Through the Black Veil

by Steve Vera

  Gavin swallowed, remembering the terror and exhilaration of that never-ending day seventeen years ago, literally creeping through the rearguard of the Drynn left behind to the guard the Pale Gate and finish the butchering of the prisoners they’d taken. Behind his brother. The sheer lunacy of Lucian’s audacity struck Gavin now louder than ever before...it had been a suicide mission. They’d just been too young and stupid to know.

  “And when the forces of light and dark at last collided, such was its fury that mere words falter.” Dwensolt looked up from his text and spoke. “Even one hundred and thirty-seven years after, the scars of that battle remain, as do the spirits of the slain.”

  It was like a cinder-block to the face. Had he just said a hundred and thirty-seven years? He looked at Noah first. The out-of-place incredulity furrowing her face said all he needed. Tarsidion’s normally mocha skin had paled to milk with a splash of coffee and Cirena’s alabaster complexion was downright ghostly.

  Dwensolt held up his finger to them and hushed their stirring. “There’s more,” he said and continued to read.

  A hundred and thirty-seven years...?

  “In the chaos of the battle’s fury, the Seneschal and his six Apprentices struck!” Dwensolt eyes went wide. “Sur Tarsidion the Fierce,” he said, staring at Tarsidion. “Sur Cirena the Brave.” A gaze at the pale-faced vixen. “Sur Noahvden the Wise. Sur Juekovelin the Cunning, Sur Alyssandra the Pure, Sur Stavengre the True and...” Dwensolt bowed his head. “Sur Lucian, the Bright Star.”

  Silence.

  If that wasn’t my imagination, I do believe our names are in history books.

  “First came the Horde to shatter the ranks beneath the cover of the winged Flyborne. The Soldiers followed, their formations as well-drilled by any on Theia, while the dreaded Warlocks rained fire and death from above.”

  It wasn’t exactly how it had happened, but close enough.

  “Like spirits, Sur Lucian—leader of the youngest and most gifted class ever to be ordained by the Shardyn Seneschal—led his knights to the base of the mountain where the Pale Gate between Overworld and Underworld had been constructed. It was here that the Shardyn first set eyes on the vilest of odiums—the Slaughter Pits of the Drynn. Some prisoners were gutted and dismembered, others roasted alive. It was here that the Underworld learned of the Shardyn’s fury.”

  To hear it read aloud in the company of his fellow brethren as history was more than Gavin could bear. Tears brimmed in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks as snapshot images flashed through his mind, the memory of their desperation and fury, the sound of a voice Gavin still heard in his dreams, the voice of his twin, Lucian.

  I miss you so much, brother...

  Amanda grabbed his hand. His breathing came quick and hard.

  “The first to fall was the Seneschal. In a whirl of steel and cold blue fire, the Grand Master of the Order of Shardyn and a select group of cadre penetrated so deeply into the back of the Drynnian lines that the entire Drynnian army was forced to turn back, even as they clashed with the Army of Light. For the first time since the war had been unleashed, the Drynn were outflanked. It was only when Asmodeous the Pale himself swept down from the sky with his dreaded Warlocks did the Seneschal and his Cadre finally fall, but in doing so, decimated the skies of Warlocks and left the most powerful force in the arsenal of the Army of Light to slay the Lord of the Underworld himself—” Dwensolt raised his chin and regarded Gavin with shining eyes. “The Seven Apprentices,” he whispered.

  Gavin swallowed and tried to sniff away his running nose. Though he already knew how it ended, had been there, had seen it with his own eyes, a tiny, irrational part of him crazily prayed for a different outcome.

  “Any Drynn who came to the aid of their master that night were struck down by the circle of Apprentices arrayed around the twins, allowing them the time to weave a dance of pain and blood on a creature who until that point had known no equal.” Dwensolt swallowed. “But one of the twins fell.”

  Gavin closed his eyes and bowed his head. I don’t want to hear anymore.

