A Child of Two Worlds

by Mark Cole

  “That’s a foolish notion, boy,” Brahm said. “Sprites’ll sooner kill ye then look at ye.”

  “We don’t have the forces otherwise,” the Guardian pressed. “We must try. Everyone is needed.”

  The king nodded. “Difficult times lie ahead. Everyone’s needed indeed. I can offer ye supplies fer yer journey through the Wraith Marshes. Not much fer eatin’ there.”

  “Thank you, King,” Alex said.

  “If there do be nothin’ else-” King Harbronn started to say before Brahm cut him off.

  The grizzled Dwarf quickly stood from his chair and dropped to a knee before his king. “King, I’d ask fer yer leave to travel with them, as a guard and advisor to the Nexus and the Guardian. Me second can take over plannin’ and supplyin’ fer the war.”

  The king looked down at his Captain of the Guard, his face resuming the pensive cast he had had before they came in. “Is this truly what ye wish to do, Brahm?”

  Brahm lifted his eyes and looked into those of his long time friend. “Yes, it is.”

  The king nodded. “Ye’ve been a loyal friend and captain fer longer than I do remember. But, ye may only do this thing if you take with ye the Hammer o’ Kings, so that all may know that yer words carry the weight o’ me crown behind ‘em. An’ the armor o’ Brahm.”

  “King,” the kneeling Dwarf said. “I do no’ be worthy to wear the armor o’ the Brahm.”

  He smiled at his friend. “Yer worthy o’ the armor an’ much more. Ye do honor to yer name.” King Harbronn stood. The others rose to their feet as well. “Go now in peace, ‘til we return to the stone.”

  “Until we return to the stone,” Terra said. The group of four left the throne room. She stopped as the doors closed behind them. “Gather everything we will need for three weeks in the Marsh,” she said. “We leave in the morning.”

  Chapter Fourteen - The Harbinger of the End

  the Great Lord whispered in Azreal’s mind.

  The acrid fog that filled Ignia, the Realm of Death, made the Demon Lord’s throat constrict. He ignored the discomfort. “Never, Great Lord,” Azreal said. “I know well the price of failure.” Eternal torment without the relief of death.

 

  The end of all things, Azreal thought. No more good, no more evil, just nothingness. “Indeed,” he said. “You have granted me great power, Great Lord. I shall use it to destroy these fools that attempt to defy us.”

  Azreal had seen the destruction the Great Lord had wrought upon the ones who had defied him. The end of all things, the Overlord thought again. No more killing, no more pain. He shuddered in fear at the thought. Better to be the hammer of gods than a nail. He knew the end would come with or without him, and it was more enjoyable to ride the wave of destruction than be crushed by it.

 

  Azreal nodded as he turned from the Great Lord. His black cloak made the fog swirl around his feet. His decision to serve the Great Lord was a simple one. Why battle purposelessly against the other Demon Lords when he could serve in ushering in the end? The forces of good could not stop it. They could win battle after battle, war after war, and all would stay the same.

  The Great Lord only needed a single victory, and all would disappear in a cleansing blossom of fire and chaos.

  Azreal approached the portal back to Dae. The golden gateway to the Realm of Magic opened, and he stepped through into the Focus Room of the Obsidian Tower. Reaver stood behind the Obsidian Throne.

  Azreal crossed the unadorned black stone room that stood near the peak of the tower. He glanced to his left and saw the glowing green light coming up the stairwell. The Extraction Chamber must be near capacity for it to glow with such intensity. The Overlord of Hell sat on the throne and shuddered in ecstasy as the life forces being drained by the pods in the room below were funneled into him by the Obsidian Throne.

  “Have you found them?” Azreal asked in the guttural language of Hell.

  Reaver walked around and stood before his master. “Yes, Dark One. They were in Adorac Volcano. I dispatched Fyrian mercenaries to capture them, but they failed. Three days ago, they left the volcano and haven’t been heard of since.”

