The Veil: Corruption (HASEA CHRONICLES BOOK 2)

by Stuart Meczes

  I heard a flurry of wings somewhere in the trees. Sage Faru and I both glanced towards the sound. I couldn’t see anything. To my left, there was another twitch of something and a sound like paper rubbing together. Then a third straight ahead. A fourth behind us. Fifth. Once again, we were surrounded.

  “We appear to have guests,” whispered Faru.

  My muscles tensed up. I twisted my head from side to side, scanning for danger. I still couldn’t see anything.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Everywhere. Can you not see them?”

  “No. I—”

  At that exact moment, I noticed something flick from one tree to another. I tracked it, refusing to blink, despite the sweat that was spilling into my eyes. It took a few moments, but I managed to get my head around what I was looking at. The creature sat on a tree branch. Like the Asrai that sometimes worked in the kitchens at the Warren, it was a Faerie that resembled a tiny woman.

  But this Faerie was almost impossible to see because she was so well camouflaged. Like the Satyrs, her skin was a pale shade of green. Her hair was strikingly vivid and hung like miniature sprigs of weeds. Her wings appeared to be actual leaves – or were so similar it was impossible to tell the difference. They were thin and ellipse-shaped, with tiny reddish veins that arched out from the base.

  The clothing she wore appeared to be made from minute twigs. They had been bent and twisted to create a type of dress that coiled its way around her slight frame. The only part that gave her away were her deep purple lips. Now that I knew what to look for, I could make out dozens of the creatures, all noticeable against the backdrop. It was like one of those magic eye puzzles – once solved, it was impossible to unsee the hidden object.

  “Wood Nymphs,” said Sage Faru before I could ask.

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “Very.”

  It was hard to imagine that something so sweet and innocent looking could be dangerous. But if there was one thing I had learned in my six months as a Guardian, a misguided assumption was the difference between life and death.

  Sage Faru bowed his head as he had with the Satyrs and once again his words filtered into my brain.

  We come in peace. The boy has been summoned.

  We both waited for a reply.

  Silence.

  For a moment the Nymphs did nothing. Then, the one hovering nearby pulled an instrument from her twig-like dress. It was a wooden flute, just like mine. She placed it to her lips.

  This can’t be good.

  They weren’t hearing Faru’s words. Either that, or they weren’t listening. I glanced towards my leader. He still had his head bowed and eyes closed as if in silent prayer.

  “Uh...Sage Faru...” I urged.

  Sage Faru snapped his head up. “Alexander, use the flute!” he shouted.

  I lifted the tiny wooden instrument to my lips and motioned to blow.

  The Nymph played her flute first.

  A grey mist billowed out of the end, along with the most disturbing music I’d ever heard. Each note was like a twisting knife that flayed the edges of my soul. As the music hit my ears, I felt blood seep from them and trail down my neck. More poured from my nose, spilling over the whistle and my lips. I tasted metal. The darkness inside me screamed in silent anguish, unable to protect itself. My body seized up. The flute dropped from my lips. Each note corresponded to every bit of pain I’d ever experienced. The melody understood my struggles and told me that I deserved my pain. I tried to fight against the sensation, knowing that it was all a trick. But it was too hard.

  More music sounded around us. Fog swept towards us from all directions. It became dense, shrouding the nymphs from view.

  Figures appeared in the mist.

  They stumbled around, faces contorted into expressions of pure agony. Most were so thin they were skeletal. Some men, some women. Some...I couldn’t tell. What little clothes they still wore were ruined rags that hung limply from their emaciated frames. Their hair had fallen out in clumps, exposing bald patches; the bits that remained were nothing more than brittle strands of straw. Many had sections of flesh missing, exposing cracked bone underneath.

  The zombie people moved listlessly, without direction, mumbling words that were barely audible, minds broken with madness. One passed close by, and I caught the acrid stench of rotten meat. Half its face was missing, and it breathed out a constant mantra from its cracked lips. “Trespasser, wander lost forever.”

  You are worthless. You deserve pain. A completely new voice appeared inside my head, replacing the darkness and boring its bladed words into every corner of my mind.

