by JD Franx
When Kael opened his eyes minutes later, he realized that Lycori was kneeling at his side holding him as he shook. He never even realized he'd dropped to his knees.
“I’m here, Kael,” she said quietly. “It’s done now. Breathe. Come on. Take a deep breath and get up. These assholes knew the price for being what they are, that does not land on you. The lives of these people you saved does. Come on.” For some reason she had a calming effect on him after the rush of everything he’d been through.
Rising to his feet, Kael steadied himself to meet the people he and Lycori had helped save at such a heavy cost. They were met by a man named Jaque. He told them that the villagers were heading for the city of Corynth because their village had been attacked by the same marauders that Kael and Lycori had just killed. An old man, Ben, insisted that it was paramount that ArchWizard Giddeon Zirakus be told what happened, but quickly rushed off to help the other villagers. Kael offered to travel with them for a while to ensure they were safe, even though Lycori was strongly against the idea.
“If Giddeon knows about the attack on this village he could be headed our way already, Kael. This is foolish,” she argued.
“Come on, Lycori. It can’t hurt to stay with them for the rest of today can it? Just to be sure they’re safely on their way.” She finally agreed and when the villagers graciously accepted the offer and finished burying their dead, they all moved out together. Kael couldn’t help but ponder his decision. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake.
The group of refugees made little distance during the rest of the day. After burying their dead, most were still shaken and it showed, slowing their pace. As night drew near and they made camp, Kael sat down and concentrated on sending his esoteric sight out as far as he could to be sure there were no more threats to the group of Ipean refugees. His consciousness floated out to almost two hundred yards and still he sensed no human contact or anything that could be a danger.
Convinced that the group would be safe, Kael and Lycori went to look for Jaque to let him know that they were leaving. At his tent, Jaque sat out front watching a small cook fire.
“Hey, Jaque, is your father all right?” Kael asked. He’d learned during the day’s walk that the old man, Ben, was Jaque’s father
“Yes, but he’s resting. Can I help you with anything, Kael?” he asked.
“No, that’s okay. We just came to tell you that we’re leaving and though you should still keep guards out as a precaution, I can’t sense anyone nearby, all right?”
The young man winced with concern, but seemed to understand. “Fair enough, though I wish you could stay. We would all be dead if it hadn’t been for you. Thank you both, for all your help. Are you sure we can’t give you something for helping? Gold? Extra supplies, anything? The bandit’s weapons or their jewelry?”
“We’ve taken some fresh water,” Lycori replied, “but we need nothing more. Give the weapons to your best fighters.”
Kael nodded his agreement. “We’re fine. Just take care of your father and get these people to Corynth where they’ll be safe. Sound fair?” Jaque nodded as they turned to leave. Kael hoped to make some miles before they stopped to rest for the night and he wasn’t in the mood to talk. The problems with his magic. The threat of the ArchWizard being nearby and Kael’s decision to stay with the refugees still hung between him and Lycori. Let alone the whirl of thoughts weighing him down after taking three lives in the pass earlier in the day. It was overwhelming.
As they left the camp and started towards the far end of the pass, Kael couldn’t keep it bottled up any more. Jaque and some of the villagers had told them as they walked during the day that the wizards posted in the town of Ipea had no success using magic against the attackers. Their spells had failed repeatedly. Kael’s own spell had failed as well, but his had been failing for a while.
“Lycori, did you see my magic fail against those guys when they first turned around to attack us?” he asked.
“I did. Why? Same as before... Not?” she questioned warily. After the exploding ring incident, he knew that any mention of problems with his magic would warrant closer scrutiny from her.
“I thought so, but Jaque told me that the wizards stationed at his town couldn’t get their magic to work against the attackers. He said their spells missed targets or failed completely. I wonder if whatever they are doing is causing my problems too. Or with magic altogether.”
Frowning, she shook her head. “I doubt it, Kael. Your magic started acting up far away from here. I would hazard a guess that these guys have some sort of defence against magic. It’s quite rare, but not unheard of. Besides, your black lightning always starts, we can see it form on your arms... Wait a minute…” She stopped abruptly and chewed her bottom lip in thought.
“What? What is it?” Kael looked ahead and behind them, but saw no threat.
Looking at Kael with a strange expression, she said, “Black lightning! That spell I taught you casts black lightning when you use it. By the gods, I can’t believe I totally missed that.”
“Missed what?”
“I am so sorry. I never even put it together until now. A wizard would have noticed long ago. My grandfather told me that wizards like you are born with two crua, remember? You don’t form an artificial one when you’re older. Your connection to your power is a part of you, like an arm or a leg. Only you have two of them, this is what I forgot. You have a connection to the earth, but also one to the underworld. I know a wizard’s earth-bond makes white or yellow lightning and in extremely rare cases even a light blue, but your cruus to the underworld is considered death magic. It explains your black lightning. No normal wizard alive can do that, not even the Dragons or their Kin could produce black energy.”
“Did you just say dragons? Real dragons? Big fire-breathing, lizard... Frigging dragons?” Kael stuttered.
