The Law of Three: A New Wasteland (The Portal Arcane Series - Book II)

by J. Thorn

  “Fair enough,” Deva said.

  He waved his staff in the air, creating slivers of light that danced around it. Jack felt the air change as a rectangular box opened several feet off the ground and expanded. There was a blackness inside the rectangle that Jack could taste.

  “Look,” Deva said.

  The rectangle buzzed as a soft light crept down from the top, illuminating a room that resembled the cabin pelted by the fire rain.

  Jack saw two shapes sitting on the bunk, facing each other. He recognized Lindsay’s profile because of her long hair, and he knew the other person had to be Samuel, who reached up and caressed Lindsay’s cheek. Samuel took his hand and trailed his fingers down her throat to her shoulder. He slid the bra straps off and felt her silky skin. Lindsay reached behind her back and unclipped the undergarment, dropping it to the floor. Her nipples stiffened, drawing Samuel’s feathery touch. She reached over and lifted Samuel’s shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor.

  Jack felt a sweat breaking out on his brow. He turned to look away from the visual portal Deva opened, only to see the man staring back at him.

  “You can see what’s happening, I assume?” Deva asked.

  Jack grimaced and turned back to face the portal.

  Lindsay lifted her hips and slid her panties to the floor. Samuel sighed and ripped his underwear from his body.

  “Please, stop it now,” Jack said, not bothering to turn and look at Deva.

  “No,” he said.

  Lindsay leaned toward Samuel slowly, stopping before they could touch. He pushed his forehead against hers, and she kissed him. His right hand came up, tangling in her hair and pulling her closer. Jack saw the light between their bodies disappear as their flesh touched. Samuel moved his hands down her back and sideways until they rested on the top of her curvy hips. She pulled away from the kiss and smiled at Samuel with an intensity that made Jack’s chest ache.

  “Enough,” he said. “Turn it off.”

  “Not yet,” Deva said. “You must see.”

  Jack could smell their passion as his heart raced. He closed his eyes and then reopened them, wishing Deva would close the portal. Jack felt the blood rush to his face as he struggled to take a deep breath.

  Lindsay sat and pushed Samuel onto his back before climbing on top of him. Her hair dropped down as she leaned forward, hips rocking. They both cried out, Lindsay rocking faster and harder. The bunk squeaked and protested.

  Jack swallowed and pushed a tear from his face. He bit into his bottom lip, hoping the physical pain would mask the one in his heart.

  Samuel moaned and closed his eyes. He sat up and pulled her to him. Lindsay’s legs wrapped around the small of his back as they embraced in a long kiss. Jack watched their rapid breathing begin to slow, although neither moved. They kissed again before the rectangular portal began to shrink back into the void.

  Jack turned to face Deva, his face flushed with lust, anger and shame.

  “Now you understand,” Deva said.

  Jack collapsed to the ground and placed both hands on either side of his head. “What do I have to do? What do you want from me?”

  Deva walked over and placed his hand on the top of the young man’s head.

  “Get up,” he said. “Stand.”

  Jack wiped the tears from his face and followed Deva’s instructions.

  “Keep them from reaching the peak. Do what you must to slow progress and allow the reversion to capture them. If you do so, your ahimsa will have been fulfilled.”

  “What about Samuel and Lindsay?” Jack asked.

  “Not your concern,” Deva said.

  Jack took a deep breath and felt the vision sliding away underneath his feet.

  “Can you do that, Jack?”

  Jack nodded once, trying to convince himself.

  ***

  The cloud crept farther off the western horizon, daring any creature in its path to challenge the advancement. A hazy mist of gray hung in the air even though the storm had passed. Samuel awoke first, brushing off the sand that threatened to bury his body in the dune of this forgotten place. His eyes felt raw, and he blinked several times. He spotted two lumps fifty yards away, one to the south and one to the east. He squinted, hoping to detect a slight rising and falling from their chests.

  The mountain stood tall in the east, the peak breaking through the black sky like an inverted shadow. It looked as distant and forlorn as when Samuel first arrived, and that felt like a reality he was not ready to face.

