by Jeff Gunzel
Consciousness slipping further away by the second, his thoughts were becoming incoherent. The normally clear understanding of the world around him was giving way to primal emotions. No longer trusting his vision, he could swear the villagers were smiling, even laughing at the transformation that should have terrified them.
All the color bled from his hair, leaving behind a mass of waving white silk. One eye blackened, the iris narrowing before turning bright yellow. Dark green scales rolled into existence down the side of his face, overlapping one another while filling in around his black eye. His arm withered and lengthened, rolling down into a brown whip-like vine. His rational thoughts now completely gone, his mind was now driven only by raw emotion. Hate, rage, savage aggression, these feelings were all his primitive mind could comprehend.
“Yes!” the woman shouted, raising her fists. Xavier jerked toward the voice as if only seeing her now for the first time. “You want to kill me, don’t you? I understand your bloodlust. Well, come, then, and satisfy that urge!”
Body exploding into motion, feet ripping up the dirt like lightning strikes, the animal broke into a mad dash without even knowing why. It needed to hurt something, needed to satisfy this insatiable bloodlust. Vine lashing, his other hand clawing, he ripped the air around her in a savage blur of movement. Nothing landed, each blow seemed to pass straight through her as if she were a ghost.
But no, the blows weren’t really passing through her, they were missing completely. She moved like liquid, smooth, effortless, and only a few inches in any one direction. With barely a step left, right, back, a duck that was hardly more than a flinch, her subtle moves were so precise and fast that she appeared to be standing still. Each blow missed by a hair, but they were indeed missing.
As Xavier’s breaths started coming in labored gasps, his blur of movement began to slow as the flurry played out. This pace was unsustainable, even for the beast he had become. Rasping, slowing, his fruitless blows caught nothing but air time and time again. Villagers watched with mild interest, if at all. It was turning into the usual one-sided battle they had come to expect from this magical woman, a god to their eyes who had never, nor would ever, taste defeat.
Visibly exhausted, the animal stumbled forward in hopes of just grabbing hold of something, anything. Standing still for the first time, she simply allowed his whip-like arm to wrap around her body. But when he tried to yank her back into his arms, it was like trying to pull a tree out of the ground.
With his adversary impossibly anchored, his own feet went sliding forward instead. With a quick move, she wrapped his vine around the back of her wrist, then effortlessly pulled him in. With a snap of her other arm, she drove a heavy fist into the side of his ribs. The vine loosened and the beast wheezed. Her fist felt like an iron hammer against him, sending a wave of nausea radiating up into his head. Even through this primitive mental state, the animal could still grasp how completely outmatched he was.
All the animal’s rage, its hate, all fled its mind in a matter of seconds. With all the emotions the animal had ever known gone, the only sensation left was strange and unfamiliar, yet very, very real.
Fear...
Unleashing rights and lefts, she slammed her alternating fists into his side in a blur of savage blows. Each crushing strike sent his body convulsing, even lifting his feet off the ground. Any one of these punches would have crushed a human. With the weakened animal subdued, his split personalities became torn and confused in the midst of the savage beating. The shock was like falling from a tree, and waking up halfway before hitting the ground.
But somehow Xavier’s consciousness sprang forward from the depths of nowhere.
Body burning, blood running freely from the corner of his mouth, he managed to focus on her face as she held him up by the chin. In fact, she was the only thing holding him up. “You,” he groaned, certain she had just beat him within an inch of his life, yet remembering almost none of it.
His mind had returned, but not his memory of anything that had just happened. After all, it didn’t really happen to him.
She grinned at Xavier, holding his gaze as her face began to shift. Her eye turned black, the iris going yellow right before his eyes. All the color bled from her hair, and scaly patches of green began to appear down the side of her face. Still she kept smiling, lucid, clearly in full control of her thoughts and actions.
“Yes, that’s right, my dear,” she cooed, puckering her lips as if she was going to kiss him. “All will be revealed soon enough.” Her smile widened, eyes boring right into his soul. “Now sleep.” He never saw nor felt the final blow to his jaw, but sleep he did.
*
Groaning softly, Xavier began to stir where he lay. His chest rising as his breaths began to increase, he suddenly sat up with a jolt. A flood of emotions hit him all at once, but the dark thoughts in his head were more images than actual memories. He remembered his mind slipping away as it had so many times before. And those damned feelings he could not control, rage and hate, all driving him mad at once.
He noticed the familiar woman sitting next to him. He touched his sore jaw, another cloudy memory he could only piece together in fragments. Sitting there practically naked, she ignored him while focusing her attention on the piece of wood she was whittling. There were others wandering around the village as well, but they too seemed mostly disinterested in him as they went about their chores.
Although it seemed like the perfect time to escape, some tiny voice in the back of his mind warned that the idea was foolish, although he did not fully understand why. On some deep level, he knew it was impossible to just run away from this woman.
“There,” she said, holding up what appeared to be a lizard of some sort. “Isn’t it lovely?” She seemed quite proud of the accomplishment, grinning from ear to ear as she turned it from side to side.
