- Call it in, - shouts a man with hair, looks at a woman with a child... Guardian, Call it in!!!!
The woman shakes her head.
- Can't... can't... can't... can't over the Abyss of Power, won't hold...
She crawls to a palisade braided by a loach and wild rose, the flowers alay like blood... the child clings to her hand.
Dark-haired looks with despair, turns away and blocks the way for the demon.
The woman crawls to the fence, hoping to hide.
I can't stand it, I rush towards her. The fabric of time is stretched, I move like through a dense stream of water, barely moving my legs. But I crawl stubbornly.
She notices me. Frightened blue eyes, firmly clenched lips. The canvas of time vibrates like a stretched bowstring, another moment and I'm thrown back...
- We must close the Source, I whisper, close it! Do you understand? Otherwise the world will die! Saarhard will destroy everyone! All of them! People, elves, sirens... Only the children of Chaos will be left. Close the Source! Do you know how to do that? Do you know how to do it? You can't let them take possession of the Source!
She looks at me as if she can't hear me. I'm already screaming. At the edge of my eye, I see the black wings turned, the horns... the demon in the battle hypostasis steps over the body of a collapsed bald hair. Looking at us... I recognize him...
The woman has come to her senses. I've got it. She's nodding.
- Will you close the Source? - I ask you again. Whatever happens, you have to convince her.
She nods and pushes me into the hands of a child.
- Save me, the woman whispers, save me...
I can't!
We're running out of strength. It's amazing how long I've been holding on. As long as I'm alive, the circuit is not closed, and the Village, the one from my time, cannot pass. But the bowstring is shaking and the powers are running out...
A woman looks at me in every eye and suddenly she smiles. It's as if she's met a close friend.
- I'll close it," she whispers, "don't be afraid...Tyara...My Wind of the North...I'll close it.
The women touch my forehead easily and I flinch like a burn.
She turns away.
A round font enclosed by a simple birch tree fence. Clover and yellow chamomile grow around it. Transparent water... the woman gets all tall and starts singing. The song spreads through the valley, merges into the noise of the wind, grows into the voice of the earth, weaves with the ringing of rain. The circle of fire flashes around her with a ring and falls down. People freeze to hear this song, demons fall...
A woman carries a blade over her head... the light font water becomes pink... red... black...
I scream... A child in my arms watching a woman die... The Great Keeper of the Elemental Source. There is only one way to close the Source - the voluntary death of the Guardian with whom it is inextricably linked... I only understand it now.
Saarhard throws himself at her, blades in his hands from the blue became blood red... but late... late...
The canvas of time pulls... pulls... twists my veins, tears my skin, breaks my bones... how hard it is to stay here, how hard it is...
Demons are running to me. How unbearable it is to look at him... He is so young... and angry... my dark demon, the Arch'arrion.
My atywa burst, throwing me back into the time tunnel.
* * *
Grey fog again. The baby's in my arms. Holy elders...
I'm crawling through something white without knowing where. I promised her... that woman with the blue eyes, I promised...
Events are sweeping through the foggy veil. Rain washes away the blood that has been spilled. Snow covers the ashes. Small pines stretch out, grow into century-old trees, displacing maples... New houses, fences, pastures... and settle in the dust... shadows of people are born and die... Riverstein walls rise... The eternal circle of life, so fleeting and endless...
I tear the fog, it's dense and alive, it tears my fingers... a little more... a little window is enough for me...
Time is sprawling.
I can't get out anymore, I don't have enough strength. There's hardly any blood coming out of my chest, I'm already dead. I'm laughing. I wrap the baby in my handkerchief and push it into the hole. Only now I notice that it's a girl... Dark curls, blue eyes, in which not a child's pain splashes... The transition is so terrible, time takes away vitality, the baby's hair in front of his eyes burn out, gray... She falls into the clay mud.
I can't see if she could get up anymore...
But I know he can. Of course you can.
And she'll have a life. Not as long and happy as her mother would have wanted, but still... Eighteen years isn't bad either, is it?
Well, at least I found out who was the man who left me at the Riverstein walls in a nightgown and a handkerchief.
I laugh, choking on blood. That's it...
* * *
I come to my senses and I can barely lift my head. Am I still alive?
I can barely lift my elbows looking around. A huge, black funnel wraps around the outlined pentagon, tearing apart space and separating us from the whole world. I'm still lying in the centre of the pentagram, blood pushes out of my chest, the white bone of the blade is soaked and turns red. I'm barely in pain, only an incredible weakness is holding my body together. And my chest spills the liquid fire of Chaos, keeping me warm and making my heart still beat...
I turn my head.
The villages with their hands pressed up to the sky stand in their place, near the descending beam. Her voice is silently woven into a funnel that absorbs it and spirals it, and if I close my eyes, it seems that the priestess is everywhere.
But I keep them open, and through the shimmering mirage of bloody lines I see Schader. He stands by the star's left beam and almost mirrors the position of the Village, holding back the threatening power of the funnel. His face is distorted by tension, his hands trembling, but he stands still under the pressure of the released power.
