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

by J. Thorn

  “I returned it to you,” Deva said.

  Samuel began to turn the statement over in his head when the realization came as suddenly as the lightning bolts tearing at the reversion beyond the stone walls.

  “You can’t be,” Samuel whispered.

  “Why not?” Deva asked, while Lindsay remained silent, unsure what they were talking about, but knowing enough to not interrupt it.

  “Father?” Samuel asked, his voice cracking.

  “Not the flesh, but the spirit. The spirit remains until duty has been fulfilled.”

  Samuel took a step toward Deva and then stopped. He dug deep into the old man’s eyes with a penetrating look, searching for remnants of his father.

  “It’s not true,” Samuel said. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’m not here to convince you with evidence of our corporeal relationship. You chose me as your father in the singular locality, as you had in the previous. We share this cycle through something stronger than blood: through our ahimsa.”

  Lindsay stepped to the side and looked at Samuel before turning toward Deva. “What if it’s a trick?” she asked Samuel while keeping her eyes on Deva.

  “To accomplish what?” Deva asked. “I thought the reversion would slow you down so I would not have to transfer the burden to my son. But it has not, and now we must commence what countless others have before us. It is my time to be released from the cycle and Samuel’s turn to fill that void.”

  Samuel dropped to a knee. He looked up into Deva’s face and felt the paternal energy radiating from him. He could not explain how he knew, but he was certain his father remained inside the physical cell of Deva’s body.

  “What has to happen?” Samuel asked.

  Before Deva could reply, a voice popped through the open staircase.

  “’Sup, Sammyboy?”

  Chapter 11

  Samuel’s body tensed as he recognized the voice. He turned from Deva to see Major stepping into the room, with Kole right behind him. Major scanned the room and his face broke into a wide smile, while Kole remained still, his eyes pleading with Samuel to keep the deal they had struck.

  “Nice. She’s cute. Not as pouty as the other one.”

  Lindsay narrowed her eyes and held them on Major, bearing the brunt of his comment in silence.

  Major took two more steps until he stood inside the tower. He glanced from Deva to the cauldron and back to Samuel.

  “Love what ya done with the place.”

  Samuel remained fixed, the muscles in his arm vibrating.

  “Jack says hello. He’s a bit pissed you two left him home alone, but he said you’ll have time to catch up later when the reversion dumps you both into his lap.”

  “That isn’t happening,” Samuel said to Major.

  Major laughed and slapped Kole on the back. “Oh, you kids,” he said, shaking his head. “Always thinking you know what’s next. How do you think the old-timers like me and Deva over there manage to stick around for so long? It’s ’cause we ain’t so apt to rush to judgment or make hasty decisions. Ain’t that right, Deevster?”

  Deva stood silently while Samuel took a step toward Major.

  “I thought you didn’t know who he was?” Samuel asked.

  “That don’t matter, does it? You see, me and your pops want the best for you, son. We know what you need, and we’re here to help.”

  Major went through many reversions and spoke with Deva in several. Deva explained his role and his search for a spiritual son to take over someday. And when Deva was certain Major was not one, he ignored Major and left him to fend for himself in the reversion.

  “What’s he talking about?” Samuel asked Deva.

  “The spirit needs you orchestrating cycles, Samuel. It is the void you must fill on my behalf.”

  “What he’s trying to say with hundred-dollar words is that you’re the new Deva.”

  Samuel shook his head and looked at Deva. The old man did not move, nor did he reply. Major chuckled as he maneuvered around the edge of the tower so he stood next to Deva, opposite Samuel and Lindsay. Kole remained at the top of the staircase as if he had not yet decided whether to stay or turn and descend back into the depths of the reversion.

  “And don’t think I don’t know what you and your brother got in mind for me.”

  Kole stiffened when he realized Major was speaking to him. He shifted on one foot and shot an accusatory glance at Samuel. Major saw the look.

  “No, he didn’t he sell you out, hothead, if that’s what yer thinking,” he said to Kole before turning to Deva. “He doesn’t know, either?”

