“I wondered when one of your kind would appear.”
The shadow watched Him with black-on-black eyes. It was both part of the darkness and separate from it. But only its cowled head and shoulders were distinct. Interestingly enough, none of the nulls paid it any mind. Couldn't they sense it?
“You’re not going to break it down. Are you?”
At J.C.'s confused look, the shadow gestured to the rubble dead-ending this tunnel. J.C. crouched and swung His cross, tripping the first rank of nulls then He popped up, ready to hit the next wave.
“No, we’ve played this game before. I didn’t give in then, and I won’t now. Tell your master I’ll find another way.”
“You can’t stop him. You must know that by now. There will always be mortals willing to serve the Father of Lies. Nothing you do can change that, not while human hearts are fickle and so easily bought.”
“You’re wrong. Their hearts are their greatest strength, and they will never turn completely against My heavenly Father.”
Or me, J.C. added in the silence of his most sacred heart as He waded into the nulls and cleared a path through them back to the previous turn. The nulls followed.
“Ah, but they’ve turned against Your Father time and time again. Have you forgotten? They're fickle like that.”
“Everyone sees the light eventually. It’s as inevitable as the sun rising in the east.”
“Yet they keep choosing darkness.”
“Until the light finds them. No one can willingly turn against that light once they've seen it.”
J.C. could debate this with the Adversary's toady until the stars cooled, but that would do no one any good, and that was likely what the Adversary had wanted—to distract Him from the null climbing up His back. J.C. flung it off then froze when one voice cut across everything—even the nulls' chant.
“My life for theirs.”
Those words echoed through the Lower Quarters giving voice to the same words that had been in His heart the day J.C. had given His life for His people. Ignoring the nulls scaling his body like scaffolding, J.C. closed his eyes and searched for the man who had uttered those heart-felt words.
Once it had been called a final strike when someone sacrificed for a greater good the fire in their hearts that connected them to magic and the divine. It was given when all other avenues failed to save the life of another.
Before he could locate that soul, the nulls pounced on something, and they kept piling onto it. Their heads bobbed as they chewed and fought for space along the black line rising out of the ground.
“What’s this? It's a link of some kind but to what?” The shadow touched that line and shook its head baffled by what it sensed.
“I'm surprised you don't recognize it since curses are your master's domain not mine.”
Though as J.C. probed that link, it didn't feel like a normal curse. What foul magic is this? Clearly it wasn’t the Adversary’s, or his servant would have recognized it. Besides, that fiend should not be able to do anymore than whisper and collect the sorry fools who pledged their lives to him unless he’d turned a mage to his cause.
He couldn't have turned Sarn. Even if the Queen of All Trees’ protection failed, love for his adorable son would shield Sarn from that devil.
So, if not the Adversary, then who had forged this? J.C. touched that spell and tasted its power. It wasn’t human magic, but it was tied to a containment spell—and what's this? He caught a glimpse of a harried-looking Guard sporting the protective runes favored by native Shayarins. Nulthir, that was what Thing One had called him. That unlucky guard had unlocked an ancient curse. You were right to send your familiar to find me.
Dodging the nulls jockeying for space, J.C. traced that link back to its source—a pit and a lie so twisted it had begotten a race of monsters. No, your sacrifice won’t free a monster, Nulthir, not even by accident. That would put too much strain on the balance between good and evil.
I won’t let that happen. J.C. reached into the cross He bore but stopped at the sound of applause. The shadow folded in on itself as another entity replaced it. And still, the nulls paid them no mind. Their attention was fixed on gnawing through the curse imprisoning the monster.
As the Adversary slow clapped, his black shroud fell away revealing the angel he had been once upon a time. Smoldering wings, which had once been pristine white, swept away from his muscular back, and a singed robe, soot-stained and tattered clad his lean body. A strange fervor burned deep inside the red-glowing coals of his eyes as the fallen angel once known as the Morning Star sank to his knees before J.C.
