by Liam Lawson
Nymal’s eyes widened as realization dawned. “You’re worried about draining too much and putting everyone there at risk.”
“But we reverted to ourselves almost immediately,” Abigail said.
“We don’t know whether or not we’re an anomaly or if destroying that thing will end the effect it’s having on the people in this area,” Nymal said, indicating the red sky overhead. If they killed it and that didn’t end the effect, everyone hiding inside the stadium would need those wards in place.
“So, no more drawing on the stadium then. What’s the new plan?” Abigail said, looking up to Trorm.
He looked to the spell titan. Talons were blossoming from the stump of its arms like macabre flowers. It stared in fascination, turning its limb about and watching. The geyser of chaos magic continued to spray up from where Lilian and Trisha hovered in the air over Oana’s profaned symbol, forgotten by the spell titan.
“That thing’s not stupid,” Trorm said. “But it’s like a child. Easily distracted. Emotional. Nymal, can you conjure illusions to keep it busy?”
Nymal nodded. “No problem. That’s a lot easier for me than trying to direct a bunch of energies.”
“Good,” Trorm said. “Abigail, I’ve got maybe one or two good spells left in me. That may be insufficient to defend us if that thing notices us.”
“What are we going to be doing?” she asked.
“I need you to help me do something about that.” He pointed with his staff to the chaos geyser and her family members.
Abigail gasped. Apparently, she hadn’t noticed them until that moment. “Mom? Lilian?”
“I need you to help me figure out what Trixiel did to the dedication to Oana and then undo it,” he said. “The priority is getting your family out. Then we run.”
Abigail nodded. So did Nymal.
The spell titan’s hand finished re-growing. It turned its hollow gaze upon them, its maw twisting into a fanged scowl to do any jack-o-lantern proud. “HATE YOU!” It bellowed at Trorm. Those eyes slid past him to Nymal. “You. You were supposed to help her.” The scowl twisted into a horrible grin. “Thank you for not.”
Trorm placed a hand on Nymal’s shoulder. She was shaking.
“Trorm,” she said. “I know getting them out is the priority, but if you get the chance to kill that bastard….”
“You have my word,” Trorm said. “Good?”
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
Nymal waved her wand and in a flash of green light copies of Trorm appeared and broke off in every direction. Another wave and Nymal vanished from sight.
“Run!” Trorm called out and he and Abigail broke off, sprinting for all that they were worth toward the chaos geyser.
The parking lot was unrecognizable. The pavement had been unmade so that the ground was covered in a layer of dried sediment. Almost all of the vehicles and streetlamps had been struck by the chaos magic and transformed in some way. Some had been made into plants. Some into animals. Some had been twisted into new, unrecognizable shapes.
One truck had sprouted three draconian heads from the hood, all of which fixated on them as they ran past. The draco-truck’s engine roared to life even as the heads let out their own bellows and it raced after them.
“Shit!” Abigail swore, tripping. Trorm had never been so grateful for Coach’s love of suicides at practice as he came to a sudden halt and pushed backward to throw himself between Abigail and the truck. He raised his staff, the end crackling with electricity and let it fly at the draco-truck’s center head.
The truck’s middle head recoiled, the other two twisting to look up at it. Trorm sensed something then. The vehicle must have held some kind of minor enchantment before this and the chaos magic had twisted it. The most common enchantment was a form of binding that forged a connection between the driver and the vehicle and was primarily used to prevent theft. That gave Trorm and idea.
Abigail rose to her feet behind him.
“Come on,” he shouted and ran forward.
Abigail followed. “Why are we running toward the three headed monster truck of death?” She screamed at him.
Trorm ducked under the distracted heads and threw open the cab. “Get in!”
She obeyed and he leapt in after her, sliding his staff over and getting behind the wheel. He slammed his foot on the gas and the three heads roared in time with the engine as the truck leapt forward. The twisted binding snapped into place, reasserting itself and linking Trorm to the vehicle, which roared again as it obeyed him.
