Warrior from the Shadowland

by Cassandra Gannon

  In short, he wanted Parald to experience exactly what Chason had felt when he’d watched his Match die in the Fall.

  Watching her life drain away, leaving nothing but an empty shell and the broken promises of a stolen future. And Chason wasn’t alone. He had a small army of Phases who had lost too much to ever go back. People who wanted revenge more than the continuation of pain and grief. Who were willing to destroy everything just so they took Parald down, too.

  The Reprisal: Dedicated to wiping out the universe, one Air Phase at a time.

  Job had tried to talk Chason and his followers out of their vengeance so many times the words had lost all meaning. What did Job know? Job didn’t even have a Match. He’d never had a Match. Nothing got taken from him in the Fall. The bastard had existed, stoic and alone, for a millennium.

  He didn’t know what it meant to lose the best part of you. The empty caverns that it opened up inside of you and the utter fucking solitude of it. A Phase-Match created one larger symbiotic entity out of two people, connecting them as the universe was interconnected. When Mara died, Chason had lost half everything he was and all of his soul.

  She’d been so young and so beautiful. Tall and slender with a shock of deep purple hair at her temple that marked her as part of the Magnet House. She’d been the light in his world and her death had been like someone turning out the sun. Nothing could ever bring Mara back. Chason accepted that, just as he accepted that he wasn’t the Match that she’d left behind, anymore. Mara wouldn’t recognize him for the bitter, consumed man that he’d become. Nobility and honor had once meant everything to Chason. In his heart, he knew his sweet, forgiving Match would never want him to burn the universe to ashes to get revenge on Parald.

  But, Chason didn’t have a heart anymore.

  So, he didn’t care about that, either.

  Tritone, Queen of the Water House was the key to his plan. Many Phases in the Reprisal would’ve gladly killed her on sight, sometimes as quickly as they would have killed Parald. Chason didn’t waste any of his precious hatred on Ty, though. He needed it all for Air House. Besides, Chason didn’t blame Ty for the Fall like so many others did. He actually thought she’d shown real smarts.

  What woman in her right mind would’ve agreed to Phaze with Parald?

  And Ty had only been ninety-three, the year that Elementals came of age, when she’d defied him. When she’d resisted Parald and, some insisted, Gaia herself and flatly refused to accept the Phazing. Still a baby, she’d stood in front of the Council and renouncing her Match to all the Houses.

  It was Chason’s equivalent of remembering a happy Christmas morning.

  In retrospect, he got a sadistic glee out of replaying the event in his mind again and again. He didn’t focus on how Ty’s actions had triggered Parald’s wrath and, with it, the Fall. Instead, Chason enjoyed the absolute agony on Parald’s face. His desperate arguments to the Council, trying to force Ty to stay with him. His screaming rage when Job had enforced the law and refused Parald’s pleas. The quiet triumph that lit Ty’s face as the other Air Phases dragged Parald from the hall.

  Gion, Parald’s second-in-command, had been the last Air Phase to leave. Even he’d paused at the door to look back at Ty in something like shock. She stood in the center of the room, dressed in the turquoise robes of her House. The robes that her mother and her mother’s mother and so on back into the recesses of time had worn to the ceremony to accept their Phase-Matches.

  Only Ty had told Parald “no.” Her actions meant that neither she nor Parald would have a Match or children or Phaze. Most Phases would prefer death. The Hall had been utterly silent for a long moment, as everyone tried to absorb what had just happened.

  And then Ty smiled.

  Chason actually admired the girl for that. No matter what Parald had done afterwards, on that day Tritone, of the Water House kicked his skinny, blond ass.

  No, Chason had no particular anger towards Ty. But, he was still going to use her to get to Parald. Ty was Parald’s great obsession and biggest weak spot. If the Reprisal could get their hands on her, they could stake her out like a goat and lure Parald right to them. Ty would probably be killed in the process, but then she’d only die when the end of the world came anyway.

  Collateral damage.

