Soul's Reckoning bw-3

by Sam Bowring

  He was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Why? thundered Bel. Why did you allow yourself to be caught?

  You say I think too much? Well, I have thought long and hard about this , Bel – about what would happen if we entered the Stone.

  Bel felt parts of him swirling away, into the single soul that spun between what remained of their individual selves.

  What did you decide?

  That you’re a simple creature, Bel …a collection of surface and base motivations, whom I find lacking. You have never worked things out for yourself, driven instead by unquestioning focus and sharp aggression. Nevertheless I desire these qualities, for no longer can I shrink from the necessary bloodshed, no longer can I meander when I need to take action. These qualities you will provide me with, to ensure I meet my true potential.

  But …but …

  Even here you fight me, even though you have tasted what is meant to be. You have revelled in my power, lusted for my woman, seen that my gods are just, and yet you fight on because that’s what you do. You are too full of pride to give up, even though you are beginning to understand that I speak the truth, and that it is really yourself you fight.

  More of them went into the swirl, a black hole pulling in the last orbiting moons.

  One final thought kept Bel able to maintain a sense of self. What of the path? he cried. It guided me through battles, kept me safe from dragons, urged me to walk into the sphere of light and stand with you as they cast the spell that brought us together …

  What of it?

  I thought it was fate’s threads, guiding me to victory!

  Losara chuckled. It was.

  The noise in Bel’s mind grew louder as he broke to pieces, unable to hold on.

  Do not fight any longer, Bel, and I shall promise you something.

  What?

  All you ever really cared about was winning, my friend. Well – and there was a surge of elation as Bel shared the realisation …no, not shared, for they were no longer apart – you can.

  Emergence

  ‘Stand back!’ shouted Corlas. ‘Give him space!’

  The others backed off as the gateway continued to expand. A body was forming – a man, his long, curly blue hair swept about by unknown forces. He spilled forward suddenly into the clearing, onto his hands and knees, his hair falling to obscure his downcast face. Behind him, the gateway snapped closed.

  Nobody dared breathe. The man reached down with a finger to scratch at the clearing floor, as if seeing earth for the first time. His arms were muscular, but they did not have the bulge of Bel, or the slightness of Losara. A tiny crumb of dirt caught in his fingernails, and he stared as if unsure what to make of it.

  ‘Can it be …’ he whispered.

  ‘No,’ whispered Lalenda. She was staring at his hands – human hands, no trace of shadow. She clutched her own hands to her chest as hairline cracks began to split her heart.

  Quietly, surreptitiously, Tyrellan pulled a dagger from his belt.

  ‘Bel?’ said Fahren, not yet daring to edge forward. Jaya began to, taking hesitant steps – but it was Corlas who felt none of their fear.

  ‘Boy?’ he asked, kneeling beside the figure, putting a hand upon his back. ‘Are you returned, boy? Are you all right? Come, speak to your worried old man.’

  The man looked up and, as the cocoon of his hair fell back, he revealed a pitch-black gaze. Even Corlas faltered at that, withdrawing his touch.

  The man frowned at him. His face had the smooth-featured boyishness of Losara, but there was something of Bel there too. ‘Father?’ he said, and lurched up to fling his arms around Corlas. Corlas, surprised, rocked backwards, but at the same time held on tight. Forcefully he rearranged his embrace, clutching his son to him, his eyes streaming with tears. Charla went to be with them, grinning at her husband’s happiness, placing a hand on Corlas’s shoulder as he wept.

  ‘My son, Charla,’ said Corlas.

  ‘I see, my love. I see.’

  The man pulled free, and blinked around at all of them: Fahren, fingers twitching, ready for the worst …Tyrellan, dagger twisting idly in his grip …Jaya, seemingly caught between running to him and running away …Lalenda, her hand unclenching from her breast as she stared into his dark eyes …

  ‘Who are you?’ said Fahren.

  ‘The both of us,’ he said. He raised a hand to his brow, pressed his fingers to his temple and thought deeply for a moment. ‘But I think you had best call me …Losara.’

