Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  Secondly, and far more importantly, the sneaky bastard must’ve ridden that pain straight through my mental defenses, because I was no longer in control of my body.

  I cursed myself as he settled sharp claws uncomfortably close to my throat. How had I been so careless?

  “Don’t, girl,” came my own flat and empty tone—Al’Kundesha speaking through me, I realized, to chide Elise, who was clearly contemplating trying to liberate me from his grasp. “Drop your stick and behave.”

  Her face twisted in confusion, then her eyes widened in understanding. The bitter helplessness on her face as she dropped her spear and raised her hands in surrender made me burn with impotent rage.

  I cursed myself and Al’Kundesha alike as he turned us to face the others.

  Ahead, Carlisle pivoted inside a swipe from the High Cleric and, with a sharp twist and some telekinetic aid, hurled the raknoth into a group of hybrids twenty feet away. Without pause, he tucked just under Zar’Faenor’s incoming arms, came to his feet on the raknoth’s flank, dagger in hand… and jolted to a stop mid-thrust, as if a giant, invisible hand had clamped down around him.

  Zar’Faenor. It had to be.

  They faced each other in motionless silence, locked in some invisible telekinetic struggle. I tried to reach out to help, but Al’Kundesha shut my effort down, wiggling his thumb in my shoulder for a fresh shock of good measure pain.

  “Stay,” my voice added, my left arm rising to point at Elise, who’d taken a step towards Carlisle.

  She froze, jaw tightly clenched.

  I watched helplessly, longing to tear Al’Kundesha and the rest of his ilk to pieces. The High Cleric was back on his feet now, stalking toward Carlisle’s frozen form.

  Panic swelled in my chest.

  Then Johnny rose from Phineas’ side and leapt onto the High Cleric’s back with a wordless cry. He bludgeoned the butt of his sidearm into the raknoth’s temple over and over, shouting with each slam.

  “Eat. My. Butt. You. Holy. Prick!”

  The blows didn’t do much serious damage, but Johnny’s stunt did distract everyone enough for Carlisle to break free of his mental wrestling match with Zar’Faenor.

  He was just bursting into motion when Al’Kundesha, apparently having seen enough, roared loud enough to half-deafen me.

  “Enough,” he boomed into the hall’s resulting silence, using his own voice this time. “Lay down your weapons.”

  No offer of peace or a quick end. He just dug into my shoulder and let my scream do the convincing.

  Zar’Faenor glanced our way in what might have been annoyance. Behind him, the hybrids had fallen still, and what legionnaires remained watched them warily as the last load of civilians piled into the waiting transport. On the other side of the Great Hall, nothing moved.

  Johnny slid off the High Cleric’s back and dropped his guns in surrender. I was going to be sick. Hundreds lay dead. Civilians. Legionnaires. All lost because of me. And now my friends…

  I would have collapsed if Al’Kundesha hadn’t been holding me at attention.

  The raknoth had won. Again. And I’d failed.

  I watched Carlisle, hoping, praying.

  “Leave me,” I sent desperately. “Get the others out of here. I know you can. You can still rally the Legion. Don’t let them die because of me.”

  He couldn’t hear me, of course. Not with Al’Kundesha corralling me.

  I could see Carlisle’s mind turning, weighing the options, understanding that we weren’t all getting out of there alive. Could see his conflict. Then his shoulders eased, and he gave me a look that reached inside and broke something.

  It was goodbye.

  His daggers fell to the stone with a pair of metallic clangs. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do a damn thing.

  “Kill them all,” Zar’Faenor growled.

  Time slowed.

  Al’Kundesha’s hand tightened on my throat, claws breaking the skin. The High Cleric turned with a vicious swipe at Johnny’s head. Elise was screaming my name.

  Carlisle spun, hands shooting out toward me and Johnny.

  Al’Kundesha’s hand tugged gratingly away from my throat, resisting every inch. Unseen force plowed the High Cleric away from Johnny mid-strike. Al’Kundesha’s second hand was pulled from my shoulder, and the raknoth staggered away from me with a frustrated snarl.

