Shackles of Light

by Christopher A. Nooner

  “Have you seen it?” Keezie asked.

  Ammonih shook his head. “No, but I’ve seen the mounds made with its victims.” He drew a breath before he continued. “Bodies buried in sticks and leaves and earth. Concentrated south by the lake. I think that’s where the creature is, as well.”

  Eli leaned against the old car and pursed his lips. “Can you get us into the area without it noticing?”

  The brave shrugged his shoulders. “If I can’t we are at its mercy. If I can, we may be, anyway.”

  “How did you find it here?” Keezie asked.

  “Easily. Lines of power connect this place to Kaga’s,” he looked pointedly at Eli, “and the Way Hut is unmistakable. It’s a beacon.”

  Keezie stepped closer to the warrior, studying his face carefully. “What happened to you?” She asked, reaching up to touch his scratched and bruised face.

  He caught her hand and pushed it gently down. “It is a story that I must tell you.” He cut his gaze toward Eli. “What do you know of beings of light?”

  Eli shrugged. “Here?” His curiosity was piqued, but there was something in Ammonih’s eyes that gave him pause.

  The Nvnehi warrior shook his head. “No. But,” he hesitated, “in the forest beyond the falls.”

  The great smoke colored hound walked between them and shook himself as if he were wet. He placed a mammoth paw on Eli’s leg for a second then sat at his feet.

  “Can it wait?” Eli questioned, and was relieved when Ammonih nodded.

  He looked at Usok and nodded. “Okay. Go.” Eli’s voice was barely a whisper, but the dog pulled back his lips and bounded off into the forest to the east, his footfalls somehow silent on the dry leaves and twigs.

  “What was that?” Keezie’s whispered voice carried in the stillness.

  “I don’t know. Ask Ammonih,” Eli’s reply was quick and irritated.

  “Sometimes I want to club you, Eli,” she growled. “I meant, what was that between you and Usok?”

  “Oh,” he responded without even a hint of guilt at the misunderstanding, “He thought it would be a good idea to come at the creature from the lake, as well as the forest.”

  She stared at him with concern. “You can speak dog now?”

  “What? No.” He pushed himself off the car. “I…I could just tell.” He looked at them both, his expression hard and dangerous. “We should go.”

  Ammonih raised his head in affirmation. Keezie’s smirk turned his expression darker. He wondered why she delighted in irritating him so much.

  Eli walked passed them and disappeared as he turned the corner onto Casablanca.

  He waited with his back to them as they caught up. The momentary separation gave him just enough time to compose himself.

  Ammonih walked past him, but he had to reach back and pull Keezie in front of him. She rubbed her arm and glared at him, but he just signaled for her to stay in between them.

  She was almost into the forest before Elia realized he wasn’t moving. He just stood there entranced by her figure moving in front of him.

  He was glad no one could see his face burn.

  He pulled at his breastplate to re-adjust it before following her into the woods.

  They crept between the arching Casablanca Drive and the smaller, but similarly shaped street to the south, taking a gentle semi-circle shaped path that would keep them in between the two streets and eventually deposit them back onto the southern straight of Grand Isle Drive.

  The chill grew as they walked. Eli shivered, the cold affecting him more than he could remember since he was a child. The smell of moist earth beginning to freeze whisked dangerously close to memory. He struggled to keep his teeth from chattering. He scowled at his discomfort and tried to will it away but was grateful he had something to distract him from his damned memories.

  Occasionally, he would reach out and place his hand on a tree that burst from the darkness just to relish the cold rough surface of the frosty bark.

  The shadows were so heavy that he struggled to see his companions just feet in front of him. He almost ran into Keezie when Ammonih stopped their march.

  The Nvnehi motioned in front of them. Eli stepped forward and peered through the trees.

  The forest thinned and broke where the ground rose to meet the pavement.

  He almost missed the slight swaying of the creature. It was tall, its red eyes were faded coals dying slowly in an ashy fire and barely visible until you saw them.

