Desire (Legends of the Kilanor Book 3)

by Jared Stone

  “So, you mean beings just create their own Hell?” Lucian clarified.

  “Many things may occur following what we perceive as death, Mr. Aarden,” Schuntz said. “Collections of spiritual energy commonly referred to as ‘souls’ may reincarnate, pass into other realms, or even dissipate entirely to rejoin the universal flow of energy whence we all come. So, yes. If certain individuals are so tethered to endless cycles of existence by negative sentiments such as envy, wrath, lust, or greed, these beings may generate the conditions of their own existence in realms beyond this one.”

  Lucian silently pondered over this information for a moment. “So…, we’re gonna enter one of those?” he then asked, with great reservation apparent in his voice.

  The professor nodded. “Yes, Mr. Aarden. We must travel through at least one of those realms if we are to obtain the key before our adversaries do.”

  “Well, what’s it gonna be like?” Blake asked. “Like, what’s in the Hell Realms?”

  “I would not know, Mr. Valenti,” Schuntz admitted, “having never been there myself, to my knowledge. I would, however, expect it to be quite… different.”

  Everyone in the car remained silent after this, as each person contemplated what oddities – or horrors – might be awaiting them on the other side of the portal. Eventually, Blake spoke up again.

  “So, the town with the secret portal to Hell is named Hellam?” he asked. “That’s not a great disguise….”

  Schuntz shrugged. “Perhaps it was intended to serve as more of a warning than a disguise, Mr. Valenti,” he posited grimly.

  After about two hours of driving, the car rolled into the quaint, quiet town of Hellam as the sun continued its earthward descent in the sky. Looking around, Lucian thought that the single road cutting through the middle of sparsely-clustered houses whose siding had cracked and flaked away through many decades of harsh winters was the epitome of an old north-eastern township. The deciduous trees, which vastly outnumbered any human-made structures, had long since been stripped bare by the coming of winter, and the brown and orange sublayer of decaying leaves was still evident under the scattered patches of melted snow. As their vehicle came to a stop by the side of the road, the sloshing sound of tires cutting through packs of piled slush filled their ears. Once stopped, all three of them climbed out and walked over to stand on the shoveled sidewalk.

  “Alright. So…, now we’re here…,” Lucian stated, looking around him and zipping up his coat. “What do we do next to find this entrance to the Hell Realms?”

  Schuntz shook his head. “I am not certain,” he admitted, clearly bothered by his own ignorance on the matter. “My research unfortunately only led so far. To a road called Toad Road, to be precise, which should take us directly to the portal. Outside of that vague information, I have no more insight than either one of you.”

  Lucian frowned. As he relied on the professor for knowledge and guidance, this was not at all what he had wanted to hear. He glanced left and right but saw no signs to indicate the existence of any road outside of the one on which they currently stood.

  “Well, why don’t we just go ask someone?” Blake suggested. “I mean, the people who live here have gotta know about these gates, right?”

  Schuntz shook his head. “You cannot simply ask a resident of this town if he or she knows the way into Hell, Mr. Valenti,” he scolded. “At best, they would simply be confused or terrified. At worst…, well, there is no telling what the ramifications might be.”

  Lucian could see the professor’s point, but he also felt that they were getting nowhere relying solely on their own devices. “Can’t we at least ask if someone knows where this road is?” he suggested. “We can just pretend we’re innocent tourists or something.”

  Schuntz wore a reluctant frown on his face. “If you insist, Mr. Aarden,” he finally consented, following a long pause. “But I caution you to not be overly conspicuous in your inquiries. Our adversaries have many resources scattered far, and it would not take very long for word of such a thing to get back to them.”

  Lucian nodded in comprehension and looked around. There were no people out on the street that he could see and no apparent storefronts anywhere nearby. He continued to scan his surroundings until he caught sight of a little old lady coming out of one of the houses and walking down the road. She wore a scarf around her puffy hair and had big round glasses covering up most of the rest of her face. As she seemed innocent enough, Lucian began walking over to her without the slightest hint of fear.

  “Excuse me!” he called out as he approached her. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. I was hoping you could help me with something!”

