by Will Bly
“Liar.”
“This is the only place in the world that it can be done. Only here are the rules of magic void.”
Void? Just how void?
Ithial continued, “You can feel it, right? There are no limits here. All the ley lines run through this place. This is the source. Anyone with magic is at the same level. So I wager you are wondering now why I emptied you of magic before you came. I wasn’t emptying your magic—I was replacing it. That stuff in you now, if it wasn’t dark before, it’s dark now. You are going to have a lot of urges to handle from here on out. Might want to choose to be a recluse instead of remaining a danger to society.”
“Don’t listen to him, Irulen,” Farah whispered. “Magic isn’t black or white, or evil or good. It just is. It’s the person who wields it that decides.”
Irulen looked at her, almost choking on his words. “But... how... can you know?” He felt some truth in what Ithial was saying. He wanted to tell Farah everything about what had happened when he went home. He wanted to elaborate on all the terrible thoughts that drip into his mind, drowning it ever-so-slowly with a pool of despair.
But it would wait. He needed to hold on for now, or his friends would likely meet their end. He heard what might be an echo of Ithial’s laughter, but little else. Soon they came to a beach of crystal orbs and stone.
“End of the road,” Quinn said as he dropped his oar for his axe. “Time to go to work.” The brute jumped off the boat and landed on both feet. Irulen thought he might slip and break his ass. For his part, Irulen took the safer route lifting one leg over at a time and so did Kay and Farah.
Max clung to Irulen’s shoulder hard. His talons dug in uncomfortably. Must be afraid of the bats. The pungent odor of bat guano hit him at that thought. Not all beauty in here, I suppose. His feet squished as he walked from the placid lake. The cave seemed imperiously vast, but he couldn’t be sure if it were an illusion of the eye or not. It seemed impossible to tell where the open space stopped and the crystal began.
But in front of them stood a giant clear-blue crystal. Small from where they originally stood but larger as they approached. Larger than them, even. Much larger.
What they found inside the crystal shocked them. Right in the middle, as if suspended on air, a naked woman. Curled in a fetal ball, she was perhaps the most beautiful thing Irulen had ever seen.
“Look at that blonde hair, those blue eyes,” Quinn said.
Irulen found this confusing. “Quinn, you know she’s got red hair, right?”
“Black hair, more like, with dark skin,” Kay interjected.
“Brown hair, green eyes, the skin doesn’t seem so dark,” Farah said.
Ithial’s laughter interrupted their debate. “She looks different to whoever looks at her. Beauty incarnate and ungraspable. Go ahead and think of another woman. Your bounty hunter friend.”
“Shut up!” Irulen yelled. But still, the woman’s hair and skin color changed. Her eyes went olive green. Unbelievable.
“Do you want to know what she is?” Ithial asked.
“Don’t you mean who?” Farah replied for him.
“Who, what, she’s beyond all that. She’s a god. The last god. She was covered in Godsblood as a baby. She’s grown. Maybe someday she’ll outgrow it all, shatter her confines. Maybe when that happens the magic of the world will go away and back into her. Who knows how she truly affects it all, but I think our magic comes from her and flows through the ley lines and the crystals. But we aren’t in the business of helping her out today. I want to keep the magic flowing, naturally. I call her Gaea, by the way. You can call her what you wish. But speaking of business, perhaps it’s time we talk?” Ithial stepped from the shadows.
Everyone drew their weapons.
Kay shot a bolt that deflected off something unseen.
“I’m glad you brought your friends, but they should really leave before it’s too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they are subject to magic poisoning. Regular people can’t withstand this place for long, especially not near this core. They’ll go imp-shit soon if they stay.”
“Horse shit,” Quinn replied.
“We aren’t leaving,” Farah agreed.
“We’ll just have to kill him quick,” Kay said.
Irulen looked them over for any sign of discomfort. He didn’t trust Ithial’s word, but he wanted them gone. “No, he’s right. We shouldn’t risk it. Let me handle this now.”
Farah opened her mouth to speak, but Irulen cut in again, “I know, fate and all that. You got me to where I needed to be. And you’ve given me what I needed to have.”
