by Welcome Cole
“No! Please! You can’t go! I need—”
“You must destroy him, Be’ahm. You are our last hope. If you fail, the world fails with you.”
Beam could barely make the man out now. “Wait!” he yelled as he groped the darkness for the man, “Prave, wait! I’m not you. I’m not strong enough. I can’t do it! Please don’t—”
“I have faith in you, my boy,” Prave whispered as his form fully dissipated into night, “You are the strength and the light. You will end this once and for all.”
“No! You can’t dump that on me and then just—”
It was too late. Prave was gone.
Beam scooped at the empty air where Prave had been standing an instant ago, but found nothing, only cold space. A chill seized him as the grim truth took form. He was alone. He was all alone.
Then he felt the demon’s essence violating the perimeter of his thoughts. He looked back at the tarry figures and realized he was back inside the constraints of mortal time.
Goelvar raised the glowing red eye to its brow. As it pressed the crystal against its forehead, it sank into the tar like an animal slowly sucked into quicksand. In a breath, it was gone.
Once it disappeared beneath that oily skin, the tendrils of the wyrlaerd’s essence exploded outward. Beam staggered back from the gruesome sensation. He felt the demon’s thoughts wrapping around him as intensely as physical arms. The monster’s thoughts trespassed amongst his own. Beam couldn’t pull away from them and he couldn’t resist.
The demon’s memories flooded his mind, filling his thoughts much like the memories of Prave’s lives had. But where Prave’s memories were bittersweet and hopeful, the demon’s memories were ghastly. They were memories of insanity, memories of starvation and suffering, memories of rage and greed, of torture and murder and chaos. The memories were brutal and unrelenting. He saw the battles of each of the Divinic Wars, saw great cities burned to the ground again and again. He saw the beast’s ungodly resurrections coming over and over through endless centuries. He saw the agony of the tortured souls condemned to the dark Wyr pits. The memories drowned him in horrors of hatred and greed and terror spanning years and lifetimes and centuries!
Then, as abruptly as they’d seized him, the memories faded. The moment felt like having an organ ripped out. The aching left in their wake was unforgiving, and he knew it would never abate. He knew he’d feel that pain for the rest of his life.
XX
THE RESURRECTION
I SHOULD GO AFTER HIM.
The voice hummed at the periphery of his awareness. It was familiar, though unwelcome.
“I should go after him,” it said again, more insistently this time.
Chance opened his eyes.
The sky hovered above him like a vast blue blanket that’d been snapped open and was slowly settling back toward the grass. He closed his eyes against the sight and drew a slow, deep breath. He didn’t want to come back. Not yet. He wasn’t ready yet.
“I need to go after him,” Jhom said.
Chance fought back his anger. How many times did he have to tell the man no? It was wearing him down, and doing so at a time when his reserves were already exhausted.
“You should damned well give me your blessings on it,” Jhom pressed, “Can’t hardly bear the thought of it. He’s just a boy, for gods’ sakes. He’s likely scared near to death down there all by himself. I can only imagine what Prae has planned for him.”
Chance ordered his eyes to remain closed, ordered himself not to engage another tedious bout of this conversation. Not that it mattered now. Any hope of reaching another trance state was effectively smothered now, murdered by his fatigue and the burden of Jhom’s conscience. Even the euphoria trailing his earlier trance was gone. It’d become harder and more painful to achieve a caeyl-trance at all these past years, what with the caeyl energy dying as it was. Attempting one with a magpie screeching on his shoulder was a fool’s errand.
“Are you listening to me?”
Chance’s eyes betrayed his will.
A fibrous wall of grass rose up all around him, towering above him like the walls to a grave. The grainy heads stroked the low hanging sky while a solitary cloud made a hangman’s rush across the empty blue, racing from some terror Chance couldn’t yet fathom.
“Chance?”
Another kick of irritation. He wanted to scream, wanted to bellow out his anger for all the world to hear. Instead, he pushed himself up onto an elbow.
“You’re awake. Perfect.”
Chance pressed a hand up across his eyes and rubbed the sting of the sun away. Then he shaded his brow and looked up at Jhom sitting on the hatch a mile above the grass wall.
“You look like hell,” Jhom said.
“Thanks.”
“The rogue’s caeyl may be helping your body, but it hasn’t done a thing for that crazy look on your face.”
“My mother’s dead, Jhom. I don’t need another.”
Jhom released a deep, rumbling laugh. “Well, I reckon that’s arguable.”
“Argue it with yourself.”
“I’ve been thinking long and hard about it, and I damned well mean it when I say this. You should give me your blessings. You should let me go after him.”
Chance sat upright and looked out over the tops of the grain at the rolling hills.
“Well?”
“No. I won’t allow it.” He immediately hated the words.
“You won’t allow it,” Jhom said back. He didn’t sound anything like happy, exactly as Chance expected.
“I want him back more than anything, Jhom. But it doesn’t matter what I want. The dangers we’re facing are greater than any one of us.”
“Even Luren?”
Chance threw a glare up at the man. “You dare ask me that? You of all people?”
