The Descent to Madness

by Gareth K Pengelly

And yet.

  The Sylphii flew about him, confused, puzzled, amused, reaching out to touch him as though he were some exhibit in a zoo. He watched them, just as confused as they, unable to speak for the lack of air in his lungs.

  “Interesting.” The chorus taken up in a ripple that spread through the swarm. “Reverse metabolisation.” They sounded at once amused and impressed.

  The spirits slowed their orbit, a bang signalling the rush of air back into the space about him, his cramped lungs swelling anew and he coughed, violently, raging at them in a wheezing rasp as soon as his voice allowed.

  “Why? Why do you torment me?”

  “Our brother, our sister, they find you fascinating. So do we. You are an anomaly. You don’t belong, yet we sense you will be useful in times to come. You have a purpose, but good or bad we do not know.”

  His weary mind pondered their words as he continued his never ending fall into oblivion.

  “Brother? Sister? Are you the Avatar of Air?”

  The sprites laughed as one.

  “Yes! No! Maybe!”

  “Answer me, damn you!”

  “We are the air, everywhere, all encompassing. We cannot be captured or controlled, we cannot be confined.”

  “Are you mocking me?”

  More laughter.

  “No! Not mocking! Handing over! To our brother!”

  He frowned.

  “Look down, human, look down!”

  Down he looked, to see a red glow at the bottom of the drop, racing up to meet him. There was only one thing it could be.

  “Oh, shit.”

  He turned to the spirits, the magma only two hundred feet below him.

  “Slow me, spirits! Help me to land on solid ground!”

  “Say please! Ask nicely! So rude, humans!”

  “Please!”

  One hundred feet.

  “Pretty please with sugar on top! Say it!”

  Fifty.

  He roared, but relented, the heat already causing beads of sweat to form on his forehead, despite the wind.

  “Pretty please with sugar on top!”

  He closed his eyes.

  He opened them.

  He was suspended, motionless, ten feet above an island of solid stone amidst of sea of burning magma.

  “See, human? Not so hard to be nice!”

  He dropped to the ground with a hollow thud, landing on his feet, the Sylphii, or Avatar of air, whatever they were, flying off into the sky, laughing amongst themselves, leaving a trail of light that grew dimmer and dimmer until they disappeared into the gloom.

  ***

  Chief Farr’s face was pale and ashen, his usual cheerful demeanour lost in the midst of the description of their foe. The Steppes-Folk had not raided in such numbers for over a generation and the thought of the danger facing his village, his people, his family stunned him.

  Finally, Wrynn finished talking and silence descended on the hut, before the Elders began arguing amongst themselves, shouting each other down as they debated back and forth on the best way to handle the situation, before, having had enough, Farr stood and bellowed for quiet.

  “Shaman, will the Barbarians be able to locate our village?”

  Wrynn looked thoughtful.

  “Perhaps, but it will take them time. Our Youngbloods managed to ambush and kill the Steppes scouts, that will buy us some time, days, possibly a couple of weeks, before the army reaches close enough to our lands to spy our village.”

  He nodded over at Narek, who was playing nervously with his grey braids of hair.

  “Your son did well, Elder Narek.”

  Farr pondered the information before reaching his decision.

  “We send messengers to the other villagers of the Plains-People, asking for a war-gathering. Our Youngbloods will be home within another two days. I wish that we have all Youngbloods and all able-bodied Elders armed and ready to repel our foe. If, as you say, we do have a few days, it may just be possible for our allied villages to send enough men that we might stand a chance.”

  The gathered Elders nodded their agreement, then one of them spoke out.

  “Is that a Steppes-Falcon?”

  Wrynn span, craning his neck to spy the stooped raptor perched high up in the chimney hole of the hut, wickedly sharp talons digging into the wood frame, huge, fiercely intelligent eyes taking in the whole scene.

  “Shoot that bird!” cried Wrynn with an urgency that shocked the assembled folk.

  Narek, always armed, unslung his bow from his back, firing a swift, accurate arrow to the roof, but the falcon was swifter and took off, dodging the missile, before soaring into the sky with a piercing, shrill cry.

  Farr was at Wrynn’s side, still staring into the sky.

  “What was that about, Shaman? Why the alarm at a mere bird?”

  “It was no mere bird,” the Shaman replied, his voice solemn. “I could smell the whiff of spirit-craft about it. It was ensorcelled, sent here to spy on us.” He saw the Chief’s eyes widen in alarm.

  “You mean…?”

  Wrynn nodded.

  “Yes. The army has a shaman of their own. And now they know where we are.”

  The room burst into frenzied talk once more, as Elders conversed in fear about what that entailed. The Chief spoke quietly to his shaman.