“Save him. Break the covenant. Devalue his sacrifice and limit his free will. End the experiment and the war between heaven and hell. Bring peace to every corner of our Heavenly Father’s realm. Do it now. End the schism between us and call us back to our celestial home where we belong—one choir of angels forever exalted above all others.”
J.C. fell back a step at the urgency in the Adversary’s voice and the fervor in his eyes. Break the covenant? The very idea was inconceivable. To do that, He would undermine his life and death, and all those who’d came after him. No, I won’t do that. My cross is one of the hinges on the door of salvation. Without it, mankind can't enter.
His cross, His sacrifice, was also a light in the dark and the last light of the dying. Through it, He could do what the Adversary had been doing for more than a day now—J.C. could whisper to the dying guard and lead him back.
Life was give and take. You asked to save your people, Nulthir, but your sacrifice weakened the spell holding the very beast that’s trying to kill them. Both the Adversary and the monster had taken too much. It was time the balance swung the other way and gave the Guardsman and his people a fighting chance. For that was only fair.
“Get up. I’m not breaking anything. There’s a balance that must be kept, and I am its keeper.”
Somewhere a woman prayed and cursed the guard who’d given his all. No sacrifice will ever be in vain.
This sacrifice is not yours. It is mine, and I choose to return it to the giver. J.C. bladed His hand and slashed through the binding that was ripping Nulthir’s soul free from his body.
The nulls didn't react. They kept right on chewing as if nothing had happened, but something momentous had happened.
“Come to the light, Nulthir, and lead your people out of the darkness.”
The Walking Wounded
“Talk to me please, Papa. I can’t see you, and I get scared when you go all quiet like that.”
“I’m here. I’m not okay, but I don’t think I’m dying either.” Dying would feel more wretched than this. At least Sarn thought so. I’m in no hurry to find out otherwise.
“What’s he talking about?” his helper asked, and Sarn finally placed his voice—Jersten. “There’s no bad people just you and me and—” Jersten trailed off, and he pointed a shaking finger at the sinuous black things reaching through the gigantic hole in the ceiling.
“What is that?”
“A monster, we need to get away from it.”
Because Sarn couldn’t take it on, not like this. Jersten seized his arm and hauled Sarn up. Panic lent the wiry miner a wild burst of strength.
Sarn reeled at the sudden change in elevation and almost face-planted again when his knees buckled. But he managed to crash into the side of a half-smashed column instead. It was waist-high, and he leaned into it while he waited for the world to stop spinning around so he could see straight.
“I want to go home, Papa. I want to—” the rest of Ran’s request dissolved into tears of fear, frustration and exhaustion, and the sound was too loud in this echo chamber.
“I know. I’ll take you there as soon as I can. But I need you to calm down and tell me you’re okay. Can you do that for me?”
Between sobs, Ran said, “I’m ok, just wet and cold and scared.”
And miserable—his son had left that off the list, but that too was Sarn’s fault. You can blame yourself
later. Focus on getting your son out of here.
“Can you come to me?”
“I told you. The promise won’t let me.”
“But you could if it would let you? There’s nothing else holding you back, right?”
Like a certain monster—please, let that not be the case.
“Oh, no, just the promise is holding onto me. I can’t wriggle free.”
“And I can’t come to you, so you have to come to me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
But Ran didn’t come. So, Sarn put a little more force behind his command. He had no magic to back that up, and that might be a problem considering how strong the promises he made were.
“Come here, Ran. You promised to obey me.” Sarn extended his hand toward the sound of his son’s voice.
“Yes, I did,” his son said a little too brightly. “You did it. It let go of me. I’m coming, Papa. Don’t move.”
Ran rushed to his side and clasped his hand tightly before Sarn could even think of moving, not that he would have. Nothing could drag him away from his son right now.