Jhom seemed to shrink at that. “Well, that’s not what I meant,” he said with obvious difficulty, “And you know it. I meant… well, I’d just like to know what the hell good we’re doing here.”
“We’re waiting.”
“Waiting for what? For those Vaemyn moldering down there in the tunnel to finally give up their residency and move on to the next house?”
Chance sent him a scowl that was exactly as severe as he intended.
Jhom laughed at him. “What’s this? Am I getting The Look now?”
Chance tried to stare him down, but Jhom’s eyes were too determined, too burdensome. Instead, he pulled away and threw his gaze back out at the rolling hills.
“Well, then mayhaps you can explain it so even a simpleton like me can understand. You know Luren’s alive, but you’d rather sit here and watch those two rot down there in the tunnel. Calina’s tits! If the blade’s the source of power, just take it.”
Chance ripped a stem of grass free. He sat taller and pressed his face up into the persistent wind of these Criohn Plains. He pushed his unrestrained hair back from his eyes as he studied the distant horizon. But all he could see was Luren’s face shimmering within the heat sprites. He broke off a piece of the grass stalk and flicked it into the breeze.
“I can wait here all day. Just you, me and The Look. I’ve waited out The Look before, and I sincerely believe I can do so again.”
“Blood of the gods, Jhom! What do you want from me? You think I like this? You think I don’t spend every minute fighting the urge to go after him? Well, goddamn you and goddamn your lack of faith!”
He looked away, but resisted wiping away the heat welling in his eyes. The wind pushed his long hair across his face again. He was surprised to find himself trembling.
“Lack of faith?”
Chance didn’t look at him. He couldn’t battle the demons ripping his stomach apart and face Jhom, too. He had no spirit for it.
“You’d cut me to the quick if I thought you meant it,” Jhom said, with obviously faked anger, “Fortunately for you, I know you just adore me.”
Chance looked up and found his friend’s smiling eyes. And resting
in the heart of that gaze was the pylon of friendship he’d moored himself to so many decades ago. He wiped his nose against his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” he offered, knowing it was too little too late, “It was a terrible thing to say.”
Jhom laughed again. “You’re damned right it was, but I forgive you anyway, because I know how you love me so.”
“You’re a better man than me. I don’t deserve your friendship.”
“No, you don’t.”
Chance glanced up at the fleeing little cloud. There was something familiar about it, about its fear. It seemed to have picked up its pace. There was still no sign of a pursuer.
“So, does that mean I can go after Luren?”
“You’re a pain in the ass. You know that, right? A royal pain in the ass.”
“I had a good teacher. You might know him. He’s a mage, lives in the forest, likes to irritate old Baeldons?”
“You need to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Jhom snorted and shook his head. “Seriously? When did trust come into this? For the love of Pentyrfal, Chance. Don’t you go getting all melodramatic on me. I’m just telling you what I think. I should go after the boy. By Khe’naeg’s balls, it’s simple math.”
“Luren’s alive. In the past couple days, I’ve grown a sense that he’s safer now.” He ripped up another stalk of grass and choked back his guilt. “He’ll have to fend for himself for the time being. I can’t help it. The world at large is our greatest concern now. It’s Calina’s will, not mine.”
“So that’s it, then? Give it up to Calina and end the discussion? What about Balga Yow’dt and the Gods of Pentyrfal? You want to give it up to them, too?”
“I’d appreciate if you would just drop the entire affair. I’m finished, end of discussion. We’ve bigger worries right now than Luren’s...”
He couldn’t finish. The words were too exhausting.
“Bah, bother, and boo!” Jhom said, following it with a distinct harrumph, “I’ve seen your rogue. By my estimation, he wouldn’t throw out a hand to save a drowning woman unless it got him close enough to grab her purse. You should take the sword, and damn the rogue.”
“The Caeyllth Blade is useless to anyone but him. Besides, no one can take it from him, the Blood Caeyl or whatever it’s become won’t allow it.”
“Well I’m happy to give it a royal attempt. You just say the word. If it can be gotten, I’m the one who can do it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe not.” Jhom ripped up his own stalk of grass and began methodically breaking it apart between his knees. After a moment, he said, “I’m gathering by your mood the caeyl trance didn’t go well.”
Chance looked out over the plains. “You ever try to sleep with a woodpecker beating on your house?”
“Did you make any contact with the Council?”
“There isn’t one.”
“There isn’t one? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means there isn’t one.”
“There isn’t one what?”
“There’s no damned Circle of Twenty!” Chance yelled.
There it was. Hearing the words spoken out loud made it reality, exactly as he’d feared. That was the real reason he wanted to revel a bit longer in the post-trance glow; he couldn’t bear to look back at what he’d seen.
He turned back to the sky. The little cloud was making fast its getaway. He suddenly remembered when this entire affair had begun, back at his house after the sabotaged sentry exploded. He’d awoken on his back. He’d watched this same cloud fleeing across this same empty sky in the same flight from dangers unnamed. He wished like hell he were going with it.
“No Council?” Jhom asked, “How the hell’s that possible?” He tossed his murdered grass stem away.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“That’s right, Jhom, I don’t know. They’re gone. They’re dead, or disconnected from their caeyls, or maybe worse.”
