Myths and Magic: An Epic Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  With one hand, Mathilde reached into the pocket of the vidartan dress. Carefully, she withdrew the pottery handle. She made no grand scene.

  No big gestures.

  By her hip, Mathilde gently traced in the dirt, writing one word: Emet.

  It’s so hard to focus. Mathilde tried. Time started slipping out of her fingers.

  Catching her attention, the crone waved something in front of her face, the color was red as blood.

  Mathilde blinked away the drowsiness before she realized what the old woman clutched: it was the sacred linen spellbook, the Geisprom her family had guarded since, well, forever. It was the basis of all the magic the priests had ever held.

  It was the handbook to the powers of a God.

  “Open it. Open it!” the crone demanded.

  Mathilde blinked, trying to fight the sleepiness that claimed her reasoning.

  “Open this and I will set your family free. You hear me?” The old woman whispered her promises. But Mathilde knew that the pledge of a liar was not worth the air it took to breathe the words.

  Mathilde closed her eyes.

  Failure settled in.

  But the voices in the ground grew. The deep shudder became a rumble, became a shiver, and then a rocking within the earth itself.

  Something was coming.

  Something beautiful.

  A power so deep Mathilde could feel it in the rhythm of her own heart beat. A magic so rare, the history of the world could not remember such a moment.

  Almost, the words were on the edge of her hearing. The sound grew. It was so close… Mathilde almost understood.

  We, it said we a… and again, we, we are..

  Finally, Mathilde concentrated, listening to the earth itself shake from the message that rumbled through the mountainside.

  We. Are. Vidaya.

  She knew it.

  It wasn’t one voice. It wasn’t ten. Or even one hundred.

  Earth rolled with a thousand voices, all chanting the same thing. It was all of them. All of the prisoners walking back into the death camp, a free people. They refused to bow to hatred.

  And they refused to run for safety. Together, they understood what Mathilde had not.

  Hatred like the yaga witch held—that kind of evil doesn’t stop because you run away. It would follow them wherever they went. The only way to fight hatred is head on.

  Resist.

  Do not falter. Just take another step forward. And then, take another.

  Mathilde’s mind spun in and out of consciousness as the chorus that shook the earth became louder. Each time the men and women shouted out their belief, the collective spell was strengthened. Each time they stepped forward, a bit of the crone’s power crumbled.

  “We. Are. Vidaya.” The square crowded with a thousand people refusing to back down. Refusing to fall. Refusing to fail.

  Standing up for the one thing that mattered: each other.

  “Unity is all,” Mathilde murmured. The slogan of the Hollyoaken government seemed appropriate. Exactly right.

  Silence fell across the yard. The only words spoken were the ones that issued out of a thousand mouths, demanding justice. With one voice, the vidaya took Gelshiesen from the dogs of war and from the warped evil that held tight to the heart of all their hatred.

  “No more,” Fritz spoke. “No more of this,” he demanded, held up by the vidartan magic. United by the blood of a thousand believers, her little brother denied the horrid, old witch her victory. Smashing down the dogs, knocking them over. With one decisive action, all the Hollyoaken soldiers dropped their weapons and knelt. Prisoners of their own war, the frightened men bowed their heads to the might of the vidaya.

  But not the crone.

  She stood, glaring, obviously planning something horrible. A cloud of contempt and hatred hung over her a column of black tar against the blue sky.

  “Achut!” Mathilde heard her little brother cry. Seconds later, Fritz grabbed her shoulders, holding her tight. Determined.

  Mathilde blinked slowly.

  His face was set in a serious scowl, the kind of solemnity that marked the brow of a man forced to make life-changing decisions. “No, achut,” he cried begging his sister, demanding she listen. “You cannot die. You cannot leave. Not now, Mattie. This is not your path.”

  Grabbing his own vidartan shirt, Fritz tore off a strip at the bottom and then another one. With the focus of a doctor and not the uncertainty of a child, her brother wrapped Mathilde’s injury in the garments of ancient priests. He leaned down, put his head on her chest, where he could hear her heartbeat slowing.