  “Sur Lucian Kul Annototh, the Bright Star, was struck down and impaled by the dark blade of Asmodeous’s personal weapon—the Abyssian Scepter.” Dwensolt paused in reverence and then continued in a voice thick with emotion. “It was in that moment that a single man became a legend. For the first time, in the history of the world, the Pale Lord, Asmodeous the Pale was bested in single combat.”

  More hands joined Amanda’s, on his shoulders, his back, his thigh. Please make him stop...

  Dwensolt stepped away from the book and joined them in front of the pedestal. “What happened next on that field has been the subject of debate for a hundred and thirty-seven years, my new Shardyn friends. Some say that the ensuing fire-clap consumed the flesh and bones of Overlord and hero alike, leaving nothing of their passage but blackened dust. Still, others say...” Dwensolt lowered himself to his knees without the aid of his staff. “That the Pale Lord pierced the Black Veil and escaped to another world where it is whispered, the heroes of the Shardyn followed. “Is that what transpired or is there another tale to be told?”

  When nobody answered, Gavin cracked open his eyes and blinked away his double-vision. Dwensolt awaited his answer. “Aye,” Gavin said, clearing his throat. “That is what happened.”

  * * *

  Whatever was going on, it was heavy. The Shardyn had gathered and laid hands on Gavin like pastors at a healing retreat. Much to Skip’s frustration, he had no idea what was going on because he didn’t speak frickin’ Theian.

  After a couple of minutes of somber silence, he spoke up. “Is anybody gonna tell me what the hell is going on around here or do I have to become unpleasant?”

  Finally, Noah leaned in. “We just heard...our history. How it was recorded.”

  “You guys are in a history book? Way out here?”

  “Nawfla, nawfla,” Mr. Crazy-eyes said to Skip, pointing to the weird fountain in front of them. The water looked like mercury.

  “He wants us to drink,” Noah said.

  Skip eyed the pool skeptically. “That doesn’t even look like water.”

  “That’s because it’s magic,” Noah answered. “It’s a Druid’s Pool. Just drink. You’ll be fine.”

  “Druid pool, huh?” He eyed the water again. “Ladies first.”

  Noah dipped the silver ladle into the pool, brought it to her lips and drank. Slender rivulets of silver trickled down the sides of her hand and down her armor. One by one they repeated until it was only Skip and Donovan left.

  Skip shot Mr. Crazy-eyes a skeptical glance and then one at Donovan. Not that Skip would ever feel any sort of rapport or camaraderie with his sociopathic companion, but for an instant, there was a brief connection—a shared, telepathic shrug. Why the hell not? Skip drank first and then...so did Donovan.

  The water was cool and sweet and coated his insides like a sip of brandy. Skip smacked his lips and went for another.

  “No, fool!” Mr. Crazy-eyes said. “Only one.”

  “Who you calling fool— Hey, you speak English.”

  “Like I said, Skip. Magic. Just listen.” Noah looked as if she was steeling herself for a punch in the face.

  “The water made me understand Theian?”

  Crazy-eyes shot Skip a look of irritation before resuming his somber tone. Five long seconds went past. “The spoken word is too feeble a conduit to reveal to you the events that took place after that fateful day. Now that you have drunk from the pool you may see with your own eyes. Look now, into its depths.” He spoke a word, and the book behind him suddenly started to turn pages. On its own. It stopped with authority on a chosen page. Somehow, the whispery scrape of its pages unsettled him more than the scream of the Krakenwood outside. “Witness,” Dwensolt commanded. Dizzy and sparkle-visioned, Skip’s head began to swa
y. He closed his eyes and saw.

  * * *

  It was a parade. Gavin recognized the venue immediately, even after all these years—the Great Amphitheatre of Nu’rome. In the center was a paltry band of nine sapphire cloaks among a throng of Elverai, Red-Cloths, D’worves and many others.

  Just nine?

  He saw an award ceremony—he could only guess it was post-battle—saw former friends and comrades standing on marble pedestals in the middle of the immense arena among trumpets and confetti, cloaks eddying gently behind them as they were deluged by the adulation of hundreds of thousands.

  It made him smile, even if just for a second. For centuries the Magi had been hunted, feared and loathed; to see them loved and cheered, celebrated for the sacrifices they’d made, for the heroes they’d become, instilled in him faith in Mankind. When things were bleakest and hope flickered, Men always rallied.

