--Give me what I want, Archon--
The response came without restriction. The crimson Light of the Sephir burst into Darr’s own Light, filling it until he felt nothing, not even his own thoughts.
From the Archon of Fire, only a hint of its sadness came to Darr before he shut it out completely.
--You are not prepared, but your Light is stronger than we thought--
The magic of the Fire Sephir filled Darr’s Light with the white hot heat of its element. The Summoners gathered around him faltered, sensing the rage boiling within Darr, but he held them fast, refusing to let them go. The red light of the Sephir filtered from Darr and into them. Some resisted, but Darr broke through their defenses. He didn’t care. They were conduits for the magic, nothing more. He would wield the Element of Fire, and he would do so through them.
The magic filled him, radiated through him. He knew what he would bring to the Soul Seekers, how they would be destroyed. He would make them suffer like he had suffered...
...The physical world closed around Darr once more, but his awareness, as seen through the lens of the Currents, enfolded the entire city of Navda and its people. Darr and his Summoners burst into flames, torches against the darkness. They felt heat, but they didn’t burn. They wielded the magic now, and it would only hurt its intended target.
With arms outstretched wide, Darr released the magic.
In a blast of heat and light, the line of Summoners exploded into a wall of flame. Firehounds erupted into the night sky. The beasts screamed in high-pitched wails. They ran along the currents of air, buttressed by the breeze, searching out the Soul Seekers. As if from a distant place, Darr’s eyes burned with the same intensity as the hounds. His thoughts propelled them forward. Their fiery paws and the gaping white heat of their maws tore through the air and landed in the thick of the Seeker masses.
The firehounds attacked relentlessly, tearing through the Soul Seekers, their fire racing like spilled oil. There were a few dozen of the elementals, each one born from the Light of the gathered Summoners, but driven by Darr’s commands. Without mercy, he hunted the Seekers in droves, consuming every black form that crossed his path. He snarled and spit. He breathed the fire of the hounds as he snapped and clawed his way through hundreds of the black robes.
The attack ended in minutes. Fires remained where a few Seekers still burned, but the firehounds were gone, sent back to the Currents. The magic rushed back into Darr, an agonizing flood of fire and heat.
He thought briefly of Erec, of the brother he’d lost and would never see again, before collapsing into the black quagmire of his mind.
Chapter Thirty-One
“In return for their help in ending the wars, the kings of Ictar entrusted the Divine with the Sephirs. A decree passed down, forbidding the use of the Sephir’s magic, and the Divine became the enforcers. Only a few of the original scholars remained within the Divine, and with those few, Caeranol’s covenant remained safe and well hidden.”
~From A Current History of Ictar, as told by Nidic Waq
In his dreams, Darr fell into the blackness.
He drifted without knowing where he was. The place he came from only brought pain, rife with sorrow and filled with people who were lost and would never be found. Darr sunk deeper into the darkness. His thoughts dulled and his emotions scattered. He remembered nothing, and he found solace in the dark.
A light appeared in the void, and despite his desire to resist, Darr drifted towards it, intrigued and repulsed at the same time.
The light flared blood red. Flames danced all around, enfolding him in their heat and intensity. Dark shapes moved in the distance, but Darr’s own hands controlled the fire. He sent it spinning into the darkness, wielding the fire like a giant sword, cutting through anything that threatened.
The black shapes turned and ran, their indistinct features torn, but Darr went after them ruthlessly, sending the fire out, obliterating anything trying to escape. In moments, they were gone, reduced to ash and blown away, consumed in the red glare of the fire. A final black shape rose up, and Darr sent the fire hurling into it without hesitation. The dark creature shuddered and turned as fire ate away its body.
Its face belonged to Erec.
Enraged, Darr screamed out a cry so loud he heard nothing else. The red of the fire burned into him and the darkness closed around once more.
He awoke in a familiar place. The gardens surrounded by thorns. The tower covered in ivy rising hundreds of feet into the air as if to pierce the heavens. Darr watched through dead eyes, his soul ruptured, his consciousness faltering. The familiar scene unfolded, of the black-haired man arguing with the man in regal white.
The argument concluded the same way it always did. The black-haired man retreated, and Darr turned to watch him go.
“I know you, Boy.”
The black-haired man stood before him, his face pale, his eyes burning red. Darr backed away, but the man reached out, fastening his hand around Darr’s neck, his grasp tightening.
“I...Know...You...Boy!”
This time when Darr cried out, his howl echoed through his ears until it became a blazing whirlwind, and it consumed him in its fury.
* * * *
Darr’s dreams had ended, but his nightmare lived on.
At dawn, he found himself alongside Jinn, standing on a secluded cliff behind the Aratans’ mansion overlooking the Arktary Ocean. Feywen, Lacdur, and Conra were there, but they where indistinguishable shapes. Pine trees, tall and dark, prevented anyone in the direction of Navda from seeing them, a sharp contrast to the omnipresent sunrise before them. Darr pulled his cloak tight to ward against the chill in the air.
Erec was dead.
Lacdur told him the story of how it happened, even though Darr already knew his brother had fallen.
