Portals Heather

by Leslie Edens Copeland

  I made a fist around the Ring of Esperance. "If you take this, you won't be able to hide behind these clouds any longer. Emmett will come for you!"

  "Oh, I am sure of it," said Bellum, in his voice of whispers and echoes. "Nor do I intend to hide. I merely wish to ensure that he does not." He bowed his head low to me, then said, quite simply, "Aether, come to me."

  My feet skidded forward, unable to disobey his summons. I released the beach ball of spectricity. My aim was so clumsy. As I slid toward Bellum, the blue, sparking orb arched through the air, straight for Bellum's chest. I held my breath.

  The orb came down—and bounced off the cloud surface. Bellum had stepped easily to the side.

  "Now, now," he said. "All I want is a quick look. I'll give it right back."

  His long fingers caressed the air, the world on his topper fell open, and my ring hand shook and lifted. I kept my fist clenched.

  "Nothing permanent, I assure you. No lifetime commitment. I have heard you are not fond of those. Why should you be? So young, to commit for life . . ." His face wore mock pity. I filled with unease, all the shadows and questions and failures of faith piling up in my mind like cobwebs.

  Doubts bombarded me, the worries multiplied—how could I keep this rock on my finger for a lifetime? Maybe Emmett was gone forever. Maybe I'd be right to give it up to Bellum . . .

  I fought back, evaporating the doubts. I shouted, "You're too late! The ring is placed, the bond is sealed. We are one, and there's nothing you can do about it!"

  Whoa. What did I mean, we are one? Where did that come from?

  I heard a tapping, and there! Outside the circle the clouds created, Emmett stood. He pressed his hands against the exterior of the shield Bellum had formed over us. He pointed and waved, gritting his teeth. He was saying something, but I couldn't hear him.

  "Hold hands," I said to the other mortals. "Stay together, and stand behind me."

  Lily gripped Trenton's hand. She was already holding onto my brother! And Trenton and Oskar were locked together like death.

  "Oh, Emmett's not welcome at this séance," said Bellum. "Just as he wouldn't let me into his. Won't play with me. And they say I cause chaos. Who's being difficult now?" Bellum's mocking tone grew louder, until he bellowed, "Ignoring me! Avoiding me! Doesn't want to PLAY!"

  Bellum brandished his scepter, and a new division opened in the globe. "Emmett! I know you're out there. So, you won't fight for the Coming End? Too scared you'll lose? I care not. I don't need you for the Coming End! All I need is . . . her!"

  He pointed his scepter directly at me. I heard footsteps behind me. Then Sam leapt in front of Bellum, shouting, "Leave my sister out of it!" He swung . . .

  "No, Sam!" I shouted.

  An ugly grin raised the corners of Bellum's mouth. He buzzed with spectricity, his scepter swirling the air. Sam was flung back, doubled over. He collapsed on the clouds.

  "You punched my brother," I said in a voice cold as ice, but I was shaking all over.

  Bellum held his scepter aloft. I could hear him muttering, "desire the quintessence, the connector of worlds, the d'Espers heir . . ." until the crackling of spectricity blocked out all sound. I crackled in return, the blue lightning rippling up and down my arms, seeking connection with Bellum's scepter. The mortals were forced back, as Bellum and I came together in an explosion of blue fire.

  The spectricity surged upward, joining with Bellum's, then the blast drove us both back. Bellum stood panting, gripping his smoking staff. My hands were burned blue.

  Behind us, Trenton and Oskar helped Lily drag Sam's inert body out of harm's way. Bellum cackled at them, blue sparks spitting from his scepter. "How touching. Perhaps we should get a group hug going, eh, Heather? And Emmett?" He snarled at Emmett's furious face, locked outside the circle. Emmett smashed at the barrier with his bident, spectrifying it into a bubble of blue lightning—but still, he did not break through.

  Bellum cackled at Emmett's efforts. "Would you allow me to destroy your protégée?! You sorry, subdivided excuse for the All!"

  "There better not be a mark on Sam," I screamed. "Unless you want the Coming End to be yours! Forget fighting the All! You're dealing with me now!"

  The spectricity pulsed from me in waves of fury. Bellum gazed back in surprise as a tsunami of blue rose high behind him, then crashed down, tossing him like a doll in the surf.