Her mouth closed into a smile. “But how will you come out?”
“You heard him—magic’s unlimited here. And if it isn’t, I’ll still find a way. I’ll come back.” Irulen nodded to Max.
“No way!” Kay yelled. “That bastard killed the only father I ever had. He almost killed me. I’m gonna—”
Irulen waved her to sleep and caught her in his arms. He handed her over to Quinn. “Look after her.”
Quinn nodded and started pulling Kay back to the raft. “Let’s go, Farah.”
Content with his friends on their way, Irulen turned back to Ithial. “You are going to die for what you’ve done.”
Ithial laughed. “No, I’m going to die for what I’ve wanted to do! Your friends can’t kill me, and you can’t kill me without magic. So good luck killing me and keeping that thread of hope intact. Perhaps, just maybe, you’ll be me in a few years! Or something worse. You still don’t have a clue, but you will soon enough. If you kill me, you will have to protect them from yourself.” Flame conjured from Ithial’s hands and sprung high into the air.
Irulen shielded himself the same way he shielded Lynette from drowning in the river so long ago. Ithial bombarded it with more magic than Irulen had ever seen. Great displays of sparks exploded in the air, but his shield held. It was the only thing he put his magic into. The strangest thing about magic is that it’s completely silent. Suddenly, his side began to burn. The punctures where the druid had thrust his fingernails through Irulen’s flesh lit up as if they burned from the inside. His shield collapsed, and he held his forearms in front of his face. A cold-hot flash of pain tore through his skin. He had been burnt something fierce. The pain maddened him as much as it confused him.
He saw through blurred eyes as Max swooped and attacked Ithial to buy time.
Irulen created a shield again just in time before being struck with another attack. Sparks and clusters of explosions surrounded him.
A dark feeling swelled inside Irulen. It seemed stronger than the one that had controlled him from time to time. More dangerous. Shadows crept around the edge of his vision, and he knew that this could end only one way. Vomit bubbled in his throat, but he kept it down. His hands blew backwards as if he pressed against a typhoon of air. It felt as if his veins ripped open and his eyes cracked, ready to shatter. And then, he threw it all forward, a lance of darkness, thin and straight.
It passed through the air as if time slowed, and perhaps it did, and Irulen watched as the dark spear pushed its way through Ithial’s magic and body. It went slow, perhaps Irulen was the one slowing it, but he couldn’t be sure. It moved through at a consistent pace. It tore a splash of blood out as it passed through. Irulen ran to Ithial and stood by while the dark mage held his guts in.
A smile ran across Ithial’s face. “We’re brothers, you and I.”
Irulen crouched in front of him. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“What made you like this?”
“Wasn’t much of a choice.”
“Do you regret it?”
“All the time.”
Irulen took his sword out and swung it at Ithial’s neck. It clanked against an unseen shield.
Ithial laughed. “No swords, brother. I won’t allow that. Magic only. If you hesitate, I will heal. And I will kill them all.”<
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Irulen swung again, harder, and again the steel clanked. It’s no use. I can’t risk it anymore.
Irulen pressed two fingers against Ithial’s temple and shot a string of darkness through his brain. Nausea swelled in Irulen as he pictured the darkness tearing the soul from the walls of Ithial’s brain. Ithial screamed at the pain. Dark wisps of vapor oozed out of his ears. Irulen smiled at the act. Ithial slouched and toppled over as if the shadows carried the spirit from his body. It seemed to Irulen that the shadows laughed at him and whispered to him as they lingered above and dissipated into thin air.
◆◆◆
Kay snored on the bottom of the boat while Farah and Quinn watched the mouth of the cave. They stayed as close as they could without crossing into it. They had no idea how the magic might radiate from the cave, but Farah figured Irulen’s unlimited usage of magic would run out once he passed the cave’s entrance.
