Bound to the Abyss

by James R. Vernon

  “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

  “Well, look at that. I guess you have to finish it in one go.” Letting out a little laugh, Zin climbed up on the bed. “I guess I can take a nap until you actually get it right.” Taking a few moments to glare at Zin, Ean turned his attention back to his hand and tried again.

  Ean had no idea how long he attempted to get the rune inscribed on his palm. Each time he would get only so far, when a jolt of pain made him mess up again. After a round of cursing, he started again from scratch. As the sun started its downward descent towards the mountains to the West, Ean finished. The completed rune stayed on his palm, giving off a slight glow and the tiniest bit of heat.

  Ean showed it to Zin, who was lounging on his side. “Looks good, doesn’t it? This better be well worth the effort.”

  “Oh, it will be. You’ll see,” Zin said. He climbed down off the bed and looked down at Ean’s book. “All right, you remember which parts to read, correct? Is there anything you need help pronouncing?”

  “No, nothing too difficult there. Should be easy compared to actually getting it drawn on my palm.” Looking down, he slowly went through the passage in his head twice and then began to recite the words aloud. The language of the Abyss was strange, with many of the words consisting of noises that sounded more like a person clearing his throat than an actual language. He had gotten quite good at pronouncing the words; it was just unfortunate that he did not know what most of them meant. When he finished, the rune on his palm grew cold and started to dim. For a moment, Ean thought he had failed and would have to start all over again, but then the light of the rune sprang back to life, bathing his tiny room in a dark blue glow. Proud of his accomplishment, Ean glanced at the imp expecting him to look impressed. His smile froze when he saw worry lines etched into Zin’s brow instead.

  “This part is going to be bad,” Zin said. “Just do your best to ride it out.”

  “Wait, you said—” He lost his words when pain suddenly dropped him to his knees. Molten lava coursed through his veins. His arms and legs flailed violently. Muscles contorting, he writhed on the floor, trying to escape his own body. Sweat drained out of his pores. Was that his heart pounding in his ears or a war drum? The sound was blighted out by the force of his scream that could not be contained. He had never known such agony.

  The light from the rune disappeared, and with it, the pain. Ean’s body went limp, a few aftershocks of the agony he had been in making parts of his body twitch randomly. His mind was blank, his body exhausted. The door crashed open and a moment later he sensed someone kneeling beside him. “Nightmare,” Ean breathed out, although how he had thought of the lie so quickly, he’d never know. He clenched his right fist to hide the rune. The figure at his side wordlessly picked up Ean’s limp body and put him back in bed. Ean was out soon after.

  WHEN EAN AWOKE, THE green light from the first moon cast the room in a soothing glow. He stretched out his free left arm, feeling tired but good. Actually, he felt pretty great. Taking off his sling, he moved his right arm about, bending the elbow and twisting his wrist and forearm about. It wasn’t even sore! Next, he checked out the rune on his palm.

  The rune was still there, giving off a faint glow that mixed with the moonlight and turned his room a faint purple. However, there was more now. Small, dark blue lines ran out of the rune, moving along his palm and up his fingers. The lines wrapped around his hand and seemed to converge on the back, creating a swirling design. From there, smaller lines shot out and moved up the back of his fingers as well, ending at his fingernails.

  “Well, that’s new,” Ean said to himself, turning his hand over and back repeatedly as he inspected the new addition on his hand.

  “That’s just the beginning.” Ean looked over and found Zin sitting on his dresser. “The longer that rune is on your body, and the more you use your power, the faster your strength will build. At least that’s what I gathered it was supposed to do. Oh, and sorry about lying to you about the pain. I figured it would just make you nervous if you knew it was coming.”

  “Oh, yeah. It was much better not knowing,” Ean half-heartedly threw his pillow at Zin, which the imp easily snatched out of the air. “So what’s different now? What can I do, summon stronger creatures? Actually be able to control the creatures I summon?”

