Fallout (Tales of the Other Universe Book 2)

by J. G. Taschereau

  “The most powerful mages in the village, myself among them, did what we could against the creature. I must admit that I have never encountered a magical presence as powerful as the monster that Amadeus had become. It took all of us to restrain it and as I prepared to destroy it, I heard Amadeus’ voice calling out for me to help him. I knew then that the creature was Amadeus, and rather than destroy it I sealed the evil inside of him. I had hoped to banish it from out of him, but even my own magic was not powerful enough to do so. As a result, Amadeus survived but he suffered a terrible price for his attempt to overstep the boundaries of mortal men.

  “The evil sealed away in him could not be restrained forever, or even for all that long. His aura had already changed and was slowing starting to show the evil seeping out into him. I informed Amadeus that I didn’t expect that he would live for another nine months before that monster took control of him once again. At that time he had realized the true impact of his poor decision, not only on himself but on Diatyallah. He decided that he would leave the village in hopes that he could track down Sek’hai and find a way using Fatusian magic to banish the darkness from out of him. I warned him of how unlikely that would be, but he had no other alternative. I could not allow him to stay in the village, so I consented to him leaving with the condition that if he failed to find a solution in time that he would take his own life rather than allow that thing to claim his body again.”

  “The Creator didn’t tell me how Amadeus died,” Adam said. “But he was dead by the time Dee was eighteen years old.”

  “That is a relief to me, as strange as that sounds,” said Baraluneska. “I knew that Amadeus would be unable to free himself from the evil that he had invited into his soul. I am thankful that he found an ending to his suffering before he lost himself to that monster.”

  Adam cupped his chin with his hand. “So Amadeus left the village to find a way to save himself, but Dee believed that he was going after a monster. The ‘monster’ of course was the spirit that possessed him, but Dee doesn’t know that.”

  “Diatyallah was kept out of harm’s way as Amadeus rampaged through the village and was not allowed out of her home until after Amadeus had departed. We could not bear to tell her the truth about what happened. She had already lost her brother, and her bond with Amadeus was even greater. We as a village decided to spare her the pain of loss and told her that Amadeus had gone off to pursue the monster that attacked our village that night. Even with the lie, she was devastated that he had gone. We tried to convince her that things would be alright and that another master would assist her with the Rite of Carnea. But you know my granddaughter, always stubborn. She refused to complete the rite with anyone but Amadeus. So too did she insist that she bring him back to the village herself.

  “Her parents and I forbid her from going out, but she managed to slip away at some point. She left a note behind saying that she wouldn’t return until she found Amadeus and brought him home safely. You can imagine how horrified we were. At best, she would never find him and end up wandering the continent; at worst, she would find Amadeus, or what was left of him. We went looking for her, but once she had left the forest valley there was no way of tracking her. We had thought we lost her forever, until you returned today.”

  “She was reluctant to come back without Amadeus,” Adam explained. “She tried to avoid coming this way at all. The whole walk to the village she looked so defeated and hopeless.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Baraluneska. “My granddaughter hates to lose, and considering the time and energy she’s put into this quest of hers I don’t blame her for not wanting to come back yet. But you know well now that there is no reason for her not to be here anymore, and as difficult as it will be, I must tell Diatyallah the truth about Amadeus. I regretted having lied to her after she was gone, but now I have the chance to correct my mistake. It will be painful for both of us, but I cannot bear to see her go chasing after something she’ll never find.”

  While Adam could agree with that, he could tell that Baraluneska was dead set on having Dee stay in Erebia Village for good. In his heart he knew it would be better for Dee to stay here, but she wasn’t likely to abandon him in the middle of his crisis. More than that, he had come to realize that he didn’t want to be away from her. He sighed, and his breath put out the exhausted candle in front of him.

  “Sorry,” he said. He went to snap his fingers to relight the wick but Baraluneska stopped him.

  “No, that’s alright. It’s getting quite late, and I’ve grown tired from our discussions. You’re welcome to stay the night here, just take some of the spare bedding in the closet behind you. I apologize for not providing proper accommodations, but you must understand that the villagers don’t trust strangers staying unchecked within our walls. I know it’s far from the comforts of a king’s bedchambers.”

  “No, I understand, and I appreciate your hospitality,” Adam said with a short bow.

  Baraluneska smirked and laughed as she rose. “How honored am I that a king would bow to me! Get you to bed, Legend. I am certain there is more you want to discuss with me tomorrow.”

  She disappeared behind a curtain into her bedroom as Adam pulled a bedroll and a thick blanket from the closet. As he laid them down on the floor, he knew that Baraluneska was right: there was more to talk about and much left for him to deal with. Countless troubles still awaited him in the morning and he did his best to push them from his mind. There would be time enough to contemplate the personal demons that plagued him, both figurative and real. He placed his dark glasses aside and let his head hit the bedroll. The moment he closed his eyes, he was caught away into a sound sleep.

