Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  Bramble took a curious route through the park that led off the pathways, over hills, through depressions, and around certain trees, with Bramble making sure that Amanda followed her every step.

  Moving over the next rise, Bramble stopped at the crest of the hill and looked down to the area below. Amanda recognised it as the Bethesda Fountain, or its Abyssal reflection, anyway. The statue in the middle was twisted and broken, while the water in the pool at the base was brackish and dirty.

  “What’s up?” Amanda asked.

  “We have to go past this,” she said.

  “Is there a problem?” Amanda asked, sensing Bramble’s hesitancy.

  “Hopefully not,” Bramble said and started down the hill. Amanda followed, feeling a little freaked out by the Fae’s nervousness as they walked over the half-dead grass and mud until they reached the paved area. Amanda had taken just a couple of steps onto the stone slabs when the water in the fountain suddenly surged up and out of the pool. It splashed down onto the ground and formed up into a curious shape with three legs, a deformed body and several arms that waved around dangerously.

  Bramble backed off. “That’s the problem I was hoping to avoid.”

  Amanda boosted her Aegis and split her mind using the Multitasking effect. “I see that,” she answered as the water spirit swung two of its arms at them. The water crashed into Bramble, sending her flying and then hit Amanda, too. She was knocked off her feet but rolled back up to a standing position and unleashed a bolt of lightning at the creature. The electricity surged along it and plunged into the ground, doing less damage than she’d hoped, but the Spirit did stagger for a moment and let out a horrendous wail.

  The thing leapt at her, rushing through the air like a torrent of water. Amanda rolled sideways out of its way as it splashed to the ground while a gout of water shot out at her, as if from a high-powered hose.

  Amanda dodged again and threw a superheated ball of plasma at the thing, hitting it right in the middle of what she guessed might be its body. The water hissed and boiled away as the thing shrank, a good portion of it having now been turned into steam.

  The creature suddenly retreated, rushing over the ground like a small wave that sloshed over into the base of the fountain and came to rest, now just a pool of water once more, except the level was lower.

  Relaxing, Amanda took a breath and looked down at herself. She was soaked through and dripping with water. She chuckled.

  “There’s never a wet t-shirt competition when you need one, is there?” She smirked.

  Working her Magic, she evaporated the excess water from her clothes and, to a lesser extent, her hair.

  “Well done,” Bramble said brightly. She looked over at her and saw the Fae wringing out the water from some of her ragged clothing.

  “Thanks, I wasn’t expecting to be attacked by water today,” she said. “Would you like me to dry your clothes?”

  “They’ll dry,” she said then turned to walk on. “Come, it’s not far to the mists now.” As they passed by the fountain, Amanda eyed the waters warily, but it didn’t move, and they were soon moving away and further into the park.

  As they walked, Amanda noticed the ever-present mists that filled the Abyss growing thicker and starting to obscure the surrounding environment further ahead. Bramble walked with purpose though, and Amanda followed, keeping close. She began to notice what looked like pathways through the mists, leading off into the murky depths. Some of them were dark and shadowy, while others seemed to glisten and shimmer as if in moonlight.

  She moved a little closer to one of them to get a better look, but it seemed to just wind off into the mists and a glowing light in the distance. Amanda shrugged and turned back to Bramble, but she wasn’t there.

  Amanda froze. She looked around, but saw only the shimmering pathway in the moonless mists.

  “Bramble?” Amanda called out. “Bramble, I seem to have lost you,” she said, turning on the spot, looking for any hint of the Fae, but seeing none. “Shite,” she cursed, wondering what she should do when a hand thrust through the mists and pulled her off the path.

  “Stay close, don’t wander off, even a tiny bit,” Bramble chastised her.

  “No problem, I won’t do that again,” Amanda said and placed her hand on Bramble’s shoulder, walking behind her and just to her left so as not to step on the Fae’s wings where they dragged on the ground.

  Up ahead, a pathway, one of the darker and more foreboding ones, came into view and Bramble made right for it.