  There were other heroes as well, faces he’d never dreamed he’d ever see again—Nu’romian Legionnaires Gavin had fought beside, the giants from the Southern Plains, champions of the vaunted Elven Du’vram and Nu’vram among many, but Dwensolt’s silver pool focused on the Shardyn, focused on the chains around their necks that bared their medals of honor. Something died in Gavin’s stomach even before he saw.

  With the violence of a garrote, the chains around their necks constricted, throttling them as they stood on their pedestals. No one noticed until a flight of arrows and the bolts of scarlet lightning speared into wavering cocoons erected in reflex by the hero Shardyn against the Wizards lurking in the ramparts of the upper stadium. Hands at throats, each Shardyn struggled to protect themselves from the onslaught of steel and fire while slowly choking to death.

  A lifetime of conditioning against the allures of revenge was incinerated by a mushroom cloud inside Gavin. Forced to watch the murder of his friends, of heroes on their day of triumph, something in Gavin broke. A door within him that had been sealed and deadlocked exploded open, tingeing his vision in crimson. They’re all going to die.

  He watched as thousands were trampled in the stampedes that followed, while wave after wave of heavily armed scarlet-caped Vambracian Knights surrounded the strangling Shardyn and attacked as fire, ice and lightning rained down from above.

  And still, even in their dying thrashes, the Shardyn fought back, lying waste to more than three quarters of the traitors who ambushed them. In the end, however...the Red-Cloths hoisted their heads on the tips of their staffs and roared their victory.

  And then the image faded.

  Soul-shocked silence. Somewhere deep down beneath his cells and blood was a flashing light, a warning alarm that something had broken. Before he could turn to his friends, or clench his fists or even manage a sob, his vision wavered and once again he was looking down a tunnel. What more could there possibly be to tell?

  In this vision he was home, but in the silver water of the spring, Gavin witnessed the siege of his Valis. He watched the island nation of his beloved homeland—a place the tortured could escape persecution and genocide, a land governed by truth, strength and compassion, a utopia that had never before been seen by Men on either world—wither under fire and ash, besieged by the Empire of Vambrace.

  The desperate acts of valor and heroism he saw in the silver pool would haunt every beat of his heart until it stopped. Children not even ten years old fought valiantly beside mothers in defense of grandparents. Sentinels (law enforcers of Valis) and agents of the Court led charge after charge against the invaders, defending the Temple and the Court and the histories they contained, the scrolls that could not be replaced, until there was no one left to charge. Every inch the invaders usurped was paid for in blood and pain.

  But still they came. In the end, such was the ferocity of the defense of Valis that even the land itself rose up, headed by none less than the Everwillow.

  Gavin’s last sight of his homeland in the Druid’s Pool was of fire, black skies and death. And then it was just water again.

  Chapter 17

  The aliens had returned. And they’d eaten their spinach. They careened against the back of Skip’s eyeballs with fists and claws, announcing their displeasure with him by raking his brain. At least this time he had some company; Amanda was laid out right next to him on the floor beside the fountain. She’d tried to chase Gavin after they’d stormed outside but had collapsed, clutching her head. Skip was right next to her and together they had writhed. Donovan was nowhere to be seen.

  Distantly, between the moans of their pain, he heard yells and cries and the distinct crackle and hiss of fire, followed by the concussion of thunder. No more magic for me. Ever, ever, ever.

  Somewhere beneath the undulating waves of pain, the horror of what he’d witnessed spread through his soul like drying blood. Dwensolt had been right.

  There were no words.

  All he could do was not move, keep his eyes closed and hope that when he woke up, the pain would be gone.

  Standing in the way of his plan was a presence he felt standing over him. He risked a glance and saw Crazy-eyes staring down at him. “’Sup?” He winced.

  Something, something, something, “o’peesh,” the Druid said.

  Skip shook his head and instantly regretted it. “Go away.”

  Something, something, something, “o’peesh,” Crazy-eyes repeated, but this time, he put both hands under his cheek and snored loudly. “O’peesh,” he said again.