  Placing one hand on her forehead and one hand on her broken leg, Fritz spoke the only words of power he really knew.

  “We. Are. Vidartan.”

  With each letter, each syllable, each spoken word, magic coursed through his hands from her head to her chest. From his mind to her broken body, the vidartan magic sped, encircling around, again and again.

  Power built inside her mind, a ribbon of inspiration she had never felt before. With that energy came a burning fire of light and truth. Her people called to her spirit. She had to answer. Mathilde joined with Fritz, with all the vidaya.

  At first, her words were only a whisper, but her voice grew stronger as her thoughts focused. “WE Are Vidartan,” she spoke with more clarity.

  Her face grew warm.

  Fritz’s head on her collarbone was the center of it all, a heat that grew out of his love for her. A light strong enough to bring Mattie back. That’s what he wanted so that was what the vidartan magic accomplished. Bending to his will, ancient powers performed miracles in the hands of a pure truth-teller.

  Mathilde shook her head, coming back to life. Everything hurt.

  She shuddered and took several deep breaths. Fritz held her tight—tears in his eyes. Gratitude in his heart.

  “Come on, Achut,” he begged, “come back to me.”

  Nodding, she smiled for the first time since the crash. Then she took his hand and hugged him tight.

  “She’s okay!” Fritz cried. “Mattie’s alright!” He was so excited, the joy shone from him.

  “We are Vidaya!” the crowd of prisoners repeated. They did not stop the chant, not for anything. It was the only power they held against the terrible, surrounding darkness. Among the crowd, the little girl who Mathilde had spoken to on the moving train caught her eye. She waved when their eyes met.

  Another hand reached down to pull them both up. Captain. Mathilde looked up into his eyes and was surprised to see tears there as well.

  “Were you going somewhere?” he asked. “I thought we had an agreement?” There might have been a bit of a pout on his face, but the relief he felt shone far brighter.

  Captain lifted her to her feet, setting her down gently.

  The crone laughed at them all.

  “You. You idiots think you have won? You think you have seen real power?”

  The yaga witch sneered at them—the former prisoners gathered in a circle around her. Like they weren’t there. They didn’t matter, not to her plans.

  “Nothing can stop me,” her screeching laughter made the hairs on Mathilde’s neck and arms stand on end. “Not now that I have the Geisprom. It’s over,” the crone gloated as she turned and held out her hands. “You’ve lost.”

  Bewildered, Mathilde looked behind the crowing crone to where her brothers stood.

  Triumphant.

  Ethan and Edgar grinned, holding open the spellbook. Linen pages rustled in the wind. Her older brothers reveled in their victory with the eyes of predators: cold, appraising, power-hungry. The hexes over their heads were gone.

  “You?” Mathilde stuttered. “But you are free of her? Why would you do this? She cannot harm you now.”

  “She still has Johan. We have to save him,” Edgar said. But that wasn’t really why. Mathilde could see that. She saw what had changed in her brothers. They had accepted the Hollyoaken path to subduing their enemies: Justification. Denigr
ation. Subjugation. Free of the yaga’s spell, her older brothers still followed the steps of power. Steps of conquering and claiming.

  Edgar and Ethan held the fragile book of the Vidartan priests in their hands, gleefully, greedily—ready to rule, ready to gain every bit of power the ancient priests had possessed. “This is ours by right,” Edgar loudly insisted, “Our tradition states that fact. We rule over you.”

  The vidayan unifying chant faltered.

  “Together,” Ethan spoke, “we declare: this woman is filth and distortion. Regardless of any good she has accomplished, she is a thief. She is sin. And she must be cast out. There is no room in the Geisprom or the way of the vidaya for women to touch the priest’s power. We declare her a witch. She must be destroyed!”

  A knife to the heart. Every. Damn. Word.

  The wretched hex was gone.

  But the hate in their hearts still remained. The evil witch’s curse planted a seed. Deep in their perceptions, the twisted spell had sunk. It grew because of their jealousy and fear. And then it became a part of who Edgar and Ethan were as men.