  “That looks like a scary path,” Amanda said. “Are you sure?”

  “Not everything is as it seems in the Aetheric, but all paths into the Deep Abyss are going to be scary, Amanda,” she said.

  “Excellent,” Amanda said sarcastically.

  As they continued along the path, the dusky tunnel through the mists grew darker until the mists started to fade from view and Amanda found they were walking through some kind of naturally occurring cave. Light glowed up ahead, orange and flickering. The glow picked out the rocks and dirt on the ground, and as they walked, it felt less stable underfoot as it if were covered in debris. As Amanda shifted her weight with each step, the twigs or branches snapped underfoot. She paused, looked down, and saw that they weren’t branches at all, but bones. Hundreds and hundreds of bones strewn over the cave floor. She took a step back in surprise, and more of them snapped under her feet.

  Amanda looked up at Bramble, who was standing a little way ahead. The Fae shrugged. “I told you it would be worse,” she said.

  “Feckin’ aye,” she cursed. She looked back to see the cave disappear into darkness with no hint of the mist they had walked through. Standing up straight, Amanda walked forward, doing her best to keep her balance on the uneven floor as they went. They found sticks rammed through the eye sockets of skulls and other things as they pressed on. Some sticks had rags tied to the tops of them, or iron sconces attached, and were alight with flame.

  Up ahead, the cave walls started to grow thick with roots and vines until they stepped out of the cave entrance onto a rocky plateau looking out over the blasted landscape beyond.

  It wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before, and honestly, it might as well have been Hell as far as she was concerned. The rocky ground jutted out at all angles, creating a terrain that would be a nightmare to navigate. Twisted trees and plants that looked long dead choked the landscape, reaching out from pools of dark poisonous-looking water. Fires burning throughout the vista, were the only real light. Above them, the sky was a mass of dark clouds shot through with the occasional fork of lightning that rippled across the sky. In the midst of this hellscape, creatures of all sizes writhed and moved in the distance.

  She could see the occasional ruins of buildings here and there, little more than bits of wall lit up by nearby fires.

  “Amanda,” Bramble whispered from close by.

  Amanda turned to see her friend moving off to her right into the rocky landscape. She waved at her to follow, and held her finger up to her lips, urging her to be quiet.

  Amanda followed, away from the edge of the ridge she’d been standing on, picking her way over the bones and down the rocks to a gully. They continued on through the small cut in the landscape, its walls covered with vines, while something wet and dark flowed over the rocks under their feet.

  The smell was horrific, as if the entire Realm was in a state of perpetual decomposition. The wind howled all around them, rustling the branches of the dead trees nearby. In the distance Amanda could hear screams and wails, as if thousands were being tortured.

  A little way along, Bramble suddenly stopped and pressed herself into the wall, holding out her hand to urge Amanda to do the same. Bramble knew this world better than she did, and hadn’t steered her wrong yet, so she did as the Fae wanted.

  The sound of footsteps and a throat rattle which sounded thoroughly inhuman came from up ahead. Further along, the gully deepened into a cut in the rocks with high, cliff-like w
alls that were never more than a meter apart. At the top, a massive creature appeared and looked down into the gully. It was somewhat humanoid in appearance, although oddly disproportionate and if the thing had eyes, Amanda couldn’t see them The horns that protruded upward from its forehead were long, thick, and came to a dangerous-looking point. As it peered down into the ravine, its long-clawed fingers worked as if in anticipation of the kill, but it didn’t seem to sense them, and its movements suggested it was disappointed by this.

  The thing sprang over the gap on its powerful animal-like legs, its long fleshy tail whipping about behind it as it disappeared from view. Bramble watched it go and waited for a moment before she stepped out and beckoned Amanda to follow her.

  They moved up the gully and saw more torches stuck in the ground, their tops aflame.

  “What was that thing?” Amanda asked as they approached a tunnel.

  “An Abyssal. A corrupted spirit, like everything else down here. They’re nasty and intelligent, and can usually use Magic. Also, where there’s one, there are usually others.”