  Then Zar’Faenor closed on Carlisle. Carlisle whirled to meet him, graceful as ever, and jerked to a halt as Zar’Faenor’s fist tore through his abdomen with a sickening wet thunk.

  Time stopped. All I could see was Carlisle’s face, his mouth agape, face contorted at first with pain and shock but then softening into something else entirely—something I’d never seen from him before. Something I didn’t understand.

  He looked at peace.

  He raised his hands, cupping the face of his old mentor as if greeting a long-lost loved one. As if it were truly Cassius he held, and not a coldhearted monster wearing his shell. He bowed his head, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and pressed his forehead to Zar’Faenor’s.

  Then something began to happen—the faintest violet light crackling at Carlisle’s fingertips. Zar’Faenor’s crimson eyes widened. He started to jerk away then froze, eyes dimming. Carlisle’s lip twitched upward in the ghost of a smile, then he coughed blood and sagged against Zar’Faenor like he’d just winked out.

  I lost control.

  Pure, raw emotion screamed out of me, straight at the hardsteel walls of Al’Kundesha’s telepathic prison as he approached me from behind. The raknoth caught the rushing tide of my mind, his step faltering. He dug in, and we struggled there, him holding me at bay but not quite pushing me back down.

  Then another presence swept in and started ripping at the raknoth, prying his mental grip loose alongside me.

  “C’mon, kid!” a voice growled in my mind. “Fight the bastard!”

  Smirks.

  I didn’t pause to ask why. I just threw myself at Al’Kundesha all the harder, thrashing and clawing and biting until he had no choice but to give an inch to our combined minds. Then another. Then Elise crashed into Al’Kundesha with a hard boot to the head, and the raknoth’s hold broke.

  I spun, a hoarse cry tearing out of my throat.

  Al’Kundesha was swinging at Elise, but she was ready, dipping, angling her spear to catch his shoulder, planting the haft so that the stone floor did most of the work for her. The spearhead drove home on Al’Kundesha’s own momentum, and he growled in pain.

  I didn’t give him time to recover. I grabbed him with my mind and slammed him to floor, hard enough to crack stones. I raised his head and slammed it again. Lifted his whole body and smashed it into the pulverized stones as hard as I could, over and over.

  He roared, fighting me.

  I fought harder, barely even noticing when I crumpled to my knees from the exhaustion. I was distantly aware of Smirks’ voice spurring me on—of Elise calling my name, fear in her tone. But I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t let him get away again.

  I’d kill him. I’d kill all of them, no matter—

  “Haldin.”

  I gasped, the voice cutting through me like ice water, tugging at me against the maelstrom. Ahead, Al’Kundesha shifted. I reached out, preparing to slam him again.

  “Haldin, you have to go. Now.”

  There was no mistaking it. I felt him all around me now—all around the Great Hall—and it was only then I noticed the peculiar energy in the air. It swirled around us in thick waves, building and building until the air was howling with it, whipping at our hair and clothes.

  And at the eye of the bizarre storm sat Carlisle, his head rocked back, a peaceful smile on his face. He still held Zar’Faenor, his fingertips radiant with that violet glow now. The eerie light was spreading across the raknoth’s face. Consuming it. The energy building all the while.

  “I can’t let him live,” I sent.

  “Let it go, Haldin. Leave him to me.”r />
  I could feel the power thrumming around the room, pulsing through him like a giant bomb, ready to explode.

  “Kill the Shaper!” Al’Kundesha roared behind me. “Kill him now!”

  As one, the hybrids snapped to action.

  The wind whipped harder, and it was like Alpha himself had reached down to swat them away across the Great Hall. The few who made it through unscathed, Carlisle took apart one by one, hurling them at the walls, slamming them to the ground hard enough that they wouldn’t rise again.

  I turned for Al’Kundesha, but Carlisle was already pulling him in, the raknoth punching through stone in futility for a strong enough handhold to stop himself.

  “Let it go, Haldin.”

  Elise pulled me to my feet. Across the hall, what few legionnaires remained were piling into a transport, waving furiously for us to get over there. I watched Al’Kundesha slide closer to Carlisle.