  The old woman stopped walking and looked up at the boy. She smiled a soft, almost tired smile that seemed genuinely caring. “What may I help you with, young man?” she asked, shaking slightly as she spoke.

  By this point, Lucian was standing next to her on the sidewalk, and he bent down slightly so that he would not seem to be towering over the frail older woman. “I was hoping that you could help me with some directions,” Lucian explained. “My friends and I are trying to get to Toad Road. Do you know where that is?”

  The kind old lady’s face immediately dropped into a scowl. “What do you want of such things?” she asked coarsely. “Who sent you?”

  Lucian was significantly taken aback by the abrupt change in the woman’s demeanor. “I-I didn’t mean to upset you,” he stuttered apologetically, standing up straight again. “We’re just here to see the sites and someone recommended we go there!”

  “Ackk!” the woman exclaimed, waving her hands through the air as if she was casting Lucian away like an evil spirit. “Be gone! Enough of your lies! No good can come of this! Be gone!”

  With this, the old woman pushed Lucian aside and continued hobbling down the road as quickly as she could, away from the boy. Lucian just stood there, flabbergasted and not knowing how to proceed.

  “Well, that didn’t work very well…,” Blake said, coming up to Lucian’s side.

  “I just…, I mean…,” Lucian mumbled.

  “It appears that we must still rely on our wits alone to locate this portal, Mr. Aarden,” Schuntz stated as he joined the two boys. “Let us hope that we did not come all this way in vain.”

  Lucian sighed and stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. He waited anxiously for the professor to say something else, but he did not. The three of them simply stood there on the sidewalk in silence, each individually contemplating and not coming up with anything good enough to suggest out loud. Lucian feverishly racked his brain for any brilliant ideas that might aid them, but he found nothing.

  “Why don’t we just look it up on your phone?” Blake suddenly suggested.

  “Oh, yeah!” Lucian said, feeling embarrassed he hadn’t thought of that himself. He reached into his jeans’ pocket and pulled out his phone. Opening the app, he started typing in the desired location.

  “T-o-a-d-R-o-a-d” Lucian stated out loud as he typed it out. “Toad Road.”

  Hitting enter, he saw the thinking wheel begin to spin. As they waited, they stared at the screen in nervous anticipation. Finally, the app pulled up a location.

  “Is that it?!” Blake asked excitedly.

  Lucian zoomed in. “No….,” he responded sullenly. “That’s apparently Toad Restaurant in upstate New York.”

  There was another moment of silence. “How is that even close to what we wanted?” Blake finally asked spitefully.

  “It seems clear that this fabled road which leads to a portal to Hell is not readily listed on any publicly available map,” Schuntz declared. “Which should truthfully be shocking to no one. Perhaps there is instead some symbol or indication of the way if we search around the town.”

  Lucian nodded. It seemed to him like a good idea – mostly because it was their only idea. With this, Lucian, Blake, and Schuntz began to walk away in different directions, each searching for some clue to the location of the road. Lu
cian headed north on the street, surveying the front of each house, the bark of every tree, and the pattern of all the cement on the sidewalk. Still, he found nothing.

  “Caw!”

  From off to Lucian’s left, the call of a raven sitting atop the bare branches of a tree rang out through the empty town. All three of the visitors turned to look at it from their respective points along the street.

  “Caw! Caw!” the raven continued.

  “Geez, that sucker’s loud,” Blake called over to Lucian in irritation. “It needs to shut up and let me think!”

  Lucian squinted his eyes. As the big black bird came into focus against the cloudy gray sky, Lucian could see the bright blue eye on the side of its head staring straight at him.

  “Caw! Caw!”

  “Hey, guys,” Lucian called out to his companions, realizing only after he said it how unnatural it was for him to be calling Professor Schuntz ‘guy.’ “I think that bird might be trying to tell us something.”

  “Caw! Caw!” the raven cried once again. Opening its wings, it dropped from the branch and glided down to the ground, landing gracefully upon the piles of snow and decaying leaves beneath. Still staring directly at Lucian, it hopped around, seemingly in anxious ethusiasm. “Caw!”

