Exiled - 01

by M. R. Merrick

I turned to see a creature not much taller than I. A single blue eye in the center of a large oval head stared at me. A huge furry eyebrow framed the eye and a bald scalp reflected the light from the torches. The cyclops’ skin was rough looking, as though it was chiseled from stone. His lower jaw stuck out, his underbite was an orthodontist’s worst nightmare, and two sharp gray teeth stuck out over his upper lip. His wide chest and stomach were bare, muscled and veiny. Thankfully, he was covered from the waist down with an oversized loincloth. I absorbed all of him and did the one thing I could think of in that moment: I hit him.

  My fist slammed into his jaw and the cyclops grunted, but faced me unfazed. My hand stung and I instantly regretted hitting him. He didn’t strike me back, only turned and stared at me with a furrowed brow and confused look.

  My father’s laugh echoed around me. “Please, Chase. This isn’t home. These are pure blood demons, not the cross breeds you so easily associate yourself with.”

  “Says the man who’s surrounded himself with them.”

  “Indeed I have, but the difference is I use them to further what’s best for us. You go jumping through portals and traveling foreign lands on a quest not to save many, but only one, single, filthy half breed: one whose purpose since before her birth has been to unlock the doors to the worlds we’ve been denied.”

  “That half breed is my friend, and I won’t let you hurt her.”

  “You’ve always been a poor judge of character, Chase. She is a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. Once this is over and you see what we can accomplish, you will understand.”

  “I can’t let you use her.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “We always have choices.” I took two quick steps and lunged at him. I soared over Rayna’s limp body, pulled a single dagger from its sheath and held it steady, aimed at my father’s throat. In that instant, my doubts were gone and I knew I could kill him.

  I turned the blade as it neared his flesh, watching in slow motion as the tip pushed against his throat. The blade had nearly split his skin when magic engulfed me and I stopped moving.

  I floated over Rayna’s body and my father had his head tilted back. The blade had pierced his neck, but caused no worse an injury than you could get shaving. A tiny bubble of blood formed on the tip of my blade and Riley’s eyes stared at me. For a moment, fear flickered through them.

  The Dark Brothers had their arms extended. Their magic wrapped around me and kept me airborne. I sighed in disappointment.

  Riley stepped back from my blade and brought a finger to his neck, touching the cut. The smile had been replaced with a furious expression.

  “I’d hoped we’d move past this, son, but I see we’re going to have to do this the hard way.” He nodded to the Brothers, and at a flick of their wrists I was moving through the air. The only thing that stopped my body was the wall, and rock and dirt crumbled around me as I fell to the ground. By the time I could see, metal clasps attached to chains were being locked around my wrists.

  Riley dabbed at his cut until he was satisfied the bleeding had stopped. He walked towards me and stopped just out of reach. He was an arrogant man, and the fact that he had left that space told me he was afraid of what I could do.

  “What a waste of talent.” He sighed. “You aren’t willing to change your mind, are you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I can respect that, defiance until the last. You are more my son than I knew.”

  Shock filled me. My father had never given me a compliment before. It was unfortunate that this was the context of his praise.

  “Thanks?”

  “It is for this reason alone I shall let you be the first to see the power I will hold. For you, like I, will not stop until we’ve won or died trying. I will give you that peace.”

  All the emotion I’d felt following his ill-timed compliment vanished, leaving me empty.

  “Now, let’s hope we’re done with interruptions,” Riley said. “Send more down the corridors; I want no more disturbances.”

  A cyclops grunted and two more moved down the corridor and out of sight.

  Riley moved to the altar, bowed his head and extended his arms towards the Brothers. They mirrored his actions and reformed the triangle, chanting in the same strange language as back on Earth, but the ritual was different now.

  They weren’t trying to open a portal to another dimension, but trying to raise Ithreal, the god that created the Underworlds. The despair of failure tugged at me. Was this it? My thoughts were interrupted as the chanting stopped. The Dark Brothers brought their blades to Rayna’s feet and Riley brought his blade to her neck.

  “Riley, don’t do this!” I shouted. I pulled at my chains, but they wouldn’t budge. “Dad!” I yelled again. Fear and anger stirred inside me and there was one thing left I could do: call upon my powers.

  I didn’t wait for the magic to fill me up and course through my body. It didn’t move through my hands and flow from my fingers. I ripped it from my soul and let it explode over me.

  The metal around my wrists started to smoke. The steel softened and molten drops trickled slowly down my arm. I didn’t let the pain stop me. I tugged on the chains, pulling at the softening metal, and as I pulled harder it started to stretch. I wrenched my wrists free of the hot metal and the broken clasps clanked as they hit the stone floor.

  The sound alerted the demons and the cyclopes charged, but I didn’t stop. I burst between the first two demons and moved towards the altar. I pushed the fire out my hands and released bright blue and silver flames in a stream, but I was too late.

  All three men pulled their blades across Rayna’s skin and blood flowed from her wounds and onto the stone floor.

  The blood exploded as it hit the symbol and a barrier of magic came up around them all. Two of the cyclopes ran towards me, each with a fist raised. They made contact with either side of my face and my head snapped back as I dropped to the floor.

  I didn’t stop to feel the pain. I thrust the fire from my hands and let it rush over them. They screamed and I could see blisters bursting on their faces. I pulled the magic back and watched blue ooze drip from their bodies as they tried to repair themselves.

  I rose to my feet and pulled the single dagger I had left from its sheath. I leapt and stuck it in the neck of one demon and let it slide through to the front. Blue blood sprayed in every direction and poured down his chest. The cyclops dropped to its knees and collapsed on the floor. I reached down and pulled the blade through the back of its neck and watched it explode.

  The other came from behind me and picked me up. Gray-blue hands tossed me against the wall with ease. I felt the pain only faintly through the adrenaline. I dropped the dagger and pushed my magic through my hands. It hurt more, tearing it out rather than letting it flow naturally, but I didn’t care.

  Balls of flame rolled towards him and melted his skin. The cyclops screamed and I pushed harder, ignoring the burning along my own skin. Once the demonic screaming stopped, I let the magic recede and found the demon splayed on the floor in a pool of blue blood. His skin bubbled before his death rained down ashes over the sticky stone floor.

  Two other cyclopes had approached and were on all fours whimpering, having been caught in the backlash of my flame. One had blue blood dripping from his face where the heat had burned away his flesh. The other’s skin was smoking and hanging loose from his body.

  I picked up the dagger and brought it down on the back of one’s neck. I pushed down with all my weight, letting the blade snap his spine and slide with ease through the front of his throat. He screamed through gritted teeth and clawed at the ground until his head fell from his shoulders.

  I could feel the heat of the last one’s skin as I wrapped my arm around his head. I squeezed it tight against my body and twisted until I heard the unpleasant snap of his spine. I let his body fall to the ground in a lump of smoking flesh.

  I went to Tiki and grabbed the clasps around his wrists.
Strength I’d never known snapped the metal cuffs with ease. His orange eyes were wide and his jaw hung slack. More cyclopes flooded in from the tunnels and he decided they were his job. I picked up my blade and went running full tilt for the altar.

  A circle of blue light sprung up around Rayna and reached up into the darkness. The Brothers stepped away from the circle and handed Riley a large chalice. He circled Rayna and filled it with blood from each of her wounds.

  I froze as the light surrounding Rayna vanished and all the torches went out.

  I couldn’t see anything in the pitch black, but Riley chanted and I inched closer, following his voice. When I thought I was getting close, the torches burst into flame again.

  When my eyes readjusted to the light, I could see my father with the chalice in hand, kneeling at Rayna’s feet. I stepped over the threshold of the symbol and the Brothers and my father looked up in shock.

  “Maybe my magic can’t penetrate the circle, but I sure as hell can.”