  Deva’s face turned sour as he peered at the cauldron and the descending cloud just beyond it. “Time is running out.”

  “You bet your ass it is, Deva. That’s why I’m here for the talisman, and I’ll be on my way. Leave you all to your family reunion ya got going on. Except for the tramp. Seems like Samuel picked up that stray dog along the way.”

  Samuel used his arm to bar Lindsay’s ability to move toward Major, anticipating the effect the insult would have on her. Kole walked around the opposite side of the room until he was closer to Deva.

  “What’s he talking about, Samuel?” Kole asked.

  Samuel shrugged and looked to Deva. Major decided to sit on the stone bench for a moment and enjoy the grenade of confusion he just rolled at their feet. While Samuel knew Kole was his brother, Kole did not.

  “It is true. Kole, you are my son, too.”

  Kole rubbed his tattoos and staggered back until the wall of the tower held him up. “Not possible.”

  “A father can have many offspring, can he not? Samuel knows my essence can take different forms. You were not of the same mother, but you are brothers.”

  Samuel shook his head and realized there was more about Deva and the reversion than he would ever know, but the cloud was still coming. “What happens now?” he asked.

  “It is time for the transition. The son must accept his dharmic responsibility and release the father from his.”

  Lindsay saw the mixture of pain and relief spread across Deva’s face. She held her ground, glancing around the room at the men and their confusion.

  “Hold on, partner,” Major said. “I believe Samuel owes me a little something before you pull off your bad karma deal or whatever mystical bullshit you claim needs to happen. I need the talisman, Sammyboy. Got me a one-way ticket out of this joint.”

  Kole stepped in front of Samuel. “Don’t think so. You and I have business first.”

  “You’re not still sore about the wolves, are you, Kole? It wasn’t like I had much choice. You heard the alpha male. He claimed your ass.”

  “I didn’t hear him,” Kole said. “Or I would have killed you right then and there.”

  “You gonna let this delay your little ceremony, Deva? Maybe you should step in here and discipline Kole.” Fear crept into his voice like the inevitability of flowing water.

  Deva stood, unmoving and silent.

  “Fine. I’ve disposed of these punks before and I’ll do it again. But if the fucking reversion gets here before I’m done, it ain’t on my head, you old bag of skin.”

  Major pushed his black coat open to reveal glistening metal underneath. He removed two short swords from a sheath on each hip, the blades sharpened and shined. Major spun to his left and brought them through the air, slicing it as a demonstration of what they could do to flesh. He stepped back, the swords raised and in front of his face while his eyes locked on Kole.

  The younger man smiled and reached behind his back to unsheathe a long, curved dagger. Unlike Major’s weapons, Kole’s knife looked ancient, with dark crimson splotches dried to the blade. He made a fist with his left hand and used his right to aim the point of the dagger at Major. Deva did not move while Samuel and Lindsay took a step back toward the tower’s wall.

  “Do we stop this?” she whispered to Samuel.

  “We couldn’t if we tried,” he said.

  “The clou
d is dropping faster.”

  Deva looked at her, realizing she was right. He nodded and turned back to the combatants now moving in concentric circles in the middle of the tower.

  “It fucking hurt. I knew it wasn’t like a real death, that I’d end up back in the shitty reversion before too long. But that didn’t mask the pain. The wolves tore at me like a hunk of meat. I’m going to make you feel that too, you son of a bitch.”

  Major nodded at Kole. He turned his chin toward Lindsay as he spoke but kept his eyes fixed on Kole. “So much for our deal, eh?”

  “I can’t live a lie, even if it’s painless,” she said.

  “Ha. You been living a lie your whole life. You’re nothing but a worthless bitch. Thinking somebody cares about more than banging you? That’s the lie.”

  Lindsay stepped forward, and Samuel held her back.

  “Suit yerself. Die in the shit-storm with the rest of the fools,” Major said, still keeping his attention on Kole.

  Kole slashed at Major’s outstretched arm but missed. The old man nodded as if acknowledging Kole’s dexterity. He maneuvered to the right and spun, coming up with the short sword. The blade glanced off Kole’s with a reverberating clang.