“Gods, Kael, you would think by now nothing could surprise you, geesh,” she chuckled, rolling her eyes. “But yes, real Dragons. There’s none left. The last Behemoth fell during the Demon Wars. All that are left now are the DragonKin, their half-bred children born of other races.”
“Damn. This place…” Kael said, before trailing off in thought.
Suspecting he wasn’t referring to the Dragons, she asked, “You all right?” Even in the darkness, his expression carried the sallow haunt of horrific memories.
“No.”
“Then tell me.”
He stopped walking and turned her way. “We took eight lives today. I... I killed three people today,” he said, overwhelmed with guilt.
Shaking her head, she grabbed him by the shoulders, her voice rising. “Yes, you did. You took three to save your own life and I took five to save mine. Together we killed eight people in order to save over a hundred innocent lives. That’s how Talohna works. I know it hurts, but you deal with it. Or the next time you will be down and dead. I’m not helping a dead man, Kael. Stop thinking about killers and their worthless lives that you took because of their own stupidity. Focus on the here and now. On what we were talking about.”
Taking several deep breaths, he nodded. “Okay. Sorry. Black lightening you said, what about it?” He shook his head in an attempt to clear the images of death and the cries of pain rolling though his head.
“Forget that for a minute. Can you tell the difference between your crua?”
“Give me a minute,” he said, and closed his eyes to concentrate. Calming himself further and grateful for the distraction, he focused on the place inside where a quiet power rested. Where he drew upon that power for his black lightning. Pushing it aside, he concentrated harder and looked for another source of quiet calm and felt… Nothing.
“All I feel is where the black lightning comes from and the quiet throbbing of my esoteric senses, Lycori, nothing else.”
“I understand. I don’t know what to tell you that could help. You need the help of a bonded wizard. I’m still hoping the RedMaw’s will have a wizard or two staying in the caver
ns. If not we’ll ask for an audience with Salo. He uses several types of magic, but I’d rather find one of the others. Salo was my sire and he’s a very dangerous man.”
“All right, sounds good to me as long as you show me the way,” he said, giving her a shallow bow.
“Absolutely,” she laughed. “Now let’s find a spot for the night.” Her good humour could be infectious, even after all of the death earlier and with the loss of Ember and Max still boiling the inside of his stomach. Kael smiled as he followed after her, doing his best to suppress his growing guilt and horrific memories.
NORTHERN MOUNTAIN PASS, CETHOS
On watch as the darkness inside the pass started to lighten, Kael knew it would be close to midday before any sun actually touched the trail leading through the mountains so there was no hurry to start the day. He decided to let Lycori sleep longer while he sat and thought about the last few tumultuous weeks of his life. Kael no longer knew what to do or what would become of him and the only people he ever cared about were gone, dead. His mind rolled from thought to thought for several minutes before something foreign brought it to a stop. He focused on it. That something kept scratching at the back of his head—he and Lycori were heading in the wrong direction. He realized it had been a subtle bother for days now, but it took until now to understand what he was feeling.
Without even realizing what he was doing, Kael found himself focusing intently on that scratch, that connection to something important behind them. In what seemed like only seconds, his mind was no longer with his body, as if his soul had been freed from his physical self. His essence drifted back along the pass, almost to where they had entered after they left the Forsaken Lands. The sound of pounding hooves caught his attention and he drifted further from his body.
Horses raced through the dark pass at breakneck speed, the animals giving their riders nearly all they had, the short hair foamed with sweat and the bits were frothed with saliva. One look and he knew they were headed his way. As the horses slowed for a turn, one of the riders, a female, yelled at the others to stop. They reigned in, except for the three riders nearly a half mile further back in the pass. Kael could see and hear the riders as if he were actually standing there with them.
“Father, stop! There’s someone here with us,” the woman yelled. Kael could sense the aura of immense power that surrounded the man she referred to. It prickled his senses like a thistle stuck in his shoe. Somehow he knew—it could only be the ArchWizard from Corynth, Giddeon Zirakus.
“Saleece? What are you talking about?” the ArchWizard asked.
“Someone is watching us with magic. It’s right here in the pass, I can feel it. Gods! The power is so heavy it’s almost choking me. Dark magic. Can’t you sense it?” She coughed, almost struggling for breath.
Kael watched Giddeon close his eyes for only a second. When they snapped open he was looking right at him. “Now I can. I know you’re there, Kael. You need to stop running.”
Kael watched as the rest of the riders approached, all were covered with hoods and cold weather masks as a defence against the early morning chill of the mountains. And they were heavily armed. Desperate to speak, Kael tried, but for some reason, he couldn’t feel his physical self, so he had no mouth to speak with, no voice to use. Similar to his esoteric sight being in an extremely heightened condition, it was a sense of sight and sound but not speech. Before he had a chance to figure it out, he was jerked back into his body, hard.
Lycori screamed at him, shaking him by the shoulders. “Kael! Dammit, Kael, come back already. Where the hell are you?” He opened his eyes and caught a hard slap, square in the jaw.
He groaned, muttering. “Stop, I’m back. God, can’t even float my brain around the mountains to spy on an ArchWizard without you slapping the shit out of me.” Chuckling at his phony bravado, he rubbed his temples in an attempt to clear the haze left by such powerful magic.
