The Hickory Staff

by Rob Scott

  He turned his musings back to the task at hand, content to leave military engagements to those better qualified to organise them. Their path did not lie with the Falkan Resistance, anyway. If they were to find Kantu, they would need to employ stealth, cunning, timely retreats, and a healthy ration of luck.

  Steven desperately needed the Larion Senator’s help if he were to master the quixotic magic of the staff and bring its full potential to bear against Nerak. Mark hoped his friend was up to the task; he was worried that Steven’s dogged determination to preserve life, no matter how badly they were being threatened, would cost them all dearly in the end. It had been dreadful, watching him kneel over the body of the dead soldier while an enemy force surrounded them on the beach. Mark had wanted to scream, ‘Steven, pay attention, you idiot! He’s dead. Leave him and see to us, before we are too.’

  Mark sighed. He was pretty sure Steven had only just begun to tap the staff’s inherent strength: if he’d wanted to, he could have incinerated the entire band of assailants in one sweeping gesture. Once he knew how to employ the magic properly, he might use the staff to level a mountain range, to summon fire from the sky, or to bring Welstar Palace down about Nerak’s neck and bury the murdering bastard in a pile of rubble.

  He’d watched Steven battle the wraith army; it had been like watching a ballet, graceful and perfectly coordinated. That was the magic Steven needed at his fingertips, not rock clouds and glowing balls of light.

  Mark grimaced: this was pointless; he was speculating on things he knew nothing about. Steven would do his best to save them all, to save Eldarn, and to find them a way back to Colorado. He rolled onto his side and hoped once again to fall asleep.

  It was a long while before he did.

  THE CROSSING

  In the avens before dawn, Mark dreamed of the beach in Estrad and the night he slipped and fell through the open portal stretched out across the living room floor at 147 Tenth Street. He looked to the twin moons hanging in the night sky, and the ten thousand visible stars, thick in the air like a cloud of luminous insects, illuminating a pale sandy ribbon stretching off and disappearing into the darkness in either direction. It was humid. Mark removed his sweater and boots and strode into the water, basking in the familiar caress of the waves that gently tugged about his ankles as if to drag him out to sea.

  His father was there. It was Jones Beach in New York, and his father had just sat heavily on a folding aluminum lawn chair. The family’s large yellow umbrella cast a circle of dim shade on the sand, and Mark heard the snap of a beer can being opened. But his father didn’t face the water, nor go in swimming, nor did he stretch his bare toes towards the foam as the tide ambled in that afternoon. Rather, he faced the city, turning his chair and squinting into the distance as if to catch a glimpse of the sun flashing off the silvery jets taking off and lumbering into the sky above Jamaica Bay, huge flying fish captured for an instant in a photographer’s flash. By the end of the day, his father would have finished six beers, two ham sandwiches and an ice cream cone, the latter purchased on his one trip to the public restrooms out along the boardwalk. Mark held his hand as they walked and his father regaled him with tales of Karl Yazstremski’s late-inning heroics the previous night and how tiny the ball had looked as it bounced off Fenway’s Green Monster for a game-winning double.

  Then the almor was with them, pressing through the hot afternoon sand like an animated puddle of mucus. It came closer and closer, and Mark could smell it there, putrid and rank in the humid New York heat. He tugged his father’s hand, pulling with all the strength he could muster, but for some reason the older man was oblivious to the demon lying in wait at his feet. ‘Chocolate today, slugger, or vanilla?’ he asked, and Mark watched in horror as his father’s ankle disappeared into several inches of the almor’s milky, insubstantial essence. Nothing happened. ‘Or maybe we’ll have a scoop of each, what do you think?’ Mark could smell the faint odour of stale beer, and as his father grinned, he caught a brief glimpse of one gold filling gripping an incisor like a long-ago misplaced piece of costume jewellery.