  “Oh, hell yeah, I want some o’peesh,” Skip said with a nod, which he also instantly regretted.

  “What’s he saying, Skip?” Amanda asked in a voice thick with pain.

  “I think he wants to know if we want to rack out somewhere.”

  “Oh my God, I would bludgeon a baby seal for a bed right now.”

  Laughter did not help his cause. “Damn you, Amanda, no jokes.” He looked up. “And yes, Mr. Crazy-eyes, o’peesh. We desire o’peesh. Yes. Together.” He wasn’t sure where Gavin was, or Donovan for that matter, but he’d keep an eye on her. Hermits did weird things.

  Dwensolt stared down at them for a moment. He was impossible to read, especially when Skip couldn’t figure out which eye to focus on. Finally, the old man spoke up and it sounded like “Stoom-ka,” followed by the universal gesture of “follow-me.” He stepped backward and started for a door beyond the podium. “Stoom-ka,” something something, “stoom-ka.”

  “C’mon, Amanda,” Skip said in a weary groan. “Time to stoom-ka.”

  * * *

  “Feel better?” Cirena asked from behind Gavin some time later, her voice low but warm.

  “I’m trying not to throw up,” he responded, eyes glued on a blossom petal curling as it dried in the dying sun.

  “That was quite a display,” she said and stroked his hair with fingers that were cool. Soothing.

  “I guess I showed those clouds, huh?” he asked. His shoulders were slumped, his legs folded haphazardly beneath him, his cloak lifeless around him. His whole body was a numb shell.

  He turned to her, suddenly needing to see her, tired of feeling sorry for himself. Her eyes were swollen, her face white, full lips so bloodless they were blue.

  “How about you?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  Cirena gently raked her fingers through the hair over his temple, brushing his ear with her thumb, and shook her head. “I would feel better if I could kill those responsible.” Her eyes glistened, shimmered even, but no tears came. “But we can’t even do that, can we?”

  Gavin slowly shook his head. No. A hundred and thirty-seven years had gone by. Everybody involved or responsible was already dead.

  “Then what do we do?” she whispered. Emotion, which so rarely graced her features, turned her porcelain beauty into something goddess-like. For a moment he just stared at her, took comfort in the soft-cornered square shape of her face
, her high cheekbones and slender, refined nose tip. Her purple eyes shined with pain and passion and the need for an answer.

  “We still have to warn the world,” he said and felt a sliver of steel slide back into his spine. “The Drynn care nothing of man’s treachery. In fact...” He stared at a beetle with long antennas leisurely climbing the stem of a flower. “They exalt in it.”

  She leaned ever so slightly forward and he could have kissed her then, wanted nothing more to feel something real, to escape into something carnal. Instead he closed his eyes and dropped his head. That wouldn’t do. Her fingers hooked under his chin and brought his eyes back to hers. “Do you still hate me?” she whispered.

  Oh, Cirena, not now, please not right now. He fought the reflex to look away but instead let himself get sucked into depths hidden from all others. It was like staring into a whirlpool. “No,” he finally said and it was the truth. “I don’t hate you anymore.” After all this time, after the cataclysm they’d just endured, it was easy to let go, trivial almost, and the invisible barrier that had stood between them since the first time they’d met blew away like ash in the wind. It scared him a little.

  “Any chance we can make this a threesome?” Tarsidion asked, kneeling beside them. Gavin wondered how long he’d been there.

  “You’re the one who doesn’t like to share,” Gavin said, pulling his chin gently from Cirena. She let him and somehow, despite the nuclear fallout of what they’d just endured, her face seemed...peaceful.

  “Do I get to watch?” Noah asked from behind them. The three of them turned and made room for her to join them on the soft grass of Dwensolt’s garden grounds. How the very thought of a smile could even fathom touching his face was beyond him, but there it was, fluttering at the corner of his mouth. After Noah slid to her knees beside them, Gavin took her hand on impulse and then Cirena’s, who in turn took Tarsidion’s, who then took Noah’s. Half huddle, half prayer circle, the four of them looked at each other.