“Oh, Thank Fate.” Sarn looked down at his soaking wet son and blinked when the child doubled. Sarn took a half step backward, and his knees buckled again. One Ran was plenty. Two was more than even he could handle.
“Papa!”
“Sarn!” Jersten rushed forward but not in time.
Gravity grabbed hold and yanked Sarn down. He landed on a pile of rubble half as tall as he was. Ran followed him but pulled up short before colliding with his legs or the rocks he sat on.
“We must go,” Jersten said. His face was a mask of fear—both of them. Sarn blinked, but the man’s double refused to disappear.
“I can’t make it on my own. I’m too dizzy and weak, and I see two of everything.” It didn’t help that those duplicates kept drifting away from each other. Sarn blinked but to no avail. He was still seeing two Jerstens, two Rans and four legs where the two he owned should be.
“And I can’t carry you.” Jersten stared at those tentacles.
“But we can’t stay here.” Ran squeezed Bear in a one-armed hug. “The m-monster will get us.”
“I know. I just need a moment to think.”
But the pain in his head sledgehammered every idea into itty-bitty pieces before they could form anything more than the vaguest outline of a plan. Sarn wanted to curse like the Rangers did when they forgot he was there, but he swallowed them for his son’s sake. Ran didn’t need to hear about the mating habits of goats.
“Can’t you help us, mister?”
“I don’t think he can support me very far. I’m bigger and heavier than he is, and I can barely stand.” Sarn closed his eyes. Pink-tinged grayness was preferable to seeing two of everything and less nauseating too.
“What if you had something to lean on like Uncle Miren’s crutch, would that work?”
“Where would we even find such a thing?”
“Over there.”
Ran wriggled free of his hold then dashed off. Before Sarn could protest, Ran shoved a stick into his hand.
“What about this? It’s big like you.”
Sarn cracked open one eye and regarded a six-foot length of wood roughly the right width for his over-sized hand. It even sported a convenient leather-wrapped grip, but it was too close to the end and thus in the wrong place for a quarter-staff. What were you before—a spear, an axe haft, something else?
“Where did you find this?”
“Over there in a pile of bits and pieces. There’s sharp things in there too, but I didn’t touch them.”
“Good.”
Though having a couple of sharp implements to hand for when those tentacles noticed them could make all the difference. If I was strong enough to fight, and I’m not. No, better to leave them where they are for someone else whose need is greater than mine.
“What was it?” Ran touched the wood.
“It was probably part of a weapon—a pike maybe. Look how it’s splintered at the other end—like there was more to it before it broke.”
“Will it work?” Ran raked him with anxious eyes.
“I think so.”
A faint trace of magic clung to the stick. Somehow the black magic-stealing mist waiting just beyond the riverbed hadn’t stolen every iota of magic from this wood. That was something to investigate later when he could think straight.
“Try to walk, Papa. We’ll help you.”
“Sarn, why’s this boy calling you ‘Papa?’”
Before Sarn could say anything, Ran drew himself up and clutched Bear to his indignant little chest. “Because he’s my Papa. I look just like him but without the bruises. You could tell if there was more light, but Papa can’t make any light until he gets his magic back.”
“Is that true?” Jersten turned troubled eyes on Sarn.
“Yes, promise me you won’t tell anyone about him and—” Sarn ransacked his mind for something to trade, but that fierce ache behind his eyes bludgeoned away every idea just as it formed. “Wasn’t there something you wanted to show me? I can’t remember what it was.”
Had Jersten even said? Sarn couldn’t recall if he’d given the man an opportunity to before.
“Yes, yes I did. I still have it. In fact, it’s not far from here. And the monster might not have reached that far yet.” Jersten leaped to his feet. He’d sat on that rock pile beside Sarn when it had become clear Sarn couldn’t go on without more help than was currently available.
“Promise me you won’t tell anyone about my son, and I’ll come see what you wanted to show me.”
“You’ll come right now? No more delays, no side trips or distractions?”