  Samuel placed a hand over his forehead and stared at the western horizon. The reversion was still coming, but he could not tell if it had come closer or if the sandstorm blurred the lines between the cloud and the horizon. He struggled to recognize anything beyond the fifty-yard range of his impaired vision as the reversion swallowed the light. Samuel knew the mountain was there as well as the bodies of his two traveling companions, and anything beyond that was nothing but speculation.

  Before he could move a foot toward them, both shapes stirred. He felt a wave of relief, knowing whatever his fate might be, he would not be forced to experience it alone. Samuel jogged toward the nearest person. He saw Lindsay’s auburn hair, now tinted brown from the debris coating her entire body. Samuel reached down and placed a hand on her shoulder. She was trying to get to her feet.

  “Let me help you up,” he said.

  She turned her face to him, trying to spit the confusion and the sand from her mouth. She choked and coughed. Samuel heard movement in the silence and saw Jack lumbering toward them, looking like a punch-drunk boxer.

  “Is she okay?” Jack asked as he approached.

  Lindsay pushed back until she sat on her own feet, knees bent and lodged into the loose sand. She nodded at Samuel and did her best to smile at Jack. Her warm, inviting face felt like a dagger lodged deep within Jack’s chest.

  “I’m okay,” she said before another burst of chest-racking barks stole her breath.

  “I fucking hate sand. Won’t even go to the beach,” Samuel said.

  Jack shrugged, and Lindsay laughed.

  “You’re not a woman,” she said. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Samuel bowed as if he knew the truth about the perils of wearing a bikini.

  “We need to move east. If this locality is anything like the previous one I was in, there’s a good chance we’ll find more cabins on the way to the mountain. They serve as outposts, moments of relative safety from whatever the reversion decides to throw at us.”

  Jack winced, images of slick flesh and lust on the edge of his mind.

  “Why don’t we go south? If the storms are coming out of the west, seems like that’s as good as moving east.”

  “Not at all,” Samuel said. “That cloud is a soul stealer, and if the reversion wraps you up in it, you’re done. Salvation lies at the peak of that mountain. I’m sure of it.”

  “How sure?” Jack asked.

  “Sure enough,” Samuel said, his eyes locked on Jack’s.

  “Samuel’s right. I feel drawn to the mountain, and I believe what Samuel says. He’s been here before. Well, not here, but through this. I think his experience has to count for something.”

  “You would think he’s right, wouldn’t you, Lindsay?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lindsay asked, her eyes shifting between the two men.

  “Doesn’t mean anything,” Samuel said, cutting into the conversation. “The only thing that matters right now is not getting caught in another sandstorm or firestorm or God knows what else the reversion will come up with to keep us from moving east. I’m going, and I think it’s in your best interest to come with me. But I’m not dragging anyone along, and I’m not having this conversation again. I don’t have all the answers. Shit, I have very few answers. But I know that I’m not stopping until I reach the peak, as that’s my best chance to escape whatever we seem to be inside.”

  Lindsay nodded while Jack stared at his feet, his hands on his hip
s.

  “I slipped us out of the flaming rain, but there’s no guarantee I can do it again. And I can’t promise that I can even conjure another portal, local or otherwise. You are both welcome to go your own way, no hard feelings. My dharma sits at the peak of that beast, and it’s where I intend to go before the reversion eliminates this place like it has others before.”

  “I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about, but I know that my odds are better with others than alone. You’ve been through this before. I’m with you.”

  Jack watched Lindsay step toward Samuel, and he suppressed a flash of jealousy welling in his stomach.

  “Jack?”

  He looked at Samuel and Lindsay and shook his head. “Fuck. I guess you’re right. Let’s go.”

  Samuel nodded at Jack and then Lindsay before turning east. He failed to notice the disdain spreading across Jack’s face, which betrayed the words coming from his mouth.