  Careful to step over the almor’s puddle, Mark released his father’s hand and peered down into the sand. The demon’s fluid form swirled about in a tumult of anguish and loathing. Mark’s heart seized and he nearly fell backwards onto the beach when he saw several forms begin to take shape within the ivory puddle. Seron. There were hundreds of Seron, twisting in and out of focus, trapped within the almor’s gelatinous flesh. The Seron were crying out, trying to communicate something. To him? No. They were speaking, or screaming in anger. Some were gesturing at something Mark could not make out. Then they stopped. Staring ahead, each of the warriors began to melt away, half-human soldiers disintegrating into colourless, lifeless imperfections, stark against the almor’s cadaverous, pale backdrop.

  One face took their place. It was a common face, sunken-cheeked but not emaciated, with thin lips, a narrow nose, and dark eyes set close together. Mark knew instantly this was Nerak, and as quickly as the dark prince’s portrait took shape, it too began to come apart. Beginning just below the eyes, Nerak’s skin stretched and pulled askew in erratic, random tears, as if the sorcerer were being dismantled from within. The eyes collapsed, their fluid leaking across the taut skin of Nerak’s cheeks, and his lips flattened before bursting in small explosions of sticky blood. He did not appear to be in pain, though, but revelled in the tortuous dismemberment of his human features, gaping out at Mark in a silent roar. With Nerak’s ruined face peering at him, Mark stepped back from the almor and looked for his father. He stood facing westwards along Jones Beach, oblivious to the ghastly display going on just a few feet away. Peeking down at the almor one last time, Mark dashed towards the boardwalk on bare feet and into the safety of his father’s protective embrace.

  Mark rolled over on the rocky beach of the subterranean cavern and opened his eyes. An idea, as distant as the faint aroma of Jones Beach, began to tickle at the edges of his mind. The almor, the Seron, the wraiths, Nerak: there was something about them, something they held in common, something beyond the apparent evil in their nature. What was it? He sat up and turned the idea over, reaching into the depths of his consciousness. Careful not to wake Brynne, he got up and tiptoed towards the lake. The stones of the underground beach rubbed together roughly beneath his feet and he was glad to have his boots on – yet, in that same moment, he bent over and began to untie his laces. Methodically he worked through the dilemma again and again, each time opening his mind to different variables or possibilities. Still the answers he sought eluded him.

  Mark pulled off his boots and socks and inhaled sharply as he stepped into the frigid lake water. What would his father be doing tonight – watching a basketball game? Reading the paper, or enjoying a second glass of wine before dinner? Perhaps he’d be out at Jones Beach, awaiting news of Mark’s whereabouts, staring west towards the distant glow of Manhattan. No. His father would be in Colorado somewhere, clinging to the idea that his search was still a rescue effort and summarily ignoring news reports outlining the distinct lack of progress in the Idaho Springs Emergency Team’s recovery efforts. Decatur Peak. His father would be out on Decatur Peak every day. He would need snowshoes by now, but that’s where he would be.

  Mark shifted his feet. He missed the gentle pull of ocean waves as they broke across his shins before retreating over his ankles. The lake didn’t move. It stretched out before him, imperturbable, and unaffected by his need for clarity. The almor, the Seron, the wraiths, and Nerak. If he wanted to know how to defeat them, he had to get to know them. What weaknesses did they possess? What about them was so irritatingly familiar? An answer was out there, and Mark was determined to find it. ‘Take your time,’ he scolded himself, ‘don’t force things. Just think it through. It will come.’

  He was still standing calf-deep in the water when the others woke. Brynne approached him warily. ‘What is it?’ She whispered, despite the background noise of three hundred people making b
reakfast over dozens of small campfires – the Capina Fair’s final contribution to the Eldarni revolution – and preparing to cross the lake.

  Mark looked at her and felt his stomach flutter: she was lovely, she looked as if she had spent a few extra moments to look attractive for him, beautiful when it didn’t matter, when simply waking to another day was enough. He was touched that something as superficial as her appearance still mattered to her, and he wished for a few hours of freedom, a day or two, to be in love someplace safe, someplace where one cared what one wore and whether one’s hair was clean and tidy.

  A desolate sadness came over him as he realised he and Brynne might never have such a time. She had pulled her hair over one shoulder, tied with a short length of rawhide, and her tunic had been belted firmly around her slim waist. Filthy, smelling foully of mud and death, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. He shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘What?’ she asked again, smiling sexily this time.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied and realised his feet were nearly frozen through. He wondered if he would be able to walk.

