Unchosen

by Jeffrey Cook

  Then her eyes fell on Hobie. His shield arm hung limply at his side, the scraps of Nil's wood-carving effort still clinging to it. She had no idea where the axe had ended up, lost when he hit the ground. Not that the weapon had shown any sign of doing Xharomor harm anyway.

  Hobie started to look toward the Otherlord. For a moment, Noriko thought he'd charge in bare-handed. She looked towards his eyes, ready to see that blank, 'Hobie's not home anymore' expression. The best that Noriko could judge from those eyes, however, was that Hobie's conscious mind had one proverbial foot out the door, but was struggling to keep one on the threshold.

  He leapt at a daemon in his way, knocking its defenses aside long enough to tear out its throat with his teeth. Tossing the body away, covered in ichor, Hobie crouched—and closed his hand around Fragarach's hilt. Snarling at Xharomor, the bear-sark lifted the blade.

  29

  And the Red Dawn

  Celeste Manoucheka LeRoux

  Just to Celeste's left, a scream began as another of the divine workers lost out to Rhalissa's essence-drain. The sound started out shrill, and trailed off into a whisper, as the witch tore the breath from the priestess's lungs, the formerly hale, hearty body going pale, then nearly skeletal all at once as her life was added to Rhalissa's energies.

  Celeste tore her eyes away from the sight. She could hear Mr. Gebramlak's fading prayer. In the distance, Dagny's song continued, but kept coming closer and closer, sounding desperate. Her heart skipped a beat and her hands shook, all increasing the urge to panic. She forced the urge back, repeating her prayers and invocations.

  “It will do you no good, child.” Rhalissa's taunting voice carried out over the field, all too close now. Celeste could feel the witch's own magics tugging at her, could feel her heart laboring and her lungs struggling to draw breath.

  With each passing moment, less and less held fast between Celeste and Rhalissa's spells, while fewer shields stood between her and the daemon hordes. Still, her prayers continued as she tried to shut the witch out. “De Profundis...” The draining sensation and fatigue grew more tangible, and for a moment, her breath caught.

  “This whole effort is futile. Your numbers diminish, and when the Seal falls, our numbers will triple. This isn't a battle; it's a killing field. You just need to accept it.”

  Celeste fought for her next breath, clutching the beads tightly. She could hear herself hoarsely whisper each word of the prayer and wished she couldn't, wished there was less silence growing in the smoke.

  “It was inevitable. You should have laid down to die with your boyfriend and saved yourself the trouble—and the burden. I'll break the Seal to the Otherrealm with your life force, so that all that potential inside you will finally do something practical.”

  At mention of Marshall, the ring around her neck felt heavier, dragging her down. The air burnt in her lungs as she fought to keep breathing, to keep going against the relentless vampirism of the witch's magic as it battered past all her protections. “Speravit anima,” she prayed, but from that prayer, out of the depths, came no tangible energy. It wasn't for Celeste.

  “And now it begins, the Otherlord and I. Soon we will look out on the sphere entire, every tower fallen. Once this world is completely overrun, we will remake the barriers of this reality to our own tastes. And then I can hunt down my once-sisters and show them matters of real power. A thing of which you know nothing.”

  Celeste managed a deep breath. “Maybe not nothing. My momma was a Durand, and her momma was a Dede.”

  “And yet you chose to study in your uncle’s swamp, to mutter Latin and tribal French meant to treat heatstroke and shingles.” The smoke swirled and thrashed around Rhalissa as she focused her power on her newest spell, focused entirely on Celeste.

  “Darn right I did. Maybe my gran could have beaten you at your own game. Maybe not, but she'd have had great backing and tried with style. But I'm not my gran. I am not a Soul Witch. Right here and now, that's all you, lady. I know what I am.” And through a raw, battered throat, Celeste raised her voice in the final prayers, completing the novena for the dead.

  She prayed it as she'd helped her uncle pray it many times, but went wider. She asked all the saints who knew her, all the departed who'd loved her, to lend their grace to all the fallen Rhalissa had victimized

  As she choked out the final “Requiescant in Pace, Amen,” the smoke vanished completely. And she felt relief ache through her body. She could even hear Dagny crying out in the distance.