  ***

  Jack trailed Lindsay and Samuel by several paces. He tried stepping inside of Samuel’s footprints, which helped to pass the time and distract his mind from going to the place exposed by Deva. The dream, or flashback, or flash forward—whatever he had witnessed—made his head feel like the exposed wiring of an old house. Sparks of jealousy, anger, fear, lust and pain jumped from one thought to the next, threatening to ignite his entire psyche. Jack caught snippets of conversation floating from them as they walked endlessly toward the mountain. The still, dead air and suffocating blanket of darkness above did not give him much else to contemplate.

  “What was it like?” Lindsay asked.

  Samuel turned to look over his shoulder. “You okay?” he asked Jack. Jack nodded, and Samuel turned back to Lindsay, neither losing a stride in the march east. “What?”

  “Your previous locality. The world before this.”

  Samuel hesitated, unsure of how much of that experience he wanted to reveal. The events and circumstances surrounding Mara in the reversion would inevitably lead back to those of his actual life, if that had indeed been real. He thought about Major and Kole and then decided not to speak of their betrayal and ulterior motives–-for fear of planting the seed of doubt in Lindsay’s head about his own.

  “Wolves.”

  “Huh?”

  “There were wolves. I came to in the forest, like you, and the first thing I had to deal with, after the initial shock, was being attacked by feral wolves.”

  Lindsay looked around, half expecting to see the pack coming over the western horizon. “What did you do?”

  “I hid, I fought them, and at one point I was able to communicate with the alpha male. They’re here, too.”

  Lindsay walked, deep in thought, her eyes narrow. She felt something there that told her it was best not to push Samuel for more details about the wolves.

  “Were there other people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Women?”

  Samuel stopped and turned to face Lindsay with a sly grin. “There was one,” he said.

  Lindsay smacked him on the arm and started walking again. When Samuel started walking again, Jack caught up to Lindsay by using a slight hop, closing the distance between them by four or five feet.

  “What did she look like?” Lindsay asked, twirling a strand of hair around a finger.

  Samuel looked at her, smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

  “Oh please,” she said. “You’re old enough to be my uncle and I don’t go for older guys. Too much baggage.”

  “Good, because I don’t go for younger women. Too much maintenance.”

  “I am not high maintenance, asshole. I can do just fine without anyone.”

  Samuel sighed, not entirely able to disagree. Lindsay presented herself as a strong-willed and powerful woman.

  “I wasn’t insinuating you were. I simply said younger woman, in general. And you’re right. I do have way too much baggage.”

  Lindsay turned to face Samuel and spoke with sincerity. “If you ever decide you want to talk about what happened to you in the reversion – I mean the real stuff, you know – I’m a good listener.”

  Before Samuel could reply, he heard Jack yell from behind. Samuel had been so engaged in the conversation with Lindsay he failed to keep his eyes on the horizon.

  “Cabin,” Jack yelled again, this time sprinting forward to pull even with Samuel and Lindsay.

  Chapter 6

  Samuel held his hand up and made eye contact with Jack and Lindsay. He did not want to risk a confrontation with others. They arrived on the cabin’s doorstep, Samuel first followed by Lindsay and Jack.

  Lindsay shifted her weight to one hip and crossed her arms. Jack shoved both hands into his back pockets. Samuel knew if opening the door to the cabin required self-defense, it would be easier alone.

  The cabin sat half-buried in windswept dunes, sand reaching up like ancient fingers on all sides, trying to pull the structure down into the desert. A forgotten sun had bleached the wooden boards white. Samuel approached and drew a deep breath. While the reversion suppressed most of the sensory perceptions of this place, Samuel could catch a hint of burning mesquite. He noticed the cabin slanted to one side, and he wondered if opening the door would bring the entire thing down. A tarnished, brass doorknob coated in a green patina drew his hand. Samuel gripped it and was surprised that it turned.

  He wondered how many eons the cabin sat here, silently facing west and waiting for the time when the reversion would consume it like all the rest. He pushed on the door with enough force to cast the caked dust from the jamb. A sliver of blackness appeared like a line of ink on the weathered door.