  Steven’s magic dawn brightened, flaming into life above their heads, and he moved down the beach to join the couple at the water’s edge. ‘Going swimming?’ he asked Mark.

  ‘Just out wading.’

  ‘Is it cold?’

  ‘Mercilessly.’ Mark gripped his friend’s shoulder and stepped clumsily from the shallows to the beach. ‘I’ve just been thinking.’ He shook his feet in an effort to move blood into his toes.

  ‘About what?’ Brynne asked, still curious.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Mark replied honestly. ‘Have you ever felt as if there was something lurking on the tip of your brain, just outside your realm of understanding? Like if you could just peek around the next corner, everything would make sense?’

  ‘Sure,’ Steven answered without hesitation. ‘I call it parametric statistics.’

  ‘Seriously, think about Nerak and all the mother-uglies he’s sent against us.’

  Steven and Brynne were suddenly attentive.

  ‘Wraiths, the almor, the Seron. What do they all have in common?’

  They hesitated, so he went on, ‘They can all be placed on a continuum from real to unreal. Actually, that’s not quite right; it’s more like from whole to less-than-whole.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’ Steven was interested, but still couldn’t see where Mark was going.

  ‘The almor drains the life force from its victims. The Seron have had their souls ripped from their bodies.’

  ‘Well, we don’t really know that,’ Brynne said. ‘Who knows what Gilmour meant when he said “soul”?’

  ‘Right,’ Mark agreed, ‘but you must agree something about their individuality, their essence, has been forcibly removed.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Mark pulled socks over his freezing feet. ‘The wraiths are the imprisoned souls, if we can call that essence a soul, of Nerak’s victims through time. He takes over their bodies and discards the physical being, but keeps the soul, the essence, with him. He keeps it prisoner and can control it, send it against us, and force it to kill.’

  ‘Okay, I understand what you’re saying, but I still don’t know what you mean.’ Steven was racking his brain, trying to get in tune with Mark’s thinking.

  ‘Neither do I, yet,’ Mark answered despondently. ‘It’s just that if he has a weakness, I believe this is the way to determine what it is.’

  ‘This continuum of whole to less-than-whole?’ Brynne was still struggling with the concept.

  ‘Nerak and the almor are whole, evil, and filled with the life force of thousands of dead. The Seron are still evil, but devoid of that same essence.’

  ‘And they are alive,’ Steven suggested.

  ‘Right,’ Mark nodded, ‘unlike the wraiths.’

  ‘But wait a moment,’ Brynne said, ‘Gabriel O’Reilly seemed alive to me. Granted, a different form to any living thing I’d encountered before, but he certainly didn’t seem dead.’

  ‘A good point,’ Mark acknowledged. ‘On the other hand, the wraiths, alive or not, are certainly less-than-whole, less real, less … well, less substantial than the others.’

  ‘So do we need to redefine what it means to be alive to defeat Nerak?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mark was getting frustrated that his hypothesis was no more clear than it had been when he had awakened several hours earlier. ‘Maybe not alive, but possessing the essence of life.’

  ‘How is that a weapon?’ Brynne fingered the hunting knife at her belt.

  ‘It can only be a weapon for us if it works against evil,’ Steven tried.

  ‘Not against evil, but maybe against Nerak,’ Mark responded. ‘It may be a simple question of perception.’

  ‘Perception?’ Steven mulled the word over for a moment. ‘So, the evil that possesses Nerak may only be as powerful as it is perceived to be by the people of Eldarn?’

  ‘Or it may only be as powerful as it perceives Nerak to be – or, better yet, as powerful as it perceived Nerak to be when it took him nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons ago.’ Mark was speaking quickly, trying to sneak up on his conclusion through sheer speed.

  Brynne kicked pebbles into the lake. ‘If Nerak has a weakness, then perhaps the evil minion that controls him has the same weakness.’

  ‘Because it doesn’t know any better.’ Mark was lacing up his boots.

