by Eric Asher
But the Seal for the realm we’d just walked to looked distant, and I could easily see end to end, the entire surface no larger than a full moon.
“Is this Seal smaller than the Burning Lands?” I asked.
“No. We are much farther away from this Seal. If we journeyed to the face of the Seal, it would be as large as any other. But at this distance, it is easier to see the scar upon it.”
I stepped down the path, and with every foot, the Seal grew, until it was some four times the size of any moon I’d ever seen. From that vantage point, I could see the darkness, like a jagged parenthesis carved into the surface, severing runes and twisting ley lines.
“What is that?”
“A way in, and yet a way out. Without that damage, it would be much more difficult to traverse the Abyss. It is both an advantage, and a vulnerability, a dichotomy you will often find among the deeds of the Fae.”
“Do we need to fix it?”
Gaia pondered that for a time. “I believe it is safe enough for now. The shield of the Shadowed Lands has been strengthened, and it would take much for the worst of the Eldritch to pass it. But should the Shadowed Lands ever fall, then our only choice may be to seal your realm off from the Abyss for all time.”
I studied the great gray disc before turning back to Gaia. “There are things out there that could break the Seals, aren’t there? Even if it was fixed, perfect, something could get through.”
“You speak the truth. There are no absolutes in the Abyss. Just as the power of the Titans may seem limitless to you now, I can assure you it is not.”
“Felt pretty limitless when I melted those Fae.”
“They still existed as ash and molten metal. That is not absolute destruction.”
“I saw ghosts at Samir’s, wrapped in gold. They weren’t where they normally were, either. Some of them were from across the state, and others were even from Gettysburg. Do you have any idea why?”
“Called to the ruins of the golden city,” Gaia said. “It is not so unusual as it seems. I am also drawn to the fragments of Gorias, a place of power that was once home to Titans in Faerie. The hybrid of necromancy and my skill with the earth are two halves of great powers. Life and death held in a single vessel. Held in you. It is a piece of Gorias buried beneath the earth there, is it not? Exposed to the world above, the dead will be drawn to it as much as they are to you.”
“Hess is trapped in our realm and she shouldn’t be. The Utukku have their own afterlife, but she isn’t there.”
“The Utukku live in cycles, Damian Vesik. And enough fear can interrupt that cycle. Fear for her clan, her family. Was her clan in danger in the conflict with Nudd?”
“Yes. The Utukku were guarding the underground in Falias and the armory at Antietam. They lost a lot of Utukku there, and Hess lost her life at the armory. They have a home now in Antietam, if they want to keep it.”
“Or they can return to Gorias to be with the oldest of their ancestors.”
“What?”
“The Utukku long lived in Gorias, Damian Vesik. If Hess fears for her clan and is pulled toward her ancestors …”
“Then she would have been drawn to the ruins.”
“Indeed.”
I cursed under my breath. “And she sees the basilisks as a threat to her entire clan.”
“As they likely are.”
“She won’t rest until they’re defeated, will she?” I didn’t need Gaia to answer that question. She’d told me everything I hadn’t picked up on in the visions from Hess. “We have to kill the basilisks to free those spirits.”
“Yes. And now I believe you can see what you considered two problems to address are in fact only one.”
I cocked my head to the side. “I didn’t take you for that much of an optimist.”
“And that brings us to our training, young necromancer.”
“I hope you aren’t as strict as Leviticus,” I muttered.
“I am not. But that does not mean I am not demanding. Our time here will be grueling, but it will be less than an hour in our home realm.”
“I’m ready.”
“I doubt that very much. Shield yourself.”
It was all the warning I had before Gaia lashed out, her fist a radiant gold as it came for my head. I squeaked as a shield sprang to life, brilliant blue and gold that exploded in a shower of sparks as her fist connected.
“Do not draw on the power of a Titan, unless you intend to. Again.”
By the time she came at me the third time, I understood what she was attempting to do. I needed to call a shield, one that wasn’t reinforced with the power of a Titan, which both sounded hard and a very bad idea while said Titan was attacking me.
The third shield wasn’t as dense, but there were still traces of gold running through it, and it started to crack when Gaia’s fist connected, followed by her knee.
The fourth time there was nothing but electric blue power, a pure incantation out of the ley lines as Gaia’s glowing power connected and rebounded in a flurry of angry sparks. I didn’t even feel the impact, but Gaia shook off her hand as if it had hurt.
“Well done. As you can see, Titan magic has a harder time penetrating a shield of pure line energy. When you tangle your magicks together, it creates an opening. In an offensive spell, it can lend you power, but for your shield, it could end you. Again.”
Gaia’s attacks progressed, switching from physical strikes to a length of what appeared to be golden light shaped like a vine, but executed like a whip. The vine crackled around the edges of my shields, and if my concentration faltered, and the power of a Titan slipped into that incantation, it would break through.
On the third strike, my shield shattered entirely, and white-hot pain cut into my shoulder as Gaia ripped the whip back. She didn’t hesitate, only struck out again, and I didn’t have time to think.
“Impadda!”
