Circuit World

by Daniel Pierce

  He was finished giving me the satisfaction then and turned to look up into the sky.

  I leaned over him, making sure to take up as much of his field of view as possible, and asked, “So, you going to tell me what you meant when you asked if I was from another world?”

  He rolled his eyes, taking his time to respond. His words came through teeth outlined in blood. “Only a fool would not see this fake world for what it is.”

  “Huh,” I mused, putting my hands on my hips and surveying the fight still waging below us. “I think it’s fairly realistic.”

  Dukayne let out one final chuckle and said, “Then you have proven my point.” His eyes closed and he shit-talked me no more.

  Things were settling down on the battlefield. Binari had switched back to using her flame ropes and was lashing out at the last few dregs of enemy soldiers. Faun was coming out from the woods just then, hopefully all healed up.

  The boss was dead and his crew was withering away. It had been a tough fight, but honestly, we were able to come out on top a lot easier than I expected.

  When all of the enemies lay motionless on the ground, the girls gathered together and started coming my way with the surviving allied fighters in tow. We had certainly seen our fair share of losses. There had been over 500 of us marching to the battlefield, and now less than half remained.

  “Good work,” Safira said as she strode up the slope. She looked at Dukayne with a wrinkle in her nose and said, “I would spit on him if I were willing to waste the water.”

  “We sure made short work of them,” Faun said, turning to survey the field from her new vantage. She stood proud with her hands on her hips and let out a long, relieved sigh.

  “Yes . . . I expected more in numbers, if not skill,” Binari agreed.

  Henrik and Horan had come to greet us then. The paladin seemed as if he was in a daze, incredulous that the enemy was finally defeated. His next words told me as much.

  “I cannot believe how easy that was. I mean, that is to say—it was not that easy of a fight, but I’m with Binari—I expected them to present more of a challenge.” He scanned the meadows as if looking for signs of life among the bodies or trying to seek out hidden troops among the trees. There were none other than our own rangers that I could see.

  “Well,” Horan said with a laugh, looking over the other end of the hill. “It appears that you two are in luck. You may get to quench your thirst for battle yet.” He was pointing for us to look out on the other side with him.

  My gaze followed his command, and soon I was almost choking on my tongue in response to what I saw. Just below us, on the other end of the slope, stood an army as large as the one we had just vanquished. Though these soldiers, if they could even be called that, were of an entirely different caliber.

  I was looking down upon a field of vicious, writhing ghouls, twisting and lurching under the curse of their own existence. Most of these things staggered about, carrying with them either swords or short spears that they didn’t look very capable of using. Many of them were dressed like the knights we had just gotten rid of, but there were others, too—there were rogues like me among their ranks, as well as rangers, wizards, and even some who appeared at one point to be innocent townspeople, wearing clothes not fit for battle. I had no doubt that these corpse monsters were at one time the people they now morbidly resembled, murdered and reanimated into these dark caricatures. There appeared to be only one living being among them, and she was standing at the foot of the hill, looking up at us expectantly with a wry grin twisted on her face.

  “Kerzin!” Faun spat.

  “Oh, fuck.” I said.

  16

  She was beautiful, standing there as she was with a look of regal nonchalance, like there was nothing on heaven or Earth that could surprise or impress her. Her face gave me the impression of a women who was somewhere around her mid-30’s, but her long gray hair with the single streak of black running down the side told a different story. And those cold eyes. There was intelligence behind them, I could feel it. One did not bumble into a commanding position at the head of an army of undead.

  “I have waited so long for this day,” she called up to us with her strong voice. “And here I was, thinking I would have to kill Dukayne so that I could take his power once this was all over. But you did it for me! I must thank you, boy, but I’ll save that for later—once I have reanimated your corpse.”

  “What’s up with them calling me boy?” I asked, but got no answer. I’d let my blades do the talking, boy or not.

  The army responded to her subtle command, lurching into action and staggering up the hill. Faun shot off several arrows, all of which struck an opponent, but none of them causing an enemy ghoul to fall. They just ignored the pain and kept approaching. Binari licked them with her flames, and Safira summoned more shields, this time to block the enemies’ progress. All of these attacks only delayed our coming doom, never actually making a dent in the enemy forces.

  The six of us hurried back down the hill toward the rest of our soldiers, shouting for the rangers to take back to the trees and for the foot soldiers to prepare themselves for the next wave. Everyone burst into action just as the first few ghoulish heads peeked down from over the other side of the hill.

  Kerzin took the place of Dukayne and watched us all from on high. I watched in horror as she stooped down and brushed her fingers against the dark prince’s ankle. A neon green light enveloped his body and, before I knew it, he was twisting and moving like the rest of them, as if some parasite had taken hold of his nervous system and was clumsily working the controls to his motor functions. The mocking demeanor I had grown so accustomed to during our short bout was replaced by a vapid gaze and slack jaw with drool dribbling out in uneven strands.

  He took a step forward and fell the rest of the way down the hill, only to right himself when he had finished falling. He continued his progress with the rest of the undead horde as if nothing had happened.