  I am a failure. I deserve torture.

  I had to accept my penance. I had to let go. Nothing else mattered.

  The grim rapture welcomed me into its corrupt arms. Agony impossible to describe clawed at every part of my mind. It felt as though my brain was being set on fire. Without control, I stumbled forward. A tear spilled down my cheek. It was followed by more, until I was streaming tears. Weeping for all my failures in life. I deserve punishment.

  I rolled my head towards the person next to me. Shimmering tears spilled from his white eyes. He staggered forward, through the fog. He was smiling.

  A sad smile.

  “Alexander,” the man said. The word sounded like an agonised scream. The sound of a tortured soul. He was becoming harder to see as the mist enveloped us. I didn’t care; the music wanted me to pay penance. I must suffer. I must wander.

  “Alexander... the flute,” he pleaded from somewhere far away.

  Flute? I didn’t understand the word. It felt like some kind of distant memory. Unimportant, nestling somewhere at the back of my screaming mind.

  Who is this person trying to speak to me? He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know my pain. I must suffer. I must wander lost...

  From somewhere around me, I could hear words. They accompanied every burst of pain that flared in my exhausted mind. A chanting. I strained my ears, eager to hear my command, as the volume of the voices grew louder.

  Trespasser, wander lost forever.

  Trespasser, wander lost forever.

  The words spoke truth. I was a trespasser. I deserved pain. My punishment was to wander lost. Forever.

  Trespasser, wander lost forever.

  I deserve this.

  “Alexander please...” the voice was weak now. It emanated from somewhere in the dense mist. A voice I did not recognise. Or did I? Maybe I had once. But that no longer mattered. I was a trespasser, doomed to wander lost forever.

  All that mattered was my penance.

  Trespasser, wander lost forever.

  “Think of Gabriella...”

  The name punched into my mind like a knuckleduster. Images of a girl I knew. A girl who mattered. Eyes that could stop my world; lips I could lose years kissing. A smile that had broken down the walls I’d built around me. It was – wander lost forever.

  No. I need…to see…her again. I need…something... My mind was screaming, a wounded creature, dragging itself broken and bleeding away from the sharp claws of the melody. Still, the smoky fingers of the music wrapped themselves around every part of me, trying to suffocate me into forgetting. An image of something small and wooden flashed into my mind for a split second before it was ripped away. A broken frame lingering from a severed reel of memories.

  Flute.

  I remembered. I had dropped it...what seemed like years ago. I dropped it here. I fought against the movement, against the music. It was so hard. Like fighting against the rushing tide.

  The music grew louder, the words screaming into my ear. TRESSPASSER, WANDER LOST FOREVER, TRESSPASSER, WANDER LOST FOREVER! The constant loop was crushing my brain.

  I am a trespasser. I must… No!

  I dropped to my knees, feeling my way around the moist jungle ground. My fingers dug and scrambled. Desperate. Slipping around the damp moss. Louder and louder, the words and music merged into a cacophony of fury.

 
Fury at my disobedience.

  My brain felt like it was dissolving. With the last ounce of strength I had, I fumbled about in the mist. It seeped into my eyes, up my nose, into my ears. Invading me.

  ...I need to wander...

  My fingers touched against something small and cylindrical. I couldn’t see what it was. I wasn’t sure I needed it. The words and music kept coming. I couldn’t hold on much longer. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do.

  What am I...?

  One final word came into my mind.

  Gabriella.

  I blew.

  A piercing sound echoed through the jungle. The spell was broken. In a matter of seconds, the mist was sucked back into the flutes. The zombie walkers vanished. With a pounding headache, I stood up and instantly collapsed again. Sage Faru was only inches from me. He was doubled over, both hands clamped against his head. Around us the Nymphs circled about in the air wildly. They were chattering in excited voices.

  The proof!

  The proof!

  They formed giant circle, spinning in the air in front of us.

  You are the summoned.

  Their formation tightened and became a line stretching into the distance ahead. Into an area that hadn’t seemed to exist a moment before.

  The path to truth.

  They shot into the distance.