  “They will be here before any aid from our brother villages, won’t they?”

  Wrynn nodded. The Chief sighed.

  “Then we are doomed.”

  The shaman looked up, a sudden glimmer of hope in his eyes, before speaking, quietly, as though talking to himself.

  “Perhaps not. We may not need to gather an army of our own. We may have had one all along. But I will need to be fast, for time travels differently there…”

  ***

  Stone stood, battered, exhausted, his reserves of courage and endurance drained. His every limb burned, his every bone ached. His skin riven with scores of scratches and claw marks. He didn’t want to go on, wanted to give up, go home. Content to be a blunt instrument.

  But he knew that he had one challenge left; to face the Lord of Fire.

  Wearily, he surveyed his surroundings, taking in this fresh torture chamber. He was in a vast underground cavern, the walls lit with the orange glow of the bubbling magma pools that surrounded his island of onyx-black stone. The temperature was phenomenal; not for the first time he wondered how Lanah had survived the Journey at the tender age of fifteen. He could only surmise that the Avatars had been less inclined to inflict such punishments on her.

  Even as the thought sprang to mind, burning, popping noises and the smell of ash signalled the arrival of yet more foes.

  From the magma pools all about him, creatures rose up, floating just above the ground, for they had no legs, no arms, no discernible form, being instead swirling tempests of pure fire with glowing orange, ethereal eyes. They hovered slowly towards him, the ground beneath them turning red with the extreme heat of their proximity and he could feel their hunger, an irrational, constant, all-consuming desire to devour everything in their path.

  And that, right now, was him.

  He looked about frantically for an escape route. The magma extended in all directions for hundreds of yards, only coming to a rest when it reached the sheer, stone walls. There was nothing above him to grab onto, save empty air. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  Could he fight? All the elementals he’d fought to date, the Knocker, the Nymph, all had been difficult, if not impossible, to kill. Besides, these things were nought but pure fire – how could he fight them? They had no physical body to hurt, he would be punching flame. And what damage could they wreak on him? His body had withstood impossible punishment thus far today, but fire? That might be pushing his luck.

  He had no options left. Fighting would get him nowhere. Running would get him nowhere.

  Defeated, he slumped to his knees, waiting for the inevitable end.

  “I’m done,” he called out, his voice weary, spen
t. “You’ve won.”

  The elementals raced to him, sensing a meal, when there came a booming peal of thunder, like the sound of an erupting volcano, the noise of superheated air rushing frantically away, along with a bright flash of searing light that chased all shadows from the cavern.

  Before him, hovering above the sea of molten rock, the Avatar of Fire.

  The creature was a living flame, like its minions, but on a scale beyond, the size of a cathedral spire and, with a word that sounded like the scorching crackle of a raging forest fire, the Avatar halted the smaller elementals, sending them back into the magma from whence they came.

  Stone could barely gaze upon the looming elemental, the heat it gave out blurring its form in a rippling haze of tortured air, the skin on his face and the hands that tried to shield him feeling like it was being seared off the bone.

  You made it here. I knew you would.

  The creature’s voice contained none of the catastrophic might of the Earth’s, nor the gushing torrent of the Water’s, instead making itself heard by sucking in the sound from everywhere else, consuming noise till nothing remained to be heard but its own words.

  Your disrespect for us and our realm knows no bounds. Yet, you interest us, Stone. And it is for that and that alone that you remain alive.

  He looked up into the raging inferno through squinting eyes, feeling his eyebrows beginning to singe in the relentless waves of merciless heat.

  “Why?” He cried above the roar of the flame. “Why do I interest you all so much? Why have you been testing me, like I’m some kind of lab rat? What am I?”

  The Avatar replied, the answer chilling him to the bone despite the fearsome oven in which he knelt.

  A weapon. Forged by a dark hand and destined to destroy.

  His mouth opened in horror at the words, the moisture in his mouth evaporating in an instant and rendering the next words hoarse and painful.

  “What do you mean? What kind of weapon? And to destroy what?”

  The Avatar’s words hit him like smouldering embers from a campfire sent flying by a warm summer breeze.

  Your unique physiology allows you to adapt and channel forces without harm. To what end, I do not know. But I sense the mark of evil upon you. You spell doom for this world.

  “Then why not kill me now, if I’m such a threat? Blast me to ash, incinerate me!”

  Because though you may signal the end of one world, there is the chance that you may be saviour to countless others in time.

  The words were meaningless to Stone, the concepts too grand for his mind to comprehend.

  He felt the heat recede ever so slightly, the Avatar moving away from him and, looking up, he saw that he was now joined by the full family of the elements;

  Earth, standing ankle deep in the molten magma, its head and shoulders cast in shadow as it loomed impossibