Slowly, I rose to my feet. The pain and nausea were still there, but now that I had a chance to get used to it, I could function again. Really, what choice did I have?
I pulled out my varé and stood by Rhys. If we were going to die here, we would do it together and go down fighting.
But the Havocs made no move to attack. They simply stood there, watching and waiting.
“What’s going on?” Rhys asked me.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Well, I do,” said another voice. Rhys and I spun around to face the speaker. He was tall with dark spiky hair and bright green eyes.
My informant.
He stood before the entrance to a cave. One that I was sure had not been there seconds before. If what I had seen in my vision was accurate, that entrance led to the pillar where Verenix was bound.
How was this possible? I had only ever seen him in dreams and visions. And I knew I was not dreaming. I had never considered the idea that he could be a real, physical being.
“Can you see him?” I asked Rhys.
He nodded, but held his varé at the ready position and didn’t take his eyes off the man. “Who is he?”
“The man from my dreams,” I said. “The one who’s been telling me about the seals breaking.”
Rhys relaxed slightly. He dropped his attack stance and moved back to stand by me, but the look of deadly focus didn’t leave his eyes.
“Very good,” said the man. “You found this place quickly. I was not expecting you this soon.” He gave Rhys an appraising look. “Nor did I expect you to come with a... guest.”
“Well, we’re kind of a package deal,” I said. “You know, buy one Berserker get one free.”
The man stared at me blankly for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “A package deal.” He spoke the words slowly, as if they were unfamiliar to him. “And yet, if I am not mistaken, he is no longer a Berserker.”
“He gave me his powers,” I confirmed.
“Then he is of little consequence here,” the man said and held out his arms indicating the Havocs that surrounded us. “We are dealing with beings of unimaginable power. This is not the province of weak mortals. It is why you needed to have all the powers combined in you before this could begin.”
I stiffened at his cruel words. I was about to make a nasty reply and tell the man where he could stick the unimaginable power, when Rhys grabbed my arm and pulled me in close.
“He’s right,” Rhys said. “This is about you now. I don’t have any powers. I’m just here for back up and support because I love you and don’t want you to go through this alone. As much as I hate to say it, there isn’t much I can actually do here.”
“But you are here,” I said. “And that makes all the difference in the world to me.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Rhys’ cheek.
I turned back to face the man. “So what do we do now?”
The man smiled and his green eyes were wide with anticipation. “Now we do what should have been done at the beginning of time. We execute these criminals and send this beast under the mountain back to the world tree where it belongs.”
I stiffened. “I thought it was my choice what we did with them?”
The man smiled at me and bowed his head in submission. “Of course it is ultimately your choice, Madison. I am not taking that away from you. But these are monsters that have killed untold thousands of innocents. Should they not pay for their crimes?”
I didn’t really know what to say to that. I had seen firsthand the murder and destruction they had caused. I had seen what they chose to do when left unbound. How many Berserkers and Binders had they killed over the years? How many humans had died because of them? If I had the chance to stop them from ever harming another person again, shouldn’t I take it? Weren’t they essentially super powered serial killers?
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t decided yet.”
The man looked at me with deep disappointment in his face. “Oh, Madison,” he said. “I thought you more of a pragmatist than this. I didn’t realize you had such a soft side when it came to murderers.”
“Leave her alone,” said Rhys. He looked positively livid. “She has the power. She’ll make the choice what to do with it. You don’t get to manipulate her into doing what you want.”
The man looked at Rhys and then back at me. His demeanor suddenly changed. “Very well,” he said. “You obviously know my preference. Which is based on experiences and knowledge you can’t even begin to grasp, I might add. But I will respect your decision, regardless of how naïve or reckless I think it is.”
Not exactly a vote of confidence, but I had the feeling that was the closest to a concession I was going to get. As old and powerful as I guessed he was, I doubted letting a teenage girl have her way was something he did very often.
“So what’s next?” I asked. “I have the power, but I don’t know how to break Verenix’s binding or send him back to – what did you call it, the world tree?”
An odd expression crossed Rhys’ face. He quickly glanced over at my informant and stared at him with renewed interest.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Rhys turned away from the man to face me. “Probably nothing,” he said and turned back to look at the man. “What did you say your name was?” he asked.
“I didn’t.” The man’s voice was pleasant, but I thought I saw a brief flash of something – anger or maybe fear – flash across his face for a moment before disappearing.
“So what should we call you?” Rhys asked.
The man thought for a minute. “My name doesn’t really translate very well into any earth languages. You may call me Jottenson.”
Rhys said nothing at first. I wasn’t sure why he was so fixed on my informant’s name, but it seemed to be really important to him. “All right,” he said. “Jottenson it is.”
Jottenson put his hands on his hips and surveyed the Havocs that had surrounded us. They formed a semicircle, essentially pinning us to the mountain and leaving the entrance to the cave as the only possible avenue of escape.
“Excellent,” Jottenson said. “I believe everything is exactly as it should be.” He grinned broadly and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. It was a very odd gesture, like something you would expect from a villain in a melodrama. Only he had no handlebar mustache to twirl afterwards.
