Tales from the New Earth: Volume One

by Thompson, J. J.

  Virginia looked at him, an expression of contempt on her face. He'd never seen that look before.

  “So you're going to leave him? Just like that?”

  Simon's exhaustion, grief and anger boiled over and he matched her glare with one of his own.

  “No, not just like that!” he shouted and she recoiled in shock. “My best friend in this world is giving his life so that all of us can live. Will you dishonor his sacrifice by standing here arguing about it? If I didn't have to worry about you and your people, I'd stay with him and fight to the end! But I can't.” He felt the tears running down his face and wiped his hand across his eyes angrily. “I can't,” he repeated hopelessly.

  “I...yes, I see that. Forgive me, Simon. I understand.”

  She turned to her friends.

  “You heard him; move your asses. Right now!”

  They all jumped and frantically moved over to the pile of supplies. Aeris stayed with Simon, holding fast to his sleeve.

  The wizard chanted the incantation quickly, his eyes fixed on the glowing figure of his friend.

  “Kronk, listen,” he said suddenly. “I have an idea. As soon as we're gone, go deep, like you did before with me. Get out of sight and I'll summon you as soon as we arrive down south. Can you do that?”

  The strained look on the earthen's little face was replaced by a surprised smile.

  “Master! That is a wonderful idea. I will do that. I do not know if it will work but I will try.”

  “Okay then. I'm casting now. Get ready.”

  Kronk just nodded and Simon took a deep breath.

  “Here we go,” he said to the little guy. “Invectis!”

  The world faded away and the wizard had a brief moment to watch what happened next. It was a direct view into Hell.

  The walls lost their red glow and Kronk raised his hands as he looked down, preparing to burrow into the ground. Then the stone around him literally exploded and a mass of white, undead flesh engulfed him. Simon tried to scream but it was too late. He and the others were pulled into the void, and away to safety.

  Chapter 16

  As the group appeared in Florida, Simon stumbled away from them, looking around frantically. Aeris was next to him and their eyes met. It was obvious that the air elemental had seen the same thing that the wizard had.

  “He was overwhelmed,” Aeris whispered, his face twisted with grief.

  “I know.” Simon said. Then he hurried away from the others and the helpful townspeople who moved forward to lend a hand with the supplies. They had no idea about what had just happened and were talking and laughing together.

  Simon found a bare patch of ground, an old ant hill poking out of the tall grass, and fell to his knees in front of it. Aeris moved to hover to his right.

  The wizard stared at the ground, clenched his fists and focused as much of his power as he could. He knew that there wasn't much left.

  “Kronk, I need you!” he stated firmly, watching the bare earth intently.

  They waited but nothing happened.

  “Damn it,” the wizard muttered. “It won't end like this. I won't let it!”

  He focused again, feeling the magic build up inside of him. It was like scraping a bowl for the last bit of icing, frantically looking for one final taste. As the power built up, so did Simon's resolve, and his anger.

  “No one else dies because of me,” he said, hissing in fury through gritted teeth. “You hear me, you damned gods of Chaos? You're not going to win, not this time.”

  “My dear wizard,” Aeris began to say gently. “Don't you think...”

  “No!” Simon said and slammed his fist into the hard-packed earth. “Not this time, God damn it! I've lost enough. Not. This. Time.” And with each world he smashed his fist down, splitting the skin on his knuckles and leaving splotches of red, like a primitive sacrifice, on the dried dirt.

  “Kronk,” he bellowed. ”Come back to me!”

  And like an explosion, all of Simon's remaining power erupted out of him. A blast of silver light, like an aura of electrical energy, blazed around his frail body, knocking Aeris tumbling through the air. Blood gushed out of his nose and ran down from his ears, but the wizard didn't feel it. All he knew was that he wanted his friend back. All he could feel was his resolve.

  If I die from this, then I die, was his last thought as darkness claimed him. Maybe it's better this way.

  A face swam out of the night; a shape that glowed with its own light. As if surfacing from deep water, Simon watched as the world began to come into focus, its blurred edges slowly becoming sharp and defined.

  “Where am I?” he asked vaguely as he tried to identify what he was seeing. He blinked rapidly and things suddenly sharpened and snapped into clear definition.

  He was lying on his back, the sweet grass under his body wafting its comforting scent past his nostrils. Above him were only stars in an inky sky, blazing like jewels. Simon frowned up at them, disturbed by their clarity. They looked too bright, too close to be real.

  He was so focused on the sky that the face that was staring down at him was almost lost in the heavenly splendor behind it.

  “Are you done star-gazing?” a voice asked with amusement.

  Simon narrowed his eyes and concentrated on that blurred visage above him. The features became clear and he found himself looking up at a woman.

  “Ah, and there you are, young wizard,” she said. She laughed with seeming delight, reached down and pulled him to his feet in one smooth motion.

  Simon stood on his own with no sense of dizziness or disorientation. He couldn't remember how he got there, wherever there was, or even what had happened in the recent past.

  “Where am I?” he repeated, feeling a bit stupid.

  His companion smiled and he looked at her closely.