  Lalenda gave a cry and ran to him, and he rose from the ground to meet her. As she clutched him, his eyes came over her to rest on Jaya. Hers were open wide and blinking quickly, and her mouth was hanging open in unspoken question.

  ‘You can still feel it?’ he said to her. ‘Our connection endures, Jaya.’

  Lalenda pulled back, her claws now pricking his sides. ‘What?’

  He laughed as he smoothed tangled hair from her eyes. ‘It does not exist at the expense of what we share, flutterbug. But there’s no denying it is still there.’

  Lalenda glanced at Jaya uncertainly.

  ‘But your hands,’ said Fahren desperately. ‘How can you be Losara?’

  The man held up a hand, turning it for inspection. ‘Bel was always good with his hands,’ he said. ‘It was something we agreed to keep.’ He smiled then, a mischievous smile that Fahren remembered well from another face. ‘A warrior needs his hands, Fahren.’ He wiggled the finger that had been missing.

  ‘My lord,’ said Tyrellan, sinking to one knee, his voice full of ardour. Unusually, his hand shook as he slid the dagger back into his belt.

  ‘But …’ said Fahren, ‘…you were the lesser.’

  ‘Was I?’ said Losara. ‘How can that be defined? What attributes are worth what? Which traits are shadow and which are light? Certainly I now have what I needed from Bel …his determination, his bloodlust …’ He shook his head. ‘Though I fancy it is now more under control.’

  Panic showed on Fahren’s face, and he brought up trembling hands to conjure a ward. Losara reached out and ripped it away, and Fahren fell to the ground, asleep.

  ‘Watch over him for me, Father,’ he said.

  There was a rustle in the trees. Corlas glanced around, as if looking for someone who wasn’t there. ‘My Lady …’ he doubtfully addressed the air. ‘He has already been through so much …’

  Twigs and leaves whipped up suddenly, and a funnel of earth rose to mesh with them. Losara started and pulled Lalenda behind him as Vyasinth formed.

  ‘Who …?’ he said.

  The green pinpricks of her eyes flared brightly. ‘I am the Lady of the Wood,’ she said. ‘And your true god.’

  ‘She wants to reawaken your Sprite blood,’ muttered Corlas.

  ‘Oh,’ said Losara. He held out his hand, and closed his eyes. ‘So be it.’

  Vyasinth paused for a moment …then firmly clasped Losara’s hand with her own twig-like fingers. Losara tensed, and Lalenda exchanged a look of concern with Jaya. A few moments passed in silence.

  ‘Ah,’ said Losara eventually, opening his eyes. ‘I remember our people now, as you wish me to. But if you think, my Lady, that changing my purpose is as simple as that, you are mistaken. Maybe if I had grown up here,’ he gestured around, ‘as you had intended …but my blood is full of dreams and memories now, enough for two men, and a few more will not change me.’

  Her hand fell slowly, and several of the leaves growing from her withered. ‘But you are my champion,’ she whispered. ‘A champion for our people.’

  ‘Your people are a long time gone,’ said Losara. ‘I am sorry. But I will allow you to remain here. This place will go on as it was – as a sanctuary, not a power.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Now,’ said Losara, ‘I must away.’ He reached for Corlas’s wrist, clasped both his hands around it. ‘We shall have our time, Father. Soon. And you both,’ he looked from Lalenda to Jaya, ‘I love you each very much.’ He left Lalenda to go to Ja
ya, and she did not flinch. Instead she reached to touch his face, her eyebrow quirking for a moment.

  ‘You’re still in there?’ she asked quietly, rubbing a thumb on his cheek.

  ‘I am, my thief.’

  Lalenda hissed behind them. ‘Hush, flutterbug,’ said Losara. ‘It will be all right.’ Then he stepped away, looking up to the sky.

  ‘Where are you going, my lord?’ said Tyrellan.

  ‘To battle,’ said Losara. He gestured at Tyrellan, who was startled to lift up into the air. ‘And you shall come with me.’

  Together they rose out of the forest.

  Grimra swirled amongst those who remained. ‘Ho ho!’ he said. ‘Nasty spirits took some shaking. What did Grimra miss?’

