Soul Taker's Redemption

by A. S. Hamilton

  From his tone and the time spent considering each answer, it was obvious he didn't want to go into details unless he thought it was necessary. That was fine, for now. He had fought off three therilgalen and been injured pretty badly, that bought a lot of patience. Time to change tactics.

  'You said they don't normally attack in groups?'

  He shook his head absently as he pushed away from the doorframe and crossed to the window. 'It is not that they rarely attack in groups, in fact, they do, very regularly. It is more the circumstance in which this group attacked that I find so concerning.' He paused, as he tried to figure out how to explain it more clearly. 'You know when you see disaster footage on the television, a cyclone or earthquake...'

  I half shrugged as I nodded.

  'You see the destruction nature has wrought. What most humans do not see are the therilgalen. If those cameras happened to be in the right place at the right time, you, Jayden, would be able to see them in that footage, while others without your ability, your true-sight, would not. Their purpose is to collect the spirit energy of those who have passed for a god-like entity called Ceri-talen.'

  'Like when the angels collect those little pinpoints of light together.'

  He looked over at me, not startled, more amazed. 'You really do have true-sight,' he murmured. 'Yes, therilgalen do that too, but they do not take the spirit onwards, they take it to Ceri-talen, my former master. Aurealis, my new master, only agreed to take me if I promised to make a sincere effort to redeem, for that is one of her roles, redeeming souls such as mine. Now, I only take tainted souls. And only when necessary.'

  There was more to it, I sensed— a lot more— but, for the moment, it was probably better to let him choose the depth of the detail. 'Why have I never seen them when I watch footage on the news?'

  'They do not often film where the therilgalen are, as I said; the right place, the right moment. If you do some research, you will come across humans who tell stories about how they saw an angel protecting a spirit as it departed a body, those are guardians, like Silven. You will also find accounts of dark-angels appearing…'

  'Therilgalen.' I said the word slowly, still not sure of pronouncing it correctly.

  He nodded.

  'So, what you are saying is that the therilgalen do move in groups, but usually only at disasters and similar events.' I chewed that over. 'There were no deaths where I was yesterday. No reason for them to be there. That means it was no coincidence they were there.'

  Therion nodded again, this time just the once.

  'That means it was either me or Silven they were after. From what you've said, it is not unusual for therilgalen to attack guardians.'

  'No, it is not. Yet there has always been a death involved. The guardian has always been protecting a spirit. I just recently fought a therilgalen… It came for Maya.' He saw me tense and made a calming motion with his hands. 'Maya is safe. I thought at the time that they came for her because Maya died just moments after I arrived to collect her. I brought her back, re-linked her spirit to her vessel. It made sense that a therilgalen was drawn to Maya. Now, I am wondering if they are targeting any spirit I am protecting, as this seems to be the only reason they would attack you and Maya. My departure from Ceri-talen has not incurred any admiration from my former people. It is not impossible they seek to punish me for my lack of loyalty. Except…'

  'Silven had taken over.'

  'There is one other possibility.' His face looked dark, closed.

  'And that is?'

  Abruptly, he started pacing. His agitation was palpable. 'I need more information. My theory is possible, but not something I can put forward without confirming, for if I am correct…'

  For the first time, I heard something close to fear in his voice. No, not fear. An apprehension, the kind that told me that he wasn't afraid of what he thought was coming, but, if he was right, it was going to be bad. Very, very bad.

  Therion stopped pacing and looked up, as if checking the sky even though the roof obstructed his view. 'You need to go to your mother.'

  I sat up straight. 'What? Now?'

  'Yes, now.'

  'Ah, I came in Mum's car, I have no way to go anywhere. I could call her, ask for her to send an officer.'

  Therion shook his head vigorously. 'No officers, they won't understand what's going on.'

  He drew a mobile from his back pocket and started typing a text. I was mystified, but one thing was clear, he needed to go somewhere and he wanted to go ten seconds ago. I pulled my own phone out to make a call. 'Hi Mum. Sorry to put a dent in your day, but it turns out my friend can't stay. How quickly can you get back?'

