Rebirth (Legends of the Kilanor Book 2)

by Jared Stone

  It was a dark and cold night, with the moon eclipsed almost entirely by a curtain of clouds above them. The main sources of light were the occasional university street lamps lining the walkway through campus, but even these were fairly few and far between. Lucian stuck his hands into his coat pockets and found himself wishing he had brought warmer sweaters and jackets when he had first moved away from home. He made a mental note to bring back more winter clothing from his next trip to see his parents.

  Traveling along silently, consumed by his thoughts, Lucian momentarily lost track of his surroundings until Willow abruptly stopped next to him. Looking back at her, puzzled, he waited to see what she had to say.

  “Well, that’s unnerving…,” she stated in a half-whisper, apparently speaking to Lucian but keeping her eyes fixed on something farther on down the path. Lucian immediately snapped back to reality and looked up to see what the girl was talking about.

  In the distance, Lucian noticed a figure silhouetted against the light of a street lamp. He couldn’t see many defining characteristics in the dark, but the person seemed to be slightly hunched over, wearing loose clothing that hung off of him in places as if torn and tattered. The shadowy figure stood deathly still, as if it had stopped to specifically watch the students as they approached. Looking down, Lucian saw something long and sharp gripped in its hand… like a kitchen knife.

  “Let’s just go another way,” Lucian whispered to Willow as he stepped backwards slowly. Although the acute sense of dread he now felt could have easily been his already overactive mind playing tricks on him, the whole situation was unsettling enough to lead him to worry.

  “Yeah, probably for the best,” Willow whispered in response, keeping her eyes fixed in front of her as she followed Lucian backwards.

  It was at this point, upon observing the students’ retreat, that the shadowy individual began to move toward them. Not in a smooth walking strut, but more of a lumbering, as if it had recently sprained its left leg. As Lucian and Willow began to pick up their pace, the stumbling forward of their pursuer became more rushed as well.

  “Okay, I think it’s definitely coming after us, now,” Willow said to Lucian, pivoting around from her backwards stepping to more easily hurry away while facing forward. “Do something,” she urged in a hiss.

  Lucian, also turning and speeding up, looked over at his nervous companion. The panic that was evident in Willow’s eyes was thoroughly unnerving to him, as if his emotional rock had suddenly shattered and crumbled to pieces. “What do you want me to do!?” he hissed back frantically.

  “Blast it!” Willow practically shouted, throwing her hands out to the side as she transitioned from a power-walk into a swift jog.

  Looking behind him, Lucian unfortunately saw that the unknown figure had not abandoned the pursuit and was now plodding after them at an almost running speed.

  “Ugh! Fine!” Lucian blurted out, stopping abruptly where he stood and twirling around to face what-ever it was that was chasing them. He knew he wouldn’t be able to properly empty his mind and generate his qi while trying to run at the same time.

  Lucian closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and then let it out again slowly, practicing the mind-emptying techniques that Panhavant and Gus had taught him. With his next inhalation of cold night air, he could feel the jumbled thoughts clouding his mind lift up and float away into nothingness. What had been full consciousness only a moment before transitioned into emptiness, and Lucian experienced the immediate sensation that he was intimately connected with everything around him. Although this euphoria seemed eternal and limitless within that fraction of a second, it was sadly not meant to last. Lucian felt his clarity slipping away once again under a pile of disruptive thoughts as they tumbled back into his mind. But, as this occurred, the boy simultaneously noticed a tingling sensation which started in his lower abdomen and quickly flowed out over his entire body. Sending out the mental aspiration that the generated energy move into his right hand, Lucian could feel the tingling retreating from his limbs and coalescing in his palm.

  Lucian opened his eyes. He could see the bright white glow of the sphere of qi pulsating in his hand. He lifted up his arm and aimed it at the fast-approaching assailant.

  “Cool,” he heard Willow whisper from behind him. She had stopped running and had turned once again to watch the boy summon his qi.

