by Quil Carter
“What is yours will return to you,” Anagin suddenly whispered. He moved his hand up and motioned to touch Teal’s face, but just inches away from it he dropped his hand, and instead drew Teal’s emerald pendant out from underneath Teal’s jerkin.
“Teal…” It was odd to hear Anagin’s cold, affirming voice soften. He had only known Anagin for only a few minutes and he somehow knew Anagin never used that tone. “I… I thought we had failed… but no. You’re alive?”
Teal nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“The jewel? He split into pendants this time?”
Teal nodded again. He reached into his pocket for Ben’s; he always had it close to him.
Anagin reached out and touched Ben’s silver chain, his fingers traced down to the sapphire. The fire from the lamps around them seemed to make the blue jewel come alive.
Anagin was still for a moment, he drew his hand back to the emerald pendant.
Teal could feel something emanate from Anagin Ahris. A pain, so deep and agonizing it made the unshed tears fall down Teal’s face.
He suddenly realized it was Anagin inside his mind. The talent Malagant had told him he had.
And with the touch of the sunmage, Teal could feel Throateater retreat back inside of him.
“You’ve – you’ve come quite a long way, Teal Fennic,” Anagin whispered. He quickly retracted his hand away from Teal’s pendant, then turned away from him.
Teal watched as Anagin’s expression changed, back to the stoical solid gaze that Anagin had when he first laid eyes on him.
“Josiah, grab your brother,” Anagin said. He turned to Teal and held out his hand. “I need your pendant, boy; the other one too.”
Teal wordlessly handed him Ben’s sapphire and removed his from around his neck. He handed it to Anagin, his chest feeling bare without it.
Anagin took them and held them up to the window. A smirk appeared on his face as he watched the light illuminate them. “I never thought I would see the jewel again.” He gave a dry laugh, in spite of his son dying only a few feet away.
Then his eyes found Teal’s; the sunmage was still smirking. “I never thought I would see you again either, boy. Gods, do you ever look just… just like I thought you would.”
Then Josiah appeared in the doorway, bandages and the bone saw still in his hand.
Anagin looked at him irritated, putting both Ben’s sapphire pendant and Teal’s pendant over his neck. “Put that down. I said grab Malagant, bring him to his bedroom.”
“But… shouldn’t…”
“We have the Jewel of Elron, boy. Malagant will be fine,” Anagin said.
Teal’s heart leapt. “He will?”
Anagin started walking up the stairs, leaning on his cane for support. Beside Teal, Josiah was picking up Malagant.
“That is no piece of jewellery you carry, Teal Fennic, but I suppose in you two’s hands it might as well be.”
Josiah looked behind him at Teal, his blue eyes gave him a surprised look. A look identical to the one Malagant had given him many times.
Josiah turned to his father already at the top of the steps. “Cruz’s kid?”
“None other.”
Josiah looked behind him and stared at Teal blankly, then back up the stairs where Anagin was, the two pendants shining against his chest.
Then Josiah’s mouth dropped open. “My gods, the prophecies.”
“Catch up, Josiah.”
Josiah reached the top of the stairs with Malagant, and Teal followed them into Malagant’s bedroom. As soon as Josiah laid Malagant down on his bed, he dashed out of the bedroom.
Malagant’s room was right next to one of the fire trees; the sun beaming through the leaves soaked his bedroom in an eerie red glow. The room had a single bed in it, on a birchwood bed frame, surrounded by many other pieces of furniture.
Teal could see many books on a wood bookshelf: tomes, scrolls, and small children’s books beside a five drawer tall dresser and a study table. He also had a large red banner with a gold border on his wall, with a gold fox holding a two-headed eagle in his jaws.
Teal’s brow furrowed at this. The Fennic House emblem was a two-headed eagle.
Anagin must have seen his expression because he gave Teal an amused look. “I never thought I would meet an elf that got that joke.”
Then Anagin rubbed his hands together and shook his arms out, as he did, Josiah sprinted back into the bedroom holding a black and red robe. Teal was impressed with how intricate it was. The silk looked foreign-made, Karendish possibly, but most black silks came all the way from Jevaria. It had little foxes sewn into the trim and small vines with silver thorns; the silks smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon.
