by JD Franx
The hours passed faster than any of them believed possible. Aravae and Saleece sat on the bed with the baby boy as Giddeon rested uneasily on the edge. The child was healthy and strong. He never cried after the initial wail caused by the birth or as Giddeon and Saleece cut the umbilical cord. Moving to sit on the bed, Saleece leaned against him and Aravae nursed the baby. After he finished eating, Giddeon held his newborn son, knowing he’d never touch him again or see him grow. Saleece wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve of her robe, stopping the tears from falling on the sleeping newborn before resting her head against her father’s. Struggling with what he knew was the right thing to do, Giddeon lost track of time leaving them with barely enough time to name their baby boy before the ritual had to begin. Giddeon hoped his son, Kael Valyndir Zirakus, would have a happy, blessed life on a plane with no magic. The enormous power and loss of life required to open an identical bridge for a second time meant there was little chance it would ever be reopened to bring him back to Talohna.
The dimensional gateway opened with a thunderous crack of raw power unlike any magic Giddeon had ever experienced. Oripar and his fellow Elvehn high mages whose mystical force anchored the rift opening above the glyph never wavered as the swirling circular portal tore through the two very different realities. Master Wizard Seifer Locke walked steadily around the glyph in the direction opposite that of the vortex, reciting the ancient words from his family’s elder bloodline. The spell would extend the amount of time the portal remained functional. His brow shone with sweat from the exertion of extending the rift for mere seconds. Magic flowed from his hands in fluorescent waves as it mixed with the undulating energies of the swirling gateway.
Giddeon knew he had little time. Seifer Locke was a wizard unlike any other when it came to prolonging the potency of magical spells, but even he wouldn’t manage to hold on for long.
“Krossa Lis Vegr Dyrr,” Giddeon barked, speaking the incantation flawlessly before he stepped into the open portal with his infant son in his arms. Stepping down out of the second rift and into the dimension with no magic, he held his son tighter in his arms and cast the adapted locator spell: “Ellocalis Famiax Aedra Barna Fjqlmennask.” With the portal active, he smiled, knowing his spell was a success.
He soon realized that he didn’t need his magical sight even though it was late at night on the rift’s far side. Blinding lights of different colours glared everywhere, and he could see a couple of fast-moving wagons speeding down hard, flat black trails. It didn’t take him long to understand that while his plane of existence thrived on magic, this plane, without any magic at all, had apparently come to depend on technology instead. Such a vast difference would make it impossible to open a magical dimensional bridge from this side, further assuring Giddeon that his son would never return to claim his evil birthright. He grunted, wondering if this was where the Dwarven people had ended up over ten thousand years ago instead of becoming extinct, as was the common belief in Talohna. The wide range and vast amounts of machinery along with the towering structures suggested it was possible.
What he had initially thought was a small village appeared, in fact, to be quite large. Collecting his thoughts, he realized his locator spell had found a small farm on the outskirts. It was his only option close enough for a family desperately wanting a child, though he could tell his spell’’s effect had been greatly weakened by the world’s lack of magic. Regardless, it was a viable option and it was less than a quarter-mile away.
A dark shadow crouched motionless in the ceiling rafters of Giddeon’s mansion. The masked, female form hadn’t moved in hours, instead subtly flexing her muscles to stay limber and ward off numbness. She had watched the entire ceremony, itching for the opportunity to launch her attack and get to the child, to the infant DeathWizard everyone feared so much. But the chance never came. With wizards and elemental mages everywhere, acting would be akin to suicide, so instead, she stared with intent yellow eyes, helpless to stop the events that could very well trigger the end of Talohna as she knew it.
As Giddeon stepped through the dimensional rift into a world of strange, speeding lights and tall glass buildings, Yrlissa Blackmist cursed silently, knowing the DeathWizard was far beyond her reach. The Broken Blade assassin pulled herself up into a crouch and moved silently through the ceiling rafters like a ghost, heading for an open attic window as Giddeon and his son, Kael, faded from sight on the rift’s far side.