  “I’m warning you…,” Lucian said loudly to the lumbering stranger. “Don’t come any closer!”

  He was trying to sound tough, but he couldn’t keep his voice and limbs from trembling in fear and apprehension. He lifted his left hand and grabbed hold of his trembling, outstretched right arm in an effort to stabilize it. These worried sentiments were clearly not shared by their pursuer, however, who did not slow down at the boy’s warning.

  “Stop!” Lucian cried out, even louder this time. But his warning once again went unheeded, and the shadowy figure was now only within several long paces of the two students.

  “Lucian, do it!” shouted Willow from behind him.

  Lucian hesitated briefly. This was the first time he would shoot a complete stranger who had not yet technically done anything to him. Against Zagan, it had been so easy to blast away without regard, knowing that the demon’s power would protect him to some extent against irrevocable damage. In this situation, Lucian was unsure of what his qi would do to someone; he wasn’t confident that he was prepared to be a killer. He squinted his eyes and turned his head away as he reluctantly sent out the mental intention to release the first blast. The ball of energy jettisoned out from his palm and flew toward the advancing adversary.

  The qi immediately collided with the stranger’s left shoulder with a BANG, forcing him back mid-stride on one side and causing his body to whirl around like a top before landing on the ground a few feet back from where it had been. Lucian stood still, his arm remaining upraised, hoping that perhaps he had just stunned him.

  “Good shot,” Willow said, walking up to stand directly behind the boy. Her voice was back to its usual monotone flatness, and she was clearly not plagued internally by the same ethical dilemma that Lucian now faced.

  “Is… is he dead?” Lucian inquired fearfully, slowly lowering his arm to his side and keeping his eyes fixed to the shadowy heap of a body on the ground.

  “We can only hope,” responded Willow without any semblance of remorse. Lucian’s heart sank.

  “Well… I…,” the boy began.

  Before he could finish his highly conflicted train of thought, the lump on the ground began to move. It seemed to rise up not solely of its own accord, but almost as if it was a marionette, pulled by invisible strings. Lucian felt a brief sensation of relief that he was not actually a murderer, but this was quickly replaced by panic when he saw that the stranger, indeed, carried a very large chopping knife which glinted faintly against the night’s blackness.

  “Luciaaaan…,” Willow said next to him, once again clearly distraught. She took a slow step back.

  Lucian stared at the appearance of the figure only a few yards away. With what little light was present, he could now see that the face was a man’s, which bore a flat, unfeeling look. He stared at Lucian, but not quite at Lucian; it was as if his clouded eyes were looking through the boy, unfocused and in a daze. Lucian saw dark patches on the stranger’s cheeks and forehead, almost like a disease or some kind of decay. The once-nice suit he wore was indeed ripped in several spots and hung off the body like a child wearing hand-me-downs. The man took a lumbering step toward them… then another….

  As if by instinct, Lucian once again momentarily emptied his mind and generated a ball of qi in his palm. He immediately brought his hand up and blasted the stranger right in the arm which carried the weapon. With a POP, Lucian saw the arm torn clean from the body, fly through the air, and land in the bushes behind. He suddenly felt ill and had to suppress the urge to throw up.

  “Wow,” was all Willow had to say.

  Lucian stood there wid
e-eyed, paralyzed with guilt and the overwhelming sensation that he would be sick. But, undaunted by the unexpected loss of a limb, the stranger stumbled forward several paces without warning and used its other arm to swipe Lucian to the side. Lucian felt the man’s fist collide with his hip and propel him through the air. The sheer strength possessed by this assailant was astounding, and Lucian hit the grassy ground next to the walkway hard, rolling twice before stopping. Meanwhile, the man grabbed Willow by the throat and began to choke the life from her with his iron grip. Lucian looked up from the ground where he lay and watched helplessly as his friend struggled against the man’s superior strength.

  Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a rectangular sheet of beige paper flew to the ground and burst forth in rays of bright red light. Willow’s attacker let out a blood-curdling cry, releasing the girl and stumbling backwards. His body writhed around as dark wisps of energy floated up and out into the night sky. Within seconds, the movement of the stranger stopped and his body seemed to disintegrate into a pile of ash. The red light which had bathed the scene also slowly dissipated into blackness again.

  Willow stood there, grabbing her throat and gasping for breath. Lucian pushed his sore body up from the ground and stumbled over to the girl’s side.

  “You okay?” he blurted out to her.

  “Yeah…,” she said hoarsely. “I’ll live.”

  Lucian suddenly heard loud, deliberate footsteps behind him.

  “Both of you, come with me,” Schuntz’s voice said, cutting through the darkness, “before more of them arrive.”

  5 - Disbelief

  Saturday, November 22nd

  Under the cover of darkness, three shadowy figures hurried down the creaking hallway of the Religion Department, coming to a stop at the second door to the left. The professor inserted his office key and turned the knob, permitting entrance for himself and the two students behind him. Flipping up the light switch on the wall, Schuntz illuminated the book-laden room to guide the students in safe passage across the cluttered floor. Once they had entered, the professor closed the door behind them. Then, reaching into his suit jacket pocket, he pulled out what appeared to be a black bamboo calligraphy brush. Quickly swiping the dry brush across the door in fluid movements, Schuntz wrote a pair of symbols which glowed with a faint red light before disappearing again. Once this had been completed, he strode over to the window and did the same against the sill.

  “What are you doing, Professor?” Lucian inquired upon observing the man’s strange behavior.

  Standing up straight from leaning over to write on the sill, Schuntz turned to the students and held up the brush. “This, Mr. Aarden,” he began, “is the sacred Brush of Tenjin. It belonged to a very accomplished scholar-official who was later deified by the people of East Asia. It was bequeathed to me by my honorable teacher before his passing and holds great power.” The professor interrupted his own explanation as he slipped the brush back inside his pocket and briskly walked around his desk to sit in the chair behind it. Taking the initiative, Lucian sat in one of the chairs facing the front of the desk, and Willow soon took the other.

  “What I have done,” Schuntz continued, “is to write sealing characters upon the entrances to this room. This will protect us from unwanted visitors, should any have followed us after your encounter.”

  “You can do that just by writing some calligraphy?” Lucian asked. He looked at Willow to see if she shared in his astonishment, but he was met with only the sour look of disdain that her face always bore around Schuntz.

  “Yes,” Schuntz replied. “The art of calligraphy is extremely powerful, and, if the strokes are correctly executed and in harmony with the natural Way of Heaven, energy may be called upon and utilized through them. This is but one means by which the art may be used, in addition to the paper seal you witnessed me casting against your attacker earlier.”

  “What in the Hell was that thing?” Willow cut in bluntly. Though brusque, Lucian appreciated the girl’s commitment to the important issues, as he often found himself too wrapped up in the details.

  “That thing,” Schuntz responded harshly, “is called a draugr, Ms. Foster. It is the corpse of a deceased individual which has been filled with dark energy to once again function as if alive.”

  “Like a zombie?” asked Lucian as images of poorly made horror films flooded his mind.

  “It is certainly not after your brain, if that is what you are asking, Mr. Aarden,” Schuntz replied dryly. Lucian wasn’t sure whether to take this as a joke, an insult, or possibly both, so he remained quiet with an inquisitive look on his face as the professor continued. “A zombie and a draugr are similar, yes, though a zombie is the result of different magical techniques and still relies on the functioning of what is left of a brain within the corpse. This is the reason that many zombies are slow and lacking in critical thinking, as their mental faculties and motor skills are severely limited by the decomposition of their frontal and parietal lobes. As such, a zombie may be incapacitated by head trauma or severing of the spinal cord. A draugr tends to be much faster and does not require any brain activity to function…. Its sole driving force is the dark energy which compels it, and, as such, it relies on what could be described as a hive-consciousness, controlled by the one who reanimates it.”