“Teal, you might want to leave the room for this,” Josiah said, dressing Anagin quickly. He was now wrapping a black silk sash around his father’s waist. “This is black magic; you will not be able to unsee this.”
Teal felt his claws tense around his thighs, his back up against the door frame. “You –you’re… black magic is banned in Alcove.”
Anagin gave him a look. “If you want Malagant to live, I would rethink your priorities against breaking a law that got overthrown with Calin.”
He was right of course; it had just surprised Teal to hear it. His father had never talked about any of the Evercovian magery. It was another thing Teal’s mother had forbidden them to talk about. He did know Anagin was a sunmage, but Teal knew Malagant was beyond sunhealing now.
“Teal.” Josiah finished tying his father’s sash; he was now handing him a cane with a fox head on top moulded from silver. “You should–”
“No, Josiah. He stays… he’ll want to look upon him,” Anagin said quietly, so Teal could barely here him.
“Are – are you sure?” Josiah looked shocked at this.
Then Teal spoke. “I don’t want to leave him,” he said with a crack in his voice. He knew Malagant was safe with his father, but he couldn’t bear to be away from him in that moment. Malagant was just lying there, his glassy eyes looking into the abyss and his poor hands leaking brown liquid. Teal could smell the pungent rot, now mixed in with the cinnamony smell of Anagin’s robes. It was an odd, and terrifying smell.
Josiah nodded but his expression was unsure. He gently unfastened Malagant’s ruby pendant and handed it to Anagin.
Josiah bowed his head to his father and quickly drew the curtains.
The curtains were also red and it bathed the room in even more crimson light.
It was eerie. Teal felt the first pang of fear in his chest as he saw Josiah putting on his own mage robes. When he was dressed he unfastened the clasps on Malagant’s jerkin and exposed his sickly grey chest.
Teal tried to take a step back, but his back was pressed up against the frame of the closed door. Instead he moved off to the side, finding the furthest corner of the room.
Josiah’s blue eyes found his, barely visible under the red glow. The darkness had completely shrouded him. He stood on the opposite side of Malagant’s bed like a shadow wraith. “He can’t hurt you, Teal. So don’t be afraid.”
Teal’s mouth went dry. “Who?” he whispered, but Josiah was silent.
Suddenly a low, sunken voice sounded; it was coming from Anagin.
But wasn’t Anagin’s voice, and it was speaking a language Teal didn’t understand. It sounded almost like the language the Evercovian’s spoke in the West, but it had a different accent.
Malagant lay unmoving on his bed, though it looked more like he was lying on a slab. His ruined hands were still, laid crossed over his chest.
Anagin outstretched his hands; Teal was surprised to see that in place of his fox head cane, he was holding a staff of twisted black wood. The fox, a flyn fox to be exact, was no longer moulded from silver on the top, but formed from a warped piece of black burl.
“Come forth, demenos of Shol!” Anagin’s voice suddenly cried. He raised his staff up in the air, his other hand holding all three pendants. Teal could se
e the silver chains flashing in the red light, and it was because he was watching those chains that he saw the pendants start to glow. They gleamed and shimmered until spectrums of rainbow light started to flood the ceiling and the walls around them.
A powerful horror over took Teal. He dropped to his knees and pressed himself up against the wall.
Anagin wasn’t just performing black magic – he was performing sheomancy. The summoning of demenos from the realm of Shol. A place so horrible that Anea himself had sealed the realm off from Elron. The Black War had been started because of sheomancy, because of how dangerous and uncontrollable it was.
Teal had to get out of the room… he had to leave; he couldn’t see this. He couldn’t witness what Anagin was doing. Josiah was right, he wouldn’t be able to unsee what was about to happen.
But he was unable to move, he was frozen in place, and even if he wanted to…
Teal looked around and found that the entire room had disappeared.