A new shield, thick and blue and gleaming with no trace of gold, caught the whip and severed it. Gaia stumbled back, looking down the broken length of power in her hand before her face cracked into a wide smile.
“Well done.”
It was only then I realized where I had seen that attack before. “You trained Whip.” I let my shield fall.
“Of course. I may not have had all of my powers as the innkeeper, but the green men have always been loyal, and followed my instruction regardless of my form. We must move on from your defensive arts.”
I looked down at the cut in my shoulder and shrugged off the pain. It looked a bit nasty, but it wasn’t bleeding much. “I’m ready.”
Gaia reached out her hand to the flickering chunk of golden energy on the path, and the fragment of the broken whip returned to her. It vanished the instant it touched her fingers, as if she’d simply reabsorbed it. “Strike me as you struck those Fae and do not hold back.”
After spending years working off instinct more than deliberate action when it came to my incantations, trying to pluck that thread of Titan magic on purpose was infuriating. Gaia laughed off the first two incantations, only Minas spells, but still dense enough to cause damage.
The fact she’d simply blocked it with her hand and cast the fire over the side of the path was somewhat unnerving.
“Center yourself. Separate the threads, and bind only those you wish to power.”
It was a simple explanation, and absolutely made sense, but executing it practically was far more complicated. The web of necromancy wanted to hold on to that Titan magic, keeping it bound with the line energy. It wasn’t a problem I’d had before, and it took a great deal of concentration to hold those threads apart.
But the more I tried, the more I realized I could use the necromancy as a wedge, jamming a portion of my aura between the threads like a mechanical separation. I wasn’t sure how many times I tried, but eventually it came together, and Gaia’s smile widened as a molten line of energy, wrapped in the magic of a Titan, careened toward her.
She simply caught it as if it
was a lightly thrown stick and broke the incantation off in her hand.
I’d never seen anything like that happen before. The thought of what could have happened if Nudd, or Prosperine, or any of the nightmares we’d faced before had had that kind of power was far more than unsettling.
I shifted my tactics on the narrow path. We may have been sparring face to face, but real battles were rarely so restricted. I lashed out with an ignatto incantation, and as Gaia reached for it, I pushed forward with another strike, one not tied into the magic of the Titans.
“Pulsatto!”
Gaia’s eyes widened as she realized what had happened and what was coming. She stopped reaching for the fading whip, instead raising an arm to block the second strike. The wave of power, brilliant blue in my raised Sight, shattered across her forearm and caught her in the shoulder, staggering the Titan.
And she laughed.
Gaia’s warnings ceased at that point, and our spar grew into a chaotic blur of incantations, shields, and physical strikes. It was the last that were most punishing. One trickle of Titan magic in my shield, and Gaia’s attacks crashed through it like a crowbar on a windshield.
And she didn’t pause for me to recover. Another whip quickly followed every break in the shield, cutting into my leg, setting my shirt on fire where it was concentrated enough to scald.
A quick incantation of Glaciatto extinguished the flames as it pummeled the Titan in razor-sharp shards of glass, splintering across a golden shield as she closed on me again. I backpedaled and raised a shield as her leg lashed out at me with enough force to throw me off the path if it landed squarely.
But the shield held in a sizzling explosion of blue and gold sparks. Gaia took two steps backward and then grew still. She eyed me before offering a small bow.
“Your training has served you well, Damian Vesik. I can see the concentration in your eyes, and it tells me when you are focused and when you are not. You must practice as we have done here, discipline yourself until the magic you want is the only magic you summon.”
I let my hands fall to my side when I was sure Gaia wasn’t going to attack me again. “I need some water.”
“Come, let us return to the wastelands, before the Eldritch grow closer.” Gaia gestured to my left, and I got a bit of a shock when I turned around.
One of the giant lamprey creatures drifted some way off the edge of the path. It didn’t have any eyes to speak of, but the tangle of fanged maws tracked us as if they could see us.
“Gaia, when I was on my own, time sped up. I saw an Eldritch thing move like it was on the path with me.”
“In the Abyss, you must hold your power close. Should too much of your Titan threads reach one of them …” She held her hand out, letting threads drift to the lamprey creature, which burst into motion like a tangled ball of furious snakes.
Gaia snapped her hand away, and the threads pulled back, leaving the lampreys almost frozen where they were.
I shivered and turned back to Gaia. “Good to know.”
“Now, focus on the wastes, and let us be gone.”
I did, and realized that for the first time since we entered the Abyss, I felt that familiar pull on my entire being. I followed it, and the darkness grew absolute before the sun almost blinded me on the plains of the wastelands.
* * *
“Back already?” Foster asked as he circled around us before landing on my shoulder. “You look like crap. Wow, are you … you’re bleeding like crazy.”
“It was a good spar,” Gaia said. “Foster, Nixie, if you would be so kind as to tend to Damian’s wounds.”
I glanced down at my shoulder and cringed, which of course sent more blood down the front of my tattered shirt.
Nixie walked up to me and did a double take. “That looks bad.”
“I had worse with the Old Man.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Foster said. “He definitely did.”
“Hopefully the lack of grievous injury will not take away from your education.”