  Rhalissa, on the other hand, was in wide-eyed shock. The lines on her face deepened and deepened as pallor turned to rot.

  “I don't have your powers,” Celeste said quietly as she watched the witch. The wiry muscle stretched even more across the bones, and veins rose against the skin. Rhalissa's eyes bulged more and more as she sought to scream, but no sound emerged.

  Celeste continued. “But I have a gift, and I have a service, and I could help them rest. And the closest thing you've got to a higher power seems pretty busy right now, so there's nothing to feed your spells but you.”

  ***

  Edwin Vincent Nathaniel

  Edwin gestured again, and Nils collapsed to his knees, almost tumbling forward entirely.

  "Did you really think you'd have a chance to complete your ritual?" He clenched his fingers into a fist, chanting the syllables that would cause the boy's heart to skip a beat. His fist turned, and he could hear Nils's breath catch in his throat. "Don't even think about trying to cast," Edwin warned. "You couldn't beat me on your best day, even if you weren't trying to finish a ritual at the same time."

  Nils hissed again, drawing in as deep a breath as he could manage, before speaking in a choked whisper. "I… finished it."

  Edwin tilted his head. It didn't look like anything they'd researched. He shook it off. "Even if you did it right, the other children won't have a body to add to it, and even if they did, I can strip the seals from right over your body if I have to."

  "You're going to give it fantastic seals," Nils said.

  Edwin looked down at his once-favorite student. "Why would I do that?"

  "Because I completed my ritual.”

  “Nils, you're in pain. Pain on that level addles the mind, I know.”

  But the boy looked at him, and the look in his eyes was—exactly the way Nils Bjornsson's eyes looked every day, only more so.

  “Do you know what Othermagic is really, really good at, Dr. Nathaniel?” he asked coldly. “More than anything else?"

  Edwin scowled. "I taught those classes. Curses, destruction, necromancy—"

  "Better than any of those. The lore of the Otherrealm is thousands of years of learning to mess with each other. I wasn't trying to cast a ritual on the sarcophagus, I was using it as a focus, because Xharomor's magic is really weak against it."

  Realization struck, and Edwin’s eyes opened wider. Now it was his turn to feel more than a little breathless. "You didn't—"

  "I did. Xharomor's immortality workaround... I undid all of his work. The Othermagic should finish leaking out of you within the hour. You're dying, again. And it's going to be very, very painful. And this time, he won't be able to do a thing about it."

  The logical part of his brain told him the sensation that followed was his imagination. Nils had just said an hour. Everything else in his mind fought to convince him that he could feel the wasting disease fully settled in again after he'd traded so much to be free of it.

  “The worst part, though?” Nils continued. “All that knowledge, all those memories, all the magic... your mind starts going. That's what you were really afraid of, wasn't it? Why you contacted him when you did, before you started to lose your mind?"

  Anger overcame him. His fist clenched again, despite new pain gripping his fingers, weakening his grip. How much of that was psychosomatic and how much was the disease’s acceleration was... well, it was academic, really. Despite that, the boy's lungs seized again.

  Edwin started to curse, bu
t what was the point? So, it would all happen, then. There'd be nothing left of him after all. With his integrity and thousands of lives, he'd only bought himself a month or so. It figured, in its way. There was only one thing that was confusing. “Why, after that, do you think I'd help you?"

  "Your Dearest Wish, Dr. Nathaniel. Immortality," Nils said. "One more chance at it."

  "You've assured that won't happen." Edwin's shaking hand started to close again.

  "Think about it: if you kill me, Xharomor wins. You die. Sure, you die serving him, but how long do you think he'll care? You'll be a footnote that never gets written down."

  The shaking hand paused. "And otherwise?"

  "Nothing will empower the ritual, the real ritual, more than a sacrifice. Including a willing one. Othermagic and all. And I make sure everyone knows who sacrificed himself to give us a chance to trap Xharomor."