  My mum was quiet for just a heartbeat and then, 'Forty minutes, possibly a little less. I'll bring one of the taskforce officers with me, they still need a formal statement about you hearing Quan talk about Archmore's body.'

  'Forty? There's no way you can get here that fast without— oh, right, you can probably justify it as official business if you get done speeding.'

  I could hear her packing up and imagined her signalling to one of the taskforce members that she needed them, but I still felt the need to add, 'Please hurry, something urgent came up for my friend.'

  She hung up. I wasn't offended.

  'Therion?'

  He was still texting.

  'Therion!'

  Finally, he looked up.

  'Mum's on her way. I'll be fine until she gets here. Wherever you have to go, go.' I could see he was about to object. 'I promise she'll only be forty minutes.'

  'Then I will wait forty minutes.'

  No arguing with that tone.

  'Wait here,' he said, then strode out, going up the hall.

  After a minute, I heard the front door open and saw him walk by the window. His wings were back, the t-shirt gone, and he was murmuring softly and making gestures in the air. Like a priest blessing something.

  I watched him disappear around the corner and then looked up through a gap in the trees where you could see the main road. It was too early for Mum, but it gave me something to do. My mind brought back the image of Therion tapping with his thumbs on his smartphone with all the naturalness of a teen who'd grown up on texting and YouTube. I found myself amused despite the seriousness of my situation.

  I watched the front drive, not really thinking, just waiting. Therion walked by two more times, still gesturing and murmuring. Eventually, I saw a flash of blue up on the main road and Mum's car turned down the driveway a minute later.

  Therion entered the room. 'I've placed wards about the house. They are not impenetrable but will deter any potential human assailants and daytime attacks from the other realms. I've sent a message to a friend, Bastien d'Estrees. As my kind can mimic others, you are to ask him the name of the creature who took my oath to Aurealis. He should respond, Elaren-her-ah. No one but he and Aurealis know this. If I'm not back by this evening, he will protect you. You may want to make sure whoever your mother is bringing with her has left by then.'

  He was gone before I could question him further. I had a feeling that was partly why he left so hurriedly. I could surmise several things though. The first, and most obvious, was that my life had become important to these two factions, or in the case of one; my death. Why? I was really hoping Therion would come through for me on that because I had no connections in his world. The other was that Therion had once done very bad things. Things that would make Archmore seem saintly. With those teeth and his efficiency at killing, I really didn't want to visualise it. The fact that was in my favour was that at some point he had changed sides. In a weird backwards way, it was to my fortune he had once been on the wrong side. Despite his best intentions, Silven was clearly at a disadvantage when it came to fighting off the therilgalen. He'd been a good fighter, but not as sure or as confident as Therion. Never-the-less, I was still deeply grateful to the guardian for putting my life before his.

  Mum and Ivan, a taskforce member, walked into the lounge room. Ivan had the blond hair a
nd blue eyes of his Ukrainian heritage and a cherubic, round face, although he wasn't overweight. He said the only reason his grandmother had survived World War Two was because of her hair and eye colour; millions of Slavic people had been slaughtered along with Jewish people as a part of the German and Russian agendas.

  Ivan said, 'I hear your babysitter had an emergency.'

  It took me a moment to figure out that Mum had probably said that to explain the need to return unexpectedly. 'Uh, yeah— family problems. Sorry to drag you away from work.'

  Ivan hefted an overstuffed work bag; the seams were under considerable strain with the weight of his laptop and the equivalent of a ream or more of papers. 'Not so much dragged away as relocated. Em said you felt up to giving a statement about Archmore being near the creek.'

  I nodded. 'Yes, I just wanted to give myself some time to make sure I remembered everything. I took a fair few knocks to the head and the doctor said I'd regain most memories, but to give it time.' I gestured towards the dining area. 'Let's work at the table, you can spread out a bit.'

  Ivan walked through the open French doors to the dining area and started unloading.