  As vidaya.

  All around them, the rest of their people chanted in unison. But malice was the filter that her older brothers used to view Mathilde.

  “You are corruption. You are named witch,” one of them sneered. She couldn’t have said which one spoke. “According to the law, you have been burned as a-a witch. The book of the vidartans opened for us. We are the vidartan descendants. We are the priests of the vidaya. W-we hold this power. And we call you corrupt. Ruined. Wrong.”

  In front of them, the yaga crone cackled in delight. She saw the truth; her madness had been passed on to new followers. And that was what they were: Followers of the Great Dark. Lost. Fallen.

  The Shelke born again.

  Mathilde stood there in a once-blue dress stained purple with her own blood. Her little brother, their brother Fritz stood by her side, holding her upper arm.

  The Captain stood on the other side, just behind her left shoulder. His arm locked with hers, elbow to elbow.

  Raising her gaze to the truth, Mathilde faced her brothers. And with them, she stared in the face of a thousand years of tradition.

  “Vahagn,” was the word she uttered.

  And then, “Hadeshma. And let H--V--N judge between me and you.”

  From her open palms, fire bloomed, sharp as an arrow, faster than a bullet. With spell-guided precision, the fire flew out of her hands and directly at her brothers’ bodies. Their eyes widened in fear.

  Because they were cowards at heart.

  Because they only thought of what they would do, of the damage they would inflict on anyone who tried to take their new-found power away.

  Because of all that, Edgar and Ethan cowered with their hands held out towards the yaga witch. The old crone reached to grab the precious, linen book. Her wrinkled fingers touched its pages just as Mathilde’s spell made contact.

  Linen burst into flame.

  The crone shrieked as magic burned her hands.

  The Will of H--V--N sped like bee to honey, locked onto its target. Heavenly-fire lit the ancient linen pages from within. The Geisprom erupted into a scorching bundle of flame.

  For two heartbeats, the pages flared brighter than the sun. Then the last copy of the vidartan records turned to ashes in between the hands of three desperate liars.

  Dust filled the space where magic had once been bound.

  “Gone. It’s gone. What did you-? How could you? “The crone’s snide smile vanished. The jolly, sweet mask finally slipped. All that remained was a horrible, frightening, towering fountain of anger.

  Yaga shook with raw rage. Fury like no one had ever witnessed consumed her.

  Whatever spell she cast towards them, Mathilde didn’t doubt that the old woman’s distorted magic would boil the flesh off their tired bones. The crone wouldn’t hold back. She wouldn’t think twice about eliminating all witnesses, or killing all of the holders of the ancient bloodline.

  There was only one thing to do.

  Mathilde held on to her brother’s hand as the Captain grabbed her shoulder and pulled them all into his embrace. Turning his back on the furious crone, Captain offered his body as their last shield.

  “Mathilde.” He whispered in her ear, “You are mine.”

  Those were the last words he spoke.

  The final choice of a man defined his character.

  Mathilde heard him. Heard his heart.

  She spoke one word, held in the strength of his arms, clutching her little brother tightly to her own shoulders.

  Fear was everywhere.

  The full force of rage was coming, hatred’s pure destruction. All of it hung over their heads, a brutal wave about to come crashing down.

  Mathilde smiled.

  “Achiezeer,” she whispered to the sky. Her voice more like the exhale of a butterfly, gentle and determined.

  Ancient magic swirled around her. Long-lost words, dipped in the blood of the believers shimmered in the breeze. Soaked in her blood and in Captain’s sacrifice, unbounded power snapped into focus.

  Above Gelshiesen, the mountain range quivered.

  Rumbling, cracking, the mountains shifted. Avalanches broke loose.

  Earth moved.

  One peak at a time, boulders bigger than the whole camp rearranged themselves, building a man of stone. A man of earth. A golem of primal, magnificent, precious magic.