Quinn spoke a lot to himself while they waited. “It’s kind of funny how the cave looks so far, and yet the crystal comes off clear. I wonder if those bats are magic, or if they go magic-crazy like humans do. But if they did, they would’ve been attacking us, right? Like little bat-wights. Undead little buggers looking for a taste of human flesh. Then there’s the questions of the glow worms. I guess they glow with magic, makes enough sense. But do they eat magic bugs or real bugs? They say you are what you eat...Or maybe that just doesn’t make sense.”
Something shifted across Farah’s vision. She punched Quinn.
“Ire?” he yelled. “Ire, that you?”
Farah and Quinn paddled back into the mouth of the cave. They were greeted with a surreal image—it was almost as if Irulen walked on water. But he floated, glided even.
He held something dark and lifeless in his hands.
Farah’s heart leapt with terror. Max! Oh, no! No! Max! She hadn’t noticed the raven’s absence.
Irulen stepped into the boat and sat on the floor. He broke into tears while holding the raven close to his breast. “I didn’t realize…” he said. “I didn’t realize…” He laid Max on the bench in front of him and buried his face in his hands. Farah and Quinn looked at each other helpless.
Kay woke up and took in what happened. She came over and sat silently. Farah threw herself into Quinn’s arms, wishing her pain away.
Chapter 29: Carry On... Carry On
They spent a fortnight in the village of Guardian, and Irulen remained inconsolable. Farah tried to take him out on walks. Guardian was a coastal city full of many bridges and waterways, where homes were often over water, and rowboats were the preferred form of travel. But as lost as they got while exploring the place, he wouldn’t rise out of the funk he was in. Farah felt sad in her own way, but she knew a special bond existed between Irulen and Max, one that had been broken way too soon, and under the most tragic of circumstances.
Quinn attempted to dig up much of his old humor. Kay often sat in silence near Irulen as he drank in the tavern. Merek drew a beautiful portrait of Max that perked Irulen up for a little while, but the comfort was temporary at best. Farah felt helpless watching him sulk.
She tried flirting and coaxing, and they often tried team efforts to get him going. It worked to a point, when they all worked together. But even when Irulen was at his best, it just didn’t seem good enough. She was glad that at least he wasn’t self-destructive this time, but there had to be an answer they’d been missing.
One day, as Farah and Kay kept Irulen company at the bar, Quinn burst in with a big smile on his face. “Come quick, bring the sad sack!”
Farah and Kay shrugged at each other before lifting him up by his armpits. He reluctantly seemed to support some of his own weight as they walked.
Quinn walked up to the cart and halted them all. “Irulen, look in the back of the cart. Ladies, make him walk.”
They released him. To Farah’s surprise, he didn’t fall. But he shambled before catching himself on the corner of the cart. He looked inside, and his eyes opened wide.
He spun to Quinn. “Really?”
Quinn folded his arms and smiled. A great big belly laugh followed.
Farah joined Irulen and looked over the cart. There she was, Max’s lady friend, roosting on a nest.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Quinn asked with a tear in his eye. “It’s just amazing.”
“Yeah.” Irulen smiled. “Yeah, it is.”
Quinn’s arms, looking more massive than they’d been in a while, opened wide. “Oh, come on. Give us a hug. All of you come in here.”
Farah, Irulen, Kay, Merek, they all fit in his big arms. They cried together and laughed together. Farah never felt so thankful for friends in her lifetime nor felt so loved. She’d never had a family before now, but a family is what she had. “I love you all,” she said. “I’ll never leave you if you don’t leave me.”
Quinn sobbed a bit heavier then, but recovered to speak. “If we have to choose between yesterday and tomorrow, let’s keep our eyes forward while respecting the past.”
Even tears ran off Kay’s chin.
“Family,” Merek said. “Family.”
Returning to the tavern wouldn’t be so bad. They piled onto a round table and swapped stories of days old and recent, of childhood, and of Max and Leofrick’s shenanigans. They talked about Jorin and Anastas. They talked about the nice people in Warwick. They had begun, in Farah’s mind, the first proper goodbye to their friends. As the night wore on conversations of the past turned toward the future, and Farah knew a question tickled everyone’s mind.
“So what now?” she asked. “What’s next?”