  Chason had been planning it all for months. Now, though, he wasn’t sure they shouldn’t reconsider some of the details. Because, rumors were stirring. The Reprisal gathered gossip and tales from all the Houses. Chason’s army came from all over the Elemental world. And whispers were reaching him, stories that the unpredictable Queen of the Water House was about to pull another rabbit out of her hat.

  The Quintessence.

  According to legend, the Quintessence was magic. Pure rule-the-universe, genie-in-a-lamp, magic. The Quintessence wasn’t exactly an Elemental, but it wasn’t not an Elemental, either. It was the center of the compass. The “everything else” that assisted the Elementals in making up the universe. The ether. The spaces in between. The life of the stars. The Quintessence was Divine in the truest sense of the word.

  Chason was a realist by nature. He’d never believed in that bedtime story. He’d never even seen that Bruce Willis movie, because the fabled “fifth element” didn’t exist. Unless you took into consideration that there were a lot more Elements to nature than the idiotic Greeks bothered to count.

  As a Magnet Phase, Chason had always been annoyed at the smug superiority of the first four Houses. Why were they special? Look where they’d gotten things:

  The Air House had murdered too many Phases to count.

  The Water House was at least partially responsible for the slaughter.

  The Fire House was populated by a bunch of lunatics, fluctuating between total apathy and explosive rage.

  And the Earth House was headed by a smug bastard who tried to rule the other Phases like a high school principal.

  The world was better off gone than with any of those assholes in charge, anyway.

  Chason had tried to put the Quintessence out of his mind. But, again and again, his thoughts had traveled back to the stories that he heard about its capabilities. It was Divine. Not bound by the laws of nature, but bigger. More powerful. He began to fantasize that it was a huge purple amethyst set into a ring or a broach or something that glowed with magic. A physical manifestation of ultimate power.

  And then a little voice in his head had breathed, “What if it could destroy Parald by giving him the Fall?”

  Chason had had a transcendent experience at the very idea. Parald’s immunity to the Fall had been so unfair that there were simply no words for it. Such a slap in the face that all of Chason’s previously held beliefs about good and evil, punishment and karma, right and wrong had been blown to smithereens. If Parald was allowed to escape the Fall, then there was no God, no Gaia, no saving grace. Nothing.

  It was as simple as that.

  Mara died while Parald lived?

  No goodness or light in the universe would have allowed a travesty of justice on that scale. He wasn’t sure about Hell, but Chason knew that any ideas about Heaven were pure bullshit.

  So, if he wanted justice, he’d have to mete it out himself. Parald should die by the Fall. There was no way for Chason to make that happen by himself. There hadn’t been a case of the Fall in two years now, since the survivors were all immune. But, if Chason had the Quintessence he could do anything.

  In the small piece of his missing heart where his Match still lived, he knew that there was an inherent flaw in his thinking. Logically, he couldn’t deny the existence of anything Good and then search for a substance fabled for its Divinity.

  But Chason didn’t care about logic.

  If the stories were true, he could finally, finally, have the vengeance he longed for and in the most poetic way possible. The thought tantalized him. It was a dream dangling just out of reach and the Water House was the key to grabbing it.

  Nia had been talking to Job for weeks now about so
mething secret and it was clear from her shouting that things were not going well behind closed doors. Now, the Water House had been spotted in the human realm, searching for something. Chason knew Nia. She was the real power in the Water House, no matter who wore the crown.

  If Ty thought that she could find the Quintessence, Nia would go for it, with or without Job’s backing. The Water Phases always went their own way; whether that meant renouncing Matches or setting off on some mythic quest. They were emotional and stubborn and impetuous.

  Chason admired them for their innocent faith. He’d believed in truth, justice and the American Way once himself. But, he was a lot wiser, now. And he’d wring the Water House dry if it got him one inch closer to his goal.