I blinked at Gaia. For a moment, I felt Nixie’s cool power flow over my wounds before the searing pain of Foster’s healing took over, stitching skin and muscle together, and unless I was mistaken at the fire in my upper arm, mending a cracked bone.
“All set,” Nixie said, patting me on the back so hard I almost fell over.
I took a shaky breath and smiled at her. “Thank you. And Foster, I think Frank has more fudge he didn’t trade. Have at it.”
The fairy circled my head and then shot toward Frank in the tree line.
“I need to sit down for a minute.”
Gaia went back to working with the saplings. She glanced up as we started to walk away.
I paused before we left. “Thank you. For everything.”
The Titan smiled. “I owe you the same thanks, Damian Vesik. Without the help of your friends, I might have lain dormant until the end of this world and beyond. Not that I did not enjoy my time as the innkeeper, but it was as if half of my senses had been stolen from me.”
Nixie squeezed my arm, and I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t helping keep me on my feet. As if the sparring with Gaia hadn’t been exhausting enough, the healing had taken it out of me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I’d been on the ground a total of five minutes before I dozed off against the bark of a tree. I normally wasn’t a big fan of naps, but something about sparring with Gaia and getting healed gave me some of the best rest I’d had since my return from the Abyss. I couldn’t be sure how long I was out, but Nixie nudged me awake.
“Someone’s coming.”
I blinked at the shadows in the woods. Four more of the Unseelie Fae from earlier. I wasn’t worried about them, considering what we’d learned about the banished clan.
Of course, if I’d been paying closer attention, I might have noticed their armor was polished to a glowing sheen and their garments showed no signs of disrepair like those of the banished Fae.
Stump stepped out of the woods, catching them off guard. “What brings you to see Gaia, strangers?” He didn’t wait for a response, only continued in his slow cadence as the Fae grew more irritated. “You will need to wait until she has had time to recover from healing the lands. It will be some time, mind you, and it may be best if you camp here this evening.”
The nearest Fae didn’t answer, only struck at Stump with his sword.
I cursed under my breath as Stump raised a fist and brought it down on nothing but air. The fairies were fast, and that attack had been precise.
They flared out around Stump without a word, which angered Frank quite a bit more than I expected.
“Sons of bitches. This is hallowed ground it is.” Frank muttered and pulled a long barrel out of his duffel bag.
“Frank?”
But Frank wasn’t listening. He had a bomb lance loaded, aimed, and fired before I could say anything more.
It caught the nearest Fae in the back, and the fireball blew him into a dozen pieces. There was a brief moment of shock on the other fairies’ faces, and then they spotted me.
“That’s the necromancer! Kill him!”
So Stump hadn’t been their target at all. I was. Or at least I was part of their target. And if they knew who I was, they knew who my friends were. And that just wouldn’t do.
“Modus Ignatto!”
The Fae darted to the side, missing all but the wave of heat that came from the spiral of flame. The incantation splashed against a tree before I cut it off, and I hoped the green men wouldn’t be too upset at the scorched tree in their new forest.
I raised a shield to block the fairy’s overhand strike, sending a shower of sparks to rain across the grasses of the wastelands. Another fire incantation caught the Fae’s attention, but this one was short, weak, and only meant as a distraction.
I let the Titan magic intertwine with my own again as I lashed out at an Unseelie attacker. “Modus Incidatto!”
A scythe of raw power split
the fairy from shoulder to hip on the diagonal. Not even his armor could slow that strike. There was a grunt and scattering of viscera before the screams began. I straightened as the Unseelie Fae vanished into the ley lines, his scream staying with us far longer than his body.
Another scream joined it, and I found the head of a third fairy in Foster’s hand. The Demon Sword glared at the other, staring at his blank eyes until the hair itself disappeared into the lines, letting the head fall to the earth before it too dissolved in a wave of power.
I didn’t see the last of them. Didn’t see the lunge from the shadow in the trees, the blade angled for Foster’s heart. I only heard the ring of metal on metal as another Unseelie stepped in front of that blade and parried it. An Unseelie with dented armor and a worn cape. One of the forest clan.
The assassin hesitated, and the banished Fae didn’t miss his opportunity. However long they’d lived outside of Murias, left to wander in their exile, the sword strike showed their skills had suffered little. The old blade cut through the assassin’s neck with miniscule resistance, and another ethereal scream sounded around the wastelands.
When the fairy who’d saved Foster turned to face him, the Demon Sword offered a small nod. I didn’t know if that Fae would understand how much of a gesture that was for Foster. He despised all the Unseelie Fae with a passion, and part of me wondered if that was the leftover influence of the Mad King. Lifelong enemies, for the sake of what?
The Unseelie Fae bowed and started gathering the armor of the fallen Fae. “If you have no need of it, it is rare for us to have new clothes in exile.”
“Do with it as you will,” Foster said before hesitating. “If you have need of it, there are merchants wandering the wastelands.”
“We are aware. But we follow the sentence handed down from our king. As a Demon Sword, I am sure you can understand that.”
Foster nodded, cleaning his sword and sheathing it before turning away from the Unseelie.