  The creature’s gentle sway hid them even more, as if undulating branches moved by unfelt wind let them peek randomly from cover.

  There was no way to guess its form as camouflaged as it was by the trees and cloud of birds overhead. All they could tell was that it was tall and lanky.

  “What’s it doing?” Keezie’s voice was low enough that Eli had to strain to catch her words.

  “It is waiting.” Ammonih replied almost as low.

  Keezie’s brows lowered as she pondered his answer. “Waiting for what?”

  “Food,” Eli answered.

  “It’s clobbering time,” Ammonih mumbled.

  Keezie’s mind raced. There was too much going on. Too many things converging toward one point. The problem was that she couldn’t see where that point was. She felt helpless and hopeless.

  For the first time since her encounter with the panther woman she felt the oily stirrings of the taint creep across her soul. Like legs of a spider, it inched its way back from whatever hidey hole it had found inside her.

  She felt a sickening in her gut as she realized it really had been hiding, actively seeking to remain hidden from the sisters and Eli, but now, confronted with danger, it eased its way back into her perception.

  She knew its intent. It would not, could not, let its host perish. It needed her if it were to survive.

  The thought sent a shiver through her.

  The creature’s head snapped towards her. She froze and kept her eyes locked on it as it stepped hesitantly toward her. Not hesitantly, she corrected herself. It jerked and rocked.

  Its wide set eyes burned hot and bright. It had seen her. She knew it had.

  She reached out a hand and touched Eli’s shoulder.

  “I see it,” he acknowledged.

  Without warning, he moved to her left. At the exact same moment Ammonih moved to the right.

  She felt alone and exposed. Her heart beat with reckless abandon. She prayed it wasn’t calling the creature right to her.

  Light blossomed to her right. A pinpoint of bright in the dark that sped, unwavering, until impact with the beast extinguished it.

  A wave of cold blasted by her, the suddenness of it paralyzed her for the briefest of moments. A slow inhale was all it lasted, but in that time the creature had closed half the distance between it and the spot Ammonih loosed the burning arrow.

  She turned as Eli’s battle cry split the air. The creature paused and spun, exposing its profile for an instant. Another flaming brand sped for its head just to flicker and fall as the first one had.

  It paused, confused by the screaming man on one side and the arrows on the other.

  A clicking wheeze issued from its mouth. The beast folded sideways, to the South, in reaction to something she couldn’t see.

  Arrows began to rain down on it as Ammonih sought the spot that would allow penetration.

  It twisted and turned in reaction to the arrows and what she could only assume was Usok harassing it from behind. The clicking escalated. The sound reminded her of a dolphin.

  Again, the air chilled and the world stopped.

  Eli stood still, his arms outstretched, his head thrown back but his rolling call silent in the frozen moment.

  The creature turned and fixed those burning eyes on his rigid and beautiful form. He raised his handsome face, a sneer on his lips, and locked eyes with the hateful demon.

  He stepped forward ready to meet the charge of the giant. His hands swung to his chest. They were empty.

  Be
wildered he looked down and turned his palms up to inspect them.

  “Eli!” His name tore from her mouth. His head swiveled in her direction just long enough for her to register the panic in his eyes.

  Long spiked arms shot forward to impale him and bring the helpless warrior into its rigid grasp.

  Eli howled in pain as the sharp spikes crashed into him front and back. His head lolled in shock and pain when the terrible mandibles ripped into his shoulder.

  She watched, horrified as the man she might love, lost consciousness from pain and sagged in the monster’s grip.

  Ammonih’s arrows continued their useless assault, not a single one finding purchase in the hard carapace.

  She covered her ears as Usok loosed a howl that vibrated the leaves from the trees and sent pine needles down the back of her shirt.

  The monster paused and raised its head from the meat of its feast and shuddered before it dropped his listless body to the ground and turned to find the great hound.

  Eli’s bounced hard on the pavement then settled into stillness.

