by B. T. Narro
He let anger guide him as he thought through the last nuances of his creation. He was just about to bring it to fruition when a mortal delivered a message to Airinold.
“Hold off on your creation for now. Meet me in the eastern mountains. Climb high. You will feel my presence when you are close.”
It was signed by Caarda.
Airinold was reluctant at first, but he did decide he would see his brother. The journey took several days, but eventually he felt his brother’s powerful presence near the peaks. The wind was strong here, whipping at Caarda’s ragged cloak where he stood on the precipice of the mountains overlooking the sea. Airinold had never seen him this grim, his face caked with dirt and dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for days.
“I finished my creation,” Caarda intoned. There was something sinister at play. Airinold kept his distance, for he felt that it wasn’t his brother standing before him. This Caarda had been hurt beyond repair, and Airinold didn’t know what he sought.
“Are you of sound mind?” Airinold asked nervously.
“I’m not sure I can answer that with certainty. What I can say is that I can’t keep going on with this pain I carry, or I will not survive. I must leave this world.”
It brought tears to Airinold’s eyes. “You might feel better if you come back with me and take revenge against Souriff.”
“Revenge would do no good for my wife and the other mortals who have been killed.”
“Then do it for the rest of the people who are still alive. Souriff and Valinox will destroy every last mortal if they are not destroyed themselves.”
“That is not true. I have determined what is going to happen, and there’s only one role I can play without making everything worse.”
“What do you mean you determined what is going to happen?”
“Because of my creation,” Caarda said. “I now see glimpses of the past, present, and future.”
Airinold feared his brother had gone mad. “Caarda, you call me to the summit of this mountain, where it seems you have dwelled without sleep. Then you spout nonsense about the future as if you’ve witnessed it come to pass. Don’t you see that you are not making sense and need help?”
“I don’t need any help. You do. I know what you’ve been working on.” Caarda spoke as if catching Airinold misbehaving. “I’ve felt it for a long time.”
Airinold took a few steps away from his brother.
“I did not bring you here to stop you,” Caarda said. “I brought you here so we could help each other. My creation is done, Airi. It is active.”
“Since when?”
“Since right before I sent for you.”
“But I didn’t feel anything. No one did.” If they had, someone would’ve mentioned something.
“They won’t for a long time. Neither will the mortals. I was selfish. I made it for myself.”
“What does it do?” Airinold asked.
“I provided a way to physically and mentally connect to the world in ways that—I thought—were not possible before.”
“You thought?” Airinold asked.
Caarda looked him up and down, tilting his head from one side to the other. He didn’t answer Airinold’s question but instead said, “Heed my warning: You must prepare for your own suffering if you truly mean to put an end to everyone else’s.”
“I am prepared for that, but I’m not prepared for you to leave. Why don’t you stay and help me?”
“I am in too much pain. I would rather die. The future I’ve chosen for myself is a compromise.”
If there was one thing that remained consistent about Caarda it was that once he made up his mind, no one could change it.
“You are weaker than I thought!” Airinold snapped. “You run from problems that you have the power to fix, and you abandon me in the process!”
Caarda frowned. “I never claimed to be strong, only wise. I ask that you trust me. If I got involved with the war, it would only make matters worse. Now that father is no longer here, you are the strongest of our family. You always have been. You will see this through, and then you will come back for me.”
Caarda walked over to a nearby cave with Airinold close behind. There was a loose slab of rock that was so large that even Caarda with his full strength probably could not move it.
“I’m going to kill Souriff for what she did,” Airinold said. “I will kill her and Valinox if that’s the only way to bring peace to the world.”
“I know that’s what you intend,” Caarda said without any semblance of surprise. “But you are going to be blamed for the misery caused by others. You must prepare for that.”
“I am prepared.”
“You will make peace for a time,” Caarda said. “But I believe you must rely on the mortals to put an end to our siblings’ fighting for good.”
“You believe?” Airinold questioned. “You claimed you can see what will happen.”
“Time is mysterious in that way. I can’t see all of it at once.”
“Then your reasons for leaving us could be wrong,” Airinold said. “Please. I have never asked you for anything. Stay with me and help.”
Caarda shook his head. “No, I am certain. When I’m gone, don’t look to me for guidance. Don’t look to your mana, either. Only time can heal our wounds.” He stepped into the nearby cave. “I’m going to tell you one last thing. When I am done, you must promise not to say anything. You will cover this cave to protect me from nature or any beast that might come across me while I am vulnerable…if that is what you wish.” Caarda gestured at the massive rock nearby.
“I can’t possibly move that.”
“You can.”
Airinold looked at the huge slab of mountain again. He had never tried to move something so large.
“You will know when I am gone,” Caarda said. “Nothing I can say will stop you from checking on me afterward. Just try not to let what you see shape your choices, and make sure to cover my cave when you are done. Leave only enough space for air.”
Besides the specific instructions to cover the cave, Airinold didn’t quite know what any of this meant.
“Let’s say our goodbyes now,” Caarda said, “because you will not want to trust me after I tell you what I have to say.”
Confused, Airinold didn’t know what else to do besides give a slow nod. He did trust that Caarda knew best. Caarda squeezed his shoulder.
“You will come back for me when all of this is over. I see it. Only then can we move past what happened and start again.”
“I promise I will.”
They shared an embrace.
Caarda stepped away and told Airinold something that was too difficult for him to believe at first. When Caarda was done, Airinold was too shocked to move. Caarda merely sat in his cave with his head slumped as if he’d fallen into a deep sleep.
When Airinold’s wits returned, he tried to ask his brother questions, but Caarda did not reply.
Eventually Airinold realized he had no choice but to try to protect his brother with the slab of rock. To his amazement, he found that he could move the stone if he gave it everything he had. He never knew himself to be this strong, but apparently Caarda did.
Time suddenly seemed to stop as Airinold felt that Caarda had finished whatever he was doing within the cave. Airinold could no longer feel the wind on his skin. The ocean below had gone quiet. The trees across the land did not sway. Not one loose pebble rolled down the mountain slopes. Everything was still.
Airinold knew that once he sacrificed his power to bring his creation to fruition, for a long time he would lack the physical strength that he needed to free his brother from this cave. He wasn’t ready for that. He had to see his brother one last time.
He pushed the slab of rock back out of the way, just enough to squeeze into the cave. “Caarda?” he called as he stepped in.
He gasped at what he saw.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Airinold entered the cave. “What did you do
to yourself?” he murmured, though he knew his brother couldn’t hear him.
Caarda floated like a feather suspended by the wind. He was curled up into a ball, his hands around his knees and his head down on top of them. There was some sort of aura around him, a shimmering sphere that Airinold could barely make out in the dark cave.
Airinold cautiously moved his hand into the sphere surrounding his brother and took Caarda’s arm. He could easily move Caarda through the air, but he stopped after a test, as he felt he was disrupting whatever it was Caarda had done to himself. So he just stood there and watched for a while.
Eventually, Airinold felt as though even his presence was disturbing Caarda’s restful slumber. He walked out of the cave and pushed the slab of rock back to make sure Caarda would be safe.
He didn’t know how long it would be until he would see Caarda again, but even when he did, it was unlikely he would see the version of his younger brother he had grown up with. That Caarda died when Souriff killed his human wife. He might never come back.
Grief took Airinold as he cried openly for a long while. Then anger came, and he realized it was time for him to act.
“Revenge might not make you feel better, brother, but it will me.”
It took an entire day to bring dteria to light. Airinold was so exhausted by the time he finished that he slept for two days straight.
It was done. Now all he had to do was wait. He had been patient until now. He could be patient a little longer.
He didn’t want to see his siblings while he was in this weakened state. He wasn’t even sure he had the strength to descend the mountain if he tried. So he rested for months as he planned how he would use his power, realizing only later that Caarda must’ve seen this. He’d known that Airinold would need to be somewhere safe while he recovered.
Like the other demigods, Airinold would not perish without food, though he would without water. Caarda had collected enough rainwater, however, to see Airinold through this. Eventually the power given to him by dteria would make up for his lack of sustenance.
He created dteria as a way to kill his troublemaking siblings but also to target the weak-willed mortals who thirsted for power. He could feel sorcerers discovering it, experimenting, some already succumbing to the pleasure of its immediate strength as they craved more.
His dteria told him exactly where each person was whenever they used this sorcery. As it corrupted their soul, it empowered Airinold. However, nothing was permanent. As strong as Airinold was, even he couldn’t bring a magical art to the mortal world that would permanently siphon power from these beings. They had to continue to use dteria for it to work.
When he was stronger than ever before, Airinold descended the mountain and returned to the forest to check on the war between men and their demigods. It seemed like just about every capable fighter or sorcerer had joined the fray. Valinox and Souriff showed no regard for human life as they led battalions of men against one another.
When Airinold returned to society, he told people this new sorcery was named “dteria” to ensure the mortals who used it had no excuse. They had to know what it did to them and still choose it over any other form of mana. At first, Airinold joined Souriff’s army and made it seem as if he had created dteria to vanquish Valinox and his followers. He warned Souriff’s people about the effects of dteria and told them not to use it, ordering those who had already begun to stop immediately. Many heeded his warnings, but many more sought power no matter the consequences.
When it looked as if Valinox would soon surrender and no doubt flee for his own safety, Airinold switched to his side. He issued the same warning. They must not use dteria. Like Souriff’s people, most didn’t want to stop.
It wasn’t long before everyone had at least heard of dteria, with many more picking up the sorcery every day.
“What have you done, Airi?” Failina accused her brother one night. “I thought you wanted to stop the fighting, but now you’re feeding the flames.”
“This is the only way it will stop. Give it time, sister. You will see.”
And in the time that dteria spread across the land, Airinold grew so powerful that he eventually knew his siblings could not stop him.