  She looked familiar somehow. Taller than the wizard, she was wearing bright silver armor and had a gleaming sword resting on her left hip. Her blond locks cascaded down her back in waves and her fine features and large blue eyes gave her a beauty that was breathtaking.

  “You are here, young one,” she replied with a wave indicating their surroundings. “Here, where you are safe from the depredations of my kin, from their evil intentions.”

  Simon turned in a slow circle, trying to get his bearings.

  They were standing in an endless sea of grass. No trees or plants broke the unending vista and the waving grasses stretched on into darkness. It was the dead of night, but those crystalline stars lit the field so brightly that he could easily see the woman and beyond her for many yards in all directions. He felt like he'd been transported to the middle of the prairies, except that he would have expected to see wheat or corn fields. But it was just tall grass, gently rippling in the warm breeze that caressed them both.

  “I don't recognize this place,” he told her. “But I feel like I should know you.”

  “You should, child. We spoke once before, in a dream. I gave you a small gift then. Do you not remember?”

  Simon actually felt something click in his head, like two gears had met and engaged, allowing his memory to function properly. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath.

  “I remember!” he gasped. “I remember now. You are one of the gods of Light!”

  She shrugged and pushed a strand of hair off of her face.

  “Gods. Goddesses. Simply labels used by those who do not understand us. But yes, if you must call us something, call us that if you wish. But we are merely those who came before all others.” She smiled again. “Age has given us status, it seems. Perhaps that is a benefit? Who can say.”

  “Why am I here, Lady?” Simon asked, feeling the power of the woman like heat beating against his mind. There was no pain, but it was almost overwhelming. He resisted the urge to back away from the source.

  She seemed to know how he was feeling and made a reassuring gesture.

  “I brought you here to talk, Simon,” she said softly and the wizard shivered as she used his
name.

  “I did not expect to ever have the chance to speak with you directly again, at least not in this life. But circumstances have made this meeting possible and I took my opportunity, against the wishes of some of my kin.”

  Her laughter tinkled like the ringing of bells and Simon smiled in response.

  “But then I have never been able to follow the rules that they would impose upon me and they know it. It has caused a few arguments over the eons, I can tell you.”

  “Why have circumstances changed?” the wizard asked, looking up at the stars again for a moment and feeling the thrill of their endless light. Had the sky over Earth ever had so many stars?

  “Because you are dead, child,” she said simply. “Even now your soul is struggling to tear loose from your mortal realm and fly free. You are between Heaven and Earth, as it were, and so I have this brief time to visit with you once more.”

  “Dead?”

  Simon stumbled back in shock and almost tripped in the long grass. “What are you saying? I feel fine.” He frowned and looked down at himself. “Actually, I feel amazing. Never better.”

  “Of course you do,” the goddess answered with a sigh. “The soul feels no pain, no need. Hunger, thirst, physical want, all are gone when a mortal passes away. You are on the verge, young wizard. But you have been such a staunch ally and so loyal to your people and to us, in a way, that I wanted to thank you for your service.”

  She too looked up at the night sky, a look of profound sadness twisting her perfect features.

  “I fear that with your passing, our cousins, the dark gods as you call them, are going to win the battle for your New Earth. You were the most powerful of all of our Changlings and, without you, I believe that the dragons will eventually overcome the elves and then the remnants of humanity.”

  She shook her head and caught Simon's gaze with her own.

  “We will be left out here, in the dark, and they will ravage across the stars, plunging your universe into eternal blackness.”

  “What are you talking about?” Simon asked in frightened confusion. “I'm just one man. There are a lot of others who will stand against the gods of Chaos and their servants. What about the elves? They're strong and powerful. Surely they will be able to hold against the brown dragons?”

  “Hold? Yes, they will hold, for a time. But what are a few years, decades, even centuries to the dragons? The elves are immortal but they do not reproduce quickly. They will be worn down and beaten by attrition if nothing else. Time moves differently in their realm, as you know, and if it takes a generation to conquer that world, who will care? Our cousins are not patient, but they will wait for that. After all, they will gain a universe out of it.”

  Simon knew that he should feel more upset about what he was hearing, particularly the part about him being dead, but he didn't. His emotions seemed packed in wool and he felt as calm and even-keeled as he ever had.

  “I seem to be taking this whole thing better than I would have expected,” he ventured to say.

  The goddess indicated the night around them.

  “It is this place. You are on the border between life and death. The human soul does feel a sense of peace here. It makes the transition easier.”

  “Does it? And what comes next, Lady? What lies beyond the veil?”

  “Eternity, my child. Endless seas of time and space. Love, adventure, new experiences. There are no words to describe the worlds that await you.”

  He nodded.

  “That doesn't sound so bad,” he admitted to her and she smiled.

  “It doesn't, does it? Come along, child. Walk with me. We have time, in this place, and I wish to show you something.”

  She turned and began to walk away slowly. Simon followed along passively.

  The goddess motioned for him to join her on her right side and they moved through the tall grass toward the horizon crowded with stars.

  “Tell me something, if it isn't too impertinent, Lady; what happens to you and the other gods of Light if you lose this war against the darkness?”