  Eli had never felt pain like this. It echoed though his body like a boy’s voice in a deep canyon, each repeat a near perfect throbbing copy of the first.

  He knew something was wrong the moment Asahel failed to appear in his hand. There was nothing, no trace or feel of his fiery weapon. His panic had frozen him long enough for the mantis like arms of the demon to seize him and trap him in its grip.

  Dozens of spikes punctured each side of his body. He felt them rip through his flesh, into is muscle, some deep enough to pierce organs.

  He passed out as the pain overwhelmed him and came to with a wet sucking breath. He coughed as he inhaled blood.

  I am going to die, he thought when the realization came that his body wasn’t healing. I’m truly going to die.

  He screamed and lost consciousness again when the creature’s sharp mandibles dug into his shoulder. Each bite severed nerves and tendons, and exposed the bones of his joint.

  The frosted pavement burned his flesh and open wounds when his eyes opened again. Why he could feel that, but not the ragged wounds that covered his body he didn’t know.

  He struggled to move from his spot, but his frozen skin and blood anchored him to the street. He knew his life was oozing out of his body with the sluggish but steady flow.

  He thought it was odd how his eyes focused on the small ridges and tiny bumps of the asphalt. He watched the line of his focus drawn near to his face and then disappear altogether as he faded once again.

  Screams and heavy pressure ground down on his hips and woke him. It took a moment to realize where he was.

  Move, his mind told him.

  I can’t, he answered, I’m dying.

  He felt no panic, only curiosity that his life had come down to this moment. A moment where his powers deserted him. No Asahel. No healing. Nothing. “The sacred days have begun. The season of Kodesh is finished. Seven moons must pass over you, Cleve, the fourth son, to prove and purify, to heal with blood the wounds hidden in soul and spirit, to cleanse you for the days Danawa.” His grandfather’s words haunted him as he slipped again to blackness.

  Pressure lifted from his hips momentarily followed by bright stars of pain as a hard kick sent him tumbling and spinning over the road, gradually he came to a stop, and rolled like a boulder that tumbled off the side of a cliff, onto his back.

  His ragged breath ended in a body wracking cough, his fingers spasmed and closed tight into his palm. An odd sensation made him wonder if part of his hand was missing.

  Morbid curiosity of a dying man pushed him to examine the void of feeling in his hand. Gingerly he flexed each finger on his left hand. Slowly, stiffly, they responded. Next, he brushed his fingertips over the heel of his palm and relished the slight tickle that produced. Finally, he curled his fingers in to the middle of his hand where the feeling was absent.

  His vision swam as he pushed down. It was hard, bone maybe. His fingers slipped. Slick. Round. His shaky thumb moved forward and found that the hard object protruded from his grip. Round and solid. It flexed the tiniest amount.

  An arrow, his tired mind surmised, not heinous damage after all.

  This is the end, he thought as he slipped back into blackness.

  The world shook him awake. He was surprised.

  He thought someone called his name. ELI! It drifted into his mind, a tantalizing taste of life. He peeled his eyes open and looked up just as a dark limb crashed down beside him. Lights bloomed in his vision and threatened to consume him.

  He saw it when his vision cleared, the place where the creature’s carapace parted to expose soft warm tissue as its body bent from upright to horizontal.

  A horrible clicking came through his tunnel of hearing accompanied by faraway screams and howls.

  Eli wished it would stop.

  The powerful and heavy feet of the creature danced around him, moved back and forth, and shook the ground. He watched as one stomped into the meaty flesh of his leg. The pain shot him upright. He screamed, reacting the only way he knew.

  He fought.

  The arrow clasped tight in his hand, he thrust it up into the void space and pushed.

  He screamed again as the jagged point of the demon’s foot tried to rip him from his leg.

  He felt himself lift from the ground with it as it rose, a sharp tear as it kicked. He arched in the air and knew he should appreciate the painlessness before he hit the ground.

  I must need complete purging, he mused as he helicoptered through the air.

