“Don’t listen to him,” Yas said, trying to get her dad’s attention. “Dad!” She grabbed his hand and stepped towards Akoni. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” crowed Orfeo.
White light that was in the centre of the symbol burst outwards in two strands. The light spiralled and before Yas could do anything, the strands had encircled Akoni and her dad.
Yas was pushed aside by the light.
“No!” she shouted, conjuring a word ball to attack.
Sam leapt forwards, joining her and threw a word ball at the light, but it simply bounced off and back into them, throwing them backwards across the floor. They got back up quickly.
Janine stepped forwards next to Yas.
“What can we do?” Yas asked her, desperately. “That’s my family!”
“I’m not sure,” Janine replied, watching the energy surrounding Akoni and Yas’s dad. Neither resisted. They just looked down at it with blank expressions.
“It’s like they are being possessed. Controlled somehow!” remarked Janine.
“It’s the buzzing,” explained Yas. “I’ve felt it before. It’s more intense when what’s in front of them questions what Orfeo is trying to control.”
“Yes,” Orfeo agreed, triumphantly. “You’ve recognised my work.”
Yas looked up at him, hatred in her eyes. “What are you doing to them?”
“With the power from the Custodians who have joined me…” started Orfeo.
“Custodians you’ve taken,” shot back Yas. “You, son of a…”
“History will decide,” interrupted Orfeo. “As I was saying, the magic of the Custodians has enabled me to have powers of persuasion over those who are open to suggestion.”
“Let them go!” shouted Yas, stepping forwards, word balls ready in both hands.
Orfeo waved his hand and a swirl of white light shot out the side of the column. It hit Yas square in the chest and knocked her over. Her word balls flew upwards, out of her control and then landed either side of her, exploding on the ground.
Orfeo laughed as two more points of energy emerged from the white vortex. Yas watched them sail over her and encircle Detective Wheeler and Raelinn.
“Raelinn is Death,” explained Penn.
“Obviously,” replied Janine. “But why is Detective Wheeler Famine?”
“Because my assistant here,” said Orfeo, nodding at Raelinn, “and I, have seen to it that he has lost everything that is dear to him.”
“But I’m here,” Eddie said. “You’ve not lost me, Dad!”
Yas had just got herself back to her feet and she realised too late the danger that Eddie was in.
“Ahh, yes,” said Orfeo, matter-of-factly. He started to conjure a gun in front of him, pointing at Eddie. Orfeo’s hand reached up to grab the gun as the trigger formed.
“No!” Yas and James shouted.
Yas tried to move forwards, but she wasn’t quick enough.
James clawed at the inside of the capsule, to no avail.
Sam though had seen what was happening. He was already moving when the gun fired. He pushed Eddie to the side, forming a protective shield around them. Eddie crashed on the ground, Sam on top of him and they both slid underneath the white light that now entrapped Eddie’s dad. The shot from the gun sailed overhead.
The four wisps of light bobbed up and down gently, lifting each of the occupants above the ground. Around them, straining and creaking noises became evident. Cracks started to rip apart the ground, around the vortex of white light.
Janine and the others watched the cracks and looked around them.
“What’s happening?” asked Yas, looking to Janine.
“The power of the magic, I think,” replied Janine. “It’s tugging at the very fabric of the realm.”
Orfeo looked at the four capsules of white light, now completely encasing James, Raelinn, Akoni and Yas’s dad. Raelinn and James were at least more ‘compos mentis’, trying to conjure word magic to free themselves. Their efforts had no effect though. From each bubble of white light, they could see the tunnel leading to the central vortex. Along it, the black fragments started to progress. Panic started to show on each of the occupants’ faces.
“We’ve got to do something,” said Peter, looking at Janine. “We can’t just stand idly by.”
“Oh, that’s exactly what you will do,” said Orfeo triumphantly. “Or my soldiers will take matters into their own hands.”
They looked around them. As they had been watching the white light, more soldiers had appeared. There were ten or more in front of the steps to the black plinth and another ten over by the printing press conveyor belts.
The printing press too had become affected by the presence of the vortex and plinth. Whereas previously words flowed through the stone archway and onto the pages of the books on the conveyor, now they were being pulled upwards to the stream coming from the plinth. It was as if there was a powerful magnet pulling them away from their previous path.
“We’re trapped,” said Eddie, being helped up off the ground by Sam.
Eddie looked at his father. “Dad!”
Janine and Peter formed word arrows and started to fire at Orfeo, but they were pulled upwards from their intended trajectory into the white spirals and the black words flowing within them.
Orfeo smiled, his fangs baring. He didn’t need the gun now. He let it go and it dissolved. His plan was working.
“The four horsemen,” he crowed.
As they watched, the black word magic reached the capsules of James, Raelinn, Akoni and Yas’s dad. It swirled around each of them, over their shoulders, down their backs and around their legs.
Yas’s dad and Akoni became aware of their surroundings, seemingly released from the mind control that Orfeo had over them. They looked down in fear at the black words and clawed at the insides of the capsules, trying to escape.
