Angst Box Set 2

by David Pedersen

  “Do you even understand me?” Yugen shouted. “You always were a terrible student.”

  “You were an awful teacher. Baker Haim was my favorite,” Clod said. He moved forward, slowly, to draw out the conversation. Every step landed with a loud thump that made the earth shake. If an ancient oak tree could’ve walked, if a mountain could’ve taken a step, they would’ve had the same presence as Clod lumbering to Yugen. “He taught me that there was only one way to beat a bully—by taking away whatever it is they hold over you. Maybe it’s their strength, and they need to be physically beaten. Maybe it’s their voice that needs to be ignored, or silenced.”

  Yugen shoved the tip of his dagger into the bag, making Ada cry out. Clod stopped moving, stopped breathing as her blood spilled to the ground. Shadows swarmed the blood, darting in and out, feasting on her life.

  “There’s no beating me, or any of us,” Yugen said. “Even when you stopped Ried from destroying the town, Styff and the others didn’t die. Not completely. They still thrive in the shadows. It took me a long time to realize that you and yours,” he nodded at the Ada bag, “are the key to bringing them back. They’re ready for their revenge after all these long years, and they thirst for your life!” Yugen shouted, spittle flecking his beard. He jabbed the dagger at the bag again, making Ada yelp. “Is it going to be you, or her?”

  “Fine,” Clod said. “I guess you win.”

  “Clod, no,” Ada pleaded.

  “Life is about give and take. Sometimes you give,” Clod said, lowering his head. “And sometimes you take.”

  “Oh,” Ada said, a hint of wonder in her voice.

  Clod moved to the middle of the symbol, each step making his guts wrench. It was a distraction he didn’t need, and he squinted, bracing for what was to come.

  “Get him,” Yugen cried. “Cast his soul into a pit of darkness that falls forever!”

  “What’s happening?” Ada called out.

  “I’ve been gathering my fallen brothers and sisters for the last several years. They’re shadows of their former selves, barely alive,” he said with a sneer. “But all they need is the smallest pinprick of life to come back.”

  “But how can you bring them back?” she asked. “The council took away your magic.”

  “They should’ve taken my hands, too. I can’t cast, but I can still draw.” He laughed. “Clod has enough magic to trigger the spell. Why don’t you see for yourself?” Yugen released Ada from the bag and kicked her to the floor so she was out of reach. “It seems I was mistaken after all. Clod is actually good for something.”

  Shadows around the room dove at Clod like a shark feeding frenzy. Every attack was a stab of despair, and depression, and hatred, and cold, each of them trying to draw life. It hurt more than anything he’d experienced. He wasn’t a hero, he didn’t want to face this brutal attack, and he hated every minute of it, even when he started laughing.

  “Wut?” Yugen asked, his expression of maniacal glee washing away.

  “I feel them, all of them,” Clod said. “This isn’t just your four casters. There are dozens. They’re cold, and weak, but very, very alive.”

  Like a whirlpool, Clod drank in every living shadow that attacked him. They slowed, trying to turn away and fight the current, but Clod became the sponge that absorbed the ocean. The cloudy face of every black shadow he drew in contorted into a silent scream and disappeared.

  “Stop,” Yugen pleaded. He raised the dagger high and rushed toward Clod. “You’re killing them.”

  Ada wrapped herself around Yugen’s foot and rolled. There was a loud snap as his ankle bent the wrong way. He cried out in pain, collapsing to the cave floor. She lay still, grasping her ribs, and taking short breaths. Blood dribbled out from between her fingers where the dagger had struck.

  “Hurry and finish, Clod,” she whimpered. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “I don’t think I can stop them all,” he said. “There are too many.”

  There weren’t just dozens of shadows, there had to be hundreds. Each of them contained the tiniest morsel of life, but combined, it was enough to feed a town of Clods and Adas. A shadow bounced off him, and then another. He’d hit his limit. There were just too many to take in. When the mostly-dead realized this, they began striking at him. It was a pummeling worse than any he’d experienced in the schoolyard. Shadows leaped from the walls, diving at him, each blow harder than the last.

