Etheric Knight

by P. J. Cherubino

  Stop it! The voice hissed.

  “I can’t stop it!” Gormer screamed. “I don’t know how!”

  He looked over his shoulder and directly into the glowing red eyes of the remnant. A gory hand reached out and touched his shoulder.

  A thunderclap seized his attention from the certain death behind him. His head snapped forward just as a portal ripped a jagged hole in the forest.

  Gormer fell through the blackness as bellows of rage faded above him.

  He blinked and found himself on a cold, stone floor looking at an ornate, vaulted ceiling. A warm breeze bathed him with the sweet incense of spring.

  He rolled over and crawled toward the shafts of sunlight creating warm islands on the hard stone. Sandaled feet stepped between him and the light. He craned his neck, and his eyes followed the billows of blue cloth to a gold sash and up to her face.

  “Julianne,” Gormer gasped. He scrabbled away from her, sliding on the seat of his pants.

  The leader of the Mystics sighed and reached out a hand. Gormer shielded his face.

  “This isn’t real,” he muttered. “This is a dream.”

  “Yes, it is,” Julianne confirmed. He heard her feet pad across the stone toward him.

  Gormer risked a look and found Julianne down on one knee beside him.

  “Why are you here?” Gormer asked.

  “That’s a good question,” she replied with a smile. “I know why I’m here. I’ll let you figure out why you’re here.”

  She reached out a hand again, and this time, Gormer took it. The soft strength of her touch sent tingles up his arm.

  “Are you still angry with me?”

  “You’ll have to come back to The Heights to find that out.”

  “This is so weird. I’ve never had a dream like this before. What is this about?”

  Julianne shook her head. “You weren’t a slow student. In fact, you were one of the smartest. But you were too busy lashing out at everyone to really pay attention.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gormer cried, looking away. “I’ve always been a piece of shit.”

  Julianne let out a puffing breath of frustration. She grabbed him by the shoulders, picked him up and shook him hard. “Stop that, gods damn it! Self-pity is one of your biggest problems!”

  Even though she shouted, a tight smile stretched across her lips. “I swear, you are so frustrating. How many times do I have to tell you: you’re not the bad guy. You’re kind of a jerk, but you are not evil.”

  Gormer couldn’t help but smile back.

  “There. That’s the Gormer I know and love.”

  His face fell open in shock. “Love?”

  Julianne groaned and gave him a little shove. “Yes, idiot. Love. We loved you. You were family. We probably still do. This part of your mind doesn’t know for sure, you’ll just have to find out. We just couldn’t help you.

  “Having you around the way you were would have hurt the Mystic Temple. I was just taking over when Selah died. There was too much chaos. We had to admit that we failed and let you go. That’s why you were expelled.”

  “All the damage I did…” Gormer’s voice trailed off.

  “Yes, you fucked up,” Julianne affirmed. “Get over it. You have much to atone for. You never killed anyone.”

  “No,” Gormer sneered. “I just tricked them into slavery at the factory, then robbed them blind. Then I got through a lot of years by robbing, drinking and drugging my way across Irth.”

  “Well, yes.” Julianne sighed. “But you lived among a community of telepaths, and you never let anybody into that head of yours. That’s how we knew how powerful you were. That’s how you knew. You were afraid of it. But you were also powerfully broken. Hurt people hurt people.”

  “I can’t let that be my excuse!” Gormer snapped. “Astrid was hurt, and she didn’t hurt people. She does the opposite.”

  “Well, Astrid wasn’t a three-year-old who witnessed her parents being murdered by remnant.”

  “Yeah, maybe you have a point.” Gormer considered. “Adult me still has to deal with child me.”

  “Exactly,” the figment of Julianne agreed. “Ironically, this is much easier to understand now that you are dying.”

  “Uh, what…”

  “You know that, right? You must. Haven’t you heard the expression ‘my life flashed before my eyes’? This is your version of that, playing out as only the mind of a mystic can...