  Elise and I traded a look and, by some unspoken agreement, started for Carlisle together.

  “No!” his voice poured into my mind. “Get to the transport. Get the others out.”

  “I’m not leaving you. We can still—”

  “I’m already dead, Hal,” he sent, more softly this time. “My body is finished. I can’t stop what I’ve started. It’s over for me.”

  “That’s not true. You can… you can…”

  But I didn’t know how to finish the thought. Because I could feel the truth.

  “Cassius is the only thing keeping me from losing control. He’s here with me, Hal. I’m ready. But you need to get out. This entire hall is going to go up.”

  I couldn’t look away from him. Couldn’t stop seeing my parents, torn away.

  “I can’t… I can’t lose you too.”

  “I’m sorry, Hal. But you will survive this. You must.”

  “Hal?” Elise said beside me.

  I tore my gaze away from Carlisle and Al’Kundesha. I had to gasp for the breath to speak. “We need to go.”

  Her eyes widened. “We can’t leave him!”

  She was right. She was right and it made me want to scream. But there was nothing else to be done. I wished I could turn off the voice inside screaming for survival—that I could have the decency to lay down and die beside him. But I couldn’t. The only thing I could do for him now was to make sure he knew his sacrifice wasn’t wasted.

  I felt like I was suffocating. Maybe Al’Kundesha had punctured my right lung. It didn’t matter now.

  “He can’t stop this,” was all I could manage as I took her hand and pulled her with me.

  Johnny was laboring to haul Phineas up from the ground when we reached him.

  “Leave me, kid,” the burly man was mumbling weakly. “Get Elise out.”

  Johnny ignored him, and so did I. No one else was going to die because of me.

  Before I got a hand on Phineas, though, Elise pushed me back and stepped in to help Johnny heave the large man to his feet. “We’re not leaving anyone else behind, so get your butt moving, you old bear.”

  Johnny shot Elise a look that was plain enough. What about Carlisle?

  She just shook her head, shooting a furtive glance at me.

  Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I longed to collapse. To give up. They hauled Phineas off for the waiting transport without a word, refusing to let me. I followed after them, my feet like hunks of softsteel.

  “I’m sorry, Carlisle. I’m so sorry.”

  “I gladly give my life for yours, Hal. You must not blame yourse—”

  I felt a kind of mental shudder pass through him, accompanied by a tremendous surge of energy in the air around us. The winds whipped harder than ever.

  Ahead, the transport lilted drunkenly.

  “Not good,” Johnny said, and I noticed his palmlight was flickering erratically in the storm.

  “Can’t… control this much longer,” Carlisle sent. “Hurry.”

  I pulled from the considerable energy of Carlisle’s storm to telekinetically float Phineas off Elise and Johnny.

  “Come on!” I wheezed, ignoring their surprised looks and breaking into the closest thing to a run my burning lungs and battered body could manage.

  It was all I could do not to collapse. Elise and Johnny chased after me, feet pounding heavily on the stone. The legionnaires were shouting out, waving us on.

  “Hal… I want you to… want you to kn—”

  Another surge of energy crackled through the air, and a gust of wind slapped me off my feet. I hit the stone roughly beside Phineas, who groaned in pain. Somewhere behind me, Johnny swore.

  “Raish.”

  I looked around at Smirks’ voice. I’d forgotten about him, but I saw him now, slung limply over the High Cleric’s shoulder. Frosty was back on her feet, running beside them for a destroyed section of the duraglass wall not far from the transport.

  “I was ready to die like a good boy,” Smirks sent, “but I’d rather not stick with these crazy bastards, if you’re feeling charitable.”

  I wasn’t. I so wasn’t. But I faltered anyway, glancing back at Elise and Johnny, who were hauling Phineas up the base of the transport’s ramp. Whatever else he’d done, Smirks had tried to help us in the end.

  “Carlisle…”

  But I didn’t have to finish the thought. Carlisle smacked the High Cleric down with the hand of Alpha and began pulling him in, despite the fact that he was already working to keep Al’Kundesha and a dozen hybrids contained.