  “You lost them!” Azreal roared as he shot to his feet, his limp blood-red hair swinging. The twelve-foot-tall demon cowered under the baleful glare of the Demon Lord that was half his height. The Overlord of Hell backhanded the demon, sending it flying twenty feet across the room to slam into the wall. In the span of a blink, Azreal crossed the span and loomed over Reaver.

  “Why should I spare you?” Azreal asked the demon.

  “I know where they will be, Dark Lord. They went from Starfall to Adorac. They must be rallying the remaining forces here for a desperate strike. They must next be going to the Pillars of Dawn.”

  “It seems you live another day,” Azreal said. “Send an army to Highwind Point. The Nexus needs to understand exactly what it means to defy the Harbinger of the End.”

  “What if they go to the World Tree in the Wraith Marshes?”

  Azreal shook his head. “I doubt the Nexus would do something so foolish. But, send a force with magical inversion amulets and shards of the tower. It is past time we dealt with the sprites.”

  Chapter Fifteen - A Gift of Things Forgotten

  After four days underground, three days in the valleys of the Adorac Mountains, and a week slogging through the fetid Wraith Marshes, all four members of the party were exhausted. That, paired with the constant oppressive heat and dampness, was beginning to rub their nerves raw.

  “I thought it was supposed to be winter,” Alex grumbled as he swatted at a fly on his arm.

  “Aye, me too,” Brahm agreed. “It’s always too bloody hot in the blasted marshes. Ye should come here in the summer, Lad. Ye’ll swear ye were in a sauna.”

  There were no good places to make camp in the marsh. Most of it was trackless, only broken by massive tree roots that they used as roads as long as they went east. Some roots were easy to traverse; others were so bad, the four were better off trudging through the water.

  Terra lost her footing on a slick root and fell toward the water, a good fifty feet below. Alex dove forward to catch her, but he was too late.

  “Terra!” he shouted.

  She caught herself on a cushion of air just before her feet touched the water. He glared as she floated back up to the root.

  “You need to be more careful. What would have happened if you hit your head before you fell?” Alex asked.

  Terra sighed. He felt her annoyance on the link. “Then I’m sure you would have dived in and saved me,” she said.

  Alex clenched his jaw. “Just be more careful.”

  Terra glared back at him. “More careful of what?” she demanded to be told. Caitlyn and Brahm exchanged surreptitious nods and kept walking, putting some distance between themselves and the fighting couple. “Was I running and dancing on the slick root?”

  “No, but if something happened to you then I don’t know what I would do.”

  Alex had been treating her more and more as if she were a delicate flower as the days passed, and it infuriated her. Terra grabbed his arm as he turned to follow the other two. He pivoted back to her, his face blank. She did her best to ignore his negative emotions coming across the link. “I’m not made of glass, Alex. I can take care of myself. There are things here that can kill you if you aren’t wary. I’m safer here than you are.”

  Alex let out a deep breath, and Terra felt his anger slowly fade. “Sorry. This place just has me on edge. I feel like something is watching us.”

  Terra nodded. She knew they were being watched. The couple caught up to their two friends. Terra looked around for a moment. “We are nearing the center of the swamp. We’ll be at the World Tree soon.”

  “How can you tell?” Caitlyn asked as she padded
along on all four.

  “These trees are older,” Terra said. “Their roots wider. And the World Tree has a dampening effect on my magic. It gets stronger the closer we get.” She felt Alex’s sense of caution bloom when she stopped talking. “Don’t worry, I’m still far from defenseless.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said. They walked in relative silence for a few minutes before Alex spoke again. “Where does the energy for magic come from?” Terra pointed at Caitlyn. “It comes from Caitlyn?” he asked.

  The changeling laughed. “Not just from me. All changelings generate elemental energy.”

  “How?”

  Caitlyn shrugged her front shoulders. “We just do. Each race of changelings creates a different kind of energy.”

  “Like air, fire, water, and earth?”

  “That’s right,” Caitlyn said

  “What kind of energy do you make?”

  Caitlyn laughed again. “I’ve never been asked that before. What kind do you think I make?”

  “I have no idea,” Alex said.