  “I have no idea. Let the magic settle into your body and then we can see what happens. Remember, all I know is that your power and tolerance should increase.” Zin jumped down off the dresser and made his way over to the bed. “There is one thing you can do right away.” He reached under the bed and pulled out Ean’s bag. The Abysmal Tome was still sitting on top of it.

  “Wait!” Ean exclaimed. “Cleff didn’t see this stuff, did he?”

  “Nope, thankfully, when your body started jerking around, The Tome landed on the bag and I dragged them both and the finger under the bed before he broke in. How about you hide these things away again?”

  Ean grabbed The Tome and the finger, carefully placing both into the bag. He was about to start crawling under the bed to access the rune to his Pocket, when Zin’s raised hand stopped him. “No. Just use your hand. You should be able to create runes now just from your power alone. Just try visualizing your finger as a knife carving the rune.”

  Ean cast a funny look at Zin but went along with the imp’s suggestion. He sat on the floor and started to trace the same designs he used to open his Pocket onto the floor. As Zin predicted, the design began to glow with a faint light, rising a few inches off of the ground, before dissolving into the floor. When he had finished, the rune light grew, rising a few inches off of the ground before disappearing as the gateway to Ean’s own personal storage space opened up before him.

  Ean couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t even needed to retrace the activating rune at the center of his design. This would be much more convenient in the future. He grabbed his bag with his scarred left hand and slowly lowered it into the Pocket. Once it was inside, he instinctively placed his right hand on the edge of the portal and tried willing it to close. As he expected, it closed on its own, replaced by the rune used to summon it. With a brush of his hand, the rune disappeared as well. The only light now came from the rune on his hand and the green moonlight coming through his window, the two mixing into a hazy combination of both colors.

  “That is amazing,” Ean said, shaking his head. “Not sure if that alone was worth all of that pain, but still a handy skill to have.”

  “Like I said, your power will grow with use,” Zin replied. “It’s not just a handy drawing tool. More handy skills will come with time. I think. You just have to be patient.”

  Ean didn’t even hear Zin’s words; he had already started to practice drawing different runes. He practiced long into the night, with Zin watching apprehensively. When the first rays of the morning sun peaked in through his window, Ean was both physically and mentally exhausted and crawled into bed. Zin crawled into his usual sleeping spot underneath the bed.

  “Thanks a lot, Zin,” Ean said quietly, “I really needed something good to happen for a change.”

  “Don’t get all weepy on me now, you little girl,” Zin replied. “But you are welcome. Now let’s get some sleep; it’s been a long night.”

  Ean flipped his back to the window and chuckled. “Fair enough. Sleep well, Zin. I have the feeling that when we wake, our lives are going to start to take a turn for the better.”

  THE SOUND OF MEN shouting woke Ean out of a deep sleep. He moved to the window and glanced outside. The morning sun cast a blood-red light over the empty ground between his home and the Skyfall Mountains that circled his village.

  A group of four people were making their way towards the house, carrying a fifth person between them. Cal Halhan and his son, Ted, were on one side while Chris Tanner, moving with a limp, and Allie Bale was on the other side. It looked like all four were carrying Allie’s husband, Lane. They were all splattered with blood, and from the looks of it, most of it was prob
ably Lane’s. His clothes were torn to shreds and stained dark red, his hair was matted in blood. Worst of all was his right leg. From about the middle of the shin down, his leg was gone, the open wound exuding blood. His face was pale, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. If he wasn’t already dead, he would be soon.

  Bear attack, Ean thought as his stomach sunk to his knees. Lane had never been nice to him; most members of their small village had never been nice to Ean because of what his parents had done. But no one deserved to be hurt because of how he had been treated, and they certainly didn’t deserve to die.

  Ean watched for a moment more and then ran out the door of his room, grabbing his gloves as he went. He hurtled down the stairs, his long gloves covering both arms before he hit the bottom step, and headed straight towards the front of the house. He was about halfway down the hall when Cleff slammed open the front door.

  “Ean, grab my bag out of the office, and get a bottle of Flashseal from the closet. The key is sitting on my desk. Hurry, now!”