And to the right... To the right, through the pentagram, as if the Arch'arrion were breaking through the bloody thickness. Where it passes, the line of the pentacle ruptures, leaving a charred smoking trail. The first ring he tore with almost no effort, the second with difficulty and flashed as he entered the star's interior space. I cried out in pain as the tips of his black wings burst into red lights, a hot flame crawled across them like a living one, from edge to edge to demon. Arch'arrion's face is tense, his lips are tight and his eyes... he looks at me without breaking away.
The demon's wings burn and every step is given with great force, as if he were fighting a stream of fire of incredible destructive power, ripping off his skin. And he himself is already covered in fire, burning like a huge torch, but still does not give up ... I try to call for rain, call for wind, but no Force, only weakness. The bloody pentagram blocks the magic, preventing me from summoning the elements.
- The winds...
I turn my head.
The Arch'arrion breaks the inner contour of the pentagon, the line bends under its pressure and... tears... The demon falls to my knees in front of me and I smile.
- Don't cry," he says, and I'm surprised. Am I crying?
- Bear with me, my good one, bear with me... like this...
He rips the blade out of my chest and covers the wound with his palm, pouring the remnants of his Power into me. I'm not screaming. And even if you are, you still can't hear anything in the rising noise of the funnel...
* * *
A wake-up call, like a push.
I open my eyes, my chest is pressed by something heavy. I can hardly lift up on my elbows. The burned Arch'arrion, with his wings charred, presses me with his body lifelessly, still trying to give me the power he has not left. He's still alive, somewhere in the depths of his demonic essence still smoldering the fire of Chaos that gave birth to him, but it's only the trembling flame of a candle that will so easily fade from the gusts of wind.
I rose
carefully on my feet. I was shaky, but I was alive. The wound on my chest was healed by a thin pink skin, a slightly oozing sucker through the dried blood on my skin. I looked around. The pentagram went out. The blood mirage was gone, and the lines were only trampled grooves in the ground. There was a black, charred trail where the demon was walking, breaking the pentacle's closure.
Crashing down on a star, Shyder was lying flat, he still coped, kept the funnel, completely emptied his magical reserve and knowing that he can no longer replenish it.
The village can't be seen. Where she was standing, Daniel and Xenia were now unconscious in the mud.
The black pile of Riverstein towers silently above me, but in its depth I can feel the pleas for help from the people trapped in it. But before I do, there's something else to be done.
I try not to think about anything. It's so hard... not to look at the burned wings of the dying Arch'Arrion, not to remember his sword above a mermaid scheme. Was the man killed by the demon my father? Or was it the other dark-haired man, behind whom stood a woman with sapphire eyes? Or was he on the other side of the village, protecting his men from demon killers and I didn't even see him?
Now I don't know anymore...
Does it have to be? How to reconcile with this monstrous knowledge, how to relate a demon who gives his life to me, with him, killing my parents?
And the Arch'arrion saw me there, in the Shit settlement. Did he know when he met me in the Blacklands? Did he realize what happened there in the past and what should happen in the present? Did he understand who I am, or did the Mermaid Lake Im give him the answer? A strange loop of events stretched out around us like a lump...
Only the highest demon with his incredible ability to heal can break the lines of the pentagram, only his life force could keep me on the edge of the world of shadows.
I shouldn't think about it. Not now. We have to do what the Night Guest created the most incredible probability possible.
My bare feet set foot on snow-covered ground outside the pentagram, but I didn't feel cold. What was bubbling within me required an exit, and was streaming, sweeping away everything in its path. The snow hissed beneath me, becoming water, and then steaming out from under my feet. A dark, lifeless courtyard, a stone shelter building. There was no sound from behind the stone walls, nor was the fire shaking in the dark windows. All the world is left is me.
I walk along the wall with my hand touching the icy masonry. Here's the sanctuary.
Amazingly, it's all the same here. Only unfamiliar without the singing of Aristarchus and the novices' inclined backs. It's too quiet, too deserted. It's lonely.
The dark water of Mother's Eye is slightly covered in ice, I look in it like a mirror. I smile a little and put my palm in the Source. My fingertips are stabbed, either by the cold or the Force that's bubbling inside me. My hand forms an ice-hole, slowly sprawling all the way to the edges.
The Arch'arrion and Lord Darrell were wrong. The source cannot be awakened by bloody casualties. How can the power of death awaken the power of life? He began to awaken because the blood of the schemits woke up, because he is my legacy and I am his keeper. Because he was always here, waiting for me for years. He was a lake, a well, an underground key... or a font called the Eye of Mother. He was always here. Because of all the random odds, the one most likely to happen is the one destined by Destiny.
Blood... I picked up the blade jammed in my right hand and ran it through my left palm. It's easier to wake up than to seal, I don't have to die... on the contrary, I have to live. Cold water cooled down a slightly saddening cut, then I straightened up and sang.
The words were imprinted in memory as if they had been scorched with calendar iron, or maybe they were always there, you just had to remember. The song spreads around, merges into the noise of the wind, grows into the voice of the frozen ground, woven into the ringing of the coming rain. The circle of fire flashes around me with a ring and falls down.
