by Brindi Quinn
“Rend,” I said. I held out my hand.
Saying nothing, she dropped the pendant into my palm.
I reluctantly accepted the cursed object and handed it to Kantú. “All right,” I said. “Put it on him. I’m ready.”
I stood to my feet and closed my eyes.
We were basically blind. Before us was the rising; behind us stretches of unknown; and all around, whiteness that blocked out everything. The Feirgh were close. Within our bubble, we couldn’t feel them, but they had to be close. Nyte and Darch were writhing so.
“Alright, Aura! It’s on him!”
“Good,” said Grotts, steadying Darch. “Kantú, help Ardette with Nyte so that Trib can grab the reins.”
She hurried to follow his command. Once relieved, Trib surveyed the scene, approved, and fell into position. She nodded to Scardo, and he took a deep breath.
“Everyone! On my command!” The hunched man took another breath. “One . . . Two . . . THREE!”
At the signal, Rend and Nyte dropped the barrier and that whiteness that had so long been pushing against its sides rushed in, sweeping over us and blinding us even more. Trib had been right. The Feirgh WERE close.
From above came the saddest wave of despair – so potent it was almost visible – and along with it came that stench. That sickly sweetness that followed the Feirgh. It crept and slid down the wall of the rising. It was going to begin affecting us at any moment. I had to sing, and fast. But I couldn’t. Not until Ardette played his role.
Grotts’ hand was now on Ardette’s left horn. Scardo’s on his right. They were to be his life fuel for this most powerful spell that we were about to attempt. All of us had formed into a tight group at the buggy’s center. A circle of warriors prepared to fight the mist. Kantú’s job was to hold back my drifting hand that was reaching on its own toward Nyte, whose warmth was becoming more apparent than it had ever been before. Absence had made that want grow stronger. My hope was that that would, as a side effect, make the ariando even stronger too. Maybe something good would come of my addiction after all. Maybe we’d be able to use it to our advantage.
Hurry, Ardette! I need that warmth! I needed it more than I ever had. It was calling to me, tantalizing me, nearly blocking out the moans and hisses that I was now starting to hear.
“They’re coming! Hurry up, kids!” yelled Trib from the buggy’s back.
“Ardette!” yelled Grotts. “We need ya!”
“Shhh! Shut up, would you! I’m trying to take in as much as I can so that this little exercise doesn’t kill me!”
“If ya don’t hurry up, the Feirgh’ll get ya anyway!”
That warmth. I want it. I need it.
“I can’t hold her back much longer! Come on, Ardetto!”
But Ardette only responded with a big, “YAH!”
And then it began.
Grotts and Scardo were giving Ardette’s horns spirit, and Ardette, in turn, was turning both of his arms to shadow. He lost no time in sending one arm straight through Darch, into Rend. Now they were all connected by a line of shadow. All that was left was me.
Ardette had been able to channel my song into that Daem’s soul. Our theory was that he’d also be able to channel Rend’s energy – her corras – along with Darch’s, into me. That way, I’d be able to not only use Nyte’s power, but also all of the magical energy within Rend, Ardette, and Darch. It was crazy and untested, but I prayed against all that it would work . . . or at least, I had before that addicted monster had taken over my body. Since the pendant had been placed back on my Elf’s neck, I’d been able to concentrate on nothing but the struggle of holding myself back.
“Ready, Miss Heart?” said Scardo. The sounds of Lusafael’s henchmen were getting louder. Closer. We were lost in the whiteness, but the sadness was overwhelming. Still, I was more consumed with the warm Elf just out of reach. “MISS HEART?” persisted Scardo.
Warmth! Now!
But I managed a shaky nod.
“Alrigh’, Ardette! Go!”
At that moment, three things happened all at once. Ardette plunged his free hand into my chest; Kantú released me, and I fell forward against Nyte; and with everything in me, I opened my lungs, ready to sing at last, and pulled in a large helping of power through my arms, which were around Nyte’s neck.
In no time at all, the warmth was again inside of me, coursing though my veins, but I wasn’t using it in the way I was supposed to. Instead, I was laughing like a crazy person. It was mine. It was all mine. At long last, it was mine to take!
“SING, AURA!” screamed Kantú. But she was hunching now. That despair was sucking the life from her. It was happening to all of them.
I couldn’t concentrate, though. Nyte felt too good. This was it. This was what I’d always waited for – total control of his spirit. Total and utter command of his body. I was going to ingest him. We were about to become one.
But then, when I was ready to throw it all away, something happened that made me reclaim my sanity. The warmth – that pulsing, sneaking, corrupting warmth – became entangled with wisps of cool shadow, and I remembered what I had to do. I opened my mouth and began to belt.
“Light of virtue, light of hope,
Light to drive away the void,
A new light born where there was none,
Light this song with spirit's sun!”
From within me came the largest blast of yellow light I’d ever seen. It was as blinding as the sun and immediately pushed the mist far, far away. I was using the life corras of all of the magical beings on the buggy, and I’d never felt more powerful. I’d never felt more alive. My veins pulsed, mixed with smoke and spirit. The mist fled. And it was great. Triumphant. For the fun of it, I sang again.
“Light of virtue, light of hope,
Light to drive away the void,
A new light born where there was none,
Light this song with spirit's sun!”
The running mist uncovered the rising so that it was finally visible to us. I could see then that it was a steeply growing incline – almost like a cliff. I couldn’t make out the top from where we were, but there was hissing. There was definitely hissing, so I knew that our assumptions had been right. The place was crawling with Feirgh.
On cue, Trib started up the buggy with a giant tug of the longest string.
“HEE-HO!” she yelled.
Okay, this was it. The most important part.
Letting the shadow within me dilute that sweet warmth, I split the song into four parts. I made one of them stronger than the rest and sent it far into the north, along with one of the weaker ones. The third I heaved to the south, keeping the weakest in the space surrounding us. My goal was to make Lusafael assume that the strongest of the four was our real position, leaving the rest as decoys. If everything worked as planned, he’d never suspect we’d actually saved the least of them for ourselves.
We were all linked together, and I was throwing my voice in four directions at once – a power I hadn’t known I possessed. In the presence of my protecting yellow light, the others straightened up. Darch and Nyte ceased their writhing.
“Good . . . good work,” said Darch, voice trembling. But though he was free from the mist, he was still weak. His spirit was being sucked into me through Ardette. They were all yet feeling the fatigue of the spell – the sheer exhaustion of corra transfer.
“A little longer, everyone!” I yelled, holding tightly to Nyte while struggling not to lose myself to him.
Trib hurried to bring us up to the top of the rising. We ascended quickly, but I wasn’t paying attention to that. I was staring at Nyte, who was now blankly staring back with eyes of murky brownness.
I pushed the song, and the rising rose, and at the top, I would’ve gasped if given the luxury of having a free voice, but as it was, I had no open words with which to express myself, for I’d just started a third round of the ariando.
“Light of virtue, light of hope . . .”
The
reason for my intended gasp was that, again, Trib had been spot-on. The rising did indeed plateau into a flat, dirt surface of hard, white ground that had been stained by the mist.
And it was filled with Feirgh – writhing, hissing, popping Feirgh that were dying under the light of the glow. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them swarmed to us, but were caught in the deathly web of saving light.
Then, before us, I saw something strange. Something I hadn’t been expecting.
Scardo saw it too. “What lies there?!” he cried, pointing the near distance where the mist stopped all at once like a wall.
At the edge of the plateau bridge, there was . . . openness? Yes, openness, if it could be called such. Mistless openness that we were heading straight for at max speed.
“That’s the point of crossing!” yelled Trib. “FULL BLAST AHEAD!”