  Chapter 13

  Discussing Death

  The same full moon that Adam looked up at from the clear air of the mountains was clouded by a veil of smog rising over the industrial city of Khanka. The city had come a long way since Adam first travelled through it forty years earlier. At the time it had been a hub for business deals and an economic leader in the western part of the republic. It was also a growing center of criminal enterprises, marked by public corruption and an illicit trade in restricted weaponry. It took an uprising of freedom fighters to overturn a key player in that corruption, the Khazaki’s short-term leader, Seb Ommati. After Adam took control he built the Khazaki into a group of soldiers that were to be feared by criminals and respected by the people of Khanka. His intentions were pure, but what Adam never knew was that despite all of the good that the Khazaki was doing, the production of illegal weapons and technology continued. After Adam left to take the throne of Magid, the same government leaders who had entrusted him to guard the city increased the development of dangerous technology to meet the needs of their secret supporters.

  Standing on the veranda of his hotel room, Mr. White leaned over the balcony and stared out over the busy city. Some buildings rose high into the sky, while signal lights flashed on and off all across the skyline. Smokestacks from smelting plants spewed soot into the night air, and the smell of the foundries burned in his nose. The technological age had taken a strong hold here, even compared to forty years earlier. The Republic of Gravell had the advantage of technology ever since it had gone back on a truce to abandon the dangerous advancement of industry thousands of years earlier. When once the world was on the brink of destruction due to misuse of technological wonders, it had returned to a natural state and threw away its hazards. All but Gravell, and the interests that perpetuated its survival.

  “My, my,” Mr. White said. “This city never ceases to amaze me. It’s grown into quite a metropolis since I was here last. It might even rival New York or Tokyo some day. Aren’t you interested, Daniel?”

  The Creator remained inside the hotel suite sitting hunched over in a chair. Mr. White’s mechanical bodyguard Spartacus stood nearby and watched its master on the balcony. The Creator paid no attention to it, or to Mr. White. All he was interested in doing was finding Dee, bringing her back with him safely,
and being rid of the chain that Oracle had bound around his neck. He thought of Adam and the inevitable encounter the two were going to have. The Creator knew soon enough Mr. White would be satisfied with Adam’s suffering and would sic the Creator on him. It was something he never wanted, but had been preparing for since the events in Kyoto.

  Adam’s acquisition of the elemental forces of Magid posed a dangerous problem for the Creator. After the ritual to remove his anger, the Creator noticed that Adam was not only more inclined to challenge his authority but to get others to do so as well. Combined with his powers as a Legend, Adam was in a position to challenge the Creator and even overthrow him if it ever came down to it. Master M had warned the Creator of this following the incident in Kyoto, which prompted him to leave Dee with Adam to monitor him. He had never expected that Dee would betray him and side with Adam. He could accept Adam’s failures as a king and dismiss him from power, but taking Dee away was an unacceptable strike against him. It was that last straw that drove the Creator to comply with Oracle: a realization that with The Baggins gone, Adam had become the Creator’s greatest threat to existence.

  Mr. White returned to the interior of the room and sat down at the table opposite the Creator. He picked up the skull of Adam’s doppelganger which sat like a macabre centerpiece. Mr. White studied the skull, gazing into its empty eye sockets. The Creator looked on in disgust.

  “Why are you so fascinated with that thing?” he asked. “Do you have such a love of death?”

  “Only his,” Mr. White said. He was entranced, and the glyphs of an eye imprinted over his red irises seemed to glow with delight. “It’s just such an odd thing, beautifully poetic. Here once was a man who existed only to kill and hate, whose anger defined his very existence and determined the fate of all those who crossed his path. He was a demon worthy of fear. And look at him now. Not a trace of anything left, just a hollow, empty ruin of what once was. It is the ultimate justice that all of us will suffer, even immortals like Adam Evans and you.”

  “You seem confident in that,” said the Creator.

  “Don’t be so charmed as to think that even you will be spared from this fate, Daniel. Times have changed, and not even the gods are safe from extinction. You must remember the multitude of pantheons from the Earth religions. How many gods and goddesses have fallen into obscurity and been lost to history? Whether they existed or not, people have forgotten them, and they are as good as dead. Even the so called ‘modern’ religions are beginning to weaken as humankind loses their faith and turns to reason instead. What happens to a deity when no one believes in him? Is that any different from his death? I don’t think so.”

  “My people will continue to believe in me,” the Creator told his antagonist.

  “If you’re so confident of that, then why are you so afraid of them knowing the truth?” Mr. White placed the skull back on the table and leaned in. “It’s because even you fear death, Daniel. As you should.”

  “Do you not?” the Creator said. “You’ve taken some bold gambles in your quest to destroy Iilil-ja. Were you never worried that he might discover you and come after you himself?”

  “You underestimate my consideration of this matter, Daniel. I have never allowed myself to come into any danger as I pursued my revenge against Adam Evans. Whether it was his doppelganger and the Black Dragon team in Kyoto or the people of Magid, I’ve always been an overseer of those who carried out my plans. I don’t intend to confront Evans until the end, when he is left broken and wracked with despair.”

  “Those are the tactics of a coward who’s afraid to die in pursuit of his goals,” the Creator said.