  The explosion of feeling as he crashed down was too much for his decimated body and he fell into blissful blackness.

  Eli’s name was barely out of Keezie’s mouth when the demon sent him spinning through the air. It reminded her for all the world like the whirligig maple seeds she used to play with as a child. Climbing up the swing in Mampa’s back yard to throw and watch them spin slowly to the ground time and time again.

  The taint screamed at her from its place in her soul. It was dangerous to get lost in the surreal pull of the past.

  She anchored herself in the present and stood from the roadside where a glancing blow sent her sprawling.

  Something was wrong with the beast. Something had changed.

  Usok harried it from the flank causing it to turn to chase him. The hound had some power to hurt it, unlike Ammonih or her. They did little but momentarily distract it from the dog’s snapping teeth.

  It staggered. Why?

  She squinted through the black.

  She saw it then, an arrow, she thought, in its underbelly.

  She whooped as loud as she could, trying to imitate Eli’s battle cry and pointed to the thing protruding from it.

  She caught the brave’s eye and watched him dive to the turf and fire off a string of blazing brands into the crease or crack that must be in the monster’s belly.

  It shrieked and clicked, then turned to bear down on him.

  Cold blasted through her, but the taint was ready, it had watched and waited for the right time to strike.

  As the thing dove and opened its mandibles to dissect her friend the taint struck.

  Her body bowed as oily tendrils spewed from her eyes and mouth and fingers. It blazed across the distance to bury itself in the monster’s throat.

  It stopped and convulsed as it choked. Its great spiked limbs scratched and sought purchase to rip the blackness from inside.

  It flailed and tilted its head to the sky. A soft gargle of sound crept around the tendrils and out of its mouth.

  Keezie felt the taint pull back and drew the oily scum back into her.

  She felt its entrails tear as the wispy ends of the tendrils drew the three arrows that had found their mark in its belly up and through its vital organs. Killing it from the inside out.

  She fell to her knees as the arrows exited its mouth and clattered to the ground.

  She heard the hungry growl that escaped her own throat as the te
rrible monster crashed to the ground.

  She braced herself on her hands and knees as vision swam back to her eyes in great swirling waves.

  Her breathing was calm by the time Ammonih reached her side. She sat back and considered his concerned eyes.

  Now he knew. It was a kind of relief.

  “I’m OKAY!” She sputtered and rolled onto her butt. “Where’s Eli?”

  “By the trees, I think,” he answered pointing vaguely behind him.

  She reached out for his hands, “Pull me up.” She grunted with the effort it took to move her body into a standing position, even with his help.

  She staggered towards the spot he had indicated. She could feel him close on her heels.

  The spot was empty.

  “Hmm,” was all he said.

  Panic drove the stiffness from her body as they desperately looked for Eli’s crushed body. They scoured the site and even passed the tree line, but found no trace of him, or Usok.

  The hound was gone as surely as Eli.

  Warmth and dim autumn sunlight reclaimed the neighborhood as they searched.

  She sobbed openly when she finally sat on the hard road beside her silent companion.

  Eli was gone, and she had no idea where or how or what to do next.

  Eli floated, his senses muted, his mind free to roam the multiverse. There was no light, no dark, no hot, no cold, no joy or pain. Just time and space, clear and perfect.

  He was unconcerned, though it did strike him that he was alive in some form or fashion. Maybe disembodied. That would explain the absence of feeling.

  This could be the afterlife. An eternity of pure consciousness to ponder and perfect.

  The thought was inherently wrong, he knew. What point would life truly be if, once death took the body, there was nothing that resembled earthly existence and dismissed the family one had built prior to death? It would render all struggle meaningless. All love and hope futile.

  So, this was not death nor afterlife. It was something new. At least to him.

  There was something he was forgetting, something important. He tried to concentrate, but specifics were difficult to focus on. They slipped and slid just out of reach until they faded from his thoughts completely. When the worry of them was gone, he fell back into the forgiving arms of what his mind considered sleep.