“Wait!” shouted Kantú. “You’re going in? But I thought-”
“Forgive me, Uncle Bergra! There’s nothing else I can do with things this way!”
With that, Trib gave the wings a forceful kick, and they pulsed a brighter blue than any of their previous pulses. The buggy sped, ramming into the dying Feirgh that moaned and reached to us. We plowed through them all, leaving nothing but a trail of hissing.
We broke through the wall of open space itself.
On the other side, Trib let out a whoop. “We made it! We really, truly made it, kids! Great work, everybody! You can drop your spell now!”
“But what about the Fei-” Kantú started a protest, but it wasn’t necessary.
The horde of mistwalkers hadn’t followed us. Apparently they were unable to cross into the absence of mist. Unable or unwilling. And there was no sign of Lusafael, either.
We’d done it. Somehow, we’d done the impossible and crossed the Mistlands of Nor unscathed. We were at the other side.
I couldn’t take it in, though. None of us could. Together, we’d collapsed into a muddled pile of exhaustion.
I was still sucking, and there was no one strong enough to wrench my hands away.
Chapter 8: The Beyond
Everything was black for a time.
“Let go!” There was a distant cry. Was it for me? “Aura, LET GO!”
Yes, it was for me. And no, I’d never let go again. There was no way. He was mine. All of him was mine. We were meant to be this way. We were meant to be one.
“TRIB!” screamed the voice. “I can’t get her off! Grottsy, can you stand!? I need help! I don’t know what to do!”
“Yeah, but my hands are frozen stiff! Damn it all! At the end, I had ta use both! Scardo didn’t, though! Scardo, git up and git over there!”
“I-I’m afraid I cannot! Ardette won’t release me!”
“AURA!” The voice’s owner was tugging at me, pulling at my collar, pushing on my shoulders. “COME ON! LET GO OF HIM!”
No. I wouldn’t. No matter what. I’d never let go.
Everything faded to black again.
~
I was drifting through a tunnel filled with liquid. I was completely submerged, but I could still breathe. That was weird. I’d never breathed under water before. The tunnel was warm and good, and I could sense Nyte throughout the entirety of it. Was the liquid his spirit?
“No, it’s his soul,” said a man’s garbled voice. It was a voice that I recognized. A voice that brought comfort.
His . . . soul? I’m immersed in Nyte’s soul? How?
“Afraid you’ve gone too far this time, my cherry pit.”
I let the soul water fill my lungs. It was so warm. It was comfortable too. I wanted to mix myself with it. To get rid of the ‘me’. If there was no ‘me’, there’d be no ‘him’. There’d be only ‘us’. That sounded perfect.
“Really? Do you really think so? Hm. That’s disappointing. You do realize that if there’s no ‘him’ that means he’ll be dead, right? But if that’s what you want, I suppose you can have your way . . . .”
Wait, he’d be dead? I didn’t want that.
“Oh? You’ll be leaving, then?”
No. I couldn’t. It felt too soothing and perfect to be lost in warm suspension.
“Fine. Stay here. It’s not like I really care or anything . . . but what will you do with your life from here on?”
My life?
“Why, yes, my angel. You know, after you’ve eliminated him, there’ll be nowhere left for you to soak. You’ll return to the real world eventually. It’s just a matter of whether or not you’d like him to return with you – whether you prefer to free him or to swallow him here and now. So, what’ll it be?”
He’s mine.
“Yes, that you’ve made obnoxiously apparent. But he’s not only yours, is he? Can you honestly say there are no others who care for him?”
Rend.
“That’s right. Dearest Rend. Anyone else?”
Pietri.
“Yes, a whole gaggle of Elfly tribesmen would miss him. Not that I understand why – he has no redeeming qualities as far as I can tell. Still, they’d probably mourn his absence for some inexplicable reason. But you don’t really care about that, do you? You only want him for yourself?”
Yes. All for myself.
“Awfully selfish of you, if you ask me. Not that I don’t understand the impulse. Think of it this way: What would happen if I gave into my dark desires and took you for myself?”