  Samuel watched the fight ensue, fascinated by the complex moves of each man, wondering if those were skills imported into the reversion or things learned while there. Deva took two steps closer to the cauldron and Samuel thought he could see the worry deepening the lines on his face.

  “C’mon, punk. I gotta dispatch Sammyboy next. I don’t have time for this.”

  Kole ducked as another flash of polished steel cut the air. The tip from one opened the flesh on Kole’s right bicep. He dropped his knife, his instinctual reaction leaving him weaponless. He bent down to pick it up but Major’s other sword came down hard, slamming into the stone floor after severing Kole’s thumb and index finger.

  “You cryin’ uncle?” Major shouted at Kole, who was now scrambling across the floor, leaving a smeared trail of blood in his wake. He crept closer to the open window, which had once looked out over the eastern horizon. The reversion had stolen that view as it danced around the mountain in the final moments of the locality.

  “Fuck you,” Kole said, spinning and facing his fate. He leaned back on the wall and raised his head to Major. “I ain’t afraid of you and I’m not afraid of dying. Shit, I’m becoming an old pro at that.”

  Major strutted toward Kole, a smirk creasing his face. He ignored Deva, the cauldron and everything else in the room. He was going to enjoy the kill in a way he had not when the alpha male claimed Kole. “Good. Then I can dispose of you and get the talisman from Samuel.”

  Kole closed his eyes, coming to terms with his fate. He thought of another cycle in the reversion and hoped it would not happen. He prayed, for the first time, that any supreme being would release him and allow him to rest eternally rather than run the gauntlet yet again.

  “Do it, old man. I’m tired,” he said.

  Major stepped forward, and Kole slumped to the ground beneath the aperture cut through the stone thousands of feet above the waste below. Major put the sword in his left hand back into the sheath, while raising the other above his head. He would slice from right to left in a diagonal line, opening Kole’s throat. In a strange way, he would miss this man, the miscreant who shared some of his street smarts. Major knew Kole had to be destroyed, but it need not be messy. He would make Kole’s passing as quick as he possibly could.

  Samuel felt immobilized, tethered to the stone. He watched Major’s coat billow as he raised the sword. Samuel wanted to stop it, could sense both a kinship and a redeeming salvation inside of Kole, but knew he could do nothing to save him. In a second, Kole would be bleeding out, his glassy eyes joining the rest of the broken souls of the reversion, doomed to go through another cycle.

  It was the scream that pulled him from his reflection. At first Samuel shuddered, fearful he was the one screaming or, worse yet, Deva had somehow come apart as the reversion brought its final reckoning. When he saw the flash of auburn hair, his brain processed what was about to happen.

  After stalking along the stone bench on the perimeter of the tower, Lindsay had come up behind Major. She waited until the last possible second, hoping he would plant his feet in front of the open window, and could not believe her luck when he did. Had Kole collapsed a foot or two to the left, she was not sure what could have been done. Lindsay placed her left hand on the wall, locking her arm at the elbow and her right hand in the middle of Major’s back. She pushed him hard enough that he fell forward, losing his balance and stumbling through the open window. The old man dropped the sword as his hands scrambled for purchase on the edges of the opening. He grasped nothing but loose mortar and dead air. His black coat billowed outward and was then sucked into the cloud.

  Lindsay leaned over Kole to stick her head out. She saw Major falling, his coat twirling as he receded from view, down toward the desert floor and the awaiting cloud. Lindsay was the only one who could hear his cry, laced with frustration. It took several seconds for Major to plummet into oblivion before she turned to see the shock on Samuel’s face. Deva remained, and she wondered if he knew this was coming and hence had no reaction to it. Kole moaned, and she looked down, realizing he was losing blood from his severed fingers faster than she thought. He opened one eye and smiled at her.

  “You musta played football as a kid. That was a textbook horse collar tackle.”

  He closed his eyes and smiled, threatening to pass into unconsciousness.

