The pained magician shook his head. ‘I should say the same to you.’
‘And I shall take this vile presence with me,’ she said, looking at the glass around them. ‘Its power is fading as you said, but the earth has long abhorred this scar of evil upon her skin.’
‘You must be quick,’ Samuel told her, shivering.
‘Then goodbye, everyone,’ she said. ‘Remember us.’
A halo of white light appeared around her, so that Leopold, Kali and Daneel had to step away. It was perfectly silent, utterly intense so they were forced to shield their eyes. Visible in its core, two shadows were standing, their hands joined; then, the two became one as they embraced.
‘The darkness,’ Samuel gasped with awe, staring towards the captain, ‘burned away by the light!’
But Jessicah did not hear him or else paid him no heed.
‘What do we do?’ the voice of Captain Orrell could be heard asking, now strong and free of pain, free of doubt.
‘Hold on to me,’ the voice of Jessicah replied.
‘Will it help us get there?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It will make me feel wonderful.’
Deep in that intense brightness, the two silhouettes pushed tighter together. The light pushed in around them, tearing at their edges until the two lovers were gone. Then, the blinding ball diminished, fading away until nothing remained. Jessicah and David were gone.
The desert of glass shuddered and rumbled, fading into ordinary grey stone. The stars reflected upon the earth disappeared.
‘They’ve gone,’ Lomar said. ‘It is done.’
The scene was much darker after witnessing that blazing light, and they waited in the cold silence, with only Samuel’s laboured groans to break the silence.
Slowly, the mage-fire on his skin returned to illuminate the scene. The earth continued to rumble and shift. They saw the first of the fractures, running across the single great plate of stone that surrounded them with an ear piercing crack. Stone shifted, and more cracks ran like forks of lightning in every direction.
‘What’s happening?’ Daneel asked.
‘It’s getting worse,’ Kali said with alarm
‘But where is the sun?’ Leopold asked. ‘Surely something should have happened by now?’
Lomar said, ‘They would arrive at their destination in only a heartbeat, but where is their light?’
The ground continued to rupture and in the distance, a great wedge of stone scraped its way into the air, shunted skywards by the forces at play.
They struggled to remain on their feet as great chunks of stone broke free and were pressed into the air at angles. Time passed and the earth heaved and shook. Chunks of stone broke free and worked their way upwards, forming columns and plateaus across the plain. Other pieces the size of houses dropped away. All the water, previously sitting flat upon the glass, now ran and washed about, forming rivers and waterfalls, filling the newly formed cracks and crevices, dropping into the chasms. Still, no sun appeared.
‘She has failed,’ Samuel said, lost. They were high upon a wobbling spire of stone, looking out over the rest of the plain. ‘I can no longer feel her ... and there is no star to light us. Where have they gone? It is over. I have failed us all.’
He began to sob, and the mage-fire poured from him in great rivers, glowing inside him, illuminating his bones and growing brighter as the demons readied to burst free.
‘I miscalculated,’ he wept, still on his knees. ‘I’m sorry, Leopold. You have made your father proud. He is within me, and I know it to be true. He tried to warn me of my pride, but I did not listen. I thought I could save my son and the world, too. I thought I could save everyone.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Samuel,’ Leopold said. ‘You gave her back to me.’ He looked at Kali, puzzlement on her face. ‘That is all I could ask for.’
‘I am sorry, Your Majesty. I thought I had done everything as I should. I hope you can forgive me. You would have made a good emperor. I am proud of you, too, Leopold.’ He screamed with pain and the sound echoed back from the stone canyons and walls now built around them. ‘Daneel! Quickly! The time is now!’
Daneel hesitated, and the fire around the magician flared, engulfing him in a violent blue inferno, sheathed in purple tendrils of fire.
The one-eyed man stepped as close as he dare, turning his face from the searing fire that was Samuel, and thrust his blade deep into the magician’s heart. His job done he stepped back, leaving his sword embedded in Samuel’s chest, the fire too hot to retrieve it.