Yrlissa prayed to her goddess, Assani, and to every other god in the pantheon that she would never see either of them again. Ever.
Giddeon was left with no choice but to appoint the largest remaining responsibility to Saleece. It was her duty to oversee the rift-spell and lend support where ever it might be needed most. As her father stepped into the rift and cast his locator spell, she immediately knew something was terribly wrong. Master Locke was too focused on his incantations to notice, but the strain on the Elvehn mages had doubled in an instant as he crossed. Oripar Lightfoot, sitting at the rifts top anchor, groaned, wavering under the intense stress as the strain of the rift doubled yet again.
“Master!” Saleece shouted into the portal. When he didn’t respond, she screamed louder. “Father! You must hurry. There’s more stress on the mages anchoring the portal than we thought. There’s no telling how long they can keep the gate open. Hurry, or you’ll be left stranded!” Giddeon waved, letting her know he heard. Turning, he peered into the darkness beyond and dashed away, disappearing in the black of night.
Saleece paced the minutes away, doing what little she could to help strengthen Oripar and the others weakening under the bridge’s effects. Every time she tried to cast a spell to help a struggling mage it was like a monstrous leech grabbed her power and fed. It was getting harder and harder to break off the spells. Fifteen minutes later, she was exhausted and nearly all her magical resources were gone. Too afraid to cast more magic to help Oripar, she stood at his side and stared helplessly into the shimmering vortex looking for her father.
Several more minutes passed before she saw him coming. The gateway fluctuated, crackling with energy as both Elvehn mages lost consciousness. She glanced at Oripar—he nodded. Blood vessels burst inside his sinuses and blood poured from his nose as he fought to maintain the dimensional bridge on his own—in seconds more blood dripped from his ears and trickled from his darkening eyes. His entire body shook with tremors, the strain immense. Giddeon jumped through the sparking threshold as the planetary bridge and Oripar collapsed. A punishing explosion rocked the study. The massive shockwave tossed Giddeon into Saleece and Oripar, sending them crashing into the wall in a tangle of limbs. The concussive force spun Seifer Locke across the room. Clipping the doorway, he cartwheeled out into the hallway, slamming into some of Giddeon’s display cases.
As Giddeon and Saleece regained their senses and their feet, they realized that none of the Elvehn mages were conscious, including the battered and bleeding Oripar. They rushed to his side, only to discover that it was far too late.
“Oripar! Damn it, Oripar, answer me,” Giddeon yelled. “Come on, you old fool. Don’t you dare…” He turned to Saleece, pain etched all over his face. “I… I double-checked, I triple-checked everything. Gods, what happened?” Staring at the other dead mages, the reality of his mistake settled onto his shoulders. “What have I done? How could I be so arrogant as to think I could do something only the Fae could ever do?”
Saleece shook her head in shock, hugging her father. “Oripar held the bridge on his own for the last few seconds. It gave you the time to get home.”
Giddeon’s closest friend was dead, along with the other two mages who had supplied power to the gate. Once again, a planetary bridge had demanded its price in lives, even after Giddeon’s exhaustive safety measures.
Seifer Locke crawled back into the room, groaning, Kasik followed a couple of feet behind. Clearly too shocked to say anything, he stared at the carnage spread across Giddeon’s study. “What in the nine hells happened?�
�� Seifer slurred, agony affecting his speech. Saleece and Kasik helped him stay standing.
“I don’t know,” Giddeon replied, his voice heavy with heartache as he knelt beside Oripar. “I was sure we had everything right.”
A coughing fit forced Seifer back down on the floor, where his cough turned to a gurgling rattle. “I think I broke some ribs,” he wheezed. “The spells were good, Giddeon. It should have worked. I’m sorry. Oripar was a good friend and an incredible wizard.”
With great difficulty Giddeon stood, sighing with grief. “Saleece, help Seifer. I thought we had it…” He trailed off, too sick with himself to say more.
Moments later, Saleece removed her hand from Seifer’s side, looking over at Giddeon. “I’m sorry, Father. I’ve done the best I can. He’s bleeding inside, I think. It’s far beyond what I can do.”