  We followed the darting Nymphs as they swept through a now very obvious path through the trees. The entire way, I had to ignore an overwhelming urge to be sick. The effects of the fog were still lingering in my body. Beside me, Sage Faru looked even worse for wear. His skin appeared almost translucent and shone with perspiration. But if he felt ill, he didn’t give anything away. He simply moved with a determined stride, jaw set, staring straight ahead.

  If I had my swords... I thought darkly, as I followed the nasty little creatures.

  “Those people in the mist. They were trapped,” I said.

  Sage Faru sighed. “Not just the people, I’m afraid. I saw their souls too. They were trapped in endless torment. Even in death they are not free.”

  I shuddered. Those poor people. I could barely comprehend the horror of it. Forced to endure that horror for all eternity. I despised the little things, more than I could express. If I ever see one of those little bitches outside of this jungle, they won’t make it anywhere near their damn flutes.

  The Nymphs led us towards what appeared to be the base of a sheer cliff. They stopped moving and hovered in the air, a bizarre cloud of humming wings. I looked around and frowned. There didn’t seem to be any way forward. We were still surrounded at every other angle by dense trees and foliage. The only way was back.

  As if some hidden entity had clicked its fingers, the Nymphs scattered. Like the Satyrs before them, before I could even blink, they had vanished from sight.

  Yeah, that’s right, piss off you little freaks, I growled internally. Turning to Faru I said, “Seriously, what is the deal with this place?”

  Sage Faru lifted a finger to silence me.

  “Do you hear that?”

  I strained my ears to listen. “I can’t hear a thing.”

  “Exactly. We are in a jungle, Alexander. Where are the birds, where are the insects?”

  I listened again and my stomach tightened. The Seelian was right. There were no birds chirping, no clicks or twitters. Not even the sound of the breeze playing on the leaves. I couldn’t hear anything. It was like being in the eye of a storm.

  Which was the worst place to be.

  My feet began to tingle. For a few seconds I thought it was just another aftereffect of the fog, but the feeling grew in intensity until they were vibrating. Then I realised that it wasn’t me shaking – it was the ground. Great, now what?

  “Alexander, get back!” shouted Faru.

  As soon as he spoke, the whole area shook with the force of an earthquake. The ground beneath my feet burst upwards. I tumbled backwards, rolling down what was now a steep hill, collecting dirt and moss. I scrambled to my feet, only to be thrown to the side by another quake as though I were a rag doll. My shoulder hit a jagged section of rock, and I sucked in air as pain shot down my arm.

  Trees collapsed in on themselves or dominoed into one another, coming down in crashing heaps. Cracks appeared on the cliff face and large boulders split off and came bouncing down the sharp angle of the hill. I had to dive out of the way of a rock avalanche. Sage Faru was riding the shifting landscape like some kind of surfer, shifting his feet with intricate movements, trying to work his way towards me.

  “Alexander!” he warned, and I glanced upright. A huge section of the cliff had broken free and was bearing down on me, tumbling like an upturned car. I scrambled to my feet only to be thrown onto my back as the ground lurched violently. The rock somersaulted high into the air, and I was bathed in its menacing shadow as it came heaving down.

  This is going to hurt.

  I rolled forward and hunched down, grunting as a hidden giant’s foot stamped down on my back. My face was smashed into the ground, and I gasped as soil and moss was force fed to me. Everything went dark, and the crashing sounds of the shifting jungle became muffled. I tried to lift up, but I couldn’t get enough purchase on the shifting ground. Like when I’d gone through the Veil in Faru’s mind merge, I was suffocating. The blind panic rose in my chest.

  A loud noise. A shudder. Then I was free. Gasping air, I didn’t have time to think before I was sliding down the hill on my front and landing in a heap at the bottom. I rolled over and looked up. The boulder had been reduced to pebbles, and a fading whisper of blue light lingered on Sage Faru’s hands. He slid down the hill, and I held out my arm to make sure he didn’t fall. I turned and my jaw dropped in awe.

  The jungle was transforming into something. The trees were somehow pulling themselves towards the cliff face, as if alive. A section of the hill had caved in, leaving a curved, yawning hole in the shape of a...mouth. The boulders slipped into the chasm and set themselves into a formation that was unmistakably teeth. The foliage around the base of the steep hill had gathered into an intricate natural beard. The cliff face had become just that – a face.

  The sections of rock hadn’t fallen out randomly. Like a sculptor had spent decades working on his masterpiece, an almighty face was now clearly visible. Grooves formed angled cheekbones. A protruding lump that formed the nose. The chunk that had almost flattened me had been scooped out to form an eye socket. Two of the collapsed trees had been drawn into the holes and the tops formed some kind of gigantic eyeballs. My mouth went dry as I realised I was staring at an Elemental.

  I was staring at Lafelei.

  10

  Alex

  The Elemental gazed down at us. As it breathed, the ground rose and fell, the sound like a strong breeze passing through trees. The odour it carried was one of vegetation, and I imagined it was the same way dank, ancient tombs would smell after being unsealed for the first time in millennia. Lafelei was nature incarnate, and its presence made me feel small and insignificant.

  Sage Faru bowed his head and sank to one knee. I hurried to copy, not daring to look up until my leader did.

  When Lafelei spoke, its words didn’t come from a single place but rather from everywhere at once – and they entered into my mind rather than my ears. It spoke in a thousand different languages all at once, but the one I was most familiar with became dominant, reducing the others to baseline whispers.

  RISE, SUMMONED ONE.

  I glanced at Faru, and he nodded at me. Awkwardly, I stood up and stared up at the colossal god. Its foliage eyes lowered themselves to regard me, making the rushing sound of a falling tree as they moved.

  DARK TIMES ARE DRAWING NEAR.

  I tried to understand what Lafelei was referring to, but its words were vague and there were so many dark things. “Lafelei, do you mean Hades and the Ageless War? Or do you mean the darkness that has possessed me?”

  The Elemental didn’t answer my questions. Instead it drew in a colossa
l breath, which tugged at my uniform and ruffled my hair.

  YOU HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED.

  I swallowed hard. It knew what hid inside me – what was happening. Of course it does. It knows everything. The past, the present, and all possible futures.

  It was Sage Faru’s turn to speak. He did not move from his kneeling position on the moss, but asked in a bold voice: “Great Elemental. Please tell us, how do we free the boy from his affliction?”

  The green eyes flashed over towards my leader, and Lafelei regarded him for a moment as if noticing him for the first time. He seemed to process all the instances of Faru’s long life in seconds.

  RISE, SAGE OF THE ALLIANCE.

  With help from me, the old Seelian slowly regained his feet. Around us I felt for the first time the presence of other animals. Half hidden in the trees and dense bushes, I saw innumerable creatures which had crept close – some supernatural, others not. All were watching our exchange with expressions that could only be described as utter rapture. My distraction was broken when the Elemental spoke again.

  TRUE FREEDOM FROM SORROW DOES NOT EXIST ON THIS SIDE OF THE VEIL. FOR REDEMPTION TO BE ACHIEVED, THE DOORWAY MUST BE PASSED.

  I felt my heart sink. My fears had been confirmed. I can’t get rid of the darkness until I am in Pandemonia. And then god only knows how I’m going to do it. I know practically nothing about that world.

  “Great Lafelei, the darkness inside him is slowly taking him over. I fear the elixir he takes will only do so much. Surely there is a way for him to stop the progression before it corrupts his soul completely?” persisted the Sage.

  THE BATTLE FOR CONTROL MUST BE FOUGHT INSIDE.

  I frowned at the Elemental’s abstract answer. Inside? Inside where? Does he mean in the Warren? Or somewhere else? I couldn’t even be sure the answer was actually an answer. I drew breath to ask for clarification. “Lafelei, please. I’m losing my mind. I need to know how to beat the—”

  SILENCE!

  The words were thrown out like a hurricane. Faru and I were blown back several yards, and all of the creatures scurried away into the jungle. My ears rang as if a firecracker had gone off next to them. The area had grown suddenly dark, and the Elemental’s ancient face was now a cluster of shadows.