  “Everyone drifts toward an area that is strong with their kind of energy, so think about where each race of changelings lives,” Caitlyn said, pointing him in the right direction.

  “Umm… Well, Starfall is in a forest, so my instincts say earth, but the Changelings of the Scale live underground.”

  “Are you sure they live underground?” Caitlyn asked over her shoulder.

  “Am I sure? We just came from there, they live in a… volcano,” Alex said.

  “I think he’s startin’ to get it,” Brahm joked. Terra laughed.

  “Ok, so Changelings of the Scale are obviously fire. That makes the Changelings of the Fang earth. If I had to guess, I would say the Changelings of the Wing are air, and the Claw water.”

  “That’s right!” Caitlyn said. “Good job, Alex.”

  “But I still don’t understand how they make elemental energy,” Alex said.

  “Luna blessed them with the ability,” Terra said.

  “Luna? Is that one the big moon or the little one?”

  “They are both what remains of Luna,” Caitlyn instructed. “The story goes that in order to protect Dae from a horrible evil, a powerful being called Luna sacrificed herself to give the beings of our world the power to protect themselves.”

  “If she was so powerful that she could affect an entire planet, why didn’t she just stop the ‘horrible evil’ herself?” Alex asked.

  “No one knows, and it’s been a hotly debated topic for as long as anyone can remember. But whatever it was must have been incredibly powerful for her to sacrifice herself.” Alex thought on the story, and Caitlyn moved away to scout for a place to camp.

  “What would happen if a race of changelings was completely killed?” Alex asked, his voice soft with the weight of the question.

  Brahm looked to Terra. She was silent for a few minutes before answering. “There is another story of a fifth race of changelings. They were unlike the other four races. These changelings were spirit beasts.”

  “What’s a spirit beast?”

  “A spirit beast do be a beast like most others, but they exist half here, in our world, an’ half in the Void,” Brahm explained.

  “Do I need to keep asking questions?” Alex asked. “Or are you two just going to start teaching me without me having to?”

  Terra laughed. “Sorry, Alex, sometimes I forget how much you don’t know. The Void is the space between the planes. Or outside of them, no one is really sure. Some called it the Spirit World, and that’s where the name for the spirit beasts came from.”

  “So what kind of magic did they have? And what happened to it when they died?”

  “Well,” Terra began, “keep in mind this is only a story. It was said that the Spirit Changelings used to create an energy that wove through the other four. It was a part of magic, but was separate from the other elements. It was called spirit magic.

  “When the Spirit Changelings died off, spirit magic disappeared. Some think that due to its disassociated nature from the other magics, it didn’t affect Dae, and others think it’s just a story. But, I know one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Alex asked.

  “It would explain why the Wraith Marshes smell like rot all of the time. The Spirit Changelings used to live here, in the story, and they maintained the marsh. But now that they are gone, it has become overcome with death. Only the World Tree keeps the marsh from turning into a boundless swamp.”

  “So this part of the world is dying because they are all gone,” Alex said.

  Terra shrugged. “Maybe. Like I said, it’s a story with no way of proving it one way or another.”

  They walked for a few more hours, and night began to fall. “I saw a good place to camp ahead,” Caitlyn said as she returned. “Only another fifteen minutes walking, jump to another root, then that root touches down into a dry patch of ground. I still don’t see any animals larger than these bloodsucking bugs.”

  Alex nodded and beckoned for her to lead the way. True to her word, in about a quarter hour they came upon a root that ran under the one they were walking on. Caitlyn nimbly hopped down, landing on all four, her tail stuck out for balance. Brahm followed much less gracefully, thudding down the ten foot drop. Caitlyn helped steady the Dwarf.

  After he slid down, Alex turned to help Terra. She handed down the packs of food, armor, and equipment, then followed with his help. They distributed the packs back out among them and continued on. A few more minutes walk and they were down on solid ground.

  The darkness was now full, but Terra cast a few globes of light, illuminating the camp with a soft white glow. The simple spell taxed her more than she thought it should, even this close to the World Tree. The feeling of being watched was stronger than it had been before.