  Both Blake and Schuntz came back to Lucian’s side. “Huh?” Blake asked. “Did you just say it’s trying to tell us something!? Dude, I think you’re starting to lose it here.”

  Lucian could see the skepticism displayed blatantly on his roommate’s face. “I’m serious,” he insisted. “I saw a bird just like this in one of my dreams. He led me somewhere that I needed to go. Dareia told me that sometimes dreams can predict the future or tell us things we should know. I think this might be one of those times!”

  “It is not entirely out of the realm of possibility,” Schuntz stated thoughtfully. “Dreams may indeed serve as valuable portents of things to come. Yet, it is impossible to fully predict what masked message they carry. I advise caution in blindly following your visions, Mr. Aarden.”

  Lucian sighed. “I feel like we can trust him,” he asserted. He began walking in the direction of where the raven stood. “I think he’s trying to show us the way.”

  “Dude, you know how crazy that sounds, right??” Blake called out after his roommate. But Lucian wasn’t listening. He was suddenly determined to finally figure out what secrets his dreams might hold.

  “I strongly suspect that things will become much more peculiar before this is all over, Mr. Valenti,” Schuntz warned by Blake’s side. Before the boy could say any more, the professor started following behind Lucian. Eventually, Blake just begrudgingly shook his head and did the same.

  As Lucian came closer to the raven, it let out another Caw! and began hopping across the ground and into the forest. Lucian followed along after it, wading through ever-deepening snow while ducking down and dodging branches which jutted out in front of him here and there. Although he had quickly lost sight of the black bird, he would occasionally hear a beckoning Caw! indicating that he was still headed in the right direction. Taking big lumbering steps through almost knee-high snow drifts, he continued on this way for a minute or two. Eventually, the boy stepped out into an open area between the trees. It appeared to be an old dirt road, littered with fallen leaves that almost glowed in an otherworldly light as the sun shone down on them through the leafless trees. Although the snow had been significant within the surrounding forest, this clearing seemed to have received none of it; the road stood out clearly against its otherwise white surroundings. Looking out ahead of him, the road stretched as far as he could see into the distance, covered by an eerie fog that seemed entirely out of place in their cold, dry environment. The raven which he had followed was now nowhere to be seen.

  “Dude, where the Hell are we?” Lucian heard Blake inquire from behind him. Turning, he saw Blake and Schuntz similarly climbing out of the thick growth of the forest.

  “I…, I think this might be the road,” Lucian posited with cautious enthusiasm.

  “Well, it certainly appears to be a road, at the very least,” Schuntz stated. “And, as it is our only lead, I would suggest we determine where it goes.”

  Lucian eagerly nodded in agreement, pleased that his contributions had thus far been the most valuable. He started off down the road, with Blake and Schuntz following along closely behind him. They travelled an indeterminate distance, encased by trees on either side and engulfed in a fog that made their journey seem as if they had passed through another world entirely. After several minutes, Lucian thought he saw something standing before them.

  “What’s that?” he asked aloud.

  “I am not certain,” Schuntz said, similarly peering into the distance.

  As they continued to get closer to the object in question, Lucian thought he could make out two arching black pillars that rose up from the ground and met in the middle about seven feet high. This formed what appeared to be some sort of gateway between these pillars, though one could see directly through them to the continuation of the road on other side.

  “Is this that portal thing?” Blake asked, walking up to stand before it in examination.

  “It could be,” Schuntz agreed tentatively, running his hand along one of the sloping sides. “Though, if so, it does not appear –”

  “BE GONE!” screamed a raspy voice from behind them. Turning around in shock, Lucian beheld an old man charging out of the forest at them. His tattered brown coat billowed up behind him as he ran, and his white hair stuck out in every direction, as if he had been electrocuted more than once. In his hands he held a shotgun, barrel pointed directly at the three travelers, and in his eyes he held a crazed look that bordered on madness.

  “BE GONE!!” he shouted again.

  Lucian, Blake, and Schuntz all held their hands up in the air and took a step back. “Woah, woah, woah!” Blake cried out. “Take it easy, dude!”