“Let them go!” shouted Yas in desperation, forming more word balls and throwing them forwards. At the same time, Sam conjured word arrows, firing as rapidly as he could. Both their efforts though were pulled upwards and away from their intended targets.
“Come to me, horsemen” enthused Orfeo, pulling his hands together. The white capsules moved closer to the central vortex, floating over the heads of Janine and the others.
There was a muffled scream from Raelinn’s capsule as the black word magic penetrated her chest and moved through her.
Janine and the others watched in horror. Yas saw it too and looked up in fear for her dad and brother. The realisation dawned on her that she was powerless. Tears started to form in her eyes.
“Sam?” Yas called out. He grabbed her hand in support. “What can we do?” She clung to him.
“Dad?” called out Eddie, also afraid.
Then the words penetrated the three other captives. They all shouted out in pain. The words stabbed their way in and out of them. There was no blood, just energy moving through them.
“Oh, god!” remarked Yas and Sam together.
“Yes,” Orfeo enthused, from his position near the vortex. “I am!”
Penn raised his eyebrows. “The man’s delusional!”
As the black words emerged from each of the captives, they changed colour and flowed back down to the vortex.
More shouts of pain came from the capsules as the assault continued. The black word magic took away the essence it wanted. As the coloured words reached the vortex, they merged together, creating pulses of power, thrusting upwards and sending shockwaves outwards. Floating scenes were pushed away by the energy waves, straining at whatever invisible moorings held them in place. The cracks at ground floor level widened and deepened, the realm starting to break apart. Gaps could be seen through the structures, like the night sky with pinpoints of light.
Janine, Peter and Penn backed away from the vortex, as a crack ripped its way between them and Eddie, Yas and Sam. It widened, alarmingly quickly, leaving the two groups separated.
“The place is coming apart,” remarked Sam, as scenes started crashing into each other above. Fragments of scenes came apart and floated around, creating their own orbit around the vortex. Debris tried to reform, to create change as Yas and Sam had witnessed in realms previously, but the pieces transformed again and again, without connecting with any other structures. Parts of buildings formed and then changed into doorframes, windows and hanging signs, as if lost and not knowing what to do.
“We need to get them out of there,” shouted Sam, looking at his dad. “And before it all comes down on our heads.”
“We have to get to Orfeo,” Peter replied. “He’s the key. We have to stop him somehow.”
“Any ideas?” Yas shouted.
Janine, meanwhile, was watching the flow of energy from the plinth.
“That doesn’t look good,” she pointed. “The plinth is flexing under the weight of the strain of magic,” she said to Peter.
“What do you think it means?” he replied.
“That Orfeo is channeling too much power from wherever that is.”
“Where’s that,” asked Penn innocently.
Janine regarded Penn coolly. It was clear he knew something and, in is his typical way, he wasn’t about to let on unless it served him somehow.
She looked up and noticed something else. As the plinth flexed, she noticed it wasn’t just black. “Parts of it are…” she thought aloud, “…like a mirror.”
She looked back at Penn.
“From the castle?” she queried.
“Good guess,” applauded Penn.
“He’s pulling magic from the castle,” Janine repeated, surer now. “So, what does he have there that could have so much power?” she continued thinking aloud, wishing she had looked more closely while they were there. She looked around her. It was powerful, no doubt about that. Stronger than anything she had ever experienced before.
“That, my dear, is exactly the right question,” Penn replied.
Janine studied his expression for a moment. “So, you either don’t know or you won’t tell?” she asked, confrontationally. “And it’s usually won’t tell with you, isn’t it?”
“I can’t be responsible for providing all the answers,” Penn replied, evasively. He looked upwards, back to the capsules. “But… I think some more answers are coming our way.”
“What do you mean?” asked Janine, following his gaze upwards.
The black words were no longer flowing towards the captives. The energy that had been collected was flushing itself out of the capsules and back down to the central vortex.
There was a huge explosion, the pressure wave hitting Janine and the others. A huge ripple moved outwards, splitting the fabric of the realm. Pieces that had cracked apart were lifted up into the air and pushed backwards. The force of the explosion knocked them all off their feet, as the fragment of the realm under them started to disintegrate.
Yas, Sam and Eddie were similarly affected, a triangular shaped fragment of the realm that they were standing on was pushed upwards and towards the stone archway. They got back to their feet and crouched, to keep their balance, as the shockwave passed them.
The realm fragment that Janine, Peter and Penn were on lifted up underneath the capsule that held Yas’s dad. It seemed to prompt it to open, Yas’s dad collapsing down onto the stone floor. Peter caught him and sat him down, looking around to Janine for support. Yas’s dad was conscious but only just.
Similarly, James, then Raelinn fell from their capsules onto the stone fragment that Yas, Eddie and Sam were on.
“Dad!” shouted Eddie and sprinted over to him. He knelt and propped his dad up, who was barely able to keep his eyes open. James nodded at his son, exhausted.
“Raelinn?” he asked, looking across at her laying on the ground a little way from him. He moved agonisingly slowly, using up whatever reserves of energy he had to crawl his way across to her.
She looked up at James.
“He betrayed me,” she said, in shock. “He never told me he needed me also for Index.”