  “What are we doing here?” I heard Binari shouting. I turned to see that she was addressing Safira. “We need to be up there fighting her! Cut the head off and the rest of the body falls with it! Come on, let’s go!”

  The two women hurried back toward the hill. I reached an arm out to warn them against it, but they were gone too fast. Forcefields and whips of fire cleared a path for the girls as they made their unsteady ascent. Several times I feared that one of them was about to get torn or bitten, but each time one of the girls worked her magic, sparing herself or her sister with the threat of debilitating wounds mere fractions of a second away.

  I ran after them, eager to help stop all of this madness, but was immediately met with opposition.

  One roguish ghoul staggered over to intercept me, so I drew both my swords to cut him in half, which seemed to be the only effective method of dealing with them in the long run. Instead of using the spear he carried, he leaned in and opened wide—so wide, in fact, that he tore his cheeks. He could have easily swallowed my whole hand with that mouth, but I wasn’t about to let him try.

  I pulled back as he snapped at the air, and then I brought my scimitar down on his neck like the executioner’s axe. The foul beast’s head dropped like a stone and rolled several yards away, leaving the body stumbling around more confused than before.

  I had never seen a headless body moving around on the same side of the screen as me, and the sight was enough to make my skin crawl. I kicked it to the ground and moved on to assist my ladies, hoping I would at least be rewarded experience for a partial kill.

  There was more horror everywhere I looked. It seemed that Kerzin was not the only one with the power to bring back the dead. Each of her minions were imbued with her dark gift as well. I noticed as one absent-mindedly brushed its foot against the leg of a fallen soldier, and then that soldier was scrambling to his feet in the next few seconds. It seemed as if the wicked curse spread like the plague, claiming the body of whoever came into contact with it. It looks like I picked
the wrong class, I thought, wondering if I would ever have access to such tremendous power.

  Safira and Binari had already completed their ascent and were dancing a vicious tango with the evil mistress. Her hands were cloaked in ethereal green claws which blazed like a witch’s fire. These she used to swipe at my girls, drawing inches closer to them each time, but never quite hitting her mark.

  Safira had gone fully offensive, unleashing powerful magic blasts upon her enemy. It seemed that Kerzin’s spectral claws doubled as shields because she would pull them in just as she was about to make contact with Safira’s magic missiles and obliterate the red balls of energy.

  “Each of your attacks is being absorbed and added to my mana!” I heard her cackle. “I take some of the mana consumed by whatever spell I absorb, and I am a reservoir. Man accrues in me over time and beyond my natural limits. I am without peer, and the more you struggle, the more mana I gain.”

  “Does the extra mana mean you’re more of a bragging asshole, too?” I asked.

  “Silence, boy!” Kerzin hissed.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake. It’s Si1ence and I’m not a boy, you jumped-up street magician,” I said.

  “My mana will—” Kerzin began again, because apparently, she couldn’t talk about anything except mana.

  “Surely that excess mana dwindles over time,” Safira said.

  “It does, but the window of time I have to use it is considerable, girl. I will be rid of all of you vermin long before the gains become useless.”

  Binari lashed out from the side with a fiery flog, and Kerzim met her with cat-like agility, sucking the fire up into herself through her powerful glowing nails. Safira held up a hand to stop her ally, clearly worried about this new information. I thought it was clever of the woman to reveal the nature of her passive ability as a kind of psychological shield, possibly hoping that it would have such an effect on the girls, making them more hesitant to attack.

  Halfway up the hill, I turned back to the field to see most of our men not faring well. Henrik and Horan were holding off a crowd of ghouls surrounding them, but I doubted they would be able to do it for long. The archers in the trees appeared safe, as it did not look like the enemies were capable of climbing, but the allied arrows did nothing to deter the opposing forces either, so they were sort of at a stalemate. The other men on the ground—aside from Henrik and Horan—seemed powerless to defend against the onslaught. There were several severed enemy body parts here and there, but those did not compare to the fresh corpses of my men that were piling up on the ground.

  There was a scream and I whipped back around to see that Kerzin had landed a hit on Binari, slicing her in three or four places across the abdomen. The mage flew back and into the tree, not far from where the elder’s head had been nailed.

  “You are taking forever, boy,” Kerzin called to me. “Hurry up and save your poor women before they join my legions.”

  I began seeing red. The thought of this disgusting woman turning any of my friends into one of those abominations made my stomach churn. I would be dead before I stood by and watched that happen.

  “You’ll do no such thing!” I yelled, and then, hoping against hope, I added, “Fury!”

  A red filter dropped down over my eyes, shifting the world around me into a place built of rage. Time slowed, and I could hear my own pulse pounding in my ears. I gripped my swords with an intensity I had not yet known, becoming something altogether unhuman. The witch was about to pay for everything she had done and everything she planned to do.

  I sprinted the rest of the way up the hill, stopping between her and Safira.

  “Back!” I commanded the warrior princess.

  I was consumed with the thought of standing over Kerzin’s dead body. All other inclinations fled my mind in the wake of this overwhelming desire. By the end of this fight, one of us would be gone; I would see no other outcome.