  “Clod,” Ada said weakly, reaching for him.

  “Ada,” he wheezed. “Watch out.”

  Yugen had rolled around until he could position the dagger over her neck. With both hands wrapped around the hilt, he raised it as high as he could and drove it down.

  “Stehp ern en fru,” Monk Syt shouted from the entrance.

  Yugen stopped moving, stopped breathing, the dagger mere inches from Ada. The shadows stilled, no longer attacking Clod, their faces frozen. All over, parts of his body throbbed with pain, and he gasped for breath.

  “I bring the thunder,” Shaman Millow cried out.

  There was, indeed, thunder. An ear-shaking boom made the cave shudder and dust fall from the ceiling. Cracks appeared on the living shadows, as if she’d broken a mirror. Another rumble of thunder, and frozen shards of shadow fell to the ground, breaking on the floor like icicles landing on a sidewalk. The onslaught of sound continued until the cave floor was covered in black, and the monsters were gone.

  “Nobody move,” Cleric Dyes said in a high-pitched voice. “Don’t touch them.”

  Dyes rushed forward, scooping the dark crystal remains into bags that never seemed to fill completely.

  Wizard Pyle limped forward, leaning heavily on his staff. He muttered incantations with one clawed-hand directed at Yugen. “We got here in time,” Pyle said, gasping for breath. “Yugen is still without magic.”

  “Ada,” Clod said, rushing forward. “She’s hurt. Please help her.”

  Priest Muane was already kneeling by her side, mumbling something soft and comforting. “That should help.”

  “Thanks,” she squeaked. Without another word, she leaped from the cave floor and into Clod’s arms, where they remained in silent relief for long moments.

  “You were so brave,” she whispered. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “You make me brave, Ada,” he said. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, Clod,” she said.

  Someone placed their hand between his shoulders, their touch warming his entire chest as if he’d been lying in the sun for a long time. When he finally set Ada down, the priest removed his hand from Clod’s back. His smile didn’t match the worry in his eyes.

  “It’s good to see you again, Clod,” Shaman Millow said, patting him roughly on the arm. “And you too, Ada.”

  “Thanks for coming,” Clod said.

  “Your mum tried to tell us Yugen was evil,” Millow said. “I didn’t believe her. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t want to believe either,” Clod said, staring at the frozen body of Yugen. “I knew he was a bad person, but didn’t know how bad.”

  “What do you mean?” Pyle asked.

  “When I got here, he said he was bringing back his people,” Clod said. “I thought he meant the four from the town hall, but there were a lot more. It felt like hundreds.”

  “The banished,” Muane whispered.

  Clod and Ada looked to Millow for answers.

  “Styff’s attack was going to be the first of many,” she said. “We believed she’d controlled Yugen and the others. There are councils in every major city, so we spread the word. The councils all stopped the attacks in time.”

  “It was the end of the war,” Muane said, and his dry voice held a hint of exhaustion. “Or so we thought. Most who were tainted by the dark seemed to die when their magic was removed, but the dark must’ve kept part of them alive.”

  “There were so many,” Clod said.

  “They’d been planning for decades,” Pyle said, hands falling to his sides. �
��They went after the learned in every town. Our foes must’ve planted dark seeds in their classrooms. Many learned were tainted by the darkness they sensed, eventually infecting some of their students like a plague.”

  “I absorbed life from all those shadows,” Clod said. “Am…am I…tainted?”

  Cleric Dyes placed a hand on Clod’s forehead, closed his eyes, and muttered a spell. After several moments, he asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Full, Master Cleric,” Clod said. “But hungry for food. I don’t understand.”

  “You are practically brimming with life,” Dyes said, eyeing him up and down. “But I sense no evil in you.”

  “It seems you have a choice ahead of you, Clod,” Shaman Millow said.

  “What’s that, shaman?” Ada asked.

  “Well, with all that life, you and Ada could probably live forever,” Millow said. “Or…”

  He understood, and nodded.

  “What does she mean?” Ada asked.

  “Apprentices,” he said with a broad smile.

