by D. N. Leo
Bran glanced at Madeline and said nothing.
Ciaran winced and opened his eyes.
“Ciaran LeBlanc, I now announce you as King of Eudaiz. Do you accept?”
Ciaran stared at Bran, then he closed his eyes again.
“No, no, Ciaran! Open your eyes. Accept it for me.” Madeline shook Ciaran’s shoulders again and again. His eyes remained closed. He looked as if he were fading away.
This time it would be forever.
Madeline looked at Bran. A tear rolled down her face.
Bran repeated, “Ciaran LeBlanc, I now announce you as the King of Eudaiz. Do you accept?”
No response from Ciaran.
Another moment went past. Then Ciaran winced. He moaned and opened his eyes again.
Behind them, blood streamed from Zach’s nose and ears. He couldn’t stand. Ayana and Jo had to hold him up. Zach was sending sound waves into Ciaran’s head to wake him.
“I’m going to kill you, Zach,” Ciaran murmured.
Madeline bent down so that her face was in Ciaran’s clear view. “We exchanged vows, Ciaran. I hope you remember and will honor what you said.”
Bran asked again, “Ciaran LeBlanc, I now announce you the King of Eudaiz. Do you accept?”
Madeline shoved in, placing her face in Ciaran’s view again. She stared straight into his eyes and waited.
“Yes,” Ciaran said.
Before Ciaran slipped away again, Bran pulled Ciaran’s left arm up and placed a glowing band around his wrist. The band absorbed into Ciaran’s arm and vanished. Bran pulled Ciaran up and zoomed out of the Daimon Gate.
Chapter 40
The life force rained down. Ciaran saw waves of magnificent energy flowing into his body. He was floating inside a glass chamber.
This was the king chamber. He was sure of it.
Thousands of light beams crossed and connected to his body. With every moment that passed, an inexplicable energy from the light flew into him. He knew he was receiving the eudqi of his King Sciphil.
His body and his mind flew, floated, and then reformed again.
The energy turned him around. Spinning. Floating. Slowing down.
Now, in the standing position, he could see through the glass panel. He saw Bran standing outside, looking at him.
With every minute, Bran’s body deteriorated. As the light beams of energy flew into Ciaran, the same went out of Bran.
Bran’s eyes were still strong and sharp. His intense gray eyes pierced through the glass chamber, looking at Ciaran. A proud smile crossed his face.
Ciaran was drawing the life force from Bran. He couldn’t stop it. He had accepted the position, and he had no say in the price he was willing to pay.
He hated Bran for what he had done to his mother. But at the same time, a man in Bran’s position had saved many lives. He was in charged with an entire universe. There were people who depended on him. He was the king, and that was what it took.
Somehow, Ciaran understood Bran and the motivation for his actions.
If he had decided to take the responsibility at a cost to his family and those he loved, then he was a far greater man than Ciaran could ever be.
He knew his weakness. He was human, and he couldn’t let go of his emotions. A tear rolled down Ciaran’s face.
“Damn it, that tear you inherited from Conan, not me,” Bran cursed.
The transformation process was complete.
Ciaran broke free of the glass chamber. Bran was now no more than a pile of battered flesh, but his eyes were still sharp and intact. He looked at Ciaran.
“I took everything from you, didn’t I?” Ciaran said. Another tear rolled down his face.
“Those tears embarrass me, Ciaran. You didn’t take anything from me. If I were strong enough, I would be able to retain my physical presence without the eudqi. But I let my body turn to ruin inside the Daimon Gate.”
Ciaran reached out for Bran’s hand, but Bran’s body had started disintegrating.
“I don’t have anything to give you as a father but my blood. Remember, the desire for destruction inside you, the violence and the blade of your mind, they come from your Daimon. Do not lose it. It’s in my blood. So it’s in yours as well. Without destruction, there is no rebirth. It is the principal of life in Eudaiz. It is the virtue of a king. It takes a life to save a life. You don’t have to be a righteous man, Ciaran. Not in my realm. But you have to be a just king.”
“Don’t leave, please. I’m not ready.”
“Yes, you are. Conan helped make you the man you are today. Thank him for me. Tell Jennifer I’m sorry for what happened. I did love her. But she belongs to my brother . . .”
Bran’s body turned into a pile of dirt that quickly dissolved into the air.
Lost. That was all Ciaran fell at the moment. He was sure it wasn’t the feeling Bran had wanted him to have. But he couldn’t help it.
He let it be. At the moment, in this king tower, he was by himself. Alone.
He and the multiverse. He gave himself a moment to grieve the father he had never had.
Outside the tower, Madeline had just arrived. Ayana had brought her here to wait for Ciaran. Madeline looked at the entrance of the magnificent tower, knowing that Ciaran was inside. She gazed at it as if she might be able to open it with the force of her stare.
The gate swung open. Ciaran walked out in a form as magnificent as Bran had been. He was still her Ciaran. He still looked the same. But he now had the aura of a king.
A tear rolled down Ayana’s face. She knew Bran was gone forever.
Madeline knew the only person he saw when he walked out of that gate was her.
Only her.
He strode down the stone steps. She raced toward him. They kissed each other in front of the king tower.
A humming sound approached them. Madeline and Ciaran turned around. Zach, Tadgh, Jo, and Pete arrived in a bizarre looking vehicle.
“Welcome to Eudaiz,” Ciaran said as his brother approached hand in hand with Jo.
“Should I call you my majesty?” Tadgh grinned.
Ayana smiled. “We have to go through the coronation process. But it should only be a matter of formality.”
“And you will be Sciphil Nine when I am done, Tadgh,” Pete said.
Tadgh laughed. “I wish you all the best, and please stay in power as long as possible.” Tadgh wrapped his arms around Jo’s shoulders. “I assume we can go back and forth between here and Earth, right?”
“Yes, with ease,” Pete said.
“Do you intend to go back and take care of LeBlanc Pharmaceuticals, Tadgh?” Ciaran asked and smiled as if he knew the answer already.
“No. I just want to check on Migi and TJ,” Tadgh said.
Jo laughed and explained to those who didn’t know Tadgh’s two very important pets. “Migi is a very cunning cat, and TJ is Ciaran’s puppy.”
“Please don’t refer to TJ as my puppy, Jo. He might take advantage of it,” Ciaran chuckled.
They started headed to the vehicle to get to their residence.
“Is the coronation process really going to be just formality?” Madeline asked.
Ciaran shook his head and smiled. Only skeptical Madeline would ask Ayana and Pete that. If claiming the kingship of this multibillion-resident universe was simple, they wouldn’t have made the king Sciphil go through such a traumatizing testing process.
But that would be a matter for tomorrow.
For now, he enjoyed the thought of holding their twins in his arms, being with Madeline, and visiting their parents who now resided in the Daimon Gate.
The thought made him smile.
* * *
THE END
This is the end of A Shade of Mind - Complete Series
Ciaran and Madeline continue their journey in Mindscape Trilogy. More information can be found at http://dnleo.com
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MINDSCAPE TRILOGY
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QUEEN & KNIGHT
CASTLE & BISHOPS
KING’S ENDGAME
* * *
Mindscape Trilogy by D.N. Leo
Part I
QUEEN
Untitled
QUEEN’S GAMBIT
Chapter 1
Did the gray, dull, and inanimate garden wall in front of her just shiver, sweat, and leak out tears of blood?
This was incredulous. She wasn’t Alice in Wonderland. Madeline shook her head. It must be fatigue. She looked at the wall again.
Now, it stood still as any dull gray wall in any backyard. She sighed. It was fatigue.
A strange shade of gray light spread over a garden of plastic-looking trees. Her eyes shot to the sky and widened. She was looking at the magnificent sunset in Eudaiz, a universe far away from Earth.
She smiled.
After what felt like decades of bloodbath and battles, she had survived and come here. The sunset was comforting.
Madeline had read many science fiction novels, which at the moment served the sole purpose of preventing her from freaking out or making a complete idiot of herself.
Then she realized the sunset in front of her was artificial.
The smile left her face, giving way to a frown of anxiety at the daunting thought of an uncertain future.
A few months ago, she would have laughed at the idea that she would ever space travel. But this was worse. She hadn’t just space-traveled to get here. She had traveled across dimensions of time and space and God-knows-whatever-else. The sort of travel that didn’t allow her to use a map to track the routes, the kind where she didn’t know where she had been or how long it had taken her.
In 2015, she had been an accomplished New York journalist. A few short months later, she’d discovered she was not Madeline Roux, but Madeline Kelley. She was only half human from her mother’s side because her father was Eudaizian.
She’d met Ciaran in London and discovered that she could love a man like madness. Ciaran said they were soulmates. But his words were too polished for her. She preferred to say simply that they loved each other. She’d married him a few days ago—in whatever dimension existed between Earth and this place.
She was now Madeline LeBlanc, in whatever year it was in Eudaiz.
Eudaiz was a multi-billion citizen universe, governed by a council of nine Sciphils—a word that stood for Scientist Philosopher. There had been countless times Madeline rolled her eyes internally when she used the term.
In her lay English, she considered the council to be like royalty or a government of some kind. They controlled everything in Eudaiz. What intrigued her most was that the council members were mostly humans who’d come from Earth. A council of nine humans governing an immense universe of alien citizens was a concept she’d never have imagined in her wildest dreams.
The thing was, her grandfather had been Sciphil One. Before he died, he’d appointed her as his successor of the Sciphil One position because she was the last living member of her family. So she was due to take up that appointment in a few days and became Sciphil One. That had been quite a shock to her peaceful life on Earth.
Suddenly her vision wavered. The garden in front of her flickered. “Oh, no,” she muttered and turned around to go inside. On Earth, she’d thought she was a pseudo psychic. But since reconnecting with her biological family and accepting this Sciphil One position, her psychic ability had become stronger.