  Samuel came running over, wrapping strips of cloth torn from his rucksack to try to stop the bleeding on Kole’s fingers. While the gash in his upper arm slowed, the blood from his amputated digits kept coming. The pain from Samuel’s broken nose made him stumble, and Lindsay groaned from the wound in her shoulder that began to ooze blood again.

  “We have to do something,” Lindsay said.

  “Like call 911? What exactly can we do?” Samuel regretted the cynicism as soon as he spoke. Lindsay had just saved him and possibly everyone else.

  “Leave him,” Deva said.

  “He’s going to die,” Samuel said.

  “It is time. The cauldron burns low, and the reversion is about to end the cycle.”

  Samuel and Lindsay looked and saw the flame had paled considerably. The edges of the cloud crept through both the eastern and western windows, thin tendrils rising along the tower’s interior walls.

  “It is now the reversion accepts the transference. The duty of the father must be given to the son.”

  “Wait.”

  The single word was the first to make Deva uncomfortable. He turned with genuine fear in his eyes.

  “For what?”

  Samuel looked at Lindsay and the back to Deva. “What if I don’t accept? What if I let the cloud come or slip into another locality?”

  Deva felt his face tighten, and his hand shook, the cane vibrating on the stone floor. “You would doom yourself to an eternity of reversions, your soul never gaining salvation or release from it.”

  “How do you know this would happen?” Samuel asked.

  “None have ever refused the responsibility,” Deva said.

  “So you don’t know.”

  “None have refused. Ever,” Deva said.

  Samuel looked at Lindsay, and Deva read the motive in his eyes.

  “She is not of the lineage and cannot remain.”

  Samuel processed Deva’s words and shook his head. The walls of the tower seemed to close in, while the reversion’s cloud began to fill the room with thick, grey fog. While the reversion was coming to its conclusion differently than in the previous locality, it was coming nonetheless.

  “Don’t make me choose,” Samuel said. “Don’t make me pick between love and duty.”

  “You don’t have the luxury of choice. The son must inherit the father’s honor. It is time for you to manage the countless generations passing through the reversion to their salvations. That i
s your salvation, too.”

  Lindsay shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. She glanced down at Kole and saw he was fighting unconsciousness and intently listening to the exchange, despite the throbbing pain brought by Major’s blade.

  “You have to stay, Samuel. You heard him. You can’t turn your back on the redemption you’ve been seeking through this hell. Go to the cauldron and do what needs to be done.”

  Deva stepped toward it as if commanded by Lindsay’s words. He raised both hands above the flickering flame and began slow, rhythmic chants.

  “Gloria Patri, Filio, et Spiritui Sancto: Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.” Deva sang one note per syllable. His voice filled the tower with the help of the natural reverberation inside the carved granite.

  Samuel could not understand everything Deva sang, but he was able to translate one line.

  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

  The lightning and thunder surrounding the mountain intensified, shaking the tower and raining loose mortar down upon them all. Kole stood, his arms pulled into his chest as blood continued to pool at his feet. Lindsay watched as the tendrils of the cloud grew, twisting and climbing over the ancient stone.

  “I can’t leave you, Lindsay. I just don’t think I can do that,” Samuel said. He walked over to Deva and asked his question while the old man continued his chanting. “A son for the father, right?”

  Deva turned to face Samuel, a single, slow nod to acknowledge the question.

  Lindsay ran and draped her arms around Samuel, kissing him through a wall of tears. He held her tight and pulled back, looking into her eyes.

  “You have to. I’ll get a reset,” she whispered. “You, you may not. It’s your last chance, Samuel. Let your soul rest.”

  Samuel nodded and backed away. He turned to face Deva. The old man motioned for him to stand on the opposite side of the cauldron, taking his place for the ceremony that would install him as the next wizard of the reversion, the ancient protector of the Great Cycle. Samuel could not look at Lindsay, could not bear to see the pain in her face that would ignite the fire in his heart. It had been a long time and worlds away since Samuel experienced passion, and he feared with his new transformation, it might never happen again.