“You’re brother fought well, Darr,” Lacdur had told him. “He saved my life, and the lives of a hundred more. He saw the Seekers trying to cut us off, and he led the counterattack that drove them away.”
Darr listened with dead ears while the Dwarf recounted the story, hearing the words, but already knowing the outcome.
“I tried to reach him,” Lacdur told him. “Though he’d driven off the Seekers, they overwhelmed him. I just couldn’t get to him in time. I wish I could’ve helped him, but it happened so quickly. If those hounds had come just a moment sooner…”
Those words, though they were spoken over twelve hours earlier, still rung in Darr’s ears as if Lacdur had just said them. A few moments earlier, and Erec would have been alive. Darr nearly collapsed after hearing that, and Lacdur retracted his statement in haste. The words he spoke were out and they couldn’t be taken back. Darr might’ve saved Navda, but he’d done little to save his own brother.
Now, the gravesite lay before him, a small pile of stones marked with Erec’s sword. Darr’s anger gave way to the deepest sorrow he’d ever known. He collapsed to his knees, a crumpled figure crouched over the stones of the grave, tears streaming in warm rivulets down his cheeks. While Jinn held tightly to him, Darr’s grief consumed him from the inside out, threatening his life. He’d lost a part of himself, a part he’d unknowingly kept as part of himself. He could never get it back.
It didn’t matter he and his brother were so different, or they had fought throughout their lives. There could be no reconciliation and no more bonding. Erec was gone, and the damage done was irreversible. Worse, he had only himself to blame.
He let Jinn hold him for a while longer, the warmth of her body seeping into him. His pain melted away, warmed by his sister’s love and his own anger. His connection to the Currents strengthened in the wake of his recovery, and Jinn’s emotions manifested within him. Her memories of Erec and the depth of her grief became equal to his. Together, they sat on the ground before his grave, speaking in hushed voices to one another of their brother. They shared remembrances and silent oaths they would all meet again. The thoughts felt futile. The Light belonging to his brother had gone to
the Devoid, and it would take its destruction to free it.
When they were finished, Jinn rose and looked back towards the pines. Feywen and Lacdur were gone. Conra lingered, his presence small and unobtrusive.
“Are you coming?” Jinn asked him, her eyes red from tears.
Darr shook his head. “I’m going to stay here for a while. I want to be alone.” She gave him a sympathetic look and smiled gently.
As Jinn turned away, Conra came close, raising his gnarled hand to Darr’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Boy. I wish I could’ve done something...”
“It’s all right, Conra. Thank you.”
Hesitant, the old Elf smiled and turned back to Jinn. They walked away and disappeared into the trees. Gratitude welled up within Darr. He had two great friends in Conra and Jinn. He didn’t know what he’d do without either of them.
For a time, Darr stood before Erec’s grave, remembering all the times they had fought, and all the disagreements driving them apart. There were other memories, small fragments which weren’t recognizable at first, but they gained power the longer he dwelled on them. Erec had always been a brother to him, looking out for him when no one else would. Knowing he wouldn’t be there to look after him left a tremendous hole.
This journey is exactly why this happened, Darr thought. If I’d stayed home, none of this would’ve happened.
He knew he was wrong. If he’d stayed home, the Seekers would’ve come for him sooner of later. Still, he’d abandoned his father and lost his brother. Jinn’s fate had tied her up in something so dangerous Darr couldn’t imagine how to save her from it. His own body and mind had been thrown asunder to the point where he couldn’t recognize himself anymore.
“It’s a horrible thing.”
Darr didn’t turn. Conra stood behind him. Though unwanted, Conra’s presence comforted him. The waves of the Arktary and the rise of the sun were equally silent in the world beyond Erec’s grave.
“I lost a brother once,” the Elf said, hushed and ragged. “Belmon. He was Erec’s age when it happened.”
Brief images flashed in Darr’s mind, a fragment of memories belonging to Conra which were brought to the surface along with the emotions which fueled them. They were quick and vague, and painful for the old Elf to remember.
“I’m sorry,” Darr said, unable to think of anything else.
Conra stared out at the Arktary, his face reflecting a kind of anguish not easy to detect, but the Currents helped Darr to see it.
“Not much I can say about it,” the old Elf grumbled. “It happened a long time ago, but even now, I can’t really let it go.”
“How did you deal with it?” Darr asked in a whisper.
Conra laughed without warmth. “I ran. I left behind my family and my friends. I decided to do what Belmon and I had always talked about, and I traveled.” The Elf’s gaze turned on him. “But I wasn’t traveling. That was my excuse. I ran from what’d happened. I felt responsible because regardless of how it happened, he was my brother, and I should’ve protected him. Because Belmon died, it must’ve been my fault, and so I ran away from Qued, from the Elves, from everything I ever knew to try to escape my guilt.”
As the Elf spoke, the full weight of Darr’s emotions crashed down. Conra had somehow removed a wall blocking his true feelings. Funny it should be the same memory that had caused the Elf to be so distant. Conra had been petrified by what had happened to his brother, and he’d spent his entire life trying to recover.