  “You’re not one to talk about hiding behind subordinates, Daniel. We’re not as different as you think. We’re both intent on carrying out our goals for the sake of the ones we cared about, and use our great power and influence to accomplish them. The one difference is this: I don’t fear death, only dying before finishing my work. You, on the other hand, have already done what you set out to do and fear to lose that which you’ve waited so long to have.”

  The Creator had no rebuttal and sat back in his chair. Mr. White flashed a victorious smile and plucked the skull back into his hand. “Consider yourself lucky, Daniel. Unlike the rest of us, you have the privilege of knowing what happens after death. I’m sure that must provide some comfort.”

  The Creator stood abruptly from his seat and left Mr. White to get out of the room. Spartacus moved to the side to allow the deity to pass him as Mr. White called out to him.

  “Don’t stay out too late, Daniel! The men have already moved out, so we’ll be hearing word tomorrow what our next move is going to be.”

  The Creator ignored him and slammed the door shut behind him. Spartacus turned to its master and offered an empty stare from the light sensor that comprised its single eye. Mr. White placed the skull back on the table and looked at his bodyguard.

  “Must have been something I said.”

  Chapter 14

  A Hope for Divine Intervention

  Another explosion rang out somewhere below Adam. He steadied himself as the hallway shook and dust fell from the crumbling ceiling. Ahead, another round of rapid gunfire cut through the sound of people screaming. Adam ran ahead through the hallway past a cluster of bodies. Around the corner he spotted a group of gunmen covered in thick body armor along with automatic weapons in their hands. He reached for his sword but grasped only empty air. Alarmed, he looked down to see he was without any weapon. As the gunmen turned towards him, he shot his hand out to hurl lightning bolts at them. Instead there was nothing. He had only a moment to register his confusion before the gunmen opened fire on him.

  The bullets burned through Adam’s body and he fell to the floor. It was a different feeling than when he had been shot like this before. There was no pain this time, but he couldn’t get back up. All the feeling in his body faded away but he never lost consciousness. His head fell to the side and his eyes widened. A few feet away from him he saw Dee lying on the floor with her arms covering her face. Her wand had rolled away from her and a puddle of blood was pooling around her body. He tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. As the last feeling crept out of his body, he saw a foot land near his head. He managed to look up and see Baraluneska glaring down at him.

  The shock of seeing the old woman ripped Adam from his dream and back to reality where Baraluneska was crouched over him in her tiny living room. Adam jerked his head up but Baraluneska smacked him with the thick part of her staff and knocked him back down. He cried out in pain and clutched his stinging head as Baraluneska scowled at him.

  “What was that all about?” he shouted.

  “These are the kinds of things you dream about? My granddaughter being killed?”

  “What were you doing looking into my dreams in the first place?” Adam thought that she was lucky that he was paralyzed in his dream or else he might have reacted the same way he had with Dee when she intruded into his dreams in Kyoto.

  “I was curious,” Baraluneska said. “I wanted to see if your dreams were guided by your own subconscious or by the wicked aura.”

  Adam felt the floor beside him and found his dark glasses, fixing them back to the bridge of his nose before sitting up. “Well I hope you’re satisfied.”

  “Of course not,” said Baraluneska. “That dream was inconclusive.”

  “Well I’d appreciate if you didn’t try it again,” said Adam. “I assure you my dreams are my own.”

  “That doesn’t comfort me much, Legend.”

  “Well they don’t comfort me, either.”

  Baraluneska took a seat at the table and allowed Adam to get up. He stretched his body and found himself to still be sore and his muscles were tight from sleeping on the rough bedroll. At the table, Baraluneska poured hot water from a ceramic pot into a cup filled with tea leaves. She did the same for a second cup and pushed it towards Adam, who sat at the table and blew on the steeping tea to cool it.

 
; “You fear loss,” she said, swirling her cup. “That is the crux of your predicament.”

  “What are you talking about?” Adam asked.

  “You have a desire to be remembered should you somehow die, and the events of your dream suggest you see yourself as helpless to prevent the things you care about being taken away: your kingdom, as well as my granddaughter.”

  Adam hid his face behind the tea cup as he took a sip. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you’re not going to get anywhere if you’re concerned with losing what’s important to you. You’ve already lost your kingdom, yes? You want to get it back? Then you need to throw away any doubts or concerns and fight to take it back. You must be without fear of any kind if you want to succeed in your goal.”

  “It’s not just fear I have to worry about,” Adam said. “My people have turned their backs on me. I have to find a way to win them back.”

  “But that is fear,” Baraluneska countered. “You’re afraid of not winning back the support of the people you’ve wronged.”

  “I didn’t wrong them,” Adam said. He remembered as soon as he’d finished his sentence the realization that had dawned on him prior to fleeing the palace. He had failed the people; he could not protect them from the conspiracy surrounding him that touched all of their lives. They had suffered and he was unable to do anything about it. He hung his head with humility while the old woman sipped her tea with a pleased look.

  “I’m glad you’re starting to understand that I can read people better than they can themselves,” she said, setting her cup down.