  “Come on,” he said over his shoulder.

  Lindsay wrinkled her nose at the filthy window and dry-rotted steps leading up to the door. Jack grabbed a support beam to the right and swung around one time before stepping back and nodding his approval of its structural integrity.

  “Like a saloon in one of those old westerns, but without the swinging doors.”

  Samuel nodded, his hand still on the doorknob. “That’s a pretty good way of putting it,” he said to Jack while pushing the door inward.

  The scent of mesquite became stronger, stirring memories of the cabins of his previous locality, which offered an oasis from the impending doom of the cloud. He thought of the fire and the roasting coffee, and he began to salivate. He could not remember his last meal or even the urge to search for one. Lindsay and Jack filed in behind Samuel into the still, dead cabin. When Samuel saw the rectangular shape hanging on the wall, he held his breath wondering what the reversion wanted to display.

  ***

  “He slipped from the firestorm,” Shallna said, twisting the base of the chalice in his hand.

  “Locally,” Deva said.

  “And now he’s led them through the haboob to an outpost.”

  “He has.”

  Shallna stood and shook his head, waiting for an explanation from Deva. “Are you not concerned his progress to the peak appears to be unimpeded?”

  Deva sat back on his throne and looked toward the hidden ceiling of the chamber. Dust motes flicked through the light, which fought back total darkness. He tapped the end of his cane on the stone floor and sighed. “I have a duty to perform, and concern does not affect it, one way or the other.”

  Shallna waited, unsatisfied with Deva’s response.

  “The reversion is accelerating. As long as the boy complies, honors our covenant, Samuel will not reach the peak in time. And still, I have other diversions in the making.”

  A smile spread across Shallna’s dark face, his eyes lighting up inside the hood. “Good, very good.”

  Deva took no satisfaction in Shallna’s minor praise. He continued staring up into the darkness overhead before turning back to face his underling. “He keeps the order.”

  Shallna stopped, waiting.

  “Samuel’s spoke on the wheel will keep the order. It will allow for old worlds to die and new ones to be reborn.” Deva
paused, knowing Shallna would want to know more. That receiving one simple answer amongst a thousand questions he had yet to ask would only incite his intellect. “He senses he is different. He did so amongst the others, and he feels it now as well. Should he reach the peak ahead of the reversion, the slim possibility exists he could shun his future responsibility, and that could have unintended consequences.”

  In order for Deva to be released from his own cycle he needed to find his replacement. He believed Samuel would be the one to take over although either son, Samuel or Kole, could inherit the father’s responsibility. Getting Samuel to the peak and transitioning power ahead of the cloud would make things go much smoother. But Deva was prepared to do whatever was necessary to be released from his cycle.

  “Why can’t you stop the reversion?”

  Deva smiled at Shallna, anticipating the eternal question of a thousand ages. “What you ask is why good would exist in a world of evil. Why does light battle darkness? These are fine questions, Shallna, but they exist without answers. The reversion cleanses the old and prepares a locality for a new beginning. The spirits, like Samuel’s, need to orchestrate that evolution. Without them as an overlord . . .” Deva trailed off.

  “What would happen if he reached us, the peak, before the reversion?”

  “It has never happened,” Deva said. “And it never will.”

  Shallna sighed and decided to take a different approach, wondering what had prompted Deva’s cordial mood. “The others?” he asked, leaving the bulk of the question untouched and the answer on Deva’s shoulders.

  “We don’t always know. Some succumb to a reversion, and their spirits are released from the cycle. Others find themselves in one after another, gaining just enough knowledge to propel them into the next.”

  Shallna nodded, feeling his head begin to swim.

  “The others, as you asked, shall serve our purpose in this locality. Like the pack and the horde, they will move Samuel to us.

  He knew he should retreat, having gained more insight into his existence than he had in hundreds of prior conversations with Deva. However, Shallna pressed on, determined to satisfy the curiosity rotting the dark corners of his mind. “You said you cannot summon the horde.”