  The witch opened her mouth to speak again—probably another taunt—but I gave her no more time for words. I charged in swinging, and she met me with her claws, not hesitating to grab the edges of each blade. Whatever astral material her claws were made of, it was impervious to my iron.

  There was a cracking sound, and I looked to see my decorated blade beginning to splinter under the force of her opposition. Fuck! I jumped back, and she laughed, clapping her hands together.

  “You are too weak to challenge me, boy!” she said. “Such low-level spells will not help you here. Come back when you have learned magic such as this: Underdark’s Embrace!”

  She stretched her fingers out in the air, loosely aimed at me, and spikes resembling massive rib bones shot up from the ground around me, arching in the shape of a sort of crude birdcage. There was not enough space between any of them for me to escape without breaking sections of the enclosure. I just hoped it wasn’t as strong as the demoness’s claws.

  I jumped toward one of the ribs, launching myself clear off the ground and pressing the full force of my weight into it through my foot. It gave a little, budging only slightly, forcing me to fall back to the ground where I had started. Kerzin’s maniacal cackling rang out even louder.

  I got back to my feet and began hacking at the rib with everything I had. Little flecks of it began to splinter and chip away, but she could have easily shot another attack in through the bars to finish me off while I worked.

  There was an explosion behind me. Safira was standing near Binari, her hands still smoking from the blast that she had just used them to summon. She had demolished three of the ribs where her attack landed.

  “You’re the best, Safira!” I said, rushing through the new opening and circling back around to stand face to face with my opponent again.

  “You’re nothing without their help, boy,” Kerzin said. “And they are little more than nothing. I’m through playing with you now. Let us finish!”

  She lurched forward and took a swipe at me. I arched my back just enough for her talons to pass by without doing any damage. When her vile fingers cleared me, I struck at her with my scimitar, aiming straight for her exposed chest, but she was too fast. She had jumped back several yards before I was able to finish the action. I felt my Fury waning, but there was still enough left to push through a bit longer.

  She rushed back in for the next round, literally floating over to me like some foreboding apparition. A glowing hand reared back and darted for my face. I brought my decorative sword up to meet it. Instead of striking me as intended, she curled her wretched fingers around the edge of the blade, just as before. I had forgotten how damaged my weapon was and was reminded of that sobering fact all too suddenly.

  Her teeth seemed more like fangs as they flashed at me from the other side of my blade. I tried to pull back but her grip was like a vice, giving me no room to move. My only options were to either let her have the blade or stand there awkwardly fighting for it with little hope of wrestling it away.

  Several tongues of flame reached out from behind me, coming to my aid. Without slackening her hold, Kerzin moved her other arm to catch the magical flames, draining them of their mana, surely adding it to her own stockpile. I didn’t know what other spells she was hiding up those sleeves, but I was certain she had plenty of energy to cast any one of them multiple times over.

  I tried my damnedest to wrench my secondary blade free of her, heaving and twisting it in every way I could imagine, but it was no use. Kerzin held fast with a death grip that would put her rotting soldiers to shame.

  “It is not too late to give in,” she said through gritted teeth. It was the fist clue I had that the fight was causing her any sort of strain at all. I was beginning to assume she didn’t follow the same laws of physics as the rest of us. “Just say the word, and I will end you quickly!”

  She applied downward pressure on my blade, forcing me to lower it to the ground. I brought my scimitar swinging in from overhead on the off chance that I would catch her off guard and get a cheap shot in on her temple. But, alas, she caught that bl
ade as well with the same apparent ease as she had stopped its brother. But there was one big difference now: both of her hands were occupied.

  My girls noticed this and immediately set to work unleashing a volley of spells down on the evil mistress. Binari didn’t waste any time with fancy whip play. Instead, she sent a ball of fire straight for Kerzin. Safira sent a similar red ball of her own, and the attacks met her at once, exploding in unison.

  I was sent flying back in an aftershock of force that rippled out in the wake of the infernal eruption. My face burned a little just from being so close to the fire, but I was no worse for the wear. I was not so sure about my opponent.

  She had remained standing throughout the attack, hunched forward like an old hag. Some sort of glamor had been wearing off throughout the fight—perhaps in an effort of hers to conserve mana—and the aftermath of the explosion burnt any remnants of her illusory beauty to cinders. Before us stood nothing more than an angry swamp witch with long, thick wrinkles sagging down her ancient, leathery face. There was no black strip of hair streaming down her head now, just thin patches of smoky white, falling in uneven strands, doing very little to conceal her liver-spotted scalp. Her teeth, I could now clearly see, were indeed fangs. The gums around them had receded so much in the past minute that they almost appeared to be absent. But, best of all, the ghastly claws glowing around her hands had disappeared.

  She noticed this only after I did, noting her jagged nails in horror. She shot a cold glare at Safira and croaked, “What did you do to me, witch?”

  “That spell drains a target’s mana if it successfully lands,” Safira laughed.

  Binari joined in with the laughter, saying, “How funny! That’s what my spell did, too! It looks like she’s all out now!”

  The girls gave each other a high-five, and I got back to my feet. Something felt off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.