  She put a hand on her sword and paced forward, looking neither right nor left. Her expression darkened slightly and, even though his emotions were muted, Simon could feel a touch of something penetrating his mind. Sadness perhaps, or maybe grief.

  “We will fade away, as the light fades before the dark when evening comes to the world. Love, joy, happiness in all of its forms will leech away from your universe and wither, like a plant covered over with impenetrable weeds, choking slowly to death. First on Earth and then, like a cancer, it will spread outward until nothing remains but horror and despair.”

  She shook her glorious head but her expression remained proud, her shoulders unbent.

  “Light cannot exist in such a vacuum, young one. My kin and I have always strived for a balance between the light and the dark, between good and evil. We know that each must exist in harmony for creation to flow as it should and for people to climb to the heights and achieve greatness. But those who champion Chaos, who seek strife and suffering, those ones do not understand this and they never have. They do not realize that when we were created, before time itself began, it was as counter-weights to each other. In a way, both sides compliment the other. No, instead they have always sought to conquer, to make their way dominant. Well, I suppose that they finally have.”

  They continued to walk for a time. Perhaps what the goddess had said was starting to penetrate his fogged thoughts or maybe it was simply the old Simon reasserting himself, but the wizard began to get flashes of memories from the recent past.

  “Lady,” he said tentatively. “I don't quite remember what happened before I showed up...here, but is something wrong with Kronk? I have an image in my mind of him being in distress.”

  His companion remained silent and Simon was about to repeat his question when she stopped and nodded toward something in front of them.

  The wizard turned to look and gasped at the vista ahead.

  The grasses ended abruptly and the land dipped into a large, bowl-shaped depression. In the center of this perfect circle there was a small lake, its black waters mirroring the stars above them.

  The goddess began to walk down the gentle slope, the grass now short and fine and he moved to follow her.

  They reached the edge of the lake with its perfectly still surface and she looked at Simon.

  “I know you have questions. Here you will find the answers, or at least some of them. Before you move on, I felt that your service to us had earned you the right to set your mind at ease, here on the edge of the Void.”

  The wizard frowned as he stared at the black water.

  “What do I do, Lady?” he asked her.

  “Simply ask your questions in your mind and the water will respond as it sees fit. I have no hand in this; the Maker of us all controls the Waters of Destiny, not us. Ask. Or do not and continue up that slope,” she pointed across the lake, “and embrace the next stage of your great journey. The choice is yours, child.”

  And the goddess stepped back and out of Simon's view. He was left staring in confusion at the water, wondering what he should do, what questions he needed to ask.

  Mirror, mirror on the wall, he thought irreverently. What the heck do I want to know? Or rather, what do I need to know?

  Kronk. Yes. That was important. I want to see my friend, if this is the last time I can do so.

  In response to his wishes, the waters of the lake shuddered. A splash, loud but unseen, drew Simon's eyes to the center of the lake and he saw an image forming there; vague and blurry at first and then snapping into focus. It filled his vision and he watched in rapt attention.

  He was suddenly seeing...himself. He was seeing himself as if he was another person, or a video camera that was recording the scene for posterity. It was surreal and frightening at the same time.

  He was standing with Virginia, Anna and the others in the old barracks building in Nottinghill. And the memory of that moment crashed into
his consciousness with an impact that made him stagger.

  Of course! How could he have forgotten? The wights had been attacking and Kronk...

  Simon looked frantically at the image and then sagged with relief. There he was.

  The little guy had his hands on the stone wall of the building and was glowing fiercely, molten rock that lived and moved. He was telling Simon to go, that he had to hold the monsters back.

  The wizard saw his own face twisted with grief and rage as he accepted his friend's plea. He watched helplessly as the group faded from sight just as Kronk collapsed in exhaustion. And he felt the horror of the moment as the wights tore through the walls of the barracks, grabbed the earthen before he could escape underground...and ripped him apart.

  “Oh God,” Simon muttered and turned away from the lake. He'd never thought to wonder if the soul could cry after death, but now he learned that it could.

  “Stay your tears, child, and turn back,” the goddess said, her voice echoing eerily around the little vale.

  He looked up but the armored woman was nowhere to be seen and, if it hadn't been for her voice, he would have thought that she'd left him.

  Reluctantly, Simon turned around. The scene had changed again. This time he saw himself kneeling on open ground. Florida, he assumed, but he didn't remember this at all. What was he doing?

  Aeris was with him, calling on him to stop doing whatever it was that he was attempting. And he saw himself ignoring the elemental.

  He began punching the patch of bare earth in front of him. Why was he doing that? Simon leaned forward, teetering on the brink of the lake, straining to see and hear what was happening.

  “Kronk, come back to me!” his other self screamed as he battered the ground with bleeding hands.

  And then a wave of crystalline light, silver and pure, blinded Simon. He blinked rapidly, trying to get the image back into focus. He stared in confusion then, because that other wizard was just...gone.

  The spot where his other self had been kneeling was empty. Spots and streaks of blood were splattered on the ground but that Simon had vanished. In his place stood Kronk and the wizard gasped at the sight.