She could see minds and track minds, and sometimes she could even read people’s minds. The baggage that came along with that ability was that she had precognition—mostly in regards to negative incidents. They called that her talent. She called it a curse.
She didn’t think she could make it back inside the house. It seemed as if the ground was moving under her feet.
On the wall at the other side of the garden, a blood-red text appeared: ENNEAD WILL KILL YOU ALL.
The garden bed was covered in blood and gore. Body parts littered the ground.
She wanted to run, but her feet were buried in what looked like bricks made of dried bones. She yanked at her feet but couldn’t free them. She called out for Ciaran, but no sound escaped her mouth. The bones built themselves up quickly, now reaching up to her body.
She was suffocating in a tomb of bone.
Chapter 2
“Welcome home,” Kyle Wolf muttered to himself.
Kyle drew in the purified air of Eudaiz to remind himself of what he had missed in his thirty-three years living in exile. He swore to his soul that he would make those responsible for his miseries pay. In this universe—or in the one that contained Earth—his soul was the only possession he was sure was not illusory.
He chuckled at his analogy. As a mind-bender, Kyle’s strongest talent was the ability to make others hallucinate. He could control people’s minds. And he enjoyed doing it, especially when he made people kill themselves.
The stench of fresh blood always gave him a shiver of pleasure.
Deep in his thought, he tripped on a tub of water. He stared at his reflection in the purified water someone had put out in front of their house to give blessings for the new king of Eudaiz. The face mirrored back at him was a face he hadn’t dared to look at for a long time—scarred, wrinkled, and ancient.
He had once possessed the typical angelic, Eudaizian look—and he’d had an innocent Eudaizian mind to match.
Those precious days were long gone.
Eudaiz was a place of happiness where people lived in total contentment and excelled at their individual talents. Eudaizians looked like extraordinarily beautiful humans. People here were born beautiful and saw nothing but beauty in their lives. There was no concept of heaven or hell because those benchmarks just weren’t needed. This universe offered its citizens a true happiness that no other universe could.
Kyle cursed to himself and glanced from a distance at the happy crowds preparing for the king’s coronation. Only those like him who had visited other universes could understand and appreciate Eudaiz, just as only those who had been to hell would appreciate heaven.
Kyle knew the difference between heaven and hell all too well. Eudaiz was a heaven—a perfect world that had rejected him.
“That should be my coronation,” Kyle mumbled.
Eudaiz’s constitution stated that people deserved happiness when they used their excellence to contribute to virtuous acts. But no one had ever clearly defined what a virtuous act was, and more importantly, what it was not.
Kyle clenched his teeth, thinking of the LeBlancs again. His life’s work was down the drain now.
Bran LeBlanc, the previous king of Eudaiz, had cut off his eudqi—the life force that gave him his good looks and invincible strength. And Ciaran LeBlanc. Even the sound of the name made him feel as if his head was going to explode. Ciaran had taken the king’s sovereignty. And that would terminate Kyle’s existence.
“No!” He couldn’t let that happen. “Damn you all. I curse you all,” he growled. He whirled around in anger. “Ennead will kill you all. I swear to the gods of darkness, I will make them pay. The ennead will kill them all . . .”
A Eudaizian man carrying a tub of purifying water stepped out from a house and ran straight into Kyle. Half of the water in the tub poured out onto Kyle. Putting the tub down, the man turned to check on him.
He caught Kyle’s face and withdrew slightly. Then he spoke politely in Eudaizian, “I apologize.”
Kyle smiled. He understood that no one in Eudaiz was as ugly as he now was. Of course, the man was shocked seeing his deformed face. Kyle answered in
his native tongue. “It’s not a problem. I’m on my way to the Sciphil zone. I shouldn’t arrive like this.” He pointed at a few leaves and flower petals still hanging from his clothes. “May I use your facility to wash up?”
“Oh, of course. You’re from the Sciphil council. My house is your house.” The man pushed the door open and invited Kyle in.
Kyle shook his head. Naive Eudaizians should die. Kyle followed the man in and closed the door behind him.
Sensing something unusual, the man turned around and looked at Kyle. Kyle savored the fear in the man’s eyes and the pain in his voice when he ripped the man’s heart out with his bare hand. Kyle wiped the blood from his hand on the man’s clothes.
He moved to the window and peeked outside. The air was filled with the distant sounds of cheering, music, and laughter. The aroma of burnt incense and fresh flowers whirled in the air for a moment and was then whisked away by the wind.
“Long live the king!” he hummed the words in his throat and smirked.
Chapter 3
Ciaran searched the garden and found Madeline fainted on the ground. His wife scared the hell out of him sometimes. He could see nothing unusual in the garden. The plantation in the garden looked plastic, but having dealt with chemicals for such a long time, he recognized that the material was organic, just not of Earth.
He knew for sure that the dome above that looked like sky was artificial. Its purpose was to create an environment that a human body could tolerate. The air inside the dome was normal. There were no strange creatures here or anything in the garden that he could peg as a sign of danger. So why had Madeline fainted?