  “So these draugrs are like ants…,” said Willow skeptically.

  “The name derives from Old Norse, Ms. Foster,” Schuntz replied, as if the girl should have known all along. “The plural is ‘draugar.’”

  “Doesn’t make it any less true,” Willow snapped back, sliding down in her chair and folding her arms across her chest in defiance. “Either way, this is just another reason everyone should just be cremated.”

  “But who was controlling it, then?” Lucian quickly interjected, hoping that the hostilities bubbling under the surface of his allies’ interactions wouldn’t build to disastrous consequences.

  “That is, as of yet, uncertain,” Schuntz said quietly. He looked away from the students and out toward the window thoughtfully. “It appears, however, that we might have a necromancer on our hands….”

  “What’s a necromancer?” Lucian asked. The term seemed vaguely familiar from his childhood video games, but, having never used such a word in normal conversation, he no longer remembered its significance.

  “A necromancer, Mr. Aarden,” responded Schuntz, “is a practitioner of dark arts who, through profane magical rituals, acquires the ability to reanimate the dead. That draugr out there embodied the energy of someone skilled in a rare form of sorcery, and that person’s desires are at the root of the draugr’s motivations for attacking you.”

  “So, let’s just go take out this necromancer guy,” Willow chimed in again confidently. Lucian was taken aback at first by the girl’s nonchalant attitude toward the enemy who had nearly just killed her, but he thought she was perhaps portraying herself as braver than she truly felt.

  “It will not be as easy as you make it sound, Ms. Foster,” Schuntz asserted. “This necromancer, who-ever he or she might be, will have great power. I am fearful that even I, alone, would be no match for such a practitioner of arcane dark magic.”

  “Well, we’ve gotta at least try!” Lucian exclaimed, sitting up and forward in his seat with enthusiasm. “Maybe it’s the guy in the mask that Blake was talking about! If we kill the necromancer, won’t all the draugar be destroyed too? And then things will get back to normal!”

  “There is a possibility, yes,” Schuntz agreed. “But I do not yet know enough to be certain. Who is this masked man you speak of?”

  Lucian realized at that moment that, though he had already told Willow about what Blake had said in the hospital, he had been too overwhelmed at his last meeting with Schuntz to do the same.

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, my roommate, Blake, was the one who was possessed by a demon for the past few months. After Gus and I destroyed the demon and freed him, Blake remembered some information about the guy Zagan was working for
.” Hearing himself say this, Lucian was reminded of just how strange his life had truly become.

  “Interesting…,” stated the professor thoughtfully. “And what else did Blake have to say?”

  “Not very much,” answered Lucian regrettably. “He said Zagan kept a lot of information from him. But he did remember that the man in the mask at the head of all of this was called Samael. Do you know anyone by the name of Samael?”

  Schuntz paused briefly. “I can only think of the Samael of ancient Jewish texts: an archangel of particularly ambiguous loyalties. He is depicted in several stories as both good and evil, at one time aiding man in pursuing a virtuous path, at another encouraging man to commit grave sins. He has been spoken of as both a loyal servant of Heaven and a fervent ally of Hell, with entirely unclear motives and complex agendas. There are, in fact, so many conflicting accounts, it is impossible to determine any definitive portrayal of him. Regardless, I would highly doubt that this is the Samael of which he speaks.”

  Lucian laughed. “Yeah, I’d imagine not,” he said dismissively.

  The professor then stood up from his seat, and the two students did the same. “Whatever your course of action from here, Mr. Aarden, I must caution you to use the utmost care in investigating this situation. Such dark magic is not to be underestimated. I will do my best to uncover the truth as well and will inform you if I discover anything of significance.”

  “Sorry if I don’t trust your judgment on magic,” Willow stated abrasively, “but you don’t seem to be too keen on most spiritual traditions….”