There was nothing but red-bathed darkness, and the spectrum of light coming from the pendants. There was also a strange unsettling feeling, like the empty room was not a room at all anymore, but a vast abyss without boundaries or walls. One that stretched out for all eternity.
The bookcase was gone, the study was gone, even the bed was gone. Malagant lay naked, outstretched on a black slab of slate. His ruined hands rising and falling with his rattled, laboured breathing.
Teal held his chest, feeling himself hyperventilate.
Anagin said the summons again.
“Come forth, I summon you. I summon Kaul Avahlis. Come forth! I grab your burning body from the firelands of Shol. I come for the smoke of the Mountains of Au; I come for the black waters from the Sea of Nevnadeum. Come forth! I grab you from your hollow depthless caves. Come forth! I command you, Kaul Avahlis, King of the Demenos.”
Teal watched, not believing his own eyes, as a black smoke started to come out of Josiah. It began to cover the blond elf, with flares of red fire flickering through its thick billows.
Josiah stared forward, his arms out like his father. He took a deep breath, inhaling the smoke, and as it encompassed him, Anagin started chanting in the dark language again.
The same black smoke crept through the room, or what was left of the room. The smoke reminded Teal of the smell matchsticks gave off when you lit them, that and the same odd nutmeg cinnamon smell Anagin’s robes had.
The smoke crept around the room like it was alive, wrapping itself around the slate slab, and slowly making its way towards Malagant’s body. Teal looked down to see the same smoke hovering over his feet.
Then there was a low, demonic scream that made Teal scream too. He wanted to turn away but he found himself doing the opposite. He looked up just in time to see the smoke that had encompassed Josiah get thrashed away with a mighty thrust of black, beast-like arms. His head shook the smoke from his face, snarling as he did.
Josiah was no longer there. In his place was what Teal knew was a demenos.
The demenos of Shol had black skin and was muscular. He had eyes like burning embers, pointed ears with silver earrings, long twisted horns like a dragon, and flapping black and red wings. His hands held long fingers and shining claws, and he had thick black scales that covered his chest and neck.
He sniffed and let out a snapping snarl, bearing his horrible pointed teeth. His face was elven though, and his eyes too.
“Anagin of Avahlis,” the beast said. His low booming voice filled the room, it seemed to emanate all around Teal. He looked down at Malagant, then, to Teal’s unimaginable horror, he looked directly at him. “You brought your sons.”
His flickering red eyes seemed to look directly into his soul, and if he was a demenos of Shol he probably was. Teal wanted to look away, he felt naked and exposed in front of him, but the room would give him no comfort. The area surrounding Teal was hot and static, with energy flowing and swirling around like the ink black smoke trying to snake up his legs. He could hear fire crackling, and the noises of what seemed like thousands of unseen creatures skittering around them like insects.
Teal stared back, expecting at any moment for the demenos to attack them. Sheomancy was dangerous, not only did the ones doing it get torn apart by the demenos sometimes. The demenos would then become loose in Elron, where they would do what a demenos was expected to do: rip everyone and everything apart and rape them before, after, or during. Only powerful mage summoners could send them back.
But the demenos Kaul Avahlis only looked at him with cold regard, and nodded his head to Teal.
Teal didn’t look away; he couldn’t look away from him. He did the only thing that came to his mind: he nodded back.
“He is strong,” Kaul said simply. On the other side of the slab where Malagant lay, Anagin lowered his hands. The pendants, once shining beacons, were now obscured in the black smoke.
“He is.” Anagin inclined his head.
“Does he know?”
“No, but he awakens.”
“Tell him, it has been put off long enough.”
Teal tried to make himself smaller, feeling an odd confusion and curiosity in him.
“I… I will,” Anagin whispered.
Kaul looked back at the shrouded Anagin, he almost looked amused. The smoke continued to swirl around them, touching and hovering around Malagant’s body, but it didn’t encompass him like it had done everything else. It seemed to stay away from their bodies. Though it seemed to keep trying to make its way up Teal’s legs. He kept absentmindedly tried waving it away with his hand. The smoke was burning hot, and flecks of fire could be seen shining with every twist and coil; the energy it gave off was strange and dark.