“All of them? How’s that possible?”
“I can’t make contact, not with any of them.”
“Are you sure? Maybe there’s some kind of rift in the energy? Maybe an ebb in the—”
“Are you a Caeyl Mage now, Jhom?”
“No, but my brother is, and I’ve learned a hell of lot from him because of it.”
The words were a mirror of guilt held up before Chance, and he didn’t like what he saw looking back. He was acting the bastard to the one person who’d never failed him, who’d never doubted him, who never would.
He climbed to his feet and stretched his back as he watched the little cloud, which was now well past them and still running with as much speed as it could manage. It seemed a most sensible little cloud.
Jhom’s head eclipsed the sun as the huge Baeldon stood over him. “What is it, Chance? Talk to me.”
“I think it’s worse than we feared,” Chance said as he watched the wind worry the rolling hills of grain.
“Worse?” Jhom’s deep laugh rumbled across the space between them. “It can get worse?”
“Much.”
Jhom feigned relief. “Well, thank the Gods of Pentyrfal for that. As long as things can get worse, it means it’s not as bad as we think it is right now.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Do I look humored?”
The eyes of his friend felt like the fires of an inquisition, though he knew Jhom would never judge him; Jhom just wanted to do what he thought was right. For him the lines between wrong and right had always been simple and clear.
“What exactly did you find out there? In your trance, I mean? What’s going on in the caeylsphere? Spill the tale, and don’t spare the details.”
“I could sense only a few mages, and even those links were unnaturally weak. The others just seemed to be gone. There was no palpable energy stream, nothing to follow.”
“What does that mean?”
Chance looked to the north. “I couldn’t even sense the greatest of them: Ad’nilg of northern Parhron, Gowdry of the Evae Grad Isles, even Beggett. The only mages I could sense were the very closest: Ragleph, Galeev, and Corva Ven.”
“Ragleph?” Jhom said. His voice reflected of the same disappointment Chance had felt. “The Mendophian mage? Even if you could reach him he’d be less than useless. The old bastard practically sleeps in the Fark brothers’ purses.”
Chance sat down on the edge of the hatch. Sadly, even the warmth of the stone wasn’t enough to pry away the chill that had so completely embraced him.
Jhom put a foot on the hatch beside him and leaned onto his knee. His wide set eyes studied the distant horizon. “Is this it, then?”
Chance looked up at him. “Is this what?”
“The end of days? Is the caeyl energy finally dying for good?”
“I don’t know. How could it happen so quickly? It feels like the degeneration has accelerated dramatically. The caeyl energy has decayed more in the past several days than it has in a century, I’m confident of it. What I don’t understand is how that’s possible?”
“The history of the world is measured in days, Chance.”
“Don’t get all philosophical on me. I’m not in the mood.”
“Fine. So you’re thinking it started about the same time as the appearance of that white caeyl.”
“Maybe, I don’t know. It seems impossible.”
“Humph, my take on what’s impossible has changed a fair bit of late.”
“Even if something has changed the caeyl energy, why hasn’t it affected mine? Why is my energy as intact as it was yesterday? Or a month or year ago? It defies logic. It doesn’t...”
He stopped.
He felt an odd tingle, the preemptive chill that sometimes precedes clarity of mind. Something loitered at the edge of his thoughts, though it didn’t appear quite ready to present itself.
“What?” Jhom asked, bending lower so their heads were almost level, “I know that loo
k; you’ve an idea.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Don’t lie to me. What is it?”
Chance’s attention turned inward. It was right there, like a stranger walking in from the dark night, a stranger whose face grows clearer with each step closer to the firelight.
“The caeyl trance was like a circle,” he said carefully, “As I probed farther away from here, I found it harder to find an energy trail. I followed the stream as far as it’d carry me, but the energy eventually faded to nothing.”
“I still don’t—”
“As I pulled back, as I began the return to my flesh, the energy increased again. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Caeyl energy is everywhere in the world. The Caeylsphere is prevalent and consistent. It’s uniform, as evenly distributed as the air. It’s been dying for decades, sure, but it’s been dying consistently.”
“That’s good. I think you’re getting somewhere.”
“But now the caeyl energy dies away abruptly in a circle around us, like walking across plains that end in a cliff. Yet, as I followed the stream back to my body, it grew palpable again, stronger. And here, now...”
“Yea? And here, now, what?”
Chance picked his staff up from where it rested against the hatch. He stood it upright before him. “Here the energy’s unchanged,” he said as he looked at the staff’s covered head, “Here I feel as potent with my Water Caeyl as ever.”
“Well, I reckon that makes sense.”
Chance closed his eyes. He concentrated on the caeyl energy and forced his will up through the wood. The cloth hood vaporized under a breathtaking pulse of blue light.
Jhom stumbled back in surprise.
Chance looked up through the soot filtering away on the breeze. The blue caeyl flamed brilliantly in the grip of the staff’s carved hand.
Jhom coughed and waved a hand at the dissipating ash. “A little warning would be nice.”
Chance didn’t take his eyes from the burning caeyl.
“Seriously. You could’ve blinded me, for Khe’naeg’s sake.”