“The first thing we need to do is for you pull out the stones that are at the heart of each of their bindings.”
I remembered the vision I had seen when I last touched Osadyn. I had seen each of the five people eat a stone and then transform into the Havocs. Jottenson had told me they were tricking me, that what they had shown me was a lie. It sounded like what I had seen with the stones was true.
“How do I do it?”
Jottenson held out his arms helplessly. “That I do not know,” he said. “I only know that with all the powers, you have the ability to reclaim them and then fill them with your extra power. Once you have filled the stones back up with power, you can break Verenix’s binding and we can send him back to the World Tree where he belongs.”
I grabbed Rhys’ hand and gave it a squeeze for comfort. Once I started on this path there was no turning back until it was done. If it even could be done. I only had Jottenson’s word that this was even possible. I would be completely reliant on him to show me what to do.
I let go of Rhys’ hand and took several steps away. I went to Osadyn first. He was the first Havoc I had seen. The one that had sought me out and tried to kill me. It felt right to begin with him.
Rhys started to follow me, but I held up a hand to stop him. “I have no idea how this is going to go down,” I said. “I would feel better knowing that you were not quite in the middle of the bullseye with me.”
Rhys ignored my hand and came up to me. “Not going to happen,” he said. “I started this with you and I intend to be with you when it finishes.”
“What’s the point of both of us being
in danger?” I asked.
“Do you think a few feet of distance is going to keep me safe if anything happens to you?”
It was more like a few hundred, but I understood his point. I would have felt more at ease with him having a bit more distance from the center of attention, but I certainly appreciated the sentiment. It was so typical Rhys that I wanted to laugh and cry out in frustration at the same time.
“Fine,” I said. “But you have to promise me you won’t try anything stupidly heroic while you’re with me. No pushing me out of the way of danger or jumping onto a hand grenade or anything like that.”
Rhys held his hand over his heart and said, “I promise I will not jump on any hand grenades while I am with you.” I couldn’t help but notice the corners of his mouth twitch up, even though he was trying to act all serious.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “No pointless heroics. This is my fight. There’s no point in us both dying.”
Rhys opened his mouth as if he were about to disagree, and then appeared to think better of it and simply nodded.
“Good. Now that we have that settled, I have some stones I am somehow supposed to take from these massive hate-filled monsters.”
I made my way to Osadyn who regarded me imperiously with his one good eye. He made no move to run away or to attack. If anything, he seemed eager to face me. I hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.
Once I was a few feet away from Osadyn’s hulking form, I stopped, unsure of what to do next. I needed to get the stone, but I had no idea how to go about it. Should I ask? Reach down his ridiculously long throat and grab it? Maybe do an interpretive dance?
Osadyn lowered his head to my level and seemed to be waiting for me to do something. I tentatively reached out and placed my hand on his head, prepared for another painful vision.
But no vision came. Instead, where my hand touched Osadyn, it began to glow with crackling blue electricity. The electricity rushed down the length of Osadyn’s neck and covered his entire body. He collapsed to the ground, appearing to writhe in agony. He lay on his side, his massive legs thrashing about and his long neck spasming wildly.
After a moment, the blue lighting began to dissipate and Osadyn’s convulsions stopped. His head flopped to the ground, his mouth open, and his nasty tongue lolling out.
His neck twitched one last time, and a small stone fell out of his mouth and rolled onto the ground. It was just like the stones I had seen in my vision.
Like the Sarolt stone I held in my pocket.
I picked it up and wiped the Havoc slime off on my pants – I could burn them later. The stone was warm to the touch and sucked in the light around it. I held it in the palm of my hand, awed, and to be honest grossed out, by the fact that it had just come from inside of Osadyn.
Movement from Osadyn caught my eye. He still appeared to be unconscious – or dead, I wasn’t sure – but he was shrinking. Slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, he transformed from the massive beast I was familiar with to the one-eyed man from the visions the Havocs had shown me. Only he didn’t look quite the same. His hair was longer, more unkempt, and he was emaciated. He looked to be just a shattered shell of the man I had seen in my visions. Clearly being a Havoc hadn’t been a pleasant experience.
“Keep back!” Jottenson said. “He is still alive, and very dangerous.” He stepped forward and gestured with his arms, lifting Osadyn’s limp form off the ground. His body floated through the air until he was close to Jottenson who, with a few more hand gestures, encased the one-eyed man in a semitransparent capsule. He then dropped the capsule to the ground. Osadyn collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the capsule and didn’t move at all. I could see through to where he lay, but I couldn’t tell if he were dead or just unconscious.
“This is for your own protection, Madison,” Jottenson said. “The last thing we need is for him to regain consciousness while you are trying to free Verenix and attack.”
I guess that answered my question about him possibly being dead. But as I looked at his unconscious and emaciated form, I couldn’t bring myself to think of him as a real threat. But then again, I was well aware that looks can be deceiving.