  Skidding to a halt, Ean spun around and sprinted back down the hall. Entering the office, he ran over to Cleff’s desk, grabbed the keys sitting there, and moved over to the one closet that was always locked. The key turned with a loud click in the heavy lock, and Ean pulled open the door. Scanning the shelves full of bottles and containers, it only took him a moment to locate the one Cleff needed. The bottle labeled “Flashseal” contained a silvery powder, the stopper sealed with wax. He picked up the bottle with both hands so the contents did not shake and then made for the door. He was just almost out of the office when he stopped again. The bag! Turning around, he saw Cleff’s bag sitting on the floor next to his desk. He reached it in one giant step then sprinted to the front door and then outside.

  The scene just outside the front door was out of a nightmare. They had put Lane down, splayed out on the grass, his leg turning the ground a bright crimson color as his life bled out. Allie was kneeling down next to her husband, sobbing, and holding his left hand in both of hers. Cleff was kneeling on the other side, examining the deep slashes on the man’s chest through the holes in his shirt. Ted was just standing there, his clothes covered in blood, his mouth wide open as he simply stared at the carnage in front of him. Cal was gone, already on his way to inform the the Mayor. Lane was comatose; the only sign that he was still alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. Moving to Cleff’s side, Ean placed both the bag and the bottle of Flashseal down, in between Cleff and Lane.

  “The slashes on his chest aren’t too deep,” Cleff said, his eyes locked on the bleeding man. “Get some of the smashed up Rottwealth out of my bag and rub it into the wounds.”

  Ean switched places with Cleff on the ground, placing himself closer to the man’s chest. Pulling over the bag, he pulled out both a bottle of Rottwealth and one of Cleff’s cutting tools. Using the tool to cut free what was left of Lane’s shirt, Ean got a better look at the damage underneath. There were four gashes, the first starting just below the man’s shoulders and the last one just above his hipbones. This was certainly not a bear attack. Judging by how deep and wide the cuts were, the claws of whatever hit Lane must have been huge!

  Getting over his shock, Ean dumped out the whole bottle of Rottwealth onto the man’s chest and began to spread the brownish powder out over the wounds. As his hands pushed the smashed up plant into the gashes, Lane let out a weak groan. Well, that was a good sign, at least. While Ean worked, Cleff was spreading out the Flashseal over the stub of the man’s leg. When it was covered, the silver powder an odd contrast to the dark red wound, Cleff stood up.

  “All right, everyone take a step back.”

  Everyone complied, although Ted, just barely out of his stupor, had to pull Allie away from her husband. Reaching down, Cleff struck a spark near Lane’s stump of a leg. With a flash, a small green flame flared up on the wound, accompanied by the smell of burning meat. Lane sat up for a moment, letting out a horrible scream, and then fell back again. What little strength he had to stay conscious fled his exhausted body. His leg, however, had stopped bleeding. The wound had turned black from the flame and sealed close from the intense burst of heat.

  Allie looked at her husband in horror for a moment, and then turned to Cleff. “Is he going to be all right? Is my husband going to live?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Allie,” Cleff replied with his usual gruff-sounding voice. “He lost a lot of blood. It all depends on how much he lost and if the Rottwealth does its job.” Turning his head, he regarded Ean. “Take Ted and grab the stretcher out of the house. We need to move him inside and keep him warm. These next few days will be vital in determining if he lives or not.” Nodding, Ean grabbed the older boy’s arm and dragged him into the house.

  The sun was almost straight overhead by the time they had gotten Lane inside and laid out in one of the visitors’ rooms on the first floor. Cleff and Ean worked on the man for hours, sewing up where they could and cleaning off the wounds while his wife waited outside. By the time they were done working on him, the sun was just starting to set over the mountains to the west. Cleff sat down by the man and waved Ean off, telling him to get something to eat. He just had taken a single step out into the main hall when Allie jumped up out of one of the waiting chairs and ran over to him. She looked haggard, her hair a mess and face dirty.

  “How is my husband? Did Cleff say he would make it?”