  "Uh oh," I said. "Stay together." I grabbed onto Sam as the great wave of power smashed into us, spinning and tossing us through space. We came down again on the flat cloud plain, coughing and gasping. I counted mortals. Sam, Lily, Trenton, Oskar, all here, but I could no longer see Emmett or Bellum.

  "Emmett!" I called. "I summon you! Come out. He's gone."

  I heard nothing. Was he truly hiding, then? Was he a coward, as Bellum claimed?

  "Everybody stay close," I said to the mortals. "Bellum's lurking around here somewhere, and Emmett isn't answering summons."

  Sam groaned and sat up, holding his head. "They're near," he said.

  "You can tell? Bellum knocked the seeing back into you," I said.

  "Shut up," he said, smiling over a puffy lower lip.

  "He did leave a mark on you! I'll destroy that musty old corpse god!" I shouted.

  "Yeah. Probably so," whispered Sam, his eyes rolling back. Then his green eyes snapped forward, focused on my face. He stumbled up, with the help of Trenton and Lily. "If Emmett's not answering your summons, it's because he can't. Bellum's got him trapped or locked in battle. That's a guess," he said, before I could ask if he was seeing visions.

  "Oh, precious Samhain the seer," whispered the voice of Bellum over the plain. "How well you see, especially when you cannot. Perhaps you are truly the stronger heir."

  We all gazed around to locate Bellum, but nothing appeared through the thick cloud mist.

  —I think Bellum's afraid of you, Sam messaged to me.

  "That's crazy," I said. I stood before them, on alert. "But maybe he should be."

  —At least you're not thinking of joining him.

  "No." I glanced at Sam, curiously. "Why would I? He's repulsive."

  Sam said, "You're so lucky to have Emmett as a spirit guide."

  —In case you haven't noticed, Sam, my spirit guide is missing. Not exactly good luck.

  "Oh, no!" Sam groaned and clapped his hands to his forehead. "It can't be!"

  We all talked at once.

  "Is it the Bellum?"

  "Are you all right?"

  "What is it, Sam?"

  "He's here." Sam covered his face, moaning.

  "The Bellum?" I held my hands ready.

  "No, it's not Bellum. It's Bruce," said Sam.

  "Oh." I stuck out my tongue with disgust. "How annoying."

  "Is Bruce helping the Bellum?" asked Oskar.

  "She-yeah," said Trenton. "Bellum wants universal chaos. Bruce is perfect for that."

  Just as predicted, Bruce shambled toward us like he was still in his junkyard. He kept grumbling, "Stuff's gonna fall. Ain't a thing I can do about it," rolling paranoid eyes upward.

  He drew closer, then said, "There you all are! Stuff is fallin' all over the place. Lemme into that shelter. An earthquake is rippin' the ground open. They'll find that body. You kids don't say nothin'!"

  "He's lost it. Definite paranoid schizophrenia," said Lily.

  "Let me in!" Bruce was so pathetic, with Emmett's blue E stamped on his forehead, cowering from the piled-up clouds. They really did resemble junk piles when I scrutinized them.

  "You're confused," I said to Bruce. "Bellum's messing with your mind. Bruce, remember the last time you challenged me. Don't do it."

  Bruce's hand traveled to his forehead, touching the mark. He shook with fear, then made a mad rush for the circle. I held out my hands to block him.

  In one smooth motion, Bruce slid the ring from my finger and ran. The others gasped, grabbing at Bruce. Then Lily put out her foot. Bruce tripped over it fantastically, sprawling on the clou
ds. Lily stepped on his hand and pinched the ring from his fingers.

  "Got it!" She nodded her satisfaction.

  "All right, Lily! Don't drop it," said Sam. Lily smiled widely and popped the ring onto her own finger, clenching her fist around it.

  "Uh-oh." I said. "Lily, that was completely awesome. But let me take the ring—quick!" She only meant to help me, but what she was doing was very, very dangerous.

  "Sure," she said, then hesitated. She clutched at Sam and Trenton, her eyes growing big, staring past me. Bruce stood up, looked, and took off running. I turned.

  Emmett the All was fast approaching, leading a military rank of thousands of troops, marching and on horseback. Hordes of soldiers of every type stretched to the horizon. Modern Army grunts, Phoenician warriors, Civil War soldiers in gray and blue. Medieval knights in armor, Chinese troops with spears, and a quick-footed gang of bowmen in ragged tunics. All these forces converged on Lily, focused on the Ring of Esperance.