  Mum leaned in close. 'Is everything okay?'

  'Therion had to check something out. He wouldn't confirm it, but I think I'm being specifically targeted.'

  Mum frowned. 'By whom?'

  Shrugging, I shook my head. 'We'll know more when he gets back tonight. He suggested we get Ivan off home by then.'

  Grimacing, Mum patted my back. 'It's a good thing we have Therion on our side, then, eh?'

  I returned her grim expression. 'I only hope he's wrong, because I don't want to even start thinking about the implications if Therion's theory turns out to be right.'

  Therion

  [Undead Lullaby (Dark Souls song) – JT Music nightcore remix by Zero.Miz-Kun]

  Unlike Dellen-littah, the realm of the light-dancers, my home, Unia-littah, is without sunlight. The angels claim there is no beauty in the Dark Realm; they are wrong. Beneath a mountain range, Ceri-talen's servants carved him a city of sweeping curves, elegant lines, and impressive archways from rock that sparkles with natural minerals. The beauty is sharper, darker, and colder, yet it is still beautiful. Whether covered in intricate engravings or mosaics, polished smooth or painted in the tradition of the clans that inhabit the area, almost every surface is a work of art. Gardens fill every hollow, cavern, and alcove. The darkness never hampers our movements because, even without our night vision, glowing mosses and plants with crystal-like leaves or trunks light up many areas.

  I miss Unia-littah and the dark serenity that can be found here.

  It was risky leaving Jayden, but when I had asked Aurealis for guidance, I received no vision, no instinct, no sanction against my intended actions. I had checked more than once, first, when it occurred to me, then as I waited for Jayden's mother, and finally, at Bastien's where I exchanged my twin blades for a long sword and left a note to expand on the text I had sent. Because of his age, I knew that Bastien did not sleep through the entirety of the day, but it was deep enough into the day for the vampire to be resting.

  There was a chance Aurealis was preoccupied by other events, or she was abiding by her maxim of not interfering in order to allow me to evolve through my journey. Either way, she would not be able to aid me now that I was here. Speaking of being here, I was relying on my therilgalen nature to not trigger the wards shrouding the Dark Realm. It was possible Ceri-talen would know anyway, but I had learned from Aurealis that although the telari like to maintain the illusion they know all that occurs in their realm, they are often distracted by their own ambitions.

  Of the possibilities for the therilgalen attack yesterday, the unspoken one was, for me, the worst. Yes, we all knew, expected really, that Ceri-talen would make another attempt at Jayden. Aurealis thought it was because he was robbed of Maya and Jayden was vulnerable; an easy and acceptable alternative. But I had served Ceri-talen long enough to know a hunt as opposed to a gathering. That implied specific targeting, something Ceri-talen was not allowed to do. His brethren accepted that he preferred yulari over other spirits, but they would not accept what he often did, when he could get away with it, and that was identify specific spirits and send hunters.

  The attack on Jayden did not seem like a general target-vulnerable-yulari hunt. Rather, it seemed like a get-Jayden-Emerline-Thaneton hunt. Ceri-talen did not normally throw away therilgalen lives. Ulyn has not yet discovered how to successfully breed therilgalen naturally again. I was not created the same way other beings of this realm were, I was stolen and transformed, so I had no immediate female counterpart at first. I was kept secret until Ceri-talen was certain he had created the hunter and warrior he wanted. Once he felt I was complete, he used the spirit energy he harvested from my core to create a legion of male and female therilgalen. Then…

  We went to war.

  When Ceri-talen was finally subdued, a treaty was brokered. It was just after this that Ceri-talen discovered his therilgalen were no longer reproducing. Ceri-talen believes this was caused by one of his rivals. After the war, our numbers were greatly diminished, it is not out of the realm of possibility that, fearing Ceri-talen would build another army, one of the venturi or telari found a way to render one or both sexes infertile. Ulyn could only do so much in the laboratory and was reliant on Ceri-talen's store of my spirit-energy to bring each one of us into existence. Therefore, the therilgalen were not disposable. For this reason, whether we were gathering or hunting, if we found ourselves outnumbered by too great a margin or facing a being that could take us out too easily, we retreated. Yet those I had faced yesterday had remained even after the first death.