  “The emotional shock of seeing the remnant was just the start of what’s happening. It’s the link. You shared a link with something controlling the remnant.”

  Julianne put her hands on her hips, “Hey, whatever happened to the jewelry you stole from my chambers?”

  Gormer offered a shameful smile. “I…” he cleared his throat. “I pawned it. Is that little pawn shop still at the end of Bitch and Bastard Boulevard? Maybe you can—”

  “Horse’s ass,” Julianne muttered, shaking her head. She walked away.

  Gormer followed and stood beside Juliane at the low, marble wall between them and a drop of two hundred feet.

  “I miss this place,” Gormer admitted. He was surprised his dream refuge turned out to be the Mystic Temple.

  “I know you do,” Julianne said. “The Temple is beautiful. Your memory isn’t quite accurate though, but I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “Yeah,” Gormer replied. “Let’s get back to the subject of me and how I’m dying.”

  “Oh, that,” Julianne replied. “Your mind is breaking apart. That’s why parts of it are pretending to be me. It’s also trying to protect you from reliving what happened to your family.”

  “I already remembered that once when I fought that Reacher. He tried to use the memory against me, but it didn’t work.”

  “Right. In fact, it made you stronger. You learned how to use Reacher magic to see and manipulate emotions. But to get out of this, you need to go through that horror again.”

  “Bullshit. No, I don’t. Fuck that. I saw enough to understand it the second time. I know it wasn’t my fault. I know there was nothing I could have done. I was three.”

  “That’s not what you said to Astrid before your mind started to crack. When you saw the remnant this time, you snapped right back to the old belief.”

  “What does belief have to do with anything?”

  “You idiot,” Julianne teased, slapping the side of his head.

  “Ow!”

  “The magic you perform is based on your system of beliefs. You found that out intuitively as a child without knowing why or how. You believed you could disappear and you did. You did not exist in the minds of the remnant. Not many mystics can do that. The ones who can, go mad. But you did it as a child. No wonder your head is so cocked up.”

  “I didn’t want to be eaten,” Gormer confessed.

  “Who does?” Julianne remarked with a shrug. “But you need to see the remnant again; the ones that came out of the portal. Really look at them.”

  “Damn it…” Gormer mumbled. He shook his head violently. His dream heart beat wildly, and his skull felt too small to contain the matter boiling therein.

  “No,” he gritted his teeth, trying and failing to resist.

  The remnant were everywhere, cutting, biting, screaming, and killing. Gormer was there again, in the assembly space as the memories of horror rose inside him.

  But it was a memory within a memory within a dream.

  “I don’t have to fear this,” Gormer said. He no longer felt his dream body. He was merely an observer. All was a stage, and he grew calm.

  He saw the creatures attached to the back of their necks. He saw the bright red tendrils of energy that connected all the creatures. The tendrils were interwoven like vines as they stretched back into the woods and to the portal.

  He saw himself frozen statue-still in terror. His eyes had gone white as he tried to hide from the remnant—like he did as a child. He had reached out with his mind, but one of the tendrils reached back.
>
  When it touched his forehead, he remembered how his flesh had burned. The pain was unreal—as if every nerve in his body rebelled at the touch. But he did not have to experience it again. He merely acknowledged it happened that way.

  A sudden change in perspective gave him vertigo. He rode along the twisting tendril that joined hundreds of others. Then, his vision was not his own. He looked out on the world through eyes so different he didn’t know what to make of the shapes and patterns at first.

  It was like adjusting the length of a sight glass to give boundaries to blurred forms. But it was not his eyes that focused.

  He saw sharp, red claws poking what looked like lumps of organ meat randomly arranged on slabs of stone. No, not random. Gormer recognized order; patterns to the motion of fingers that traveled briskly from red globs to clear sacs of milky, viscous liquid.

  They’re machines, Gormer thought. Machines made of living material. This being made these things. He had no idea how he knew this, he just did.

  He felt the intention in the mind he shared, even without recognizing individual thoughts.