  Ean shook his head. “We don’t know yet, Mrs. Bale. It’s too early to tell. We’ve done all that we could, but he has lost a lot of blood. Only time will tell.”

  She looked at him, tears starting to flow from already red eyes, and then she flung her arms around him in a grateful hug. “Thank you,” she said in between sobs, her voice a whisper in his ear. “I know most of us treat you something horrible, but I know having you there to aid Cleff helped my husband’s chances.”

  Ean blushed, not quite sure how to react. Cleff had never been one to show emotion, and the other villagers often reacted to him with disgust. This unexpected show of gratitude was a bit more than Ean could take. Patting her on the back twice, he pushed the older woman away.

  “It was nothing, really. Just doing what I’ve been taught most of my life, and Cleff is an excellent teacher.” He frowned a second, trying to think of what to say. “Thank you, though.” Allie nodded, seeming on the verge to say more, but they were interrupted as the Mayor stomped through the front door.

  “Is he awake?” the Mayor said, looking concerned. He was a large man with a powerful voice that commanded the attention of an entire room. “Did anyone see what attacked him? Where are the foreman and the other men that did not return? They’d better tell me it was a bear, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to close the mine.” He was staring at Allie, expecting some kind of answer.

  “Lane is in a bad way, Mayor.” As always, Ean had to force his tone to remain civil. “It might be some time before he is conscious, if he even survives at all.” He wished he could take the words back as he watched Allie’s face go pale, but he had to keep going now. “Didn’t Cal or Ted let you know what happened?”

  The Mayor shook his head, his attention still on Allie. When he responded to Ean’s question, he directed his response to the distraught wife. “Both were babbling away, and all I could understand was that they had gotten to the mine late. Tell me, what happened today, Allie?”

  “It was horrible!” Allie burst out, the tears flowing freely now. “Lane and I got to the mine right before dawn. Lane went into the foreman’s home and was talking to all of the other miners for a time while I started setting up the cooking station, being that it was my turn to feed the men lunch later in the day. A short time later, all four of the men left the house and entered the mine with their picks. They were only in there for a few moments when … ” Her body started to shake at the memory, but she continued on. “ ... when I heard this horrible roar. It was followed by some shouts from the men, and then suddenly the foreman and Wes, one of the othe
r miners came rushing out, carrying my husband between them.”

  She paused, taking a breath. She held the complete attention of both the Mayor and Ean; Ean, at least, was curious to what happened next.

  “I immediately ran over,” she continued, “and helped support my husband and was about to ask what had happened when I heard another terrible roar. We all turned to look back at the mine, and what came out was something out of a nightmare.”

  A shudder went through Allie’s entire body, and she closed her eyes for a moment before continuing on. “It was a mass of scales and claws, taking up most of the mine entrance. Dangling from the left corner of its mouth was a partially chewed foot, part of the boot still hanging off of it. Poor old Glen’s boot.” Her face took on a greenish hue and Ean was about run off to get her a bucket in case she got sick, but the woman continued on. “I screamed at that point, and the beast started to make its way towards us. The foreman dropped my husband and ran off towards his house. Wes turned to me and said, ‘Allie, get him as far away as you can. I’ll try to slow whatever that is down.’ A real hero, Wes was! He took his mining pick and set himself between the beast and us. I did my best to carry Lane; at that point, he still had enough strength to walk on his one leg. We went as fast as we could. At one point I heard Wes scream …”

  She paused again, tiny sobs escaping from her mouth. “But … but … I didn’t turn around this time. I just moved as quickly as I could. When Lane’s strength finally gave out, we both collapsed to the ground. That was where Cal and Ted found us.”

  She stopped, collapsing into one of the chairs, unable to control her emotions as she buried her face in her hands. Ean and the Mayor stared at her, overwhelmed by what they had heard. Nothing like that had ever happened in their valley before. Sure, every now and then, the men that made up the town guard would have to scare off a bear or the rare mountain troll that wandered down close to the village, but the beast she had described was like nothing that had ever appeared in the village before.