If you took me? . . . . . I understood what he was getting at, but the scenario reminded me of something else – an issue beyond this soul’s respite.
“What’s this? I sense a shift of energy in you. Could it be that you’ve decided to let him go a bit?”
Let go? If that was happening, it wasn’t anything that I was consciously doing.
“Well then, out with it. What’re you dwelling on now, my pit?”
It’s about you, Ardette. It’s just . . . how is it possible that you share emotions with your brother?
The tunnel was silent, and all I could hear was the sound of my lungs pulling in liquid and releasing it back out. At last, the garbled voice said,
“OH? Been speaking to Darch, have you? But alas, this isn’t really the time to be asking that question. You’re still drinking him in, even now.”
I ignored the attempt at diverting my attention back to the issue at hand.
Did I know you before, Ardette? Somehow, I knew you before, right?
“What? Before?”
Before that first time we met at the stable. I had a dream. About us.
“A dream? Why, how quaint. I hope it was a scandalous dream, Angel.”
. . .
“So it was?” He chuckled. “How I wish to pry the details from you now, but unfortunately, I’ve been sent in to save him, so it’ll have to wait. You’ve got to get out of this space, and it would be best for everyone if you’d hurry.”
I like it here. It feels good. My whole body feels good.
“Yes, well, how about a proposition, then? I promise you that if you return, I’ll make your body feel even better.”
Better? What do you mean?
He chuckled again. “Ah. There’s that innocence again. How that innocence makes me crave you.”
I’d grown distracted from the warmth of Nyte’s soul, and the liquid was starting to thin.
What’s happening, Ardette?
“I’m pulling you out.”
What?! No! Please don’t!
“I have to.”
But why? I want to stay here. I want to become one with him!
“‘Why’, you ask?” He sighed. “Simple. Because I love you. I must do this for him because I love you. How ironic it all is.”
The water was draining quicker now, and I was growing light-headed. It felt like I was on the edge of sleep’s drift. Drifting and draining, and the warmth was leaving. My head was fuzzy. Soul was being drawn from my nostrils. I was almost asleep now, but I was resisting the urge to lose consciousness. There was one more thing that needed to leave my silent throat.
&nbs
p; I . . . I . . .
“Hm?”
I love you . . . Dragon.
~
“Well, that was fun.” Ardette’s voice was clearer now, no longer garbled by the warm liquid.
I was waking up, but I couldn’t move or open my eyes.
“What happened in there,” asked Kantú. “Why are you so smiley, you perv?”
“Nothing that concerns you, my feisty squirrel. It should be safe to remove that necklace from him now.”
“Should? You had best be more certain than that, Daem!”
“Rend, darling, I just risked my life to save him . . . but you’re right – I’d probably allow him to die now and let all of that hard work go to waste.”
Someone had been carrying me, but they now set me down gently into something soft. A blanket or something.
“And after you remove the pendant, make sure you remove your binding on Aura, too!” ordered Kantú.
“It would be far less trouble to just leave her this way until the end, would it not?” said Rend.
“You big stupid meanie!”
“Now, now, Kantoo. Ya’d best be nicer ta the lady. We don’ want ‘er havin’ one of her fits o’ rage.”
“Grottsy! You’re awake!”
There was a gruff groan. “Sure am. But I woulda been fine if it weren’t fer Darch. Why’d ya have ta go an’ use that Magir hokey-pokey on me anyway?”
“Easy!” came Darch’s enthused response. “Because you lost a lot of spirit. You needed time to let your body make more!”
Grotts continued to grumble. There was some shuffling, and then I sensed a presence too close to my face.
“Darch?” said the presence. It was Kantú. She sounded concerned. “Are they both going to be okay?”
“Hm. Well, let’s see.”
There was a hand on my chest.
“Aura’s already awake!” sang Darch. “Good work, Ardetto! Rend, please hurry to unbind her!”