“We’ll go get the second Pillar and King Bale’s surgeon. Don’t worry Seifer, they’ll heal you. Kasik, stay here with him and wait for them,” Giddeon ordered. Realizing he’d snapped at the Northman, he added, “Please.”
Kasik nodded as he helped Seifer lean back against the wall, the master wizard struggled to breathe properly.
“Father,” Saleece said quietly as they left. “I’m sorry about Oripar.”
“Thank you. I...I don’t know what happened. I was so, so sure we had it figured out. Gods, what am I going to tell Sorana and Kiirein? They’ll never forgive me. I promised them all that it was safe. I, I, I thought it was. I... promised…” Giddeon went silent. Guilt swallowed his heart and mind. Shock numbed his thoughts and words. Oripar had been his closest confidant for almost two centuries, very nearly his entire life. After the death of his sister, and being sent to the Eye after the accident, Oripar had quickly helped Giddeon deal with the guilt of his sister’s death and the loneliness caused by a family who no longer wanted him. Oripar had saved his life back then, and now he’d taken Oripar’s life.
“Father? Are you all right?”
“Yes... No. But your brother’s safe,” he said, drying his tears and calling on his ArchWizard training to balance his emotions. “They promised to take good care of him. They haven’t been able to have any children of their own. Come, we must hurry. We’ll get Seifer some help, and then tell King Bale what happened so they can take Oripar’s and the other mages’ bodies to prepare them for the afterlife.” Try as he might, even with checking his emotions, Giddeon still couldn’t keep his voice from breaking.
He could see Saleece, her eyes red from crying most of the day, clearly felt his sorrow. As they left the parlour and stole a final glance at the bodies of the Elvehn mages who lost their lives in order to save his son’s, Giddeon could see something weighing on her mind.
“Revulsion accounts one lost while Dathac reaps,” she muttered, a monotonous echo carried her words to Giddeon. “Dathac reaped three souls tonight, and one—my brother’s—has been lost.” She shivered. “Did we miss something, Father? Something in the wording of the prophecy? Were we part of the prophecy?”
“No, we didn’t, sweetheart,” Giddeon said as he scooped her up off the ground and carried her to the spare room across the hall where Aravae gave birth.. Laying her in the bed beside her mother, he covered them both with a blanket and kissed Saleece’s forehead.
“All right, Father.” But the fourteen year old had been through too much. Breaking down as exhaustion took hold, the thought drifted from her mind and refused to take root as she cuddled into her sleeping mother.
Without another word, Giddeon spun, rushing to get Seifer help.
Only minutes had passed since Giddeon’s gateway closed, when another gate opened on the same mundane plane a couple of miles away. Eva ThornWing stepped through the Fae-summoned portal to the world where she would leave her month-old child. Unlike Giddeon’s dimensional gateway, Eva’s gate shimmered steadily with balanced power, it made no sound beyond a lifted hiss emanating from the vortex.
The DragonKin’s Queen Superior, Shelaryx WhiteScale, had promised Eva that, with a variation of the spell she had once used on her own daughter years earlier, the genetic memory in Eva’s baby would be suppressed until she had a need for it. If prophecy held true, the child would be the first Fae to walk the soil of Talohna since the time of the Ancients. The Fae had hid well since the war that had nearly destroyed them ended.
Eva, the Fae’s Monarch, with help from the DragonKin’s Queen, had made sure they would not make the disastrous mistake of five thousand years ago. They had to make sure that the “Bloods’ blackest would dawn the light’s last.” Eva’s baby would be the last Fae birthed to Talohna if this part of the prophecy came to pass. The rest of it—Black’s poured blood, returned to times past—they had to stop at all costs, even if it meant leaving her youngest daughter with strangers in a world without magic.
But prophecies were like that, every word or every line often held its own meaning. It’s what made them so dangerous.