  “Oh,” Ada replied, her eyes wide with excitement.

  “It’s over now,” Millow said. “We are in your debt once again. We will have to keep Yugen alive long enough to find out if there are others. He’ll resist, but we have ways of finding out. You’ll be glad to know, they hurt.”

  “Good,” Ada said darkly.

  “Just one more thing,” Clod said, nodding to Yugen. “Can he hear me?”

  “He can,” Pyle said.

  “Mum taught me that violence isn’t the best way to beat a bully. You beat a bully by taking away their power,” Clod said with restrained calm. “I took away your darkness… I beat you, Yugen, just like I said I would. And you can never hurt me again. Let’s go, Ada.”

  She looked at Yugen’s broken ankle and smiled contentedly. Taking Clod’s hand, she led him out of the room.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “You?”

  “Yuh,” he replied. “But we’re late for a party.”

  “I love parties. Will they have cake?” she asked. “You deserve cake.”

  “We both do,” he said with a broad smile.

  Age 57

  Boom!

  Clod opened his eyes as quickly as he could. He felt his years, all fifty-seven of them, begging to go back to sleep. Raising his head took a lot of effort, and he corrected that mistake by letting it crash back to the pillow. His body wasn’t quite ready to get up, even if his mind disagreed. So, he lay there, taking deep, raspy breaths—giving his body the time it needed while his mind did other things. It was just a boom, and he was allowed to be old.

  Discomfort was a natural and unfair condition that seemed to come with age, and compared to nearly everyone Clod had met, he was old. Most of the council had passed on and been replaced, save for Priest Muane and Shaman Millow. His mum hadn’t lasted this long, nor had his dad. But, still, here he was. A few bullies from school still lived, but seemed worse off than he felt. Other than them, and Ada, everyone else from his youth was gone. It was a cold reminder that his was a long life for not being a shaman or a priest.

  Thud. Rumble rumble. Screams. Silence.

  “Wut was that?” Clod asked. Apparently, this was not a morning for waking leisurely. “Ada, are you okay?”

  He rolled out of bed, creaking as much as the wooden frame, and stood as tall as he could. His shoulders hunched a bit, like his old mentor Haim. He missed the malgam, and his wife with the painful tusks. Clod pulled at the door, which shuddered against the floor and stopped just short of letting him out. He really needed to fix this one day.

  “Don’t you ever, ever do that again,” Ada commanded from outside their cottage.

  She was using the voice that made Clod wince. Ada hadn’t drawn that weapon on him often, but he’d always taken it to heart, even when it was pointed at someone else. Hopefully it was pointed at someone else.

  “Ada?” Clod called, pulling at the door with all his considerable weight until it gave just enough to squeeze through.

  The front door opened smoothly to a beautiful summer day, so bright he could barely see. He blinked sunshine and sleep from his eyes to take in chaos. Directly in front of his cottage, smack in the middle of the clearing, stood an eight-foot-tall, rectangular stone. It hadn’t been there yesterday.

  “Wut’s this?” Clod asked, looking around.

  A dozen or more people of various shapes, sizes, and colors stared at the monolith in awe. Their lack of response was irritating, and he was going to ask again until his eyes finally found Ada. One hand on her hip, and the other one pointing to the top of the stone. His eyes followed her finger.

  “How’s this, boss?” a young girl peeped.

  “I told you,” Clod said, shading his eyes with a hand, “don’t call me boss.”

  Maya stood on the stone, her dark skin glistening in the sunlight. Her arms crossed, she had a proud gleam in her eye. She reminded Clod of Ada when she was twelve, and he did his best to hide his amazement with the sternest glare he could muster. She avoided his gaze and looked over the edge. The sudden realization of heights washed away her haughty demeanor.

  “Uh,” she said. “Can you help me down?”

  He looked at Ada, who shook her head.

  “Why is there a giant rock in my front yard, Maya?” Clod asked.

  “You said you were gonna teach us how to carve stone soon,” she said excitedly.

  “Yuh,” Clod replied. “In a month or two, with small rocks. Very small rocks.”

  “Last week you told us to think big,” she said. “That we could do anything!”