If that’s what it took to safeguard his son then, “Yes, I'll come right now if you’ll help me.”
Right on cue, the promise he’d sworn to J.C. spoke up reminding Sarn about a prior obligation. It tugged him more gently than the promise he’d sworn to the Lord of the Mountain. Maybe that had something to do with the recency of that promise, or the fact that it hadn’t been passed on or sworn again as custody of it had changed hands over the years. I’m sorry J.C. I am coming, and I still want to help you. ‘Want’ didn’t even come close. Sarn needed to help J.C.
“Then I promise. You won’t be sorry.”
“Then I promise to come with you just this one time.”
As those words left Jersten’s mouth, light leaped out of Sarn’s pendant. It wove a silver cord between them binding them to the terms of the agreement he had a feeling he would live to regret. But he couldn’t worry about that now. Safeguarding Ran was worth any price even his freedom. Besides, he was too tired and in pain to come up with a better plan.
Jersten stood there in stunned silence as the promise seated itself in his mind.
“You got your magic back!” Ran hopped up and down and hooted with joy.
“Did I?” Sarn checked inside him, but there was still that yawning hole begging to be filled. “No, it’s still locked away.”
“But I saw the light.”
“I know. I saw it too. This must have—what did you call it before? —special powers.”
The pendant glowed brighter than before, sending warm tingles along his scalp. The pain receded a little and the swelling too, so Sarn could open both eyes fully, but he quickly shut one of them because it was still doubling everything he looked at including his son, but seeing two Rans was just too disconcerting. Right now, he couldn’t even keep up with one son.
“Like Bear’s sparkly bow?”
“Something like that.”
“Oh.” Crestfallen at this news, Ran stared at his boots.
“You won’t be sorry,” Jersten said as he pulled Sarn’s arm over his shoulder. A new strength fired the old miner and sometimes con man. Sarn needed to remember that. Jersten was honest to a point but not beyond that and only the miner knew where that line fell.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Using the tremendous strength in his upper arms,
Sarn ground the splintered end of the stick into the ground and pushed up. He made it to a stand and wobbled but was able to steady himself with the stick. Since his hands were occupied, Ran settled for grabbing a handful of his trouser leg, so they wouldn’t be separated.
“Come, I know a safe place where you can recuperate.”
“Do you have a healer too?” Ran asked. “An important person said Papa needed to see a healer. But I don’t know where to find one, and I don’t know what a healer is.”
Damn Ran’s excellent hearing. His curious son had overheard the one part of his conversation with Nolo that Sarn had hoped had gone unnoticed. Sarn gritted his teeth against the pain and the sudden wave of nausea souring his stomach. He didn’t want to throw up on his son who kept huddling against his leg every time another crash or boom sounded.
Thank Fate, none were too close, but they were nearing. Soon chunks of whatever the monster was ripping apart would fall on them if they didn’t scram.
“Do you know what a healer is?”
“Yeah, kid, they’re people who make other people better, and some of them have magic.” Jersten gave Sarn a suspicious glance when he said the m-word.
“I don’t have that power.” And I hate the feel of it. Just thinking about healers made Sarn’s skin crawl and his gorge rise. A shiver cut through him that had nothing to do with the cold. No, there would be no healers or healing for him except what his body could do on its own. I’ve healed up without help from worse than a concussion before.
Ran eyed him worriedly and was about to echo Nolo. Sarn couldn’t handle that right now, so he cut the boy off before he could say the one thing Sarn dreaded hearing every night of his life.
“I don’t need a healer. My bones aren’t broken. I don’t have any internal injuries just a concussion, and you can’t heal a concussion that way anyway. It just doesn’t work.”
And I’m through being someone’s experiment. But Sarn had no real hope of dodging that for long. After all, he was a magical experiment and would remain so for the rest of his life.
Echoes of the Question competed with loud splashing sounds of an extra-large something thrashing through the river.
Curse Breaker: Sundered Page 26