  It should not have been possible. This creature was from a different world. Everything about it was different. But the things riding on the remnant’s necks made it possible for Gormer to share its thoughts. They were translators of perception, and Gormer was connected through those creatures.

  But not for long.

  A shrill cry split the air, and the red fingers turned frantic. It knew Gormer was there in its mind. Gormer wasn’t supposed to be there—it was an accident.

  His mind was suddenly filled with images of a barren landscape of parched, black rock. Gray mist cloaked the lowland between jagged peaks. But the mind Gormer shared didn’t experience the foreboding Gormer felt.

  It recalled that landscape with a deep sense of longing. It wanted to be back there again. That place had been home. It had been home, and she had been there; his master, the one who made him, the one he served. She was the one who gave him power over the weaklings.

  The link is what made this sight and knowledge possible, and it would also kill him if he didn’t break it. Even though it was half-connected, it still held him.

  “How do I break it?” Gormer shouted.

  “Hush,” Julianne said. “Don’t shout. I’m right here.”

  “I can’t break it,” Gormer replied, quieter.

  “Maybe I can help.”

  A hard slap across his face brought him back.

  “Ouch again, dammit!”

  The link was broken.

  Julianne stood in front of him, arms folded. “Now go back to your friends and get to work.”

  “I’m ready,” he said. “I won’t fail again.” The walls shimmered and collapsed like a sandcastle.

  “Yes, you will,” Julianne replied as she faded out as well.

  He stood suspended in a great perfectly black void.

  “You will fail just like we all sometimes do,” Julianne’s disembodied voice declared. “When you do, your friends will be there for you. Remember that. You’ve found good people, Gormer. You found another family.”

  “They found me,” Gormer replied.

  He heard her voice close in his ear, then. “When this is done, you must visit Arcadia again. Bartok misses you terribly.”

  At the name of Gormer’s adoptive Rearick father, he took in a sharp breath. His throat closed, and he couldn’t speak. I disappointed him, so much, he thought. I can never face him. He gave me so much, and I spat in his face.

  “Gormer,” Julianne scolded softly, “You still have so much to learn. He is your father. Sure, he’ll rage at you when he sees you again, but the only thing stronger than Rearick rage is Rearick love.”

  “I promise. I’ll return to Arcadia soon.”

  “Good. Now wake the fuck up!”

  Chapter Five

  The Next Night

  After a full day of coordinating defense efforts against a new and ill-defined threat, Astrid entered the war room. She closed the door behind her, leaned against it and let out a long breath through pursed lips.

  “What a day,” she muttered, pushing off from the door as if it was a dock and she was a small boat heading into calmer waters. She walked to where Gormer still lay on the cot by the window. Tracker and Moxy sat beside him.

  She stood over him and furrowed her brow. “No change?”

  “None,” Tracker confirmed.

  “It’s been almost twenty-four hours,” Astrid murmured as she knelt. She rested a hand on his chest. “His breathing is so shallow.”

  “Deep sleep,” Moxy replied. “He closed his eyes a few hours ago.”

  “That’s a good sign.” Astrid paused. “Isn’t it?” Moxy nodded in reply. “Come on Gormer. You’re really starting to worry us, here. Wake up.”

  She leaned over him and brushed some hair off his cool forehead.

  “Gah!” Gormer shouted. His fist bopped her in the nose. Startled, she fell heavily onto her behind.

  The hit wasn’t hard enough to make her nose bleed, but it did make her eyes water a bit. She sneezed and rubbed her nose.

  “Damn it!” she exclaimed with a chuckle as she rose. “I was not expecting that.”

  “Where am I?” Gormer shouted. “Where’s Julianne?”

  “Who the hell is Julianne?” Tarkon asked as he rushed over.

  Charlie, who had been napping against the stone wall, rose stiffly to his feet and cooed happily.

  A moment later, Gormer put his head in his hands. “I’m dizzy,” he moaned. “Who put sand in my eyes?”

  “You’re in the war room, and you just punched Astrid in the nose,” Tarkon informed him with an amused smile on his normally-dour face.