  Smirks spilled out in front of the raknoth and feebly started crawling our way.

  Frosty eyed him, then the High Cleric. Then she turned her malicious glare on the waiting transport and waved a hand.

  There was a series of loud pops from behind, and the sputtering groan of dying motors. I whirled at the sound of Elise’s cry, hurling my senses outward. She hit the side of the building and caught on, the transport lurching out of view behind her, trailing smoke.

  It must’ve been Carlisle who caught Phineas. The big man was floating from the sheer drop back into the hall by the time I was able to help.

  “Okay,” Johnny said when Elise was safely back inside, “looks like we’d better go see about those lifts.”

  I turned back to collect Smirks, half-expecting an attack from Frosty.

  No such luck.

  All I caught was a glimpse of the two disappearing through the destroyed section of wall into the dark evening, slung over the shoulders of the High Cleric, who’d apparently slipped Carlisle’s control in the chaos.

  “Nice try, kid,” Smirks sent.

  Then they were gone.

  Johnny turned, eyes wide. “Did they just…?” He touched a hand to his earpiece. “Never mind. They’re sending another transport back up to—”

  The storm flared, whipping into us, and Johnny staggered precariously close to the edge before Elise yanked him back.

  “No time for transport,” Carlisle sent, the strain evident in his presence. Around us, the wind whipped harder, the air vibrating with energy. “Jump. Now. Jump!”

  I stepped to the edge, hauling Phineas up with telekinesis, and held my arms out to the others. “I’ll catch us.”

  Elise pressed in beside me without question. Johnny only glanced between me and the nearly two-thousand-foot fall five or six times before tossing his rifle and joining our huddle, pressing Phineas’ barely conscious bulk between the three of us.

  I clicked their cloaking pendants off. Just in case. Then I teetered, wasting precious seconds for one last look back.

  “Go,” Carlisle sent. His tone was soft now. At peace in the heart of the torrential storm he was holding fast. “Go and know that I am proud of you, Haldin. Always.”

  It was the last thing I ever heard him say.

  It was the moment I knew I’d never forgive myself.

  “Thank you, Carlisle.” I couldn’t breathe under the mountain of guilt on my chest. “Thank you for everything.”

  The last I saw of Carlisle, he was holding Al’K
undesha and an entire company of hybrids pinned to the ground, his forehead resting against his old mentor’s, tunic billowing in gale force winds, tiny streaks of violet lightning arcing from his radiant form.

  He looked like something out of a legend.

  Then we were through the breached wall, falling through the open Divinity air, clinging together like our lives depended on it.

  And he was gone.

  I wanted to scream.

  If I hadn’t had the lives of the people I loved literally hanging in my hands, I probably would have. I certainly wouldn’t have had the willpower left to stop even a falling pebble, much less four people. But the rushing air and the wide-eyed terror on Johnny’s and Elise’s faces forced me to hold it together.

  I made the requisite links and began channeling energy from the combined falling mass of myself and Johnny to put the telekinetic brakes on Phineas and Elise. The strain was immediate.

  Channeling from our own fall instead of an external source effectively halved the workload, but it still left me acting as the conduit for two falling bodies’ worth of weight. It was basically the equivalent of lowering a four-hundred-pound weight down the side of a building with a rope.

  And given that street level was nearly two thousand feet below—probably a good ten-second drop at free fall and closer to a full minute if we didn’t want to die on impact—I was pretty sure I was liable to pass out from the exertion well before we reached a safe falling distance.

  Panic clutched my chest, adding to my already considerable difficulty breathing.

  I closed my eyes, sinking into the struggle until I almost forgot where I was.

  “Hal?” came Elise’s concerned voice.

  “Hey big guy,” Johnny added, “you hang in there now, okay? I don’t wanna be a griddlecake… I don’t even like griddlecakes, man!”

  “You… love… griddlecakes,” I grunted between shallow breaths.

  “Ah scud, I do,” Johnny agreed. “Alpha help me, I do.”

  “Drop me,” Phineas groaned. “You can handle three.”

  My eyes snapped open at that, a flash of anger spiking me back to alertness.