  "A chance? And if you fail—"

  "If I fail, if we fail, then at least you die painlessly."

  Edwin’s chest tightened. Both nihilism and inevitability were denied him. He would have to make choices again. He considered solace in prophecy, but looked at the sarcophagus.

  “And if you win, you'll have me remembered,” he said. “But I'll still be the man who sold the world, even if only for a hellish month or two.”

  “Didn't say I'd have you sainted. Still, we wouldn't have made it to The Day without you, the first time. So you'll die as a complex man. But a man, not just a monster. We'll bury you as a person.”

  There was an agony in no longer being too late.

  "You risked a great deal on this gambit."

  "You said it yourself, Dr. Nathaniel. You taught me a lot of what I know, including a lot about devil's bargains."

  “I have only one question left before we get started.”

  “What is that?”

  “What gave you the realization that having the sarcophagus reshaped and rounded like this would enhance the power of a containment by sacrifice?”

  Nils looked at him once more, and Edwin knew those eyes well enough to know that underneath the mask, the boy was smiling.

  ***

  Igarashi Noriko

  Xharomor took a step back when Hobie lifted the blade, looking, for a moment, uncertain. They hadn't managed to do more than scratch him, but they'd wiped the grin off his face. Unfortunately, it was starting to return as daemons closed around them.

  Thankfully, some semblance of intellect remained on Hobie's face, and the sword-intuition told her he wouldn't try to gut her for trying to fight back to back with him, as several daemons circled them, defending their master.

  Hobie cut the first down when it got too ambitious in lunging at him. A second daemon was blinded by the flash of light from the blessed fan as Noriko parried. That gave her the opening she needed to cut it down. Hobie had already been holding the sword, in full use, far longer than she'd managed, and she let herself hope. She deflected another strike to one side, and sliced off clawed fingers from another attacker.

  "How are you managing?” she yelled. “Doesn't it hurt?"

  His words were half-English, and half-growl. “Of course it hurts. I just don't care.”

  There. The sword's insights again told her the moment was right. She shifted from defense to offense, going into a whirling frenzy just as a trio of daemons were coming at her. She ducked, parried, and swiped, cutting through the ranks.

  "Not bad," Hobie snarled, cutting down the one that had managed to duck back from her. More bodies lay behind him. The way to the Otherlord was clear again, and the pair charged.

  She did her best to end it quickly, making an aggressive feint and parrying with the fan. Despite the fan's protective enchantments, the return attack almost reached her. It likely would have, had Xharomor not had to shift to fend off Hobie. She moved to flank Xharomor, trying to stay opposite Hobie to divide the Otherlord's attention as much as she could and keep him too busy defending himself to cast.

  Hobie's aggressive advances kept Xharomor's sword occupied fending off the savage attacks. There was no question what the Otherlord's concern was—the blade in the bear-sark's hands. Even so, Noriko was unable to gain much ground. Every time she thought she had an opening, Xharomor managed a quick word in Othertongue, launching magical assaults at her. With the Otherlord unable to focus enough to put any real power or complexity behind his spells, she was able to fend them off with the fan, which flashed bright with each defense, but she could feel the strain on the blessed item, and could likewise feel the fatigue creeping through her whole body with each impact.

  Across from her, she could see Hobie willingly surrendering himself to the berserkergang. There were no more words, just animalistic howls, and his attacks became less practiced and precise, even as the impacts of metal on metal became louder. If sheer determination alone would have been enough, Xharomor would be dead.

  Hachiman's blade warned her, time and again, of strikes and spells that would, in turn, have killed her. With it, she managed to deflect just in time, to avoid the occasional quick feint, and to side-step thrusts when Xharomor drove Hobie back enough to take a stab at her. What it wasn't doing, unfortunately, was telling her of any opportunity to strike in return. There simply was none. He was too fast, too powerful. And the only good thing about any of that frustration was that it kept clearly making Hobie angrier.