  “What? No…” Gormer cringed.

  “Which part don’t you believe?” Astrid asked. “That you punched me in the nose, or that you’re not being beaten to a pulp because of it?”

  “Ow, don’t make me laugh. My head…” He forced himself to sit up.

  Charlie ambled over singing a happy song that sounded like an orchestra of flutes and bells. Astrid had no idea how he produced such sounds, but the beauty of it made her breath catch for a moment.

  “I know, buddy,” Gormer agreed. His back was nearly covered by Charlie’s generous paw. “That was some scary stuff.” He paused and listened to the response no one else could hear. “You saved me as much as I saved you. You’re part of the team.”

  “What’s he saying?” Moxy asked.

  “And how do you talk to him?” Tracker added. “I’ve been trying for hours.”

  “Hours?” Gormer asked, lifting his head as Charlie’s hand fell away. “How long was I out?” He squinted at them all.

  “About a day,” Tarkon answered.

  Moxy put more drops in Gormer’s eyes and helped support him as he stood on wobbly legs. He took a few steps to the work table, then plopped down hard in front of a mug of cool water Tarkon had poured for him.

  He drank half the mug without pause and slammed it down. “Shit,” he exclaimed. “We lost time. We need to work fast.”

  “We’re working with what we have,” Astrid assured him, grabbing a chair. “Don’t worry, things are in motion. Vinnie is studying some creatures that came through the portal. I’m concerned about you right now.”

  “The control devices,” Gormer said. “I saw them, too. I saw much more in my dreams.”

  “Dreams?” Tracker exclaimed. He brought his face inches from Gormer’s and sniffed.

  “Whoa,” Gormer said, pulling back a few inches. “Personal space there, friend.” He arched one of his half-grown eyebrows. “Nice robe, by the way. I see they convinced you to wear clothes. I wish your cousin wouldn’t.” He gave Moxy a wolfish grin.

  Tarkon growled, making a fist while Gormer laughed like someone after one ale too many. “Sorry.” He held up his hands. “I couldn’t resist. Just like old times.”

  Tarkon shook his fist, then refilled the mug with water. “Shut
up and hydrate before I knock you out again. Lack of food and water is making you stupid.”

  Charlie flashed his gap-toothed smile and muttered something that almost sounded like a word.

  Gormer took another drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “OK. Back to business. We’re all gonna die.”

  “Be serious, Gormer,” Astrid chided. “We need you back in the game to work this problem.”

  “Sorry, Astrid,” Gormer replied. “Being a smartass is my natural reaction after a near-death experience.”

  “Really? You?” Astrid exclaimed. “I never realized that…” Her smirk practically dripped sarcasm.

  Gormer continued, growing deadly serious. “I was connected to...something; that thing that was controlling the remnant. I was in its mind, and it almost killed me.”

  “You were in the dream world,” Tracker said. “Do you know how to get back? We need to go there and defeat it.”

  Gormer hesitated, choosing his words carefully. Astrid was glad to see him deliberate.

  “Tracker, you’re only partially right. This thing isn’t from the dream world, but it is not from Irth. It is here in our world, and it wants to get back to the place it calls home.”

  The room gathered around Gormer as he spoke, looking through and past them all.

  “I saw what it saw, and I felt what it felt. It hates us. It hates this place. It hates everything but its master. It wants everything we have, and its sole purpose is to take everything from us. It sees every other living thing as a tool to be used for that single purpose. I felt something beyond hate. It was evil like I’ve never known.”

  Gormer shuddered.

  Goosebumps rose on Astrid’s arms and traveled down her sides. She knew Gormer’s story. She was one of the few people he entrusted with it. The man knew evil. For him to say that…

  Everyone stood silent, and her perception of the space surrounding her condensed, leaving only her friends gathered at the war room table.

  She gasped a little when the door opened. Jiri Petran stopped just over the threshold, carrying a bundle in his arms and a worried look on his face as he glanced at the others.