  “I was hoping you’d do ‘anything’ later,” Clod said. “And not in front of my house.”

  “Sorry,” she said, sounding distraught. “I could move it back.”

  “No,” he said, holding up his hands.

  His no was echoed by the surrounding families, and Maya began to cry. He reached up, slowly, stiffly, high enough to touch the top. She sat on the ledge, inched forward, and fell into his hands. Several onlookers gasped in relief. Clod pulled her in close for a comforting hug.

  “It’s okay, Maya,” he said, patting her wiry hair. “We’ll use this when it’s time.”

  “Really?” she asked with a sniffle.

  “Yuh,” he said. “It must’ve been very hard to move.”

  “It was,” she said, cracking a smile. “It took me hours.”

  “You’re the only one of us who can do this,” he said. “It’s a gift. You have to be careful with it so nobody gets hurt. Okay?”

  “Okay, Clod,” she said.

  He set Maya down beside her sister Jayra, who had tears streaming down her cheeks. Jayra was several years younger, and every bit as adorable as her sister, except for the furious tear-stained glare and balled up fists.

  “What’s wrong?” Maya asked.

  “Mr. Cupcake Frosty Alabaster Timms,” she said, pointing to a spot under the rock. “He was going to be here for another day.”

  “We’re not supposed to make animals,” Maya whispered, as if they all couldn’t hear her.

  “But Mr. Timms is my best friend ever,” Jayra said.

  “There are always exceptions for best friends,” Clod said, nodding at Ada.

  “I’ll help you work on a new Timms tomorrow,” Maya said. “I promise, Jay Jay.”

  “Thanks, Maya,” she said quietly.

  “Let’s go talk,” their mum said sternly, leading them both by the arm. She turned her head about to mouth a ‘sorry’ to Clod and Ada.

  “We’ll postpone morning classes,” Ada said to the crowd. “Let’s meet after lunch.”

  Clod and Ada watched as families walked down separate winding paths to their own cabins nestled away in the woods. Each of them spoke with their children, some followed by dogs or cats, a few goats, and one rabbit. All frightened, or happy, or distraught. All of them living. Clod’s heart swelled.

  “Clod?” Ada asked. “Are you cry
ing?”

  “They’re just all so beautiful,” he said. “They are filled with beauty, and ugliness, and anger, and love. They can do anything, or they can do nothing, and I love that, and I love them all.”

  “You’re a sap,” Ada said, shoving her shoulder into him. “Your mum would’ve been proud.”

  “Yuh?” he asked.

  “Yuh,” she said mockingly. “All that life you absorbed in Yugen’s cave, and you could’ve done anything with it, but you did this. You could’ve lived forever. We both could have.”

  “You’re upset,” he said.

  “Forever with Clod sounds pretty wonderful,” she said.

  “Adaaaaa,” he said, looking at the ground.

  “I love you, Clod,” she said.

  “I love you, Ada,” he said quietly.

  “It was the right thing to do,” she said. “We were the last, and now we aren’t, and that’s… What’s on your face?”

  Clod struggled to focus on Ada’s eyes as the ground leaned to one side. With a deep breath, he gathered his few reserves until everything steadied. It wasn’t a new feeling, and he’d assumed it was because of them, his people. Creating so many ‘apprentices’ had used up almost all the life he’d absorbed in the cave. Almost, because he’d kept a little for him and Ada. He didn’t want to go away as quickly as his mum, or dad. He’d earned the right to be a little selfish. The reward was great, and he had no regrets, but now he was tired.

  Clod wiped sweat from his face and looked at his hand. It was covered in ash. He sighed deeply.

  “Clod?” Ada asked, her chin quivering.

  “It’s time,” Clod said. “Ada, let’s go visit my parents.”

  “No,” she said, grabbing his hands, and squeezing her eyes shut.

  The familiar coolness of life, her life, flowed into him. He immediately pulled away.

  “Clod,” she said, reaching for him.

  He dodged her grasp, and dodged it again. It was like every game of tag they’d ever played, and he couldn’t help but chuckle.