Lycori wasn’t impressed. “You asshole,” she snapped. “Gods, you scared me. What the hell were you trying to do?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he confessed, suddenly registering what he’d actually seen. “It just happened, but we need to move, fast. Right now. Giddeon and his group are less than a day behind us and they have horses.”
“All right, let’s go,” she said. “Pack up camp. Like we practised. Ten seconds. Nothing is left behind.”
Lycori knew the dangers of travelling the land, so she had taught him, weeks ago, the benefit of being able to run with only a few seconds warning or notice. Kael had no intention of fighting Giddeon or his group, especially the strange woman the ArchWizard had called Saleece. Remembering the strange litany of colours surrounding the ArchWizard, Kael guessed it must have been Giddeon’s aura, a shining blaze of pulsating lights showing power worthy of his title. But hers were different. Swirls of silver and emerald green surrounded her, but they didn’t pulse. They flowed around and through her like a living being. Just the thought of her made his spine prickle. If it hadn’t been for her they would never have known he’d been watching them.
The ArchWizard and those with him were the protectors of this kingdom and though they believed that he was a monster, Kael wasn’t going to prove them right by standing and fighting. Lycori and the Bounty Merc, Yared, had made it clear that his death was a twenty-year-old sentence that would stand until the day of his death. Talking his way out wasn’t an option.
It took less than ten seconds to pack up their small camp and get moving once more. They ran for hours, stopping only for Kael to catch his breath. As they reached the declining slope in the mountain trail, Lycori yelled that there wasn’t far to go. When they came around the last blind curve, for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, Kael felt anger begin to surge from his belly and up through his mind with an uncontrollable urgency. The shock of such strong emotion made him gasp and stumble as he came to an abrupt stop still inside the pass. Two figures stood at the mouth, not fifty feet from where they had turned the corner. For reasons beyond his comprehension, the sight of the newcomers made his blood boil and he could feel the vines of his death-flower jump to life as they carved their way through his skin, yet again.
One good look at the first being standing fifty feet away and Kael knew, even through the fog of rage, that it wasn’t human. At six feet in height, it wore a long, black robe trimmed in silver and adorned with strange symbols. The robe had a matching black hood and mask that covered the figure’s face so all Kael could see were a set of wild, exotic eyes.
The feather-edged irises were a phosphorescent purple surrounding red, slitted pupils all floating in a sea of black. The being’s eyes had an unnatural brightness that seemed to pull at Kael’s soul. For some strange reason, the more he stared, the more the blood pounded in his ears. The raw anger was the only thing that allowed Kael to tear himself free of the creature’s hypnotic stare.
Puzzled by his insane hatred for the new arrival, he gave the second person a quick threat assessment. Much shorter than the first and stooped from a slightly hunched back, he appeared harmless. As the grizzled little man leaned heavily on a cane, Kael noticed that his right hand gripped a life-sized, black skull attached to the top. Beyond the initial glance, Kael never gave him a second thought, immediately forgetting the little man.
When the first creature spoke, Kael couldn’t help but wonder what lies or tricks would spew forth from what could only be yet another threat. His heart hammered in his chest, but it was different this time. Excitement mixed with the rage as if he wanted to fight. Confused by another set of strange feelings, Kael shook his head.
“Kael Symes, former resident of the magic-less Earth. I am very happy to finally meet you,” the creature said, stepping closer and offering a mock bow. “My name is Sythrnax, and we have spent an extensive amount of time and resources looking for you, young man. You do know how to stay out of sight, don’t you?” Kael shrugged, but it didn’t stop the being from speaking. “Fascinating. Even as my eyes fall on you now, I’m
not able to feel you. Would you care to share with me how you do that?”
Kael frowned, not knowing what to say.
“No. I suppose you don’t. I wouldn’t either if I could hide from magical sight. Or perhaps you can’t tell me how you do it. Would be closer, wouldn’t it? I can sense that power of yours has you all torn up inside, doesn’t it? Hard figuring out magic by yourself, Kael? How about you come with me? I’ll show you how power like that is calmed and controlled.”
The sound of Sythrnax’s voice grated against Kael’s teeth like a bar of raw iron. He knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost control of himself and exploded with violence. Trying with every fibre of self control he could muster, Kael still couldn’t calm himself. The agitation burning through him was getting harder and harder to hold back, almost as if his body was no longer his own, like his very soul was an inferno of rage bred to kill the creature standing in front of him.
Lycori could see the physical manifestation of his rapidly climbing fury. She watched with a glower as he broke out in sweat and his muscles twitched with spasms, but mostly, as the vines and thorns of his death-flower grew like a living plant right before her very eyes.
She desperately tried to calm him. “Kael? What’s happening? Who is he? Kael! I can hear you grinding your teeth from here.” Stepping up to him, she grabbed his shoulder and spun him towards her, but his eyes never left Sythrnax. She gasped, stepping back, as a pair of flourishing black vines grew beneath his skin. Spreading out from under the collar of his shirt, they sprouted jagged, barbed thorns that seemed to anchor deep within his flesh.