  •

  As Losara and Tyrellan flew over the Grass Ocean, the armies battled on.

  ‘We are going to win, lord?’ said Tyrellan.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Losara. ‘We are going to win. I shall put us down there.’

  They descended from the sky. Losara set Tyrellan down amongst a group of Varenkai where he knew the First Slave would excel. Then lightfists’ spells shot towards him and he sent up a billowing ward, strong and dark. The attacks burst against it with the impacts of flies, yet excitement bubbled and his body began to sing. So this was what it was like! He both remembered the glorious feeling and experienced it for the first time – he was full, he was whole, and doing what he’d been born to do. Not only that, but with his Sprite blood awakened, everything seemed more vibrant, every detail clearer.

  How many favours , he thought exuberantly, my enemies have done me!

  Torrents of shadows poured off him, curling to seek Kainordans. He gestured at a sword sticking from the churned ground and it flew into his grip. Whooping, he ran at a Saurian on a dune claw, leaped into the air and hurtled along, swinging hard and ripping through the both of them, ecstatic as his warrior side melded perfectly with the mage. He landed to see a group of bows plying his troops with arrows, and released a mighty blue bolt that crackled with the sound of a thousand fires, turning them to a gaping hole. He saw wasps circling and flew upwards, zipping between them as he slashed them from the sky. The air around him whorled into a tornado.

  Oh, how they fell, life after life, their souls streaming to Arkus’s well. They will be ours in the end , he thought. None could stand against him, now that he was truly himself. As enemy stocks dwindled, those remaining began to realise they faced something that was beyond them. They fled before him and he let them go, for no place in the world was far from his grasp.

  And, as the sun began to set, he raised his sword high above his head and roared victory at the sky.

  •

  Tyrellan wended his way between scattered groups of shadow folk as the last Kainordans retreated. He found Losara standing as if in a daze, gazing out across the plains to the north. The butterfly circled down to land on a dented helmet, where it fluttered its colourful wings. Much to his surprise, Tyrellan found he did not care. Maybe because it reminded him of who he had killed to get it …or maybe he was simply beyond it.

  ‘My lord?’

  Losara said nothing.

  ‘Shadowdreamer?’

  Slowly Losara turned. He glanced at the sword in his hand, stared at it for a moment as if he didn’t recognise what it was, then cast it away.

  ‘We have defeated them,’ said Tyrellan. Around them Arabodedas, Vorthargs and the rest were beginning to realise this as well. Laughter began, and calls of triumph, and jubilation breaking out. ‘Lord? We are victorious.’

  ‘Just a little further,’ said Losara.

  •

  As they marched north, towns and cities lay empty behind them, evacuated or defeated. Losara had not yet thought he could allow mercy, but maybe here. Maybe now.

  His collected forces stood at the base of the hill, looking up at the Open Halls. The Cloud that followed in their wake had fallen behind, as yet unable to cover this part of the world. Here the light still shone upon Kadass and the Open Halls, the last stronghold of its power.

  ‘This is where we met,’ said Jaya. She seemed somewhat haunted, and he didn’t like to see her so. Bloodshed made her anxious, he had realised – something that Bel alone had never picked up. Around her neck the Stone glinted, given to her for protection. It seemed only fitting, when Lalenda had Grimra’s pendant.

  ‘It is not my wish to destroy it,’ he told her, slipping his hand into hers reassuringly.

  ‘No,’ chimed in Lalenda. ‘I want to have a drink at this Wayward Dog of yours. If that is allowable?’

  Jaya favoured her with an even stare, then nodded. ‘I would like that myself.’

  As Lalenda turned back to watch the city, she unconsciously entwined her hand with Losara’s on his other side.

  Tyrellan emerged from the Halls and rode down the hill, flanked by goblin guards. He passed a group of shadow mages who had finished breaking apart a ward stone and were moving on to another. On the walls of the Open Halls, Kainordans gathered to watch the swell of the shadow army at their doorstep.

  ‘What news?’ said Losara as the First Slave drew up.