  Chason stared out of the window in his fortress for a long moment. The Magnet Kingdom had always been hard and grey. The buildings were created from pure metals and magnetized rocks, for the most part. Yet, it stayed quieter than other places in the Elemental realm, despite all the amplifying surfaces. Chason’s father Berke, the former Magnet King, hadn’t been a man of frivolity. Magnet Phases were expected spend their time on industrious activities for the betterment of all, not on laughter or friendly conversation.

  Since Chason had become king, though, even the Spartan drudgery of his father’s ways had fallen away. The Magnetland had sunk into a slow decay. The Reprisal used the Magnet Fortress as their headquarters, but none of them cared for the property itself. And Chason, who had once loved his people and land, now saw only death around him. He savored the gloomy silence and darkness. Anything else might force him to feel things beyond his hatred.

  To hear the music that sometimes played in his missing heart.

  The Magnet Phases had a hard time being around computers or other human technology without their energy destroying it. iPods were pretty much useless. Tapes were erased. CD players reacted badly. If the Magnet Phases wanted music they had to turn on old fashioned record players. Mara had loved music. She’d filled their home with human songs, endlessly spinning them on turntables.

  When Mara had been living in the fortress, there’d been no silence. Joy and happiness and the scratchy sounds of old records drove out all the emptiness. She’d come of age during the era of swing and big band music, so the Andrew Sisters always remained her particular favorite. The sad, melodic sounds of I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time echoed in Chason’s memories. The soundtrack of his vanished life.

  He’d only listened to the song once since Mara’s death, on what should have been her 161st birthday. Then, he’d destroyed it, along with the record player and every other piece of music in the fortress. But, against his will, he still heard the notes cascading in his mind.

  The music cut into him, deeper than his hatred.

  It was too much, even for someone who hoarded his pain like Chason. He preferred the silence. The slow death of his entire kingdom soothed him. Without his Match, the world should end. Why should anything continue if Mara couldn’t?

  “Commander?” A Stone Phase named Abel cleared his throat. “What would you like us to do?”

  Chason turned from the window to stare at him. Abel was one of the top soldiers in the Reprisal. He despised the Water House nearly as much as he hated Parald. He was the perfect Phase to lead the mission. The streak at his temple was olive and, like the rest of his hair, cut in a rakish style. For all this ruthlessness, Abel devoted untold hours on his appearance.

  Chason, himself, hadn’t bothered to look in a mirror since Mara died. He didn’t want to see whatever was left of him. “Go to the human realm.” He said, flatly. “Find Tritone or Nia and bring them here. They’ll lead us to the Quintessence.”

  Abel actually smiled at the order.

  For a brief moment, Chason heard the Andrew Sisters’ harmonized vocals in his head. The little piece of him where Mara still lived knew that his actions were a blasphemy against her memory. His Match had loved the Water Kingdom, especially Nia and Ty. He should pick a different solider. One without Abel’s cruel streak. The thought was quickly tuned out by the louder, hate filled voice that insisted that nothing they did now mattered, anyway.

  Ty and Nia would inevitably die when the Air House collapsed, so what difference did it make if Abel was rough with them now?

  It didn’t, obviously.

  And Chason just didn’t have it in him to care about them, anymore. He didn’t care about anything but vengeance. He would have the Quintessence, kill Parald and end the universe.

  Then, he’d finally have peace...

  And total silence.

  Chapter Three

  Concerning the factors of silence, solitude and darkness, we can only say

  that they are actually elements in the production of the infantile anxiety

  from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free.

  Sigmund Freud- “The Uncanny”

  Cross figured that it had to be some kind of record. He’d had his Phase-Match for three minutes and she’d already been stabbed. Even for someone with Cross’s endless capacity to screw things up, it was an impressive achievement. If he possessed even the smallest amount of compassion, he’d walk away from Nia before something even worse happened to her. Just about everyone else Cross had ever known was dead, so odds seemed high that being around him would eventually kill her, too.

  It made him feel sick to even think about it.

  Unfortunately, Cross was realizing that his stepfather had been right about him all along. He was a selfish bastard, because, even as he stared at Nia’s bloody arm, he knew that he was never going to let her go.

  He couldn’t.