  Shaking the land itself down to its very foundation, the creature towered up higher than the clouds. Pulling itself free of the mountain range, the golem built of whole mountains bent low, searching for the one who called it into being.

  Looking for the one who held the vidartan magic.

  Cursing, the crone turned to confront the monster.

  She launched spell after spell at its face: acid rain, black lighting. Cesspools of hatred, sludge of poisons, one after another, the yaga witch threw every magic she had—unlimited, vile, malignant hatred. Spells formed from lies and malice launched at the gigantic creature and fell like oil splotches, dripping down its shins.

  Angry as she was, the crone could not find a magic big enough to reach the golem’s seat of power. Blasting spell after spell, yaga cursed. Yaga blamed. Yaga threatened.

  As one, the vidaya stepped back, forming one column, one line of believers. Against the creature of rock and mountain, the vidaya changed nothing of their faith. They did not stop their prayers. They refused to fall. Over and over, they chanted their one true spell, “WE are Vidaya.”

  “We know who we are,” Mathilde yelled.

  “We are not trash,” she declared their worth to the world.

  “We,” she felt the magic all around them, filling the sky, the land, the trees, the snow, even the delicate flowers. “We are power. We are truth. We…” Mathilde shouted that one word, “We are Light!”

  Down from the sky above the clouds, the golem came, bending his face to the earth, searching for the priest that called it into being.

  Dull stone eyes knew its maker.

  Mathilde reached into her pocket and withdrew the broken mug handle. With her brother Fritz and the Captain behind her, Mathilde raised her hand to the sky. Holding the handle to touch the living mountain. “Emet,” she called it. And she kissed it, sealing her will. The golem was so large, she managed to only touch its thumb.

  The crone blasted more spells—to no use. And then craftily, her target changed. With one deep breath, she turned and pointed her malice directly at the three of them.

  They knew the curse was coming. For one brief moment, all three of them clung to each other in hope, together in death.

  And then, a gigantic foot made of dirt, trees and stone stepped into the camp.

  One step.

  It crushed the crone instantly. Burying her warped body and magic under tons of rock and rubble.

  Surprised, the vidaya cheered.

  Faster than anyone would have thought possible, the vidaya fled the
ruins of Gelshiesen. Along the way, they did not stop chanting.

  They kept their hearts calm and their minds clear. But together, they fled the death camp. Mathilde did not look right or left. She kept her eyes on the train line until an avalanche wiped the iron and steel off the surface of the land.

  The golem waited until the vidaya cleared the surrounding buildings and then the living earth sat down on the man-made structures that had killed so many men, women, and children.

  Any remnant of Gelshiesen disappeared.

  Stepping again to the east, the earth creature reached over to the train tracks and pulled them loose from the land. Ripping out their moorings for miles, the earth creatures pulled on the steel like it was a ribbon, nothing more.

  There was no way back to the Hollyoaken capital, Saint Gillens. There was also no way forward. And there was no camp left. No dogs alive except the Captain.

  In the middle of the mountains, a thousand people chanted. A thousand and four vidaya prayed.

  Golem looked at Mathilde again and spoke, its voice full of molten gravel. “Where?” the earth creature asked.

  “Where should we go? Where is there freedom?” Mathilde asked Captain. She didn’t know of anywhere safe.

  He didn’t either.

  While the golem erased all trace of men in the mountain valley, the vidaya gathered, united in that one chant.

  “They will know, right?” she looked to Captain for confirmation. He shrugged. “Someone here will know where we can go and escape this war.”

  Abruptly, someone ran past Mathilde.

  Immediately, she recognized Edgar. After all he had done, oddly, she still felt grateful. At least, he survived. I am not so sure Ethan did. Standing close to evil, no one escaped completely undamaged.

  At least, one of them was spared.

  So, Edgar was alive. That was enough for her.

  He ran out of panic, frightened, a child lost in the woods. Mathilde didn’t want to speak to him. Not now. Not with earth magic covering all trace of civilization for miles. Not with a thousand people needing vidartan magic to finally, truly escape the persecutions.