For the first time, Darr understood what drove the Elf. By coming along, by leaving his little haven, Conra had finally come to terms with his brother’s death.
“Don’t make the same mistake I made,” Conra said, his eyes watery as he turned away.
“I think I can try,” Darr said at last, but too late for Conra to hear.
The Summoner returned his gaze back to the sea, and as he did so, doubt settled in. Darr couldn’t avoid Conra’s mistakes for one important reason. Conra believed he’d caused his brother’s death, but he discovered his belief to be wrong. Realizing he was innocent allowed him to face it and then forgive himself.
Darr could find no such forgiveness with Erec’s death. The fault belonged to him alone.
Interlude
“The Aeon Wars, centuries long, had caused much imbalance between the Sephirs, allowing the Devoid to create a small fracture in its prison. Though the Aeon Wars ended, and the balance between the Sephirs strengthened, the Devoid began its assault. First, it tainted the Currents with its deceptions, masking its intentions. It summoned Ovids, the counterparts to the Archons, that began draining the Light from the Sephirs. As time crawled on, the Devoid weakened the Sephirs enough to summon his Soul Seekers. It would be only a matter of time before it gathered enough Light to break free completely.
Caeranol searched for the Chosen of the Light, but he couldn’t find them in the badly distorted Currents. Even the spirits couldn’t remember who they were.
Time grew short, the Devoid grew stronger, and still, the Chosen did not appear.”
~From A Current History of Ictar, as told by Nidic Waq
From the high wall of Jakova, Nidic Waq looked out over the Triker forest from the Dwarf city’s high bluff. Night had fallen, but the leading trees and boulders stood defined by shades of light and dark. Watch fires lit at the edge of the trees did little to penetrate into the Triker. The vastness of the forest astonished him, even for someone who’d seen things no one on Ictar had seen. He was insignificant before their mass, a small participant in a game played amongst more powerful beings.
Spirits and Ovids. Archons. The nothingness of the Devoid. A secret war persisted between them, and the people of Ictar would be caught in the middle. Of course, one didn’t always get to choose a side. Sometimes you fought only to stay alive.
Nidic Waq breathed in the cold air until it hurt his lungs, and he released it in a soundless rush. Both within the Currents and without, so much relied on chance. Neither world claimed any stability, and there would be much to upset both in the days to come.
It had started with the Soul Seekers attack on the Crossroads. The slaughter of the people there meant the Devoid was through waiting. Its Seekers would begin scouring the land, feeding the dark creature in order to aid its escape. Nidic Waq had reached Jakova as quickly as possible, and fortunately, plans for the city’s defense had already been put into motion.
The Cortazian Army had arrived the day before, and their king, Ariel Forn, had established a perimeter to protect the Dwarf city at once. It’d been nearly two hundred years since the races had met in such large numbers, and never before had it been done in cooperation. The Ictarian people faced a tough battle ahead, and Nidic Waq believed they stood a chance of surviving, but only if they stayed united.
Of course, the war between Ictar and the Seekers meant nothing in comparison to what was happening in the Currents. The magic flowing between the Sephirs and out into Ictar was spinning out of control. The balance between the elements had been tipped, and the Archons were working hard to repair the damage. A small possibility remained that both chaos and the Devoid would be set free, and then all of Ictar would die.
All because of Darr Reintol.
Nidic Waq doubted the Summoner knew what he’d done. Consumed by his anger, Darr was blinded to the truth. After the loss of his brother, Darr sought to exact his revenge against the minions of the Devoid. What Darr didn’t understand was his summoning in Navda was never actually a summoning at all. In his anger, he’d torn the magic of the Fire Sephir from its Archon, like pulling a block from an unstable foundation. Now the entire structure threatened to fall. One more block and everything would crumble. The Devoid would be searching for a way to make that happen.
A smile crept up the sides of his face. He didn’t smile out of secret satisfaction or madness. He smiled because he knew Darr wouldn’t give in easily to his base emotions. Darr held more strength inside himself than anyone suspected. The boy was resilient, contempl
ative, and intuitive. He’d been chosen for that very reason.
In the aftermath of the Current’s violation, some hope remained. Darr’s stolen magic had erased the Soul Seekers from Ictar for the time being. It would be a while before the Devoid could muster the strength for another summoning.
Nidic Waq lifted his head to the cloudy skies above, and the dim firelight of the city reflected bloody red. He wished he could speak with the spirits, to get a glimpse of the future, a taste of what lay ahead. The Currents were in an uproar, disrupting any sort of communication.
The prophet sighed. He centered himself and let his thoughts cool. He must stay alert and aware of everything happening around him. He must focus his efforts, helping Caeranol search for the remaining Chosen of the Light. If the spirit realm cleared, he must reach Darr Reintol and help him. These were the only ways to gain an advantage over their enemy.
Nidic Waq straightened his frame. Satisfied with his conclusions, he walked down from the high wall, leaving the night’s shadows to dance between the watch fires.
Darr’s story will continue, along with the fate of the Ictarian Army, in Book Two of The Chosen of the Light: Soul Seeker
The Children of the Light: Book 1: Spirit Summoner Page 27