The source hears me. The source responds. Source awakens.
I no longer sing, my body dissolves, becomes weightless. It is a light autumn maple leaf, it is picked up by a full-flowing river and carries... it carries to a huge rising waterfall, but not down but up, to the eternal ocean of the universe.
And I'm not me anymore...
I am the sunlight that awakens the earth.
I am the moonlight that caresses the bodies of lovers.
I am the water that gives birth to new things.
I am the darkness that brings peace.
I am the air of breath, I am the fire of the heart.
I am the death that puts an end to suffering.
I'm an endless life...
Then the river came down, I came back.
The source was awakened. And the Force came into my world.
The end of the first book.
Book 2 - The Edge of Shadows
I am the sunlight that awakens the earth.
I am the moonlight that caresses the bodies of lovers.
I am the water that gives birth to new things.
I am the darkness that brings peace.
I am the air of breath, I am the fire of the heart.
I'm death that puts an end to suffering.
I'm an infinite life...
Then the river came down, I came back.
The source was awakened. And the Force came into my world.
I came to my senses as if I had woken up from my sleep, and I looked back in amazement. The flow of the Power that had passed through me left me feeling trembling, filled and strangely connected with the infinite universe.
And I was even surprised that everything around me remained the same: the same water in the font - the Source, the same walls of the sanctuary and a faintly shimmering lamp. And outside, all that Riverstein, the locked people, Xenia, Danila, Lord... The Archarrion.
I flew out of the sanctuary like on wings, and I rushed to the extinct pentagram.
- Xenia, Danila! - I put my hand to everyone's chest. Hearts are beating, friends are just stunned. Praise be to the mother ancestor! So, the Village could not break her vow of the Moon Temple! Where is she herself?
But this isn't the time...
I swayed and threw myself at Shider for a moment. His aura was very pale, almost without the flashes of power, transparent... Mother! Can I see his aura???
But there's no time to think about it, I took a quick look around. At the edges of a five-pointed star, little twisted bodies of children. In one, I recognized the missing Lana, Roxy's sister. The thin film of the aura is light, with scarlet pain inclusions, but it means the children are still alive. Only a dark shadow is shaking over Lana.
I hurriedly ran to her, put my hands on the girl. The bubbling force stabbed her fingers, I focused. The dark shadow shuddered dissatisfied, smacked, devouring the life of the child. But the power from my hands flowed, chasing away the messenger of the Abyss. The darkness was lazy at first, slowly released its victim, raised its eyeless body, looked into me. I clenched my teeth stubbornly.
- Live... I exhaled, and Lana caught my breath, curled up with an arc.
Her aura poured out a blue, clear light, and I smiled.
I pulled my hands off her, and I jumped off my knees. I was afraid to look at the center of the pentagram... Archharrion's aura looked weird. Black, with flashes of fire, it poured green light. I don't know what that means, but the messengers of the Abyss were only circling around, not approaching. That means there's still time.
Quickly ran in a circle, pouring her life into the children and catching their breaths.
Syder. There's not a single wound on the body, but there's hardly any Force left in it. He's exhausted his entire reserve, trying to contain the destructive vortex. I wrinkled my forehead, remembering everything I knew. I remembered a conversation at Eloar, in a room without a wall, overlooking the beautiful city. Then the lord told me that both the magician and the demon can be killed if the magic resource is completely deprived wit
hout the possibility to replenish it within an hour...
How long has it been? The red moon still hangs in the sky, just a little bit away from the east tower. It seemed to me like an eternity, but in fact it's only been a little...
Shaider and the Archharrion have exhausted their resources completely. And they did so knowing that there was no Source in the Northern Kingdom, knowing that there would be nowhere to replenish the Force Reserve...
But there is a Source! Now there is! Thin rays of the Force permeated all around, woven into an invisible lace of incredible beauty...
But how do you replenish their reserve? How does this happen? I didn't know anything about it...
I sighed and gently turned Lord Darrell over, put my hands on his chest. I have no idea what to do, but at least my Power will help the Lord wake up sooner. I've already poured my life into him, watching his pale face pink.
Shyder moaned, his eyelids shook and fluttered as he opened. But I had already jumped up and threw myself in the middle of a scorched pentacle.
- The Archarrion...
It was scary to look at. All that was left of the wings were the skeletons. Beautiful, strong, black as a crow's feather, the wings were completely burned as he broke through my contour. The strong body had terrible bloody burns. Even the twisted horns charred, cracked... The swarthy body is grey from ashes and black from burned skin. Eyes closed. The right hand still stretches to where I was lying like a demon still trying to help me...
I feverishly wiped my tears with a trembling hand and ate my lip. Stop crying. It won't help.
I exhaled myself, pulled the threads of the Force and pressed my palms against the burned chest of a demon. Over and over again, I poured my life into it and gave it my strength, but nothing happened. The archpriest was still lying breathless on the ground and I could not feel the current of blood in his body.
What was it?
Why isn't he coming to his senses? Or is my power useless to the demon? Can't I heal him? How can you not?
I won't allow it! I won't let him die! He must live! If only to answer all my questions...
The Wind of the North Page 30