  Amanda shivered at the memory of it.

  They walked through the tunnel and out into a more open landscape, moving slowly and carefully most of the time, unless Bramble urged her to move quicker.

  They dodged around pools of water that looked anything but inviting and hid from a few more Abyssals as they went. Looking out into the landscape, beyond the carefully hidden route that Bramble was using, she saw what looked like humans out there in the Deep Abyss. Most of them were naked, although a few had found rags or skins to cover themselves. She saw some of them hiding or sneaking through the rocks, some were strung up or bound to trees, and in one case, a small group of them were kneeling before one of the Abyssal creatures, apparently worshipping it.

  “What is this?” Amanda asked as she stared in horror at these poor, tortured souls.

  “Not everyone who dies goes to Sheol,” Bramble explained.

  “They don’t?”

  “No. Some, for reasons beyond me, end up here, and elsewhere in the Deep Abyss. Maybe it’s their personal beliefs or the circumstances of their death, or maybe it’s pure chance. They might even have escaped or been cast out of Sheol. I don’t know.”

  Amanda looked out at them again. “This is... horrific,” she said, both fascinated and repulsed by what she was learning.

  “There’s nothing you can do for them,” Bramble said. “Come on.”

  Bramble led her into another cave system lit by torches revealing more bones lying scattered on the floor.

  Amanda followed, keeping close behind her guide until Bramble stopped at a fork in the cave system. Bramble looked left, and then right, and then back left again.

  “What’s up?” Amanda asked. It was the first time Bramble had hesitated during their walk.

  “I’m not sure… I... I think it’s this way,” she said, pointing to her right.

  “You’re not sure?”

  “We’ll find out,” Bramble said with more levity than Amanda expected. “Things sometimes change or shift in the Aetheric.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Amanda replied, having encountered this during her trips to the Spirit World.

  Amanda followed Bramble’s lead as they went right and moved through the winding tunnel. The floor was very uneven, making the going slow, and not for the first time, Amanda felt sure something was following them, and yet, nothing appeared.

  A little further on, the ground grew mercifully free of the bones they had been walking through until the tunnel stopped at a dead end.

  Bramble stopped, paused, and then walked up to the dead-end and started to feel around the wall before she slammed the base of her fist into it and uttered a word in anger that Amanda didn’t recognise.

  “Wrong way,” Bramble said, turning back to Amanda. “It’s the other tunnel back the way we came. We’re nearly there,” she said.

  “Okay, no bother, we’ll just backtrack,” Amanda said and turned to walk back the way they came, only to find the tunnel ahead blocked by a demonic-looking Abyssal that stood staring at them.

  “Well, shite,” Amanda said.

  - Manhattan, New York.

  Liz’s blade smashed into Nate’s dagger, and for a moment, they struggled against each other; Liz’s Aegis sparking as they crossed swords.

  Nate smiled at her, but there was nothing friendly about it.

  “Miss your mother?” he taunted her.

  Liz felt rage build up inside her. This horrific man had killed her and Fran’s mother, as well as her friends’ parents, and Ben back when they’d found the Golden Book. She hated him and had picked him out of the assembled Black Knights early on as someone she wanted revenge on.

  She wasn’t the defenceless little girl she had been when she’d first met him, and she was determined to show him the capable woman she had become.

  “Piss off,” she said before he shoved her, knocking her back. She stumbled through the rubble of the house, fell, rolled sideways back to her feet, and brought her sword up. She’d learned to use the sword because she was keen to face off against Mary Damask, but she was also more than happy to use it against this murdering bastard.

  Essentia flared around them, and suddenly Balor, Israel, and one man she was less familiar with Ported in and joined the fray.

  They were, no doubt, the reinforcements that Maria had requested.

  There was no Aegis around them to stop them Porting in, only an Illusion that the Nomads had put in place that made the street look like it was closed to the public, which Liz had noticed earlier.

  Even the Nomads needed to hide from the masses.