He confronted Souriff first. He ordered her to make peace with Valinox and put an end to the fighting, or Airinold would kill her. She took the threat in the worst possible way and attacked Airinold, but it didn’t take long for her to realize she was heavily outmatched by his dteria. She fled.
Airinold did not chase her but next confronted Valinox, who was using Souriff’s absence to swiftly decimate his mortal enemies. Airinold issued the same ultimatum to his firstborn sibling. Valinox lied and said he would work toward peace, but he devised an ambush later in hopes that his mortal followers would kill Airinold in the night.
When that failed, Airinold went looking for Valinox to end his life, but he had gone deep into hiding and couldn’t be found. With Souriff gone as well, and Nijja in her own world, only Failina was left. She was the only sibling who confronted Airinold rather than flee. No matter how hard he tried to explain his plan, she didn’t agree that this would bring peace and at the same time get rid of everyone who would threaten that peace with their own greed.
The argument came to a head, and she fought him and lost. When she was at her weakest, on the ground as Airinold stood over her, she accepted what she figured was her imminent death.
“At least I tried,” she said as she coughed out blood.
“You have been good, Lina. You always will be. Only Souriff and Valinox need to be stopped permanently. But first, I must destroy the humans who have succumbed to their greed.”
“You took an oath not to kill them!” she said as he flew off.
Yes, he had taken an oath, but even if his father was still alive, Airinold would dare to break it. He swooped down and decimated every human who had given in to dteria. They had still been fighting against each other, even with their leaders in hiding, all of them ready to kill each other like beasts fighting over scraps of meat. There was plenty of land for everyone, but they thought it easier to take what already belonged to someone else.
That changed quickly. When it became clear to them what Airinold was doing, everyone finally stopped using dteria. The fighting between the humans came to a swift end. With everyone terrified of the “demigod who had gone mad from dteria,” they banded together in hopes of eliminating him. It was exactly as Airinold had hoped.
There was only one problem. He hadn’t been able to find Souriff and Valinox, and now—with no one using dteria anymore—he was weakening quickly.
He had prepared for this option. He put all of his last strength into a transformation spell, one that would turn him into a glorious winged beast he named Gourfist. With a heightened sense of mana, he would be able to tell whenever one of his siblings used a powerful spell of any kind. He knew them well. They wouldn’t be able to stop casting forever. He would find and destroy them. Then he could finally rest.
He spent decades hunting down every trace of powerful mana he sensed. The humans saw him as a threat, often trying to fend him off with arrows or fire. But Gourfist’s resistance was too strong for even the hellfire of Failina herself to catch his feathers aflame.
He did see his siblings many times, but most of the time they fled. There was only one instance when Failina and Souriff faced him in combat but soon found that their spells had little effect. Gourfist would’ve killed Souriff that day, but Failina ensured she escaped by throwing herself in front of Gourfist’s talons, knowing Airinold would not kill her. He almost changed his mind that day, swearing to himself that the next time he would kill Failina if it came to that. Of course he couldn’t warn Failina about this. His ability to speak was one of the first things to go after his transformation.
He felt nothing from Souriff or Valinox for quite some time, and the body of the beast he controlled eventually started to tire. When he finally let Gourfist rest, the beast did so for years at
a time. Something unexpected happened when Airinold woke up. He found that his control over the beast’s body had weakened. He considered destroying Gourfist while he still could, but then he would give up everything. Souriff would kill him because he would be too weak to defend himself. She and Valinox would start right where they left off, but now dteria would run rampant. The only way to keep this peace was to continue searching until he found and killed his siblings. It needed to happen before he lost complete control.
The beast exhausted itself searching, needing to rest more frequently. Airinold lost more and more control until eventually the beast began killing indiscriminately. First it targeted anyone who used mana, then anyone who got in its way. Without Airinold to give the beast any strength, however, even the beast started to weaken. It had to sleep for long periods to regain its strength. It would awaken and search, Airinold watching through its eyes like a prisoner in a cage of his making. He became completely stuck, powerless to do anything but screech in pain whenever the beast tried to let out a roar of anger. Part of him wished for death, but another part realized that it was Gourfist who kept the peace. What would happen after he was gone?
Decades went by, perhaps even centuries. How long had he been trapped in this body? It was difficult to tell because the seasons had always changed every time Gourfist awoke, but he had some sense by the growth of trees in Curdith Forest after most had been burned down from the Day of Death. His siblings still seemed to be in hiding, so at least there was that. They probably didn’t know just how weak Gourfist had become.
One day, he came awake as Gourfist was disturbed out of its slumber by a young human woman opening the rift to Fyrren. Airinold wished no harm upon her, but Gourfist held nothing but anger. Thankfully, the young woman escaped into the portal. Airinold had no idea what she was doing. No one had gone into Fyrren that he was aware of, at least not after he started sleeping in front of the portal to keep Valinox and Souriff from escaping this realm.
The beast awoke groggy and weak, but enraged. It felt Souriff on the outskirts of the forest, a city, Airinold realized, as Gourfist flew there. It was a bigger city than he’d ever heard of. He really must’ve been asleep for decades.