“I’m sorry,” James replied. “Like I said before, his word means nothing.”
“I fell for his lies,” Raelinn said sadly.
“Akoni!” screamed Yas, realising that his capsule was not over any stone fragment. Anticipating that he would be released at any moment, she ran to the edge of their stone fragment, firing a word net towards him. The word net reached him just as he fell downwards. The net enveloped him and then dropped suddenly into the nothing below. With the momentum, the net yanked at Yas’s hold.
“Not good!” she moaned.
She skidded forwards, losing her balance. She slid, her free hand scrambling for a handhold.
“Sam!” she screamed, as she went over the edge, frantically grabbing for purchase.
Fortunately, Sam had already anticipated, and had fired a word net of his own towards Yas. It caught her and wrapped itself around her waist just as she disappeared over the edge.
“I’ve got you!” he shouted. He quickly anchored the other end onto the ground, hoping like hell it was going to stick. Then, without waiting to see if it would, he raced towards the edge, keeping his hand near the word netting, now stretching to its maximum. Looking up, he saw a stone fragment above them and moving away. He fired a rope and grappling hook upwards, where it hooked over the edge. Then he fired the other end down towards the limp, unconscious form of Akoni. The rope had its desired effect. It took up the strain, pulling Akoni up and releasing the pull on Yas. He was able to pull Yas up close enough so she could grab onto his arm and haul herself back onto the rock.
“Oh god, Sam,” she said, relieved and breathless, hugging him.
Together they pulled Akoni up, using Yas’s word net and they dragged him away from the edge. Akoni was unconscious. Yas knelt in front of him.
“Akoni,” Yas said, holding his head and trying to get him to open his eyes. To her amazement, streaks of his hair had turned grey. She looked at Sam, worried.
“He’s breathing,” said Sam, relieved. Then, looking back towards the central vortex, he added, “I think we’ve got bigger problems though!”
“What?” Yas asked, glancing nervously behind her.
There was another huge pulse from the central vortex. They were all pushed away again. Their stone fragment collided with the rear wall of the ground floor, smashing its way through it. The jolt made them all lose their balance again. They all stayed down for the moment.
The vortex had separated into twisting strands of light, reaching upwards and tugging at the different scenes and debris above. Everything was moving in an orbit now, seemingly controlled by the intense light from the centre of the symbol. Whereas it was white with dark strands moving within it before, now something was forming.
“Ahh, yes. At last,” Orfeo called out to whatever was inside. “It’s working!” He opened his hands wide in triumph. Then he called out across the realm to the others. “Index is reborn!”
“Index?” asked Yas, getting nervously to her feet.
“No!” croaked Akoni, in despair. He was conscious at last and struggling to sit himself up.
Yas moved over and gave him a hug. “Akoni! I was so worried!”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t…” he said, looking down and then at her. “It would probably be better if I wasn’t here.”
“No!” said Yas, resolutely. “Stop talking that way. You’re here now and we’ll fix the rest.”
“Why?” asked Akoni, still defeated. “Because I cause all the trouble.”
“Stop it!” shouted Yas, shaking him, angrily. “Stop it. He wants you to think that but it’s not true!” A tear formed in her eye. She tried to hide it and appear strong for him. She didn’t like seeing him this way. While his previous rebellious and defiant nature had caused many problems in her home, she wished that some of that fire would return to him. He just seemed lost. All the fight had gone out of him.
She shook him. “I’m scare
d, Akoni, and you’re my big brother.” Then anger overtook the fear within her and she smacked him across the face.
“Just stop!”
He stared at her in surprise.
Sam looked at her, also shocked, but he understood what she was trying to do.
Suddenly, they heard shouts off to their left.
The rock that Janine and Peter were on together with Penn and Yas’s dad accelerated towards the black stone plinth. The words that were streaming out of the plinth were now being sucked back in. A change in the flow of power had occurred and that was pulling everything towards it. It was like a rectangular shaped black hole. Everything was being pulled in at an alarming rate.
“Holy crap!” voiced Peter as he pulled Yas’s dad backwards away from the disintegrating edge. Yas’s dad was still weak from his experience. “We need a doorway, Janine! Like now, honey?”
“You think I don’t know that?” she shot back, irritated. She was trying everything she could create a way out for them. “It’s not working!”
“Why not?” shouted Peter.
“I don’t know,” replied Janine frustrated. “It’s like there’s something wrong with the magic in here!”
“Wrong?” retorted Peter. “How can it be wrong?”
“Well, it just is!” Janine shouted, frustrated.
She turned to Penn, who was crouched, looking around himself in a world of his own.
“Do something,” she commanded him.
Penn glanced over, then placed his arms each side of him on the ground. His neck stretched forwards into a snout and a tail extended from his rear, his legs growing thicker and stronger. Scales appeared across his body and giant folded wings started forming on his back. The effort looked painful. As he transformed, he became more of a target for other debris being sucked into the plinth. He breathed fire, reducing anything coming his way to ashes.
“Get on!” he roared.
Janine looked at him and then at Peter.
“It’s now or never!” growled Penn at the indecision.
The Word Guardians: and the Twisting Tales Page 25