  Liz and the others could have Ported away, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between everyone that this was where it ended. They would defend the line here and would not be driven from their home.

  Sentinels

  The Deep Abyss

  Amanda shunted more Essentia into her Aegis as she watched the Abyssal, waiting to see what it would do.

  The Abyssal looked somewhat female, but not human. Its naked body had breasts with strange, long, prehensile nipples that writhed around, much like the long powerful looking tail it had. Its legs were animal-like with hooves rather than feet, while its arms were long and wiry, ending in hands with razor-sharp claws. The thing’s face seemed feminine, too, with plump full lips and sultry eyes, but the look was marred by the long horns that sprouted from the Demonette’s head. From between its long, needle-like teeth an eight-inch long tongue protruded and waved back and forth in the air before its face.

  For the moment, it just stood there looking at them. Amanda did the same, letting small arcs of lightning flash and spark between her fingers as a warning.

  The Demonette took a step forward, its naked breasts wobbling as it moved.

  “Have you considered a bra?” Amanda asked. “I can recommend a good shop, they do wonders for your posture.” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “Although, with nipples like that, they’re likely to be uncomfortable.”

  “What have we got here?” the Demonette asked, its voice scratchy, like a forty-a-day smoker.

  “Oh, you know, just passing through. A little sightseeing, taking in the views of fire and brimstone. Nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

  “I’ll be the judge of what I concern myself with,” the Demonette said.

  “To be sure, master of your own destiny and all that, right? Feminism in the underworld. You go girl.”

  “You mock me, mortal?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say mock,” Amanda objected. “Just a little light humour, you know?”

  Essentia flared from the Demonette and a gout of fire rushed towards Amanda and splashed over her Aegis.

  Amanda unleashed her own version of hell and threw as much Magical energy at the Abyssal as she could. Lightning flashed, fire roared, and Essentia surged, lancing in at the creature. Amanda’s Magic crashed into it, apparently taking the thing by surprise. Her attack
s threw it back into the wall as she continued to hammer at it. The thing wailed and screamed in pain and fury, a sound that was utterly inhuman and scarily loud. Amanda put all her weight behind her attacks, and within moments, tore the creature apart, ending its unearthly screeches.

  As the energy from her attacks faded to reveal the blackened corpse of the Demonette, Bramble ran up beside her and looked at it, and then up at Amanda. “We have to go, something might have heard it, come on,” she said and ran down the corridor.

  Amanda didn’t hesitate and followed on behind her, doing her best to keep up as they sprinted to the fork and turned right, down what Amanda hoped would be the correct tunnel this time.

  It twisted back and forth until they ran out of the exit and into an entirely different part of the Deep Abyss. Before them, the landscape had changed.

  The dead trees had thinned out to nothing, it was lacking human remains like the previous area they’d traversed, and there weren’t any Abyssals, either. It was just rock. Cold, bare rock surrounded by endless darkness. Bramble kept going, moving quickly, and throwing nervous glances behind them as they went until they’d passed the final tree.

  Slowing, Bramble heaved a sigh of relief, but maintained a watchful demeanour, casting occasional glances back the way they’d come.

  “Where are we?” Amanda asked, looking around at the dark, empty landscape, her enhanced vision piercing the darkness as they went.

  “This is it,” she said. “Tartarus lies ahead, just over there.” She pointed off into the distance.

  “Come on, then, let’s keep going,” Amanda said, picking up the pace. Bramble followed on behind her, somewhat reluctantly from the looks of things. A mountain range rose into view as they crested a hill. Eager to get to her destination, she kept going, checking behind her to make sure Bramble was following. The landscape levelled out, and after a while, Amanda reached the edge of a ridge.

  Below them, the ground sloped down into a vast depression, easily several miles across. At the back of the depression, the walls were much steeper, even vertical in places. But what caught Amanda’s attention was tucked into the base of those cliffs. A sprawling, foreboding black structure with huge towers and massive, decorative architecture dominated the scene. The whole intimidating structure seemed to be made from obsidian and gleamed like a black diamond even in the darkness.