  So quickly did they advance that only Oskar thought to say, "Cloud mounding up, lifting us out of all this," and my stomach lurched as we swept upward, riding a cloud above the melee.

  "Take it off, Lily! Now!" I shrieked.

  "I'm trying! It's stuck!" she said, yanking at her finger. Then she screamed, face-to-face with Emmett's corpse skull.

  "I can float, you know," he said in a frozen voice. "I can knock down this cloud pillar and send you all to your doom. Perhaps I should."

  I'd never encountered him like this. Fear jolted through me.

  "Emmett, please! We're not your enemies!" I said.

  Emmett's figure exploded into flames. Through the fire, the sockets of his skull showed—vacant, empty.

  "Wings! We all grew wings!" shouted a panicked Trenton. "And we flew far, far away!"

  We shot into the sky, feathers sprouting from our backs, and sailed across a cloud ocean. Landing on a cloud beach, we panted and smoothed our wings. Trenton dispatched them by saying, "Wings all evaporated upon our arrival."

  "Now do you think I'll have time to get this ring off?" said Lily to me.

  "No, I don't," boomed Emmett from the clouds above. "What part of 'god of the spirit world' did you not understand?" He dove for Lily, grasping with his skeletal hands, the hollow sockets of his skull on fire.

  Lily cowered in horror. Then she perked up. "Emmett, could you help me get this ring off?" she said in an unusually sugary voice. "I really want to give it back to Heather, but it's stuck. Silly me." She fluttered her eyelashes at him, and did she just make a pouty face? Who knew Lily could flirt?

  Emmett's skull chuckled, and he blurred into his normal black-and-white self. He took Lily's hand—did he need to touch her hand quite so much?—and worked the ring off. I was relieved to see his sunny smile—but why was he smiling at her?

  I bit my lip, hoping he remembered just whose ring he held. Then Emmett yelped. Bolts of spectricity had arced from Lily's fingers to the ring. We stared as Emmett held the ring close to Lily again, frowning. This time, spectricity zapped from her fingers and hit the ring so hard, Emmett lost his hold on it. The ring flew through the air, spinning around and around.

  Emmett flashed Lily a showoff grin and extended his hand to levitate the ring. It hovered in midair. Lily clapped her hands. Emmett gave her the cutest smile and I thought I'd be sick. Why was he showing off for Lily? And then, as Emmett tried to collect the ring . . . "Thank you," said a voice from where the ring hovered.

  Emmett pulled at the ring, and the ring pulled back. Behind it, the smirking, cavernous face of Bellum materialized, then the rest of his elongated, black-cloaked form. His spindly fingers were latched firmly around the ring.

  "The looks on your faces!" He chortled.

  Emmett flickered like a flame. "You know what this means. Are you sure you want to challenge me?" he said in an eerily still voice.

  "I have wanted nothing more for nigh on these one hundred years," said the Bellum, beckoning with his long fingers.

  Emmett expanded, his exterior rippled with flames, and his skeleton showed through. "Very well, Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes. Now we end this."

  "Emmett, no! Not for that stupid ring!" I said.

  "I have no choice," said Emmett, his eyes hollow. "Bellum knows I have to defend the Ring of Esperance, and he's itching to defeat me and bring about the Coming End. It is as always."

  Tears welled up in my eyes. "Forget the ring! I don't need it!"

  Emmett's flames died down. Gazing into my eyes, he stroked my cheek with his hand. But his hand sank through, so instead he spoke earnestly to me.

  "Aether, I have managed to bring this off before with no harm to the spirit world. Whatever happens, this is not your fault. He—" Emmett indicated Bellum, who was attaching the ring to his forehead with an arrogant smirk, "—the Bellum, he's been trying to force me into this position for a long time. It is inevitable that at one time or another, he will succeed. So says the prophecy. Aether, I . . ."

  "I want you to be safe," I said. "I care for you, too."

  Emmett lowered his eyes and glowed. When I tried to hug him, his face went pink.

  "Let us help you. Let me help!" I said.

  "This is my fight alone. I won't have mortals injured or destroyed. Especially my protégée. Stay together, all of you, whatever happens. That's of utmost importance," he said.

  "But what about you?" I said. I couldn't lose him like this! We were just getting to know each other—who would teach me about the spirit world? And that sunny smile—gone forever? My heart ached within me.