Unknown to both Eva and Giddeon, another being born of Talohna had watched the arrival of both infants. Though the bridge gates were miles away, they both helped activate a small pendant worn around the observer’s neck. This last bit of stored magic let the observer jump from Giddeon’s gate to the Fae’s and discover where both babies had been left. Ages had passed since the observer had arrived on the plane called Earth. To watch a race grow from hunter-gatherers to using advanced technology that would make a Dwarf weep with envy had been a wonder.
Tasked with watching over their world’s last hope, it was the observer’s duty to see the mission succeed. The Lesser races of Talohna had feared this moment, and had been strategizing for thousands of years. Few of the original pact-bearers still lived; the observer’s own race had been destroyed many millennia ago. The prophecy they were working against foretold the end of their world. They could have stopped the prophecy from coming to pass had they only acted five thousand years ago, but no children were brought to Earth and so the observer knew nothing of such things. Instead the observer remained on Earth, waiting patiently for another five millennia. It was a mistake those involved had worked feverishly to rectify since. But their numbers were dwindling. The observer would see to things on this end, believing, hoping they were ready to act back home in Talohna.
His mission was simple—protect the infants, or ensure their deaths.
Chapter Five
Arrived on scene at 1:10 p.m. Henry Sampson met me and Deputy Wainwright on the north side of Gretta’s Bridge. He was in an exceedingly agitated state and proceeded to explain what he’d witnessed. I quote from the dashboard recording of Vehicle 1: “I’m telling you, Sheriff, this sideways twisting black tornado ripped out of nowhere and demolished the side of my bridge. You can see where it burned right through the stones and mortar. It’s melted, Sheriff. You need to find out what did this before someone gets killed.”
Both Deputy Wainwright and myself conducted separate sobriety tests on Mr. Sampson, and he appears to be sober. The bridge looks exactly as Mr. Sampson described, but we found no sign of who or what might have done it. Possibly some kids decided to play a prank, knowing Gretta’s Bridge is the only way across the river to his property. We calmed him down and sent him home. I have all units on the lookout for teenagers carting around a cutting torch or something similar. If that’s not what happened, then something very strange did occur on that bridge.
We’ll keep it quiet until we have more information. There’s no need to incite panic after everything this city has been through.
NELSON CREEK COUNTY INCIDENT REPORT
SHERIFF MAXWELL SORYN, PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR
APRIL 8, 2030
SAM’S BAY
WASHINGTON, USA
His mind elsewhere, Kael Symes flipped the lid open and shut on his custom cigarette lighter, sitting at a wooden table on the patio of Tinker’s Bar and Grill while waiting for his friend Max to arrive for dinner.
Max had given him the lighter four years ago after Kael had been shot thre
e times during a citywide attack by a ruthless street gang. They’d become fast friends while he recovered. Even though he’d never smoked, Max told him it was a customary gift given to officers of the Nelson Creek County Sheriff’s Department after they were injured on duty. They called it the Light of the Survivor. Though Kael wasn’t a deputy, he’d killed one of the gang members that night defending himself and his wife. His actions tied up one of the gang’s groups until Max and other officers arrived on scene. After the paperwork and court dates had passed, Max had taken the bullets that nearly killed Kael and had them flattened and molded into the lighter’s plating. Morbid as it was, Kael carried it everywhere he went.
Clicking away, he thought about everything he loved about the city where he’d made a home and the woman who helped make it. A compact five-two, his wife had startling, emerald green eyes and long, slightly curly, blazing-red hair that took his breath away every time he saw her. She meant everything to him, and since the attack she’d been his one reason to keep struggling. Her name was Ember. He teased her all the time, calling her the spark of his life. Though life was often tough, there were many things about Sam’s Bay that he’d easily grown to love. The people were friendly, most of them anyway, and crime rates were down. The city had prospered under its new mayor, who’d worked to ensure steady employment for all, the wood mill and fishing industry, along with their regeneration projects employed thousands, bringing bigger businesses to the city and she’d taken a hard line with the criminal element. Sam’s Bay was a great place to live and, Kael hoped, to eventually raise a family.