  ‘I have spoken with a man called Thedd,’ replied Tyrellan. ‘It seems he is the closest thing they have to a leader.’

  ‘And does he agree?’

  ‘He agrees, lord.’

  Losara breathed a sigh of relief. Then he wheeled his horse about, and injected power into his voice so it carried clearly over the assembled masses.

  ‘We have their surrender.’

  An answering clamour rose as his people rejoiced, up to the heavens where the Cloud had begun to steal slowly towards them again …but something else was happening in the sky. Great dark shapes circled something bright, which jumped about as if trying to escape. The shapes blocked it at every turn, then suddenly rushed in to smother it. There sounded an unearthly howl, like a great pair of lungs on fire, loud enough that every owner of a pair of ears had to clutch them.

  And then it stopped.

  And then a great crack.

  Losara watched as the dark blotches receded, nothing remaining in their wake. One seemed to stretch long for a moment, serpent-like …and then they were but vapour, drifting away.

  ‘The Great Well of Arkus,’ breathed Losara, ‘is broken.’

  Something in his heart railed at the notion. There would be little fighting now, he knew. The Dark Gods would empty Arkus’s Well into their own, where souls would now return on death regardless of how they’d come into this life. He had won, and the killing would stop.

  He squashed down the part of himself dismayed at the thought.

  He hoped he would never need it again.

  Epilogue

  Losara paused in the shadows of the coiled root, watching as Corlas organised the reconstruction of the hut. It had caught a spell or three during the fight, and Charla had seized the opportunity to convince Corlas to rebuild it more grandly, ‘as befits the Lord of the Wood’. Sprites were dragging in logs from the forest, and Corlas stood in the middle of the clearing chopping them, sweating as he rolled his shoulders and brought down the heavy axe.

  Losara stepped from the darkness and made his way over. When Corlas noticed him, he set down his axe, wiped the beads from his brow, and smiled.

  It gladdened Losara no end that his father accepted him, for with Bel now a part of him, he had inherited their bond. Thank goodness Corlas had given up his allegiance to the light, and was simply happy to have his family back.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ said Losara, clasping Corlas’s hand. ‘How goes it?’

  ‘Quite well,’ said Corlas. ‘Although hopefully she will stop wanting extra additions at the last moment.’

  Losara chuckled.

  ‘And you?’ said Corlas. ‘I take it you have succeeded.’

  ‘You heard the crack?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Corlas. ‘And the voice.’ He picked up a cloth and wiped his hands. ‘It is the end?’

  ‘Yes,’ said L
osara. ‘Arkus is gone, and light magic has failed.’ He frowned, momentarily troubled by the idea of crystal spiders dropping dead from peeling trees.

  ‘In that case,’ said Corlas, glancing at the roiling Cloud above, ‘I was hoping perhaps you might do me a favour.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Let us have some sun. The trees would be grateful.’

  Losara nodded. ‘I have done the same for the Saurians, off in their desert.’ He raised a hand to the sky and gave a little wave. The Cloud began to part, sunlight streaming through.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Corlas.

  ‘Where is Charla?’

  ‘Off at her friend’s place while all the hard work is being done,’ Corlas said, then revealed a wry look. ‘Can’t say I blame her, though. Not in her condition.’

  ‘Her condition?’ Losara stood dumbstruck, and his father laughed at his expression.

  ‘You are going to be a brother,’ he said.

  Losara laughed too. He could not believe it.

  ‘Hopefully,’ added Corlas, ‘his hair will not be blue.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Losara. ’We’ve had quite enough of that.’ He shook his head in amazement, then glanced around. ‘What about Fahren? I would see him while I’m here.’

  ‘Not sure,’ said Corlas. ‘Though he’s taken to wandering the edges of the forest. Will you return for dinner?’

  ‘I will,’ said Losara. There was still much to be done in this new world, but it could wait.

  Turning to shadow he whisked off to travel the outskirts of the wood. He wondered briefly if Vyasinth would appear to him again, but somehow he doubted it. Perhaps in time she would learn to accept what had happened …to be content that her people had been preserved, that her sanctuary would endure. Perhaps.