear of its own accord, right?
He placed his hand on the window, lightly tracing the lines on the glass.
He tried to picture a fly, a buzzing little fly.
Nothing. Not even the slightest of bugs appeared.
Quinn took a deep breath. It hadn’t been him. It couldn’t be him. Relief flooded into him. It had just been strange, terrible luck. And it was terrible that the man had died, but it would have happened if they had politely walked through, or if they had fought it out.
Not his fault.
Completely out of his control.
Thwack.
Quinn jolted up.
“Sorry. Swatted a fly,” Kole said.
Oh gods dangit.
“Kole, can I summon flies?” Quinn asked.
“No,” Kole reported without even pausing to try. “Been trying?”
“Yeah,” Quinn said quietly.
“Wellp, good news, you can’t. So you probably can’t summon monsters either. It was probably just a weird fluke. Maybe in a decade or so we can write a nice study on teleporting monsters. Which means if we do have to be questioned, we can tell the truth—he got eaten by a monster,” Kole explained, darkly content.
“‘If’?” Quinn questioned. “You’re discussing it like…”
“Like I intend to cover it up?” Kole interjected.
Quinn nodded.
“Quinn, if they decided it was our fault? We’d both go to jail. No. You’d go to jail. I’d be executed. There is no fair trial there. And the fact is? He was a lone guard, in the wilderness. He probably wanted to be a city guard and lacked the discipline. Also, when does he report in? In a day? In a week? Heck, a month? We’re off the grid, Quinn. It could be awhile before it’s even connected there was an overlap,” Kole explained, her voice distant. She brushed something out of the way of her face. It was caked in dried blood, so at first Quinn couldn’t tell, and then he realized—it was her hair.
It was only now that Quinn realized he had never seen her hair. It was always hidden under the robes and the bandages. To be honest, Quinn had kind of assumed she was bald.
“It just feels… wrong,” Quinn admitted.
“It is wrong. But he was all too willing to break my ribs before I tried to cut his face. I don’t feel inclined to pay moral penance,” Kole muttered.
Quinn bit his lip. “Was that the most danger we’ve been in? Since we left?”
Kole gave a laugh. “Yeah. I can deal with monsters and demons, but actual humans are complicated. Just wait until you have to deal with your first rogue warlock. Now that’s a nightmare and a half.”
Quinn shuddered. “Why are the monsters easier? How does that make an ounce of sense?”
“Because the monsters and the demons are not allowed to walk into town and make friends with the baker. Humans are. Which means most humans can be reasoned with, can be dealt with. Killing mindless creatures is easy. They’re a nice target that unites humanity. Once you get actual people in the mix, it becomes horrifying. You get casualties. You have to deal with terrible facts such as ‘likes ginger snaps’ and ‘has a husband and kids’ and all that stuff. We’ve never seen a monster care about another monster. I’ve definitely seen a terrible person care about another person,” Kole explained dully.
“But they do care—the monsters in the field. When we left Haldon,” Quinn pointed out.
“That wasn’t caring. That was sensing the trouble and wanting to see what the fuss was about. Trust me, we’ve had lots of empaths try to prove monsters are at least basic animals. They’re not,” Kole said dismissively.
“But… I thought we couldn’t magically interact with demons and monsters.” Quinn frowned.
Kole hesitated to speak. “Yes… one can with training. It’s not perfect. It takes years for simple communication, or simple actions to happen.”
“Then isn’t it possible they’re just speaking the wrong language, metaphorically speaking?” Quinn asked, leaning towards Kole.
“Yeah, completely possible. But it would also contradict everything we’ve seen. Yeah, you can assume basic instincts are emotions or caring or some pack mentality, but that ignores the bigger picture,” Kole said lamely.
“What bigger picture?” Quinn asked.
“The… you know. The bigger picture. The fact that they show hunting patterns different from any other animal we’ve studied. It’s just—it’s just different, okay Quinn?” Kole snapped.
Quinn briefly marvelled at the fact that he came up with an argument that Kole didn’t have a good answer for. Unfortunately, he didn’t actually have any comeback. He also didn’t like the idea of monsters having everyday emotions.
They were not attacked by monsters on the rest of the trip, and sure enough, they soon reached a small dusty lot.
The two stepped out, and Quinn looked around.
“Where’s the temple?” Quinn asked, scratching his head.
Kole pointed up.
Quinn looked upwards, and felt his jaw drop. The temple was built in the mountain, brightly lit even in the day time.
He hadn’t been able to see it from the angle of the carriage.
“Whoah.” Quinn whispered. “That’s big.”
“Yep. Wanna know the greatest part about it?” Kole said in a falsely cheery voice.
Quinn raised an eyebrow, and Kole gestured her walking stick in the direction of carved stone—steps. They were incredibly narrow, incredibly uneven, and incredibly high-up stairs.
“Oh gods. We have to walk the rest of the way, don’t we?” Quinn said.
“I thought the stairs temple was in Trell. I misremembered,” Kole grumbled. “And here I thought my biggest struggle would just be walking for long stretches, but noooo, that wasn’t good enough.” She was clearly angry. It was almost comforting in an odd way. Familiar. Kole being angry at stairs meant the world was still turning, despite the fact that Quinn might or might not have just killed a man indirectly.
A sudden thought struck Quinn.
“Is Hogarth here?” Quinn asked, curiously.
“Who?” Ko
le asked, obviously confused.
“Hogarth. One of my classmates. He’s the one who was taken by the religious warlock,” Quinn explained.
“Oh. The old geezer. No, I don’t think so. Pretty sure his temple was in Vellstride,” Kole said dismissively. “And even if he was, the world is huge, Quinn, there is a likely chance you wouldn’t encounter him here.”
Quinn shrugged sheepishly. “I had to ask.”
“And I answered. Ugh I cannot go up these stairs I’m gonna be in pain and it’s going to suck,” Kole whined.
“Is the demon-spawning spot up there or down here?” Quinn asked, suddenly feeling very aware of how alone they were.
“Void if I know,” Kole nearly spat.
Kole motioned for the homunculi to go into the carriage. As they did so, Quinn examined the area around him. Even the non-stairs were expertly carved on closer examination. The boulders were given soft corners, as if to make them comfortable.
And suddenly his emotions shifted.
At the sudden flip of emotions, Quinn immediately summoned his sword and whipped it around wildly.
“Oh my—calm down, Quinn! Or at least don’t swing that thing blindly when you’re not calm!” Kole snapped.
“What is it?” Quinn asked, his hand trembling.
“An empath,” Kole muttered.
“Empaths feel emotions, not give them.” Quinn countered.
“An external empath then!” Kole said.
Quinn paused as he processed the information. He was external; he controlled things outside of him. It made sense that empaths could be external, right?
Sure enough, within a few moments, sounds could be heard from the carved mountain rock. An individual with robes stepped down. Long red hair, braided to the point it nearly touched their ankles. Their face was completely covered by a myriad of freckles. Their robe was rather open, revealing the slightest hint of cleavage, as well as the Sigil of Magic.
“Greetings, travellers,” the stranger said solemnly. Although, when they saw the blood-drenched Kole, they quirked an eyebrow. “Are you in need of help, or…?”
Kole shook her head. “Greetings. The blood is from a monster encounter, but we’re fine. We’re here to help with the demon problem.”