  Xharomor's magical assault failed him as he reacted, almost too late, to Hobie's latest vicious assault, the twisted word garbled by a grunt of effort in fending off the wild swing. They locked swords, and Xharomor set his feet, shoving against Fragarach. Despite all of Hobie's strength in the berserkergang, he was shoved backwards and off-balance, but Noriko had her opening.

  She lunged into the strike, bringing the katana down in what should have been a gutting blow across his exposed side. While far from ideal, the enchanted blade left another shallow cut in the skin, which bled ichor, while wisps of smoke rose from the wound with a hiss.

  With Hobie stumbling, Xharomor spun on her faster than she could get the fan up, backhanding her across the jaw. Even rolling with the force of the blow enough to keep it from breaking her neck, Noriko was still launched backwards, hitting the ground awkwardly. The fan and katana went spinning away from her numb hands in different directions.

  Dazed and disarmed, she was still trying to regain her senses when she saw Xharomor coming for her, but a snarl from behind him cut his follow-up short. Noriko tried to shout a warning, but couldn't find the breath.

  It wouldn’t have helped Hobie anyway. As the little bear-sark rushed, Xharomor turned and lunged. Hobie's own momentum helped drive him onto the sword-thrust.

  Marshall's final seconds flashed in front of Noriko's eyes. She saw Xharomor's grin as he twisted the blade, and she saw Hobie's eyes go wide—and then lose just a little of their shark-like blankness.

  As the black lines started to snake out from the wound Xharomor's grin broadened. "Your towers lie broken. Your hero's day is past. And now so is yours."

  He stopped when one of Hobie's shaking hands rose and grabbed hold of the guard of Xharomor's sword, trapping the blade in his stomach. "Celeste... Celeste..." he choked out, as Noriko struggled to move.

  As Hobie started to speak, Xharomor lifted his off-hand, starting to pronounce the same words that had finished Marshall before. Noriko dove for the katana, forcing nerveless fingers to close around the hilt, and she threw the blade as hard as she could.

  Once again, it didn't cut deep, but Xharomor's spell cut off in a grunt of pain.

  "Celeste," Hobie said again, looking past Xharomor. "The world... it's so beautiful." And as Xharomor resumed his spell, Hobie swung Fragarach. And the world seemed to explode around her.

  30

  Eina Dottir Sunna

  Celeste Manoucheka LeRoux

  Nearly all the candles were burned out completely.

  Celeste had buried herself in healing until someone had made her look up. It had been the only thing
she’d had any further control over until the battle was over.

  Now, every daemon and cultist in the T'ila realm had been killed, discorporated, banished, captured, or chased out. Many had likely gone to ground in the real world, difficult to banish wholesale until the broken Seals were re-made from scratch, difficult to root out one by one.

  Celeste tried not to think about what a panicked world in recovery might use such hidden supernatural dangers as an excuse to do. I'll think about it tomorrow. And she knew she'd say that for several days, at least until they were done with some funerals.

  Noriko and Yodit and a few others who shouldn't have been trying to walk had brought in Xharomor's form. They hadn't said a word as they brought it towards the tower, and Celeste joined them without a word likewise, her mind in a similar hazy shock at things falling into place as it had once been when they didn't.

  They'd found Nils covered in blood, and he hadn't said 'told you.' The only thing he said unrelated to the containment ritual was, with a gesture at the familiar fresh corpse that needed to be cleared off, “That gets a funeral.”

  Civilians had come down to help out, because this needed to be done quickly and with certainty. Xharomor's mystically self-containing remains were coiled into the reshaped, rounded sarcophagus. The curved disc the lid had become was put over it, and as it was latched, Nils, clutching the sides to stay on his feet, completed the containment rites.

  He then collapsed in front of the sphere as they looked at it in its entirety. “For a thousand years or more,” he muttered hoarsely. “Oh, it'll be more. We...” he looked at Noriko, and she nodded tearfully. “We all did our jobs.”

  ***

  There were too many funerals. Celeste helped all she could. With every rite, in whatever tradition, she thought both of those lying in front of them, and those whose bodies were never recovered—and especially of Marshall. She fit her own chances to mourn into the cracks like that, as life kept moving.