Samuel did not die, but his expression went vacant as he glanced about, searching. He staggered unsteadily on his feet. ‘What is this darkness all around me?’ he asked of no one. He looked to one side, addressing the vacant space. ‘I am here, my darling.’ His eyes were burning holes of light, spilling molten fire. ‘I did it, my love. I saved him. We will be together soon ... at last. So many lives I have lived, so many names I have had, so many loved ones I have left behind each time. I remember them now—every one of them. I remember you, with all your faces, all your voices, reborn and loving me without end. I have lived too long, my dear. Come closer, come, whisper it into my ear. I have longed to hear you say my name for so many years, as you once did in our youth.’ He paused, as if listening, then smiled. ‘Ah ... that’s better. So long have I waited to hear that. And I love you, too, my dear—’
It was then that he halted, for his mind was overwhelmed by countless, gibbering demons.
The fire continue to blaze, but he was not yet dead, and it was Kali who stepped in, braving the fire to withdraw Daneel’s sword, then with one sharp chop she decapitated the magician, sending his head flying out into the darkness.
The fire around his body blazed in gusts. A fulgent core combusted inside of him, shining from his neck, like glowing coals beneath the ashes of a fire, and it seethed and threatened to ignite through his skin. Slowly, the fire died and went black.
As the wind blew over him, it began to carry him away, merely blackened cinders in scorched robes. Shortly, there was nothing left but the last clump of ash within his fluttering cloak, and then the wind carried that away too, leaving nothing of the magician behind.
‘At last,’ Lomar stated. ‘The demons are dead. We are saved from them, for what it’s worth.’
‘What do we do now?’ Leopold asked, staring at the spot where Samuel had been.
‘Wait for death,’ Lomar said. ‘It should not be long.’
‘But at least our souls have been preserved,’ Daneel said. ‘I would rather die of cold or be crushed by these stones than devoured by fiends and tormented for all time. This is not a loss. It is still a victory, although perhaps not the one we would have expected.’
‘Then you will get that wish,’ Lomar told him. ‘It should not take long to die.’
They waited, nothing to do as the wind grew wilder and colder and the ground continued to shake. Deafening booms continued to shatter the air, and their vantage point shifted violently, tilting and threatening to tip them off.
Kali spotted it first. Far above them, a tiny point of brightness amongst the stars, and the others followed her excited call.
‘Look there!’ she cried.
The point grew, and Leopold searched for others, for it appeared another great Journey Spell was forming to take them home—but it was not to be so. The tiny light was alone amongst the other stars, but it grew brighter, larger with each passing moment. Its yellow hue became evident, and as it grew it banished the other stars from around it with its vigour, until they were forced to avert their eyes, such was its strength.
‘It is the sun!’ Kali gasped.
It was only a tiny ball, but it was the start of a light to keep them warm for all ages.
‘She did it,’ Lomar remarked with wonder.
The star expanded, until it blazed above them, blanketing them in its warmth.
‘They did it. They have returned the sun!’ Daneel cried with wonder.
/> ‘A new sun,’ Lomar corrected him.
It blazed brighter until the plain of broken grey stone was clearly visibly. A blue sky spread from around the sun, pushing out towards the horizons and obscuring the stars as it went until broad daylight surrounded them.
The rumblings settled and the wind calmed as the warmth pervaded the stones.
‘Look,’ Daneel said, for cresting the sky to the east was a silver disc. ‘The moon.’
‘Not our moon,’ Lomar stated. ‘Also a new one.’ They could see he was right, for its surface was clean, devoid of familiar scars. ‘She made it and she has calmed the unsettled earth. She has saved us ... but I don’t know how.’
‘Jessicah,’ Leopold heard himself whisper.
Something warm was in his palm. Looking down he spied Kali’s hand in his. Somehow, in the dark she had found him and there they remained, side by side. She noticed him looking at her and she smiled, squeezing him, not letting go.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.
She smiled at him reassuringly and spoke. Surprisingly, her words were a string of unintelligible noises. Leopold was startled. The voice he heard was hers, but the language incomprehensible. Then he realised it did not matter. Being with her was all he cared about. He smiled and squeezed her hand in return.
‘What did she say?’ Daneel asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Leopold replied.
‘She said she is fine,’ Lomar informed them, being the only one knowing the Old Tongue, ‘but she recommends getting away from here. I agree with her. These stones are unstable, and this is a desert after all. It is a long way to find food and shelter. Luckily, I know the way.’
‘Ah,’ said Leopold, ‘that is good. What shall we do?’ he asked of Daneel.
‘Start walking,’ the one-eyed man replied, bereft of his shirt. His cape was lost long ago, somewhere during the confusion.
‘How far is it?’
‘A long, long way,’ Lomar responded. ‘A least we have water,’ he said, glancing at the tiny waterfalls that ran from the sides of the shattered rocks. I recommend you drink your fill before we leave.’
‘West is it?’ Daneel asked, and he stood tall and looked in that direction, plotting their route in his mind. He flipped up his eye patch and peered into the distance.
Kali yelped with surprise, and Leopold mirrored her sentiment. ‘Your eye! It’s healed,’ he declared with wonder.
‘Perhaps,’ the man replied mysteriously. ‘You said it yourself, young Emperor, that everyone but you had some surprise in store. But I disagree. You shall grant your people one of the greatest surprises of all time: returning triumphant after freeing them from the demons. I hazard to guess a song or two will be written about you. You infernal Turians will never let the rest of the world live this down.’
Leopold gathered a response, but left it unsaid. ‘Will we make it?’ he asked instead.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Daneel announced and he started away, hopping down to the nearest column of stone and starting his way between the dislodged chunks of land.
‘I can’t feel anything,’ Lomar muttered. ‘The magic is gone. Or—perhaps it isn’t. I’m not sure. I don’t know if I would know either way.’ He looked at his withered, old hands. ‘It’s certainly gone from me.’
‘Kali,’ Leopold spoke, and the young woman smiled in response. He had no idea how long it would take to learn her language, or for her to learn his. In truth, he did not care. He would do so eventually, one way or another in his own time, and he already knew the most important word in the world. ‘Kali,’ he repeated, feeling its rhythm upon his tongue. ‘We’d better make a start.’
‘Shar mien,’ she said in agreement, and they followed after Daneel, hand in hand.
Lomar stood alone in his torn black robes, watching them depart.
‘Why?’ he asked himself, shaking his sorry head, surveying the shattered plain. ‘Why did this all happen? It seems ... it seems beyond belief. Why are we made to suffer such existence? Why do the gods thrust such trials upon us?’
The sound of someone stirring behind him had Lomar whirling around, and there, standing, was the boy they had once called Toby—a small boy, no higher than his knee. He did not laugh or fidget as before. He observed Lomar indifferently, then looked around at his surroundings and sniffed the air.
Lomar stared at the boy in return, speechless with surprise.
‘Who ever said it was supposed to be easy?’ the boy spoke, the voice of a child speaking with a man’s intonation. He strode past the gape-mouthed ex-magician and clambered down the rocks after the others. ‘Why are we here at all?’ he called over his shoulder, leaving Lomar behind, ‘if not to treasure such experiences? The good comes with the bad. What else is life for, my friend, if not to learn, to love, to wonder, to hope? And of course my favourite, the most important reason of all, as I’ve been saying all along.’
‘What’s that?’ Lomar called, craning his neck to follow the child’s progress, desperate to hear the answer. ‘What reason?’
The boy called back one last time over his shoulder.
‘To be.’
Author’s note:
I hope you enjoyed The Legacy Trilogy. It was a labour of love that took many years, and helped me develop as a writer.
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– Michael Foster
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The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3) Page 57