“Faster than running,” Trorm said.
Abigail laughed.
Chaos magic splashed down ahead of them. Trorm swerved to avoid the effects and Abigail turned to stare as the area they’d just avoided erupted in a torrent of snow in an avalanche that came out of nowhere.
They slammed to a halt beside the profaned circle. Abigail leapt out of the cab.
The spell titan turned to glare at them and Trorm realized that there weren’t any more illusions of himself running about. Here was hoping Nymal made it out. The spell titan came at them.
Trorm gripped the steering wheel. “Get it!”
All three dragon heads rose up and let fly great jets of fire. The three streams took the spell titan in the chest and it staggered back as if the fire had mass. Maybe to a living spell energy was more real than matter.
“Good draco-truck,” Trorm said with clear admiration. “I’m definitely keeping you.”
The engine purred.
Trorm grinned and hopped out of the cab. Abigail had her tablet out and was looking through diagrams of glowing blue runes.
“This symbol on the ground was intended to be a dedication to Oana,” she said, flipping through more runes. “This thing atop it, it’s the all-seeing-star of Xosione. It’s transformed this from a dedication to an offering. Specially a sacrifice.”
“What was sacrificed?” Trorm asked.
“Secrets,” Abigail said. “Lots of people here were coming out for the first time. That’s a lot of power to a goddess of secrets and forbidden magic. Also, everyone has secrets. This thing ripped them from their minds and fed on them.”
“To what end?” Trorm asked, looking to Trixiel.
“I’m not sure,” Abigail said. “But…it looks like this thing wasn’t actually intended as an offering to Xosione. More like…I don’t know the words. Usurpation maybe? I think Mom was trying to use it to break faith without losing her powers.”
Trorm scowled. “Is that possible for a cleric?”
“I have no fucking idea,” Abigail snapped.
The streams of fire from the draco-truck vanished. The spell titan bellowed. A pillar of black smoke rose up from its misty torso. It came at them.
Abigail produced a can of spray paint. She darted around the symbol, wincing every time she drew too close to the magic pouring out the center like one might were they to get too close to a bonfire. The steam of paint was pink and glittery. The geyser tightened, pulling in on itself, becoming a beam of pure light a foot in diameter. It rose up into the sky, vanishing into the crimson clouds overhead.
Lilian and Trixiel fell to the ground.
Trorm leveled his staff at the oncoming spell titan and threw all that he had left into a lightning bolt. The spell hit it right in the face and it staggered back, hands going up to the injury. One of the draco-truck’s heads unleashed a new jet of fire that took it in the knee.
“Mom!” Abigail rushed to Trixiel’s side.
Trorm staggered, going light-headed. He stepped back toward Lilian, who was groaning and coming around.
“W-what…?” she looked up at him groggily.
“Time to go,” Trorm said. “Right now.”
“That fucking thief,” Trixiel suddenly called out, pulling herself upright and stepping toward the spell titan like she meant to go give it a stern talking to. Apparently, Trisha had been possessed of that particular skill even before motherhood.
&n
bsp; “We need to go!” Trorm shouted, louder this time.
Trixiel spun on him, then her eyes alit on the beam of concentrated chaos magic. She leapt for it.
Lilian flew up, leaping from the crouch she’d pulled herself into and tackled Trixiel to the ground where they began to tear into each other, biting, kicking, clawing. Blood flew. Abigail threw herself at them, trying to pull them apart.
The spell titan pounced.
Trorm had nothing left to cast with. The draco-truck let fly two fresh streams of fire but this time the spell titan ran right through them, its eyes glowing with hatred and power. “I’LL KILL YOU!”
Trorm threw himself into the chaos magic. He had no idea what Trixiel had intended to use it for or how it might affect him, but the fact that she clearly intended it for something meant that there was a way to use it. He opened himself, working his magic the same way he had to accept the power from stadium’s wards and hit the pillar.