  As he turned from us, I reached out, a spark of blue passing from my hand to his. He gave me one thankful glance, then his face became fierce, as he rounded on the Bellum, brandishing his bident, his color now a stark black-and-white.

  Bellum saw his chance and screamed his battle cry. Hundreds of voices answered, the soldiers of the All's many armies roaring as they marched forward, ready to attack the lord of chaos.

  The other mortals and I lifted up, raised above the battlefield on a column of clouds, and I never knew if Emmett or Bellum raised us. We were safer, but also farther from Emmett. I stretched my arm toward Emmett the All's black-and-white figure, aching with the surety that he needed us. Especially, he needed me. He should not face the Bellum alone.

  The many armies gathered as before, bands from all different eras. Emmett drifted above the center of the multitude. With a rousing cry, he led them forward. They surged ahead, brandishing swords and guns, ready for battle.

  But so great were their numbers, they could not find Bellum and as they pressed mindlessly forward, they began to attack each other, filled with bloodlust. The battle raged as each faction turned on the next, and the great force of soldiers was cutting itself to pieces.

  Above them all, Bellum hung in the air, and muttered curses that traveled in whispers and echoes. Insults and taunts, dares and commands, fell among the soldiers and goaded them to attack each other.

  "Stop!" I screamed. "Emmett, he's killing them!"

  The soldiers faded into ghostly shapes, then popped out of our sight, a group at a time, leaving behind the rolling cloud plain where once a bloody battle had raged. Bellum stood triumphant, dwarfing Emmett, who had fallen to his knees.

  Emmett shook his arm, and out clattered the two-pronged implement, the bident. Emmett pulled himself up, leaning on it.

  "You are defeated," said Bellum. "You know you cannot win against me. And there is no escape from here. No portals." He lifted his arms high. "No means to affect a transformation. This is the end at last, ancient one. Submit gracefully, and I shall be quick." He opened his mouth, wide. His jaw hung so far down, he resembled a snake about to swallow its prey.

  "Not yet!" snarled Emmett, and ran at him. Bellum fired spectricity from his scepter, and Emmett caught it on the bident, floated up off the clouds, and drove his weapon straight into Bellum's center.

  I waved some wisps of clouds aside to see. Was Emmett all right? Did that take Bell
um out? But I heard Bellum curse and growl, pulling the bident from his chest. He'd caught the prongs on his scepter, protecting himself from greater damage. He'd sustained two great scorching holes in his chest, the dark clothes burned away. He did not bleed but sizzled and blistered like a burning electrical wire.

  "This is the end!" howled Bellum, tossing Emmett's bident to the side. "I've waited millennia! I will be the One God at last!"

  "There is no end," said Emmett, and even though he said it quietly, I heard him.

  This enraged Bellum, who rose high overhead, spreading out like a gargantuan vulture, streaking the sky red. "The prophecy foretold I will best you, and that will be your end!"

  "That's one interpretation," shouted Emmett into the howling sky above. He shook both his arms, and clink, clang—two smaller bidents fell from beneath them. He held them up, like two sai, as Bellum swooped at him, buzzing with spectricity.

  "We have to help him!" I leaned far over the edge, my heart pounding with fear.

  Bellum blasted Emmett, again and again, and Emmett deflected the blasts, swinging his bidents. Bellum flew up, and Emmett stood panting, the bidents sparking with charge. I felt a charge come into my own hands as Emmett readied himself for Bellum's onslaught. But I was too far away to help.

  Bellum dove and Emmett unleashed the spectricity from the bidents. Bellum was driven back, up into the air. He flapped his cloak like some dark bird of death, leveled his scepter on Emmett, and slowly, he sank down.

  "You can't fight me off forever," said the Bellum. "You know your time has come. Give up! I have you this time, Emmett! There's nowhere left to run!"

  "Who says I'm running?" said Emmett, swinging his bidents against Bellum's spectricity. There was so much of it, Emmett's pale face bathed in blue, as Bellum slammed him again and again with bolts from his scepter.

  Bellum laughed cruelly and twisted his scepter, sending a wicked snake of spectricity rippling around Emmett. "You used to be a lot stronger. The great All has lost a lot of ground—or a lot of himself."

  "That's crux!" shouted Emmett. "I'm all I ever was, and all I'll always be!" And he shuddered horribly, as the string of spectricity bit into him, winding him in burning coils. He toppled over, thrashing the bidents to no effect, and struggled on the cloud surface. The coils held, and I did not see him get up.