  “My land!” the old man snarled at them, squinting his crazy, glassy eyes at the group and threateningly brandishing his firearm. “My land! Yer all on land! My land! Yer on my land! Yeah! See??”

  As the old man shouted, he frantically shook his head side to side, appearing more like a rabid dog than a human. Lucian tried to calm himself down and say something to clarify, but the uncomfortable sensation of being on the dangerous end of a gun was too overwhelming for him. He therefore remained silent and terrified.

  “We did not intend to intrude,” Schuntz explained a little more calmly, seeming more accustomed to such a predicament than either of the two students. “We are simply tourists who have lost our way. We were not aware that this was your land.”

  “Lies!” the deranged man screamed at them. “All th’ lies! Shud I shoot ‘em? My land! Come t’ steal! Lies!!”

  The man began to leap up and down, swinging the shotgun through the air wildly as he did so. Lucian’s heart skipped a beat every time the barrel swung past him, and he really hoped he wasn’t about to be shot in the face.

  Schuntz took a deep breath. “Sir, if we could….”

  “No no no no no!” the man exclaimed, whipping the weapon around to point squarely at Schuntz. “My land! See? We see! We all see! Ya see? See what? Ya need t’ pass! Lí’ítónó línkírón!”

  Schuntz seemed to have been caught off guard for a moment. “What did you say?” he inquired.

  “Lí’ítónó línkírón!” the man repeated. “Fán úz nú lí’ítónásh línkírón, fár az gímógónísh hartónop!”

  “Az gí’ínox lí’ítónop kílíns línkírón,” Schuntz then stated, slowly lowering his hands.

  At this, the crazed man stopped his manic flailing and tilted his head to the side, focusing his wide eyes directly at the professor. “Dórtón úz dó’óyínox Lí’ísedón?” he asked.

  “Azór mayínox Kílánór,” Schuntz responded softly. “Azór mayínox Kílánór, yá’án azór yámórox úzlo kamóban.” This seemed to partially assuage the man’s fears, for he lowered his w
eapon to his side. Lucian stared in bafflement.

  “Yer Lí’ísedón needs sum work,” the old man then stated matter-of-factly with a single nod of his head.

  A relieved grin actually crept across Schuntz’s face at this, and Lucian wasn’t sure what surprised him more: the crazy man’s sudden change in demeanor or the professor’s. “I seldom have the opportunity to practice anymore,” Schuntz admitted humbly.

  “Eh, I’d ‘magine not,” the man said, now throwing the barrel of the gun over his left shoulder. “Thin’s ‘ave changed a bunch since th’ days th’ gods walked th’ earth. Now, wha’ can I do fer ya?”

  “Woah…,” Blake exclaimed, lowering his hands to his side as well. “What is happening here?”

  The old man chuckled. “Sorry ‘bout th’ show jus’ then,” he said. “I ben gardin’ this gate fer decades. Th’ ‘crazy ol’ man’ bit gener’ly works good ‘nuff t’ ward off any ‘truders. If I’da known yer Kílánór from th’ start, I woulda saved us th’ trouble!”

  Lucian was confused at first, until he realized that this must have been what Schuntz told the man while conversing in another language. He figured, if it helped them get through the portal, he shouldn’t be the one to argue that they were not, actually, Kílánór at all. Not in an official sense, at least.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lucian said casually with a laugh, attempting to act the part of an experienced and worldly Kílán. “Happens to us all the time!”

  “Are you able to activate this portal, sir?” Schuntz cut in before the boy had any more opportunity to embarrass himself and blow their cover.

  The man furrowed his brow. “I am…,” he stated cautiously. “But I g’ta ask: wha’ bus’ness d’ ya have on th’ other side o’ this port’l?”

  “We gotta get to the key before the bad guys do,” Blake replied. “They’re gonna try and steal it and release their Lord. We’re trying to stop them.”

  The man turned to look at Blake. “Th’ key’s ben safe fer ages ‘cuz o’ this port’l n’ th’ ones lyin’ b’yond. Why ya fearin’ it’s in any danger now?”