  I had finally remembered one of the fallen from yesterday's attack, Leader. His name had been Ranathar. He had trained under Qu-te-se, which was where I was heading now. It was a risk, going to Qu-te-se for help, but my intuition told me that our friendship was strong enough that if he could, he would help.

  Getting to Qu-te-se's quarters was not an adverse challenge since it is not uncommon for therilgalen to cloak themselves in shadow. I also knew that Qu-te-se had built a tunnel from his room through to a sheer rock face bordering the therilgalen barracks. Before I defected, we often went there after finishing a gathering, and one time we worked out that it would be fairly straight-forward to create a tunnel straight through to Qu-te-se's quarters. Not only did it give him quick access to a place ideal for flying, it was a place where he could not easily be found or disturbed when Ulyn was on the warpath.

  Once in the tunnel, I discovered that Qu-te-se was not in. That was a surprise, we are nocturnal creatures, which is why I wanted to leave Jayden's immediately, while it was still early in the day and when most of the Dark Realm would be settled. I stopped just within the hidden entrance to his quarters and, kneeling, I entered a meditative state, which allowed me to extend my awareness of the activity in the area. Eventually, the tunnel door grated open.

  'If I did not realise you know me so well, I would say that you are taking quite a gamble coming here,' Qu-te-se's sonorous drawl echoed softly through the cavern. 'But, at one time, we were as close as brothers and you know I will listen before bringing attention to your presence. That said, you better be persuasive, brother, for your betrayal still burns my heart and that keeps my patience short.'

  'I did not betray you, brother.'

  'No,' he agreed softly. 'You abandoned me. I consider that equally as bad.'

  To a degree, he was right. I had treated Qu-te-se like a younger sibling, trained him, protected him from Ulyn, been his mentor and, at times, his parent.

  I raised my brows. 'I could take you with me this time.'

  He laughed, long and low. 'I do not have the temperament for all that redemption,' he exclaimed haughtily, his fangs flashing white in the darkness. 'Were I to leave, it would be to pursue a life free of masters.'

  I rose, groaning softly as I straightened my legs. 'The only path to that kind of fr
eedom is to pit one master against the other. True, I must suffer this redemption, but Aurealis will keep her word. Once she feels I can control my more vicious tendencies, she will release me.'

  He was silent for a long time, then he said, 'It will take you centuries to do it, but I can see why you have hope. You cannot trust Aurealis though, all the while she will drag it out and have you do her dirty work. Her precious guardians recoil at the need to take life and yet she has no problems if you do it.'

  I sighed. Qu-te-se and I had engaged in a much briefer version of the same argument the first time we clashed after I defected. 'At least I chose my burden this time. If I have made a mistake, it is mine to make.'

  My comment received a grunt of acknowledgement and then he stepped away. I thought it was his way of ending the conversation, but then he returned, lifting himself into the tunnel. 'If I must listen, I shall do so at the other end, with the wind to caress my face and the promise of flight afterwards to collect my thoughts.'

  I could either back all the way out to the cliff ledge at the other end of the tunnel or turn my back to him. The tunnel was cramped, but large enough to accommodate us standing. It was not large enough for a fight, but neither would it inhibit Qu-te-se if he chose to ram a knife into my back.

  I needed him to feel I trusted him.

  I turned my back and led the way to the tunnel exit— so far, my intuition had not failed me.

  When we emerged from the tunnel, I turned right and walked along the ledge bordering the cliff face for several metres to put a little distance between us and the waterfall a few meters to the left of the tunnel's exit so we could talk without raising our voices.

  'I need some information.'

  A long silence followed my request. I waited it out.

  'I owe you a life.' Qu-te-se laughed self-depreciatingly. 'Several actually. And there is still friendship too, Therion, whether you realise it or not.'