  ‘But where is that weakness? It certainly isn’t anything Nerak has acquired since he forfeited his soul to evil.’ Steven groaned. They were heading around the same block once again.

  ‘It is perception.’ Mark scratched at the several days’ beard growth jutting from his chin. ‘What if Nerak had a weakness way back when, but he didn’t believe it? He never admitted it to himself, so as far as he was concerned, there was no one more powerful in all Eldarn.’

  ‘And the evil minion believed him?’ Brynne sounded sceptical.

  ‘Why not? In Nerak’s mind it was absolute truth, regardless of how false it might actually have been. Evil arrives via the spell table in its purist form. It takes over Nerak’s body, devouring his soul, the soul of the most powerful sorcerer in Eldarn. So anything Nerak believed to be fact would influence the emergence of evil in Eldarn.

  ‘Remember what Gilmour said? That evil arrives in tiny pieces and is scattered by the sheer demand of so many people thinking ugly thoughts or committing nasty deeds. But we all know evil is nothing more than perception. One person’s evil might be another’s righteousness. So, Nerak, as weak as he might have been, did have an impact on the evolution of this particular minion.’

  ‘That’s fine, but I have to ask again: where is the weakness? And surely evil would have figured it out in the past nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons and dealt with it – or gone off to possess a different sorcerer?’ Steven asked.

  ‘That’s where things begin to unravel in my mind,’ Mark admitted. ‘And I keep coming back to the victims and the creatures. How is it that Lahp and O’Reilly were both able to escape him? What about those common denominators – what can they teach us about Nerak before he was taken himself?’

  ‘Maybe it requires those souls to continue its domination, perpetuate its power and maintain its status as the most evil thing known. Perhaps there is greater evil, more powerful evil, but it remains unknown, so this evil actually has limits.’ Brynne was still trying to understand; she was beginning to think she would rather have been ordered to drink the lake dry.

  ‘I’d hate to bet on that. I’d hate to bet on something unknown, never known.’ Steven said.

  ‘We may have to,’ Mark said grimly. ‘But that’s not all of it. That’s not enough.’ Mark’s frustration was contagious. ‘Let’s say the evil that possesses Nerak was misled. Nerak was never as powerful as he believed when he was taken at Sandcliff Palace. The minion that took him knows what he knows and understands what he understands—’

  ‘That he is the most po
werful and dangerous man in Eldarn,’ Brynne said.

  ‘Right,’ Mark agreed. ‘But he is not. Would the evil minion be limited to the things Nerak is able to do, to control, or to bring about as a result of his magic?’

  Steven chimed in, ‘That might explain why all the creatures he summons or creates seem to spring from the same origins: that might be evidence of his limitations – deadly and nearly indestructible evidence, but evidence just the same.’

  ‘It would,’ Mark agreed, ‘and because the evil that controls him takes Nerak’s truths at face value, it makes a mistake that costs it dearly over time.’

  ‘How?’ Brynne was lost again. ‘It doesn’t appear to have any weaknesses, or to care one whit if we and all the armies of Eldarn march against it together.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Steven said. ‘If it had no weaknesses, it wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing Lessek’s Key to the bank, and it wouldn’t have worried about closing down one of the far portals for ever.’

  ‘And it did know it lacked the skill to operate the spell table.’ Brynne twisted a lock of hair around one finger. ‘Gilmour told us it needed to create a safe environment in which to master the magic of the spell table. That’s taken it nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons, and hopefully longer. So perhaps it hid the key to keep it safe.’

  ‘And perhaps it hid the key to keep itself safe.’ Mark wanted this to be true, but found himself at a loss for any evidence to prove it. He frowned and then went on, ‘So, you see? It’s just outside my grasp, just on the tip of my mind, but I’m convinced there is something there, some magical loophole through which we can ram that staff of yours and kick this guy’s ass for good.’

  Brynne reached out to wrap her arms around Mark’s waist. Pulling him close, she kissed him lightly on the nose and commanded gently, ‘Well, you keep working on it, Mark. I know you’ll crack it. We’ll need all the understanding we can get when we reach Orindale.’