  “Should we make a fire?” Alex asked.

  “No,” Brahm said. “The sprites do no’ take kindly to fire near their tree. This is folly, me boy. They could help us, kill us, or ignore us, an’ each do be as likely as the last.”

  “I agree with Brahm,” Caitlyn said. “We have enough supplies to go north and make it to the Pillars of Dawn. I don’t think we should go farther into the Wraith Marsh.”

  “We’ve come too far to turn away now,” Alex said. “And, we need them. It’s simple numbers. We don’t have enough.” Without warning, the lights Terra had summoned winked out. “I can’t see,” he said.

  “I didn’t dispel them,” Terra said. A second of hesitation. “Something is blocking me from being able to cast spells.”

  Alex drew the Guardian’s Blade, and he heard Brahm lift the war hammer free of its hanger. Flickers of orange torchlight bobbed by a few hundred yards away. A minute passed and the balls of light winked back into existence. “That was odd,” Caitlyn said. Terra nodded. Weapons were put away, and they continued setting camp.

  “What do sprites look like?” Alex asked as he took a bite of the dried meat they had brought. When silence met his question, he looked up at the three staring at him. Or at something behind him.

  He spun, drawing his blade. A vaguely human-shaped shimmering light no bigger than his hand floated in front of his face. “Like that,” Brahm said.

  “You must help us, dark one,” a soft sighing voice said. “They carry shards of darkness. We cannot touch them. You are our only hope, dark one. Please, they bring fire. Ygg is in danger.” The sprite darted away. “Follow.” It darted further away, deeper into the marsh.

  The four looked to one another and nodded. They hoisted their packs, drew their weapons, and darted after the tiny sprite. “Alex,” Terra called. “You can’t unleash the Wrathblade here. I don’t know what is going on, but if they see fire, they may attack you. My magic is blocked again.”

  Alex acknowledged her statement as they ran. The sprite shrieked in fear and pain when they entered a clearing bathed in flame. Halfmen and Daemen were setting everything on fire. Sprites spun and whirred trying to kill the i
nvaders, but every time they came close to the monsters they were pushed back.

  Three shocked Halfmen and two Daemen stood still for a second of surprise. Alex darted in and punched one of the Halfmen in the throat, the cartilage of its windpipe cracking. “Terra,” he shouted as he snatched the axe from its weakened fingers and threw it to her so she would have something to defend herself.

  Brahm said the word of power that activated the armor contained in the amulet. The Armor of Kings enclosed the stout Dwarf in the blink of an eye, and he charged into the melee, crushing a Daemon’s black armor with a mighty blow.

  Caitlyn launched herself like a black missile. She ripped out the throat of a Halfman. Using the gurgling monster as a springboard, she landed on the back of an armored Daemon. It collapsed to the ground under her hundred odd pounds of muscle. She raked the back of its neck with inch-long claws, severing part of its spinal column.

  Terra caught the long-handled axe and spun it in her hands like a staff. She moved with the grace of a dancer and swung the axe level with the throat of a Halfman. Blood spurted a foot into the air, and the decapitated corpse collapsed. In seconds, it was over.

  “Hurry, dark one,” the sprites all called. “They are nearing Ygg.”

  The four followed a flood of sprites in a myriad of colors deeper into the marsh. They leapt over smaller roots and splashed through ankle deep water. Caitlyn ran near the front with the leading sprites. They stopped in front of the largest tree in the marsh.

  “The World Tree,” Caitlyn said, as they turned left and ran around the trunk in a wide circuit.

  A group of twenty Halfmen and Daemen waded through the water toward them. At seeing the massive group, the Halfmen hesitated, but the Daemen forced them onward. Excited at the prospect of the coming slaughter, the forces of Hell screeched in delight. They thought twenty against four was in their favor.

  Alex drew the Guardian’s Blade and in a flash of red light unleashed the Wrathblade. The hate blossomed, but he forced it into a cold rage. No flames licked the blade, but he felt none of the power from the blade he had in the past.