“How did you summon me, Anagin Avahlis? I thought Kelakheva took your sheomancy away after Cruz burned.”
Anagin held up the pendants. “The prophecies are writing again. Since our seed survived the flames, and has grown, the prophecy is in process.”
Kaul Avahlis looked back at Teal passingly. “What is yours has returned to you.”
Anagin had said that when he first saw Teal. Though what they meant wasn’t any clearer to him.
“Can you help the chosen prophecy walkers?”
Kaul Avahlis looked down at Malagant. “You know the demigod’s orders. You defy them and ask me to do the same?”
“Please, Kaul.”
The demenos rested his large black hand on Malagant’s head. His fingers so long they covered Malagant’s face like a giant spider.
“I will, for the second time. And when I do, and you sleep soundly with your sons united under your roof. Healthy and healed. Ask yourself, Anagin of Avahlis, just why I am willing to forsake Kelakheva’s rules for you?”
“Because, no matter how much it bothers you, you really don’t have a choice.” Anagin smirked, but Teal could see his shoulders rise and fall with relief.
Then Anagin got down on one knee. “Thank you, my sons thank you.”
“Anea will be the one thanking me.” Kaul Avahlis’s tone was dry. “Remember this day.”
Then the demenos started taking in a deep breath, and as he did, the black smoke that had been slithering around the room went into his nostrils. He breathed in deeply, his chest rising, his body stiffening in a powerful stance. The demenos only stopped inhaling when all the smoke was taken out of the room.
Kaul Avahlis then closed his eyes and leaned over Malagant. As he did a stream of smoke blew from his mouth and onto Malagant’s hands. It contorted and wrapped itself around the mangled ruins until they were completely covered. When the smoke was thick, he moved to Malagant’s torso, then his legs, feet, and then back to his head. As he blew the black smoke onto Malagant’s face, he put a clawed, spider-like hand to his cheek and brought his lips to Malagant’s.
Malagant’s cheeks puffed out and his chest rose as the smoke entered his body.
The demenos took his lips away from Malagant’s. Surprisingly, he hesitated; his burning eyes looked at Anagin. “
Prepare yourself, Anagin Avahlis. Prepare yourself and your sons.”
“I will, Kaul Avahlis. I am in your debt.”
“More than you know.”
Anagin lowered his head, and held his staff and the pendants out again. He started talking the strange language. Teal watched as the demenos Kaul Avahlis lowered his head with Anagin’s. As Anagin chanted, white light started to break the demenos’s form, splitting his body with rays that envied that of the sun. The room became so blinding with light Teal had to shield his eyes.
Then the light faded and Josiah could be seen, still dressed in his mage robes. The room started to come back as well. The study, the bookshelves, and the bed Malagant was laying on, all came into view.
Josiah was standing for only a second before he fell forward, half on the bed, with a thump. Teal stayed huddled in a corner staring forward as everything returned to normal.
“He’s gone, Teal. Come and help Josiah onto Malagant’s bed.” Anagin’s voice had gone back to normal now.
Teal got up, he had to steady himself against the wall for a second. He took a small hesitant step, the hair on the back of his neck prickling and his arms still covered in goose bumps. When he found he was able to walk, he carefully stepped towards Anagin.
Teal looked down at Malagant and felt tears spring to his eyes. Malagant’s hands were healed, clean and new like he’d been reborn. There wasn’t a single blemish or scar on them and even the two fingers that had been severed had returned.
With a shuddered sniff, Teal put his hand over Malagant’s and felt them, unable to believe that they could possibly be healed. Only minutes before they were a shredded mass of pus, blood, and sawed bone.
“Thank you,” Teal choked. He leaned down and rested his forehead against Malagant’s before kissing it gently. “Thank you. I was so afraid he was going to die.” He felt Anagin put his emerald pendant back around his neck, and fasten it.
“Thank Kaul Avahlis, we all owe him a huge debt,” Anagin said, taking his mages robes off and carefully folding them. Teal was still holding Malagant’s hands, now a normal temperature and no longer boiling and tender to the touch.