“What do you want from me?” Xavier asked.
“For starters, I want you to answer my question,” she replied, shoving it closer to his face. She didn’t sound mad, exactly, but a bit more irritated than a second ago. “Do you, or do you not think it’s lovely?”
Xavier took a long look at it this time. Surprisingly intricate, everything from the deep-set eyes to the finely pointed claws were carved out in great detail. Even the scales were perfectly aligned and smooth. Had she really made this with just that small knife?
“It is indeed,” Xavier admitted, struggling to tear his eyes away. Clearly he had much bigger problems to deal with, but he always had a soft spot for fine art. And this particular piece was exquisite indeed.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes beaming with pride before she set it aside. “And now I believe you had a question for me.”
“What is it you want from me?” Xavier repeated, the lizard figurine now all but forgotten.
“I want you to join me,” she explained without hesitating.
Xavier blinked. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be furious. “And why would I ever do such a thing? You captured me and held me prisoner.”
“Would you have come to me on your own if I hadn’t?” His silence was answer enough. “Besides, I had to be sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“Sure that you are indeed one of the chosen.”
“The Demon Hunter was my master,” Xavier explained. “I was only his apprentice, nothing more. And now I’m not even that. You have the wrong person.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, running a hand along the inside of his thigh. Without thinking, his eyes drifted down to her bare breasts. But once he realized it, he quickly looked away. He winced when she chuckled, making him wish he had been subtler about his discomfort.
Why doesn’t she put something on, anyway?
“What I meant,” she said, lifting his chin in order to make him meet her gaze, “is that you’re the one with the gift.” He swallowed. “The gift of the ancients,” she finished, leaving no doubt as to what she was talking about. Her skin began to bulge a
nd warp as scales appeared on one side of her face. Her eye blackened and the color of her hair seem to flee from the roots on down, leaving behind soft, white strands.
Xavier pulled away from her touch and leapt to his feet. He thought he had imagined it, thought it was part of his warped memories that never made sense anyway. “It’s you!” he accused, putting it all together at last. He felt foolish for not realizing it until now. “You were the first one, the woman Xylia spoke of. You have the curse!”
“Gift,” she corrected, her features returning back to normal just as fast as they changed. There was no doubt about what he had just seen, what she was capable of physically. But her demeanor had never changed. “And yes, Xavier, I can control it.” Of course she knew what he was thinking. “And I can teach you to control it too. After all, you are one of the chosen. Come, let’s go for a walk.”
Chapter 5
Despite all that happened, Xavier didn’t necessarily feel threatened in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact. There was just something about her relaxed demeanor that allowed him to lower his guard. The two of them walked side by side without saying much, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. Xavier was so distracted that he hardly noticed.
Villagers flashed them a look or two as they passed by, but always seemed to drop their eyes after that. All in all, the villagers seemed like any other townsfolk as far as Xavier could tell. The trick was to get past their odd appearances. The body paint and strange jewelry made them appear as some sort of lost tribe.
“Aurabelle.”
“Hmm?” Xavier turned to look at her.
“My name is Aurabelle,” she repeated. Xavier nodded, but didn’t reply. She already knew his name, and he wasn’t certain that any formal etiquette applied when dealing with a person holding you against your will. “Come this way, I want you to see something.”
Aurabelle led him, inching her way between two huts. The space was small enough that they had to turn sideways in order to squeeze through. When they came out the other side, they found themselves on the edge of a wide, open clearing. But the space was plenty occupied. Warriors, both men and women alike, stood around in large circles.
The focus of each circle seemed simple enough. Two combatants entered before being closed in by the living wall, and no two seemed to be using the same weapons. Xavier saw sword against spear, staff against dual-welded daggers, and even one set of fighters where one used a bow with no arrows, and the other had nothing but an iron shield.
It was clear they were training for all possible combat circumstances. One wasn’t always lucky enough to have their weapon of choice handy, so it was imperative to learn to use what you had. Coming from a similar background, Xavier could certainly respect this training philosophy.
There didn’t appear to be any attempt to match men against men, or women against women. They mixed the sexes just as often as they mixed the weapons. Again, it made sense. Not unlike weapon choice, the chance to choose your opponent would be even more unlikely.
They were training hard, as hard as they could without seriously injuring one another. There were clear winners and losers in each bout, but you would never know which was which by watching them afterward. As long as each gave everything they had, both combatants were treated with equal respect no matter who came out on top.
Once a fight was over, both combatants quickly got out of the circle so two more could enter. Getting the work in was all that mattered. On and on it went in a violent, yet perfectly organized session of tough, hard training. Xavier knew what it was like to push yourself to your absolute limits, so he had nothing but respect for what he was witnessing here.
“A fine display,” Xavier said, nodding in approval. It seemed like preparation for war was all they did here. “Do your people have so many enemies?”
“None,” Aurabelle said. Xavier glanced her way, a bit surprised by that answer. “We have always gotten along with the surrounding tribes, even if they don’t necessarily agree with our lifestyle. The Gomptent tribe, the Treckors, long have they accused us of being crazy, yet that does not make them our enemies.