  She was the only thing that let him think past the pain. The only quiet spot he had against the constant roar on his head.

  It had taken a full year for Cross to withstand the agonizing pressure of the Shadows enough to function, at all. It felt like his skull was trying to crack open; like branding irons were scorching his forehead, while hammers beat on the inside of his brain. And, even worse, there was a constant, overwhelming fear that he’d slip again and the world would end permanently, taking his Phase-Match with it.

  For that first year, he’d lived in total isolation. When he was lucky, anyway. Sometimes other Phases would show up, wondering how he was still alive. He made sure they never stayed long. Ordinarily, Phases couldn’t enter the territory of other Houses without permission. Unless they were incredibly powerful, they had to be granted access. For a long time, Cross didn’t have the control to work the Shadowland’s barriers, though. So, Phases came and went. Cross had vague memories of several of them, but Job was the only one he attached a face to.

  Job, of the Earth House. The oldest, most powerful Elemental alive. The Earth House was the largest of the Elemental Houses and Job supported most of it himself. They guy no doubt only paid Cross a weekly visit out of duty. Because he thought it was right. He sure didn’t hang out in the Shadowland for the company. But, Job’s robotic quest for perfection wouldn’t allow him to ignore Cross’ predicament, no matter how much he wanted to. Still, Cross had never asked Job to stop coming to see him. Never tried to chase him off, like he did with the others.

  As stupid as it seemed, he liked to listen to Job talk.

  Job’s musical voice turned everything into a story. Cross had never heard any bedtime stories as a child. Hell, he hadn’t even had a bed. But, something about Job’s tales soothed him even through the agony in his skull. Job spoke of times long past and Phases who existed now only in his memories. He told Cross about his efforts to restore order to the Elementals and save them from extinction.

  And, sometimes, he’d complained about Nia, of the Water House.

  Job’s perfect voice would become awash with irritated affection as he detailed whatever new plan the woman was cooking up and arguing in front of the Council. Job cared for Nia. Cross had always heard that in the stories. But, she wore him out with her endless, defiant ideas. In his throbbing mind, Cross had always p
ictured her as a gigantic, fearsome creature, trying to beat Job and the Council into submission with nothing but her own moral certainty.

  A crusader.

  The image intrigued him. Deep inside, Cross knew that he was broken. As a child, as an adult, and certainly after the Fall, he’d proven that he was flawed.

  Useless.

  Weak.

  Wrong.

  Nia of the Water House had the purity of focus that Cross had always wanted. The courage to stand up to anyone and fight for what she believed in. The strength to actually hope and work for something better.

  Of course, Phases like Nia and Job survived the Fall. Even Cross’s own ephemeral sense of right and wrong saw that as just. They would never let their Houses crumble or the world end. They were righteous. Selflessly committed to saving the universe. Cross only hung on because he wanted his Phase-Match even more than he wanted the pressure in his head to finally stop.

  Sometimes, deep in the night, when the pain got so bad that blood wept out from his eyes, Cross wondered if he’d imagined his Match. If, at the end of the world, he’d hallucinated for just a second and convinced himself that the woman had brushed his mind, just so he wouldn’t die alone.

  Why the hell would he have a Phase-Match, when Job didn’t? When barely any Elementals in the universe had one? Was he so deluded that he really believed something like that would happen to him? So pathetic that he’d cling to any small glimmer of having someone to love?

  Yes.

  Yes, he was, it turned out.

  While the Fall had robbed everyone else, it promised Cross a gift so monumental that he’d endure anything, believe anything, suffer anything, just for a chance to receive it.

  So, after the first year, he began pushing himself further and further. Until he could ignore the pain for seconds, then minutes at a time. Until he could harness at least some of the incredible power festering inside of him and begin searching. Until he nearly killed himself from the strain of it and then pushed even harder, because he had to go find his Match. She was literally more important to him than the remainder of the universe combined. In this one thing, he was as steadfast as he imagined Nia, of the Water House to be when she stood in front of the Council and shouted her opinions.