  I leapt forward and the Brothers reached out to stop me, but they were too late. I let my shoulder smash into my father as he brought the cup to his lips. He jerked and fell to the ground, the chalice rolling from his hand, spilling Rayna’s blood.

  The cave rumbled as the blood hit the floor, and I wrapped my arms around Riley as we fell, but he turned and used my momentum against me. He thrust me to the side and I went head over heels, landing on my back. I jumped to my feet, but he was too fast. His hands hit my chest and sent me airborne again.

  “Enough!” he screamed, a fire in his eyes I’d never seen before.

  I hit the floor and rolled to my feet, preparing for another hit, but it didn’t come.

  “Hold him,” he commanded as he picked up the chalice.

  He returned to Rayna’s wounds that now dripped instead of flowing freely. He put the chalice back against each wound, squeezing at her flesh to force her blood out.

  I tried to move, but the Brothers had hung a wall of magic in front of me. I was stuck behind an invisible barrier as my father forced Rayna’s blood from her wounds. He tilted the chalice back and brought it to his lips.

  Blood dripped from his chin and I screamed involuntarily. Seeing my father’s success and Rayna’s body cold, pale, and drained filled me with a pain I couldn’t describe. I pounded against the barrier with my fists, and when that was unsuccessful, I ripped the flames from inside me, but the wall absorbed my magic. It was no use.

  The Brothers stared at me with expressionless faces. I wanted to burn the pale flesh from their skin and watch them cough up the water I’d flood their bodies with. Anger swirled inside me as images of their deaths filled my mind.

  In a blur, the Brothers were lifted into the air and soared up into the darkness. They crashed to the ground and I looked at my hands. Had I done that?

  Relief washed through me as the giant dark form of Marcus emerged from one corridor. He walked towards Riley, looking battle-ready.

  “Ah, my dear brother,” Riley said, stepping to the side to block Rayna’s body. He wiped the blood from his lips and smiled, his perfect white teeth stained red.

  “You stay where you are,” Marcus said, extending an arm.

  Riley tried to move and couldn’t, but a strange smile crossed his face. “Your powers are no match for mine, brother. They weren’t before, and they certainly aren’t now.” Riley waved his hand and a wall of flame shot up in front of him. The magic holding him collapsed as the flame vanished and Riley stepped forward. “This is but the first step in the journey, my brother, a taste of what Ithreal has to offer. Imagine what I’ll be capable of when I have the full potential of his power inside me.” Riley’s voice was a darker version of the one I knew so well.

  “Riley, you must stop this! You are delusional if you believe that you can control the power of a god,” Marcus said.

  “I have no delusions. Join me, brother. Stand by my side like you once did, and you too will reap the rewards of this power.”

  “I took an oath to protect the innocent and I plan to keep it.”

  “I took that same oath, but you have been protecting the enemy while I’ve made progress. With the power of Ithreal inside me, I will be able to control demons. Don’t you see? What I’m doing will protect all of us.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Marcus said.

  “Oh but it is, brother, you will see. She was but a small sacrifice for a better world,” Riley said, stepping aside to reveal Rayna’s body.

  Marcus’s back was to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but I think that was for the best. His power surged and the barrier in front of me wavered. I could feel cracks in the magic.

  Marcus raised his hands and Riley’s body lifted off the ground for a moment. An angry scream escaped Marcus and a sinister smile warped Riley’s lips. My father closed his eyes and started chanting again.

  Despite Marcus’s effort, Riley’s body remained still, and I felt Marcus’s magic break as a new power emerged. The Dark Brothers moved to either side of Marcus, but his magic claimed them. The warlocks were lifted off the ground again and sent crashing against the cave wall. The impact forced the barrier in front of me to crack again before collapsing.

  A dark blue glow surrounded Riley as he chanted, arms extended. As I neared him, the blue light turned red, and then green, swirling around him in a whirlwind. Each time the color changed, I felt a new wave of magic pulsate through the cave.

  The ground shook beneath my feet and bits of rock fell from the ceiling. It started to crack and Riley jerked and began spinning in the air. He screamed as he spun higher into the darkness. His body had disappeared into the shadows when a blast of multicolored light forced me to turn away.