“I’m having another ale,” Irulen responded.
“Aye, I’ll have one here as well,” confirmed Quinn.
“I might have something stronger,” chimed Kay, her eyes smiling as she pulled out a leather flask. The thing was large, so large in fact that Farah looked Kay over from curve to curve.
“Where’d she pull that thing from with tight clothes like that?” Farah spoke her thought aloud, recoiling at her error.
Kay only laughed and tilted her head. “Well, well, are you eyeballing me, girl?”
“No, no—it’s just that, it’s pretty big and, well, oh forget it.”
“Maybe one day you’ll grow curves like these, and I’ll show you how to store things around ‘em.”
“I fear the only curves I’ll grow will fall in all the wrong directions.”
“It’s okay, you’re cute enough how you are.”
Farah saw Quinn nudge Irulen and waggle his eyebrows.
“Hmmph.” She folded her arms.
“No, no,” Quinn pleaded. “Compliments are nice. Please continue. Please, please.”
“You look better having lost weight,” Kay said.
“Why, thank you. It’s the dungeon diet. It consists of nothing, some bread, nothing, nothing, and nothing. I highly suggest it to shed a few pounds. Well, not to you, of course. I wouldn’t suggest you lose anything.”
Kay leaned back and scoffed at him.
“Look,” Irulen interrupted, “Merek’s drawing drunk, again. Ha!”
There, Farah saw herself atop some kind of flying creature. It had feline paws and the talons of a hawk, fur of a wolf and the head of a horse. It made little sense, but she couldn’t help but be impressed by Merek’s rendition of her. Bold, confident, determined. She sat as regal as anyone could hope when mounting an imaginative chimera. In reality, she wouldn’t dare such a thing, but the back of her mind told her otherwise. Look at what you’ve been through, what you’ve persevered. You aren’t Farah from Frostbridge anymore. You are Farah, world-traveler. Farah, investigator. Farah, caretaker. Farah, fighter. And many more things. We become unique in new ways each day.
“You look quite noble there, a lovely lady,” Quinn started.
“A leader of the people,” continued Irulen.
“Who is a huntress of world renown,” Kay finished.
Farah slapped her thighs. “Oh, please. Give it a rest�
��very nice, Merek. Thanks a lot.”
“We’ll just file these away with the others.” Irulen spoke in an overly stiff, business-like manner.
“I bet I know why you are filing ‘em away. Though I’ve never loved myself to a lady riding a creature before.”
“Quinn!” Farah yelled. What he said was so shallow and uncivil that she found herself smiling. He had, through all the darkness and torture, kept a piece of himself squirreled away in a safe place. There, in his inner sanctum, Quinn would always be Quinn—no matter what the outside world did to him. She counted herself annoyed, but she counted herself lucky to be annoyed by him.
Still, Farah couldn’t help but notice the look on Kay’s face at the gruff joke. Her eyes angled down and off to the left as she bit her lip. Farah knew they were both moving steadily toward a course for collision. Both of their hearts were tied up over one man that probably didn’t deserve it, but what does love know, anyway? Certainly not how to pick the person who makes the most sense for you. Her thoughts kept her face from revealing anymore, but her love filled her chest with longing and inevitable hurt.
She withdrew then a little bit. Although she kept her smile up and the pleasantries flowing, Farah couldn’t help but get caught up in worries of the future. Stupid mind, can’t just enjoy the moment, can you? Still, for all the doubt that lingered behind the curtain of her eyes, a rare sense of safety pervaded the place. For the first time in a long time, a visit to the tavern didn’t end up in some whirlwind of chaos.
Throughout the laughs and memories, and perhaps because of the fuzzy feeling tickling her forehead, she decided to catch Irulen with her eyes. All the while she remained acutely aware of Kay watching her from time to time like a cat perched above a fireplace. Catching his attention didn’t go well. He either looked at his beer or whoever said something funny. Her insecurity told her perhaps he was avoiding her, but somehow, she knew that wasn’t the case. Perhaps she was just jealous of his happiness—a nasty thing to be.