“Well, I’m sure they no longer think that. We tried to warn them of the upcoming war, but they would not listen. Now I’m afraid it is too late. They are...here.”
“You’re talking about the ghatins?” Xavier asked, already knowing there could be no other answer.
She nodded, a sad look shadowing over her face. “We tried to warn them, but no one would listen. I suppose I can’t blame them for not believing us.” She looked at her hand and shook her head. Her fingers gnarled up, withering into vines for an instant before snapping back into place. “All they heard was a freak spouting nonsense about the ghost men who would come for them one day. I’m not even sure I would have believed me.”
She dropped her hand to her side and looked back at Xavier. “Well, that day has come, hasn’t it? The white men have been unleashed on the world. Those who called us crazy, referred to me as a freak, will all come begging for our help.” She sighed, shaking her head again. “And still, we will give it to them as we are sworn to do. That is why we are here. That is why the A’zara exist!” She thumped her chest proudly.
“We have been preparing for this war for generations. Many A’zara have spent their entire lives waiting, training, only to lay on their deathbeds at a ripe old age. And not a one ever held a single regret. Their life’s job was to be prepared for the coming shadow, and they did that with honor. There is no shame in that.
“Then of course their actions were followed by the next generation, then the next, and the one after that. Every generation waited in turn, training, preparing, wondering if and when their time would come. But now that the time is finally here, the A’zara are ready to fulfill their destiny.”
“But how could you have known for so long?” Xavier asked. “The ghatins have only recently freed themselves from the curse. You’re telling me your clan has been preparing for their release for centuries? And what does any of this have to do with me?”
“Humans warring with the ghatins is a history as old as time itself,” Aurabelle explained. “How did we know? How could we not have known? Every few thousand years the ghatins find a way to escape their most recent magical prison. But surely you already knew that.”
“I knew we went to war with them once already,” Xavier admitted. “But the humans beat them.”
“No, the humans trapped them,” Aurabelle corrected. “That is not the same, agree? Every few thousand years, the battle repeats. And through tremendous resources, mostly in the form of lives, the humans manage to trap them once more. This cannot go on forever.
“But we shall succeed where our ancestors have failed time and time again. We shall not only trap them, in effect only buying more time for future generations. We shall wipe them out entirely!
“And what does this have to do with you?” She smiled. “Everything, Xavier. Everything... Come, there is one more thing I must show you.”
They walked beyond the clearing, deeper into the forest where no one else was around. Right in the center of the worn, faded path, stood a twisted old tree. Leafless, blackened as if scorched in a fire, the husk of the tree looked quite dead. Aurabelle approached the tree, pressing her ear against the peeling bark. After tapping a few random spots, she nodded and smiled, then glanced back at Xavier.
“She sees exactly what I see,” Aurabelle confirmed. “Already she can see that you are the chosen. She says you may enter.”
Again with this chosen nonsense. “Enter what?” Xavier asked, looking past the tree and seeing nothing but endless forest.
Suddenly, the old tree began to creak and groan, bending off to one side as if it were falling. Its largest branch slowly lowered down across the trail. As it did, Xavier watched in amazement as the background scenery changed as it dropped. What was once a view of the forest, endless trees as far as the eye could see, had now changed into a well-lit field. He could even see a shallow creek bubbling o
ver rocks.
“Only the A’zara may lay eyes on this sacred ground,” Aurabelle explained, extending an inviting arm. “And of course, the chosen.”
He moved past her and stepped through the floating image. It rippled briefly, much like flipping a pebble into calm water. Stepping out on the other side, he found himself standing near the running creek. A sweet, flowery scent hung in the air, but there were no blossoms anywhere he could see. The area was perfectly lit, but he wasn’t sure why. With no sun in the sky, the source of scattered light remained a mystery.
“Come this way,” Aurabelle said, taking his hand to lead him. Soon they approached a number of young trees along the side of the creek. They were small with thin branches, more like bushes than trees. Their bark was a brilliant white, almost to the point where they seemed to glow. Even their perfectly round leaves were a polished white, like coins made of sunlight.
Xavier couldn’t help but stare. They were the most beautiful trees he had ever seen. Aurabelle took out her dagger and approached one. Pinching the ends of one branch, she pulled it tight, then carefully drew her blade across the white bark. Like slicing flesh, the soft skin opened right up and clear liquid spilled forth. Xavier winced, having a hard time believing she wasn’t hurting it in some way.
As if attracted to the dagger, the liquid spread down the blade and seemed to soak right into the metal. “Thank you,” Aurabelle whispered, leaning in to kiss one of the leaves. The cut began closing, and soon the open wound was completely sealed.
“The sap of the tree of life has magical properties,” Aurabelle explained, holding up the dagger. She turned it from side to side, showing Xavier that it was completely dry. The sap really had seeped right into the metal. “It can heal any living wound when directly applied to the skin, but it has other properties as well. Pure, potent, a nectar of the gods if you will, where it can heal the living, it is quite toxic to unworldly elements.”