  When it faded, I could see my father’s body gliding down from the darkness, a set of black shadowed wings extended behind him. He landed with ease, the wings vanishing like smoke. He knelt and whispered a few soft words before looking up at me.

  His pale blue eyes were gone, filled with black, and power emanated from his body. An alien smile crossed his lips. “Come to me, my son,” he said.

  His magic wrapped around me and jerked me forward. I stopped only a few feet away from him and gripped my dagger so tightly I thought my knuckles might burst. Anger, sadness and fear all rushed through my veins.

  Riley’s smile didn’t fade as I neared, and he opened his arms as though he might accept me into a fatherly embrace. I moved with a speed I’d never reached before and drove the dagger into his chest. He made no effort to stop me, and the blade slid into his flesh with ease. Riley watched the blade with the smile still on his lips, and when I’d pushed it in as far as I could, I twisted the blade. Red blood streaked with black leaked from the hole in his chest and laughter bubbled from his lips.

  He grabbed my wrist and twisted until I dropped the dagger. His hands moved too quickly for my eyes to follow and before I could move, he’d grabbed the falling blade and pushed it into my stomach.

  A gasp escaped my lips. He drove the blade in to the hilt and pulled it up from my stomach to my ribs. He released the blade and laughed, watching the fear in my eyes. His laughter stopped abruptly and he shoved me backwards.

  I cried out in pain and felt my ribs strain as I hit the ground and slid across the stone floor. The back of my shirt tore and shards of rocks gave me friction burns, which paled in comparison to the agony in my belly.

  Two perfect handprints were burned into the front of my shirt, revealing matching red and black blisters that seeped fluid as my body struggled to repair itself. The knife was still deep in my stomach and I couldn’t help but hyperventilate in panic when I saw the wound.

  I sucked in air and crawled, trying to get away from Riley and at the same time keep myself calm. I didn’t want to go into shock. I was too scared to pull the knife out, and I was losing blood at a rapid rate. I struggled to my knees and ripped power from within me and threw it at Riley.

  The silver and blue flames shot from my hand and engulfed him. My
fire wrapped around his body, but he didn’t make a sound. I put all my focus into the heat, picturing his flesh melting off his body.

  Riley stepped through the flames, wrapped in the black shadowy wings that hovered inches from his body, shielding him. He waved them away and I saw the same spine-chilling smile still glued to his face. “So you’ve received your element, son. Congratulations. But do you know how to use it?”

  Dark red flame swirled around him then flowed towards me. My own blue flames mixed with his, but my magic succumbed to his and I started to feel the scorching heat. I curled in a ball, waiting for the wave of flame to scald my skin, but it never came.

  The heat disappeared and a cool mist of water showered me. I uncurled myself to see my mother standing above me, a wall of smoke billowing between her and my father.

  My mother’s warm hazel eyes held a new fierceness and the black that filled my father’s eyes vanished at the sight of her. Now they were the gentle blue I’d known when I was young.

  “Tessa…” he said.

  His flames vanished and my mother pulled her magic back. She stared at my father with an intensity I’d never seen in her eyes: pure rage.

  “You will not harm my son,” she said.

  “He has my element, Tessa. He is our son.”

  “He hasn’t been our son for years.” My mother spat the words at him. “And what have you done?” she said in a panicked voice when she saw my wounds. She leaned down and put her hand against my stomach, and soon her small pale hand was covered in my blood. Her magic flowed into me stronger than ever, and the skin almost instantly closed in around the blade.

  “Are you okay Chase?” she asked.

  My skin still smoked as it knitted itself closed over Riley’s handprints and I nodded. “I’ll be…fine.”

  “This is going to hurt, honey.” She wrapped her hands around the hilt of the blade and pulled it out before I could respond. I pressed my lips together to muffle my scream and waited for the blood to pour from the wound, but it never came. All I felt was cool, moving water, and in seconds the wound was gone.