It was like getting hit by a freight train. Trorm was lifted bodily into the air. Power flooded him. A lot of power. Too much power. His eyes rolled up into his skull as he exploded with pain.
He saw the face of the spell titan, its maw gaping as it lunged for him. With everything he had, he reached out for it and threw raw power straight into its face. Magic streamed from him, hit the spell titan, and then there was nothing but pain.
Chapter Nineteen
Birth was painful and the material world didn’t make sense. It knew that it was alive. It knew that it could manipulate the placement of things in the universe with regards to space. That’s all time was really. The movement of objects over space. Only some objects were different from others.
Like the weeping elf woman before it. She hurt. Hurt so badly. That pain flooded its senses, making it hurt in way unrelated to its new semi-corporeal body. She wanted to save her mother. The living spell didn’t give a damn about that. It cared about the orc that had hurt the elf girl’s brother. Had transformed him into some kind of pervert and was clearly abusing him. Everyone knew what orcs would do to an elf one could corner. Her brother had always been delicate.
That hurt and hatred overrode everything. It was enough to for the living spell to pull free of the magical constraints that had been constructed to bind and direct it. Once those were shattered, it lost control. The elf girl—Soliana, she had a name—Soliana went backwards, moving through her timeline until she was almost where she had started from.
She’d wanted her mother set back. This was close enough. It needed to kill the orc. It sensed the anger of others directed upon him—Trorm. His name was Trorm Coldstrorm. A lot of people were mad at him.
The living spell followed that anger and—Trorm watched from the living spell’s perspective as it assaulted him and his teammates. Listened to its childish, alien thoughts and rage as it was wounded and repelled. It fled and hid and recovered and waited until it sensed anger directed against him again and watched as it attacked the Madden’s house.
Watched as it learned fear.
The pain he’d inflicted upon it earlier hadn’t been anywhere near enough to put its new life at risk. When it transformed Trisha into Trixiel and began to be devoured, that had been. It was afraid.
It fled. Hid. Its rage festered inside of it and like called to like. The living spell was drawn to the fury and came upon a gathering. People in dark robes. One of the figures, face obscured by a white oval mask with an impassive expression turned to meet the living spell. It raised a hand. Power struck it and the living spell screamed.
Things became foggy. Trorm felt as if his skull was splitting in two.
Trixiel was there, laughing as she taunted the figure in robes. Her purple lightning pulled the living spell to her and she devoured it.
The living spell cried out in terror. It did not want to die. It called out for the help of any who would listen.
Someone answered.
Xosione came to it through Trixiel, her servant who intended to betray her again. To leave her again. She told it how to hide inside of Trixiel and when to strike. Xosione did not simply release useful tools from her service. She subverted Trixiel’s ability to eat spells and the living spell waited within her until Trixiel’s plans became manifest.
She would use the dedication to Oana to gather power, hijacking it and the secrets of all those at the rally for her mistress and at once offer them as sacrifice and sever her connection. She would keep her power and be free of Xosione’s will.
The red-haired daughter, the servant of Thodos, had almost ruined everything. She was not flesh of Trixiel the traitor, but blood of a father who served Xosione faithfully still. For that connection the daughter was spared when she interfered. The living spell fed. Grew. And then the orc, the hated Trorm, was there and…
Trorm felt every blast and attack the spell titan had suffered as if he were it. By the time the scene had played out he had never been in so much pain.
He found himself pitying the hateful creature. It was a child who had only the most rudimentary grasp of how the world of flesh and blood, of time and space, functioned. It had no real concept of emotion except for what instinctually came about for its survival and what it had learned from Soliana.
It had known nothing but hate, fear, and pain. He put it out of its misery.
He couldn’t have said how he did. Trorm only knew that one moment he and the living spell were connected, almost one and the same, and then he was alone in pain and darkness.
And then he wasn’t.
A hand caressed him and where the hand passed over him the agony was replaced with pleasure. Exquisite pleasure. Trorm seized up with ecstasy his mind couldn’t fully process, it was like orgasm but different. It washed over him. Through him. Intimate and freeing and he was looking up into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He couldn’t have described her. Her features kept subtly shifting so that even her species was unidentifiable. She could have been orc, elf, dwarf, therianthrope, gnome, or human. She could have belonged to any ethnicity within those races.
“Hello, Trorm,” she said. Her voice made him painfully erect. “I don’t usually manifest to mortals who are not my followers.” She smiled and caressed his face. “But I’m making an exception for you. Mmm. I could just eat you up.” She ran her hands over his muscles. Was he naked? He felt naked. Trorm realized he had no real sense of himself beyond whatever this woman made him aware of.
His foggy mind slowly processed everything she had said and put it together with what he now knew. “Oana,” he gasped.
The most beautiful woman in existence smiled at him. “Goddess of ecstasy. Not the only domain in my portfolio of course, but it’s what everyone remembers me for so it might as well be.”
He was with a goddess. A literal divine intervention. “Am I dead?”
She laughed. He nearly came. She was bliss itself.
“No. But I’d like to offer to make you one of my priests,” she said. “Most of my clerics…I need someone capable of both violence and intelligence.”
“You’re not an orc goddess,” he said.
“No, I’m not a part of the Glorious Horde’s pantheon,” she said. “But is that really your objection? You’d deny me for not being a goddess exclusive to your race and nation?”
Trorm grunted. “Not for that.”
She sighed. “You lack faith in the divine.”
Trorm nodded. “I’d make a terrible cleric.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Oana said. “I think you’d do fairly well once you learned to trust in me.” She smiled. “There will be a place for you in my clergy when you realize how good you’ll have it with me. My temples are open to you, my followers your allies.” She leaned down and kissed the side of his neck. Pleasure unlike anything Trorm had ever felt exploded his mind into tiny fragmented pieces.
Slowly it, and he, reformed. “Wow.”
Oana giggled. “You have m
y blessing, Trorm Coldstorm. And power. You saved my followers and this dedication in my name. I filtered the chaos magic so that you didn’t simply explode and now…” she grinned. “Now you’ll see. I kept most of it for myself. It was meant for me after all, and it wasn’t like you could have handled much more than I’ve given you. Not without a stronger connection to me.” She grinned. “I’ll be giving your prayers to me special priority, sweet Trorm.” She winked and was suddenly holding Trorm’s sunglasses. She slid them onto his face, sending a shiver through his body.
Trorm fell.
He hit the pavement hard. His football pads only did so much to cushion the impact.
With a groan he rolled over, opened his eyes, and winced. The sky overhead was bright with sunlight. It was also blue.
Hands helped him to sit up and he realized that they belonged to Nymal. Abigail and Lilian were helping Trixiel—no, Trisha, upright. Only she wasn’t Trisha as Trorm knew her. She wasn’t Trixiel either. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, but she hadn’t been restored to her original age. Instead she looked to be somewhere in her mid-to-late twenties. The scar on her belly was faded and the symbol of Xosione was overlaying it.
All around them, the parking lot had been restored, the effects of the chaos magic undone. The pavement was pavement again. The light posts and cars were back. Trorm felt himself mildly disappointed until a rumbling sound drew his attention and he found the draco-truck looming over them, all three heads cocked inquisitively, as if waiting to see if he’d be okay. When he grunted at it, the engine let out a rumble and the mouths opened. The monstrous construct resembled nothing in that moment so much as a warg ecstatic to see its master returned.
“Definitely keeping you,” he told it, which earned an eye-roll from Nymal.
“Looks like we needn’t have worried about drawing from the stadium she said,” gesturing around them all. “Destroying that thing undid almost all of the temporal effects I can see.” She gave the draco-truck a pointed look.
Trorm jerked his chin at Trisha. Or Trixiel. Honestly, he had no idea who she was at the moment. “Not her. Is she alright?”