Next I approached Pravicus, my Havoc. They were technically all my Havocs now, but Pravicus was my first. He seemed to instinctively know that I was coming to him next. He dropped his massive house-sized body to the ground, and lowered his head until it was on my level. Even when resting on the ground, his head was twice as tall as I was.
I reached out and touched one of his large horns. Like with Osadyn, blue lightning appeared where I touched him and then streaked along his body until he was completely enveloped. I took several dozen steps back as he began to thrash about in pain. The last thing I needed was for him to accidentally roll over me. It probably wouldn’t kill me, but the prospect of getting steamrolled by Pravicus didn’t hold much appeal.
Once the lightning had faded away, Pravicus stopped thrashing about and was finally still. He let out a cough, and a stone flew out of his mouth and onto the ground. I stepped forward and picked it up. It too, looked like the Sarolt stone – glossy black and sucking in the light around it.
With the stone now out of his body, Pravicus began to shrink and transform. His body changed into the form of person, but not what I had expected. Instead of a man, Pravicus transformed into a regal woman with long white-blonde hair pulled back in a long braid.
It was the woman I had seen in my vision.
Pravicus wasn’t male, she was a woman. Like Osadyn she was emaciated and haggard. When I had seen her in the vision, her hair was perfectly braided and her skin flawless. Now her hair was a rat’s nest of tangles and her skin patchy and mottled.
Before I could take a closer look, Jottenson magically lifted her in the air, as he had with Osadyn, and placed her in a protective capsule as well.
Next was Thuanar. Once he coughed up his stone he became the red haired man wearing his glove but he was missing his hammer. Jottenson also encapsulated him.
The final two Havocs, Navitan and Margil turned into the two bearded men I had seen in some of the later visions. Even emaciated and disheveled, they were both quite handsome and looked to be brothers or perhaps even twins.
Of course with each Havoc changing back, Jottenson encased him in a capsule so they could not escape or even be heard. Soon I had a handful of five stones, all sucking in the light around me, making the world much darker than it should be. I also felt a sort of energy around me. A sense of latent power inside me much greater than what I had ever felt before.
“Well done,” said Jottenson. He strode over to me and looked at the five stones, his eyes bright and excited. “You have completed the first step and have the five stones.”
“What do we do with them?” I asked.
“We need to pull the excess power from you and put it back into the stones. Once the stones have the power again, we can break Verenix’s binding and send him back to the World Tree.”
I listened to what Jottenson said, but I realized that something was off in the way he was behaving. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something about how he moved and reacted to me seemed strange.
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“That is something you will have to figure out,” said Jottenson. He shifted uncomfortably. “I know how my powers work, but yours are another matter. I can tell you what needs to happen, but it is up to you to make it happen.”
That seemed to be a running theme lately. I had all this power, but I was missing the instruction book on how to use it. Ancient beings didn’t seem to be big on documentation.
I turned to Rhys, hoping that he could help. As I did so, I saw Jottenson move out of the corner of my eye and something finally clicked.
He was avoiding me. It wasn’t obvious and he did a good job hiding it, but he went out of his way to not touch me.
Why was that?
Once I saw it, it was obvious. When I came near him, his jaw tightened as he
watched, keeping distance between us, or he found some reason to move away from me.
I tried an experiment to be sure I wasn’t imagining it. I held out four of the stones to Jottenson.
“Here,” I said. “Why don’t you hold these while I try to fill one with power?”
His expression was blank, but I saw the muscles in his neck bunch as I moved toward him. He was scared to touch me and didn’t want me to know it.
“No,” he said. “I think it best that you keep the stones until they have been charged. You have the power, not me.”
Impulsively, I reached out a hand and touched his face.
The whole world went dark.
I saw Jottenson arguing with Osadyn, but even though it was clear they were yelling, I couldn’t hear a sound. Like my other visions, this one had no audio track. They were in the same throne room I had seen before. Jottenson was angry and destroying things. He ripped down a beautiful tapestry and threw an intricately carved wooden chair. Osadyn did nothing and simply watched impassively.
Thuanar burst into the room carrying his hammer and looking furious. He stood before Jottenson and held up his hammer, ready to attack. They yelled at each other until Osadyn stood from his throne and slammed the butt of his spear onto the ground. Energy flew out from the spear, flinging Jottenson and Thuanar apart. Jottenson stood up and gave Osadyn a look of loathing. He yelled something and then stormed off.
The scene shifted and I saw Jottenson alone outside a mountain. Although some of the features had changed, I knew it was the same mountain we were at now. He gripped Osadyn’s spear tightly in both hands and drew a circle in the air. Where the tip of the spear touched, the air seemed to tear around it leaving a gash. As he completed the circle, it flashed and the inside of the circle changed to show Veranix and the World Tree. It was some sort of portal.
Jottenson jabbed the spear through the portal and energy crackled around him. The entire circle began to grow larger and glow brighter and brighter. Verenix appeared to get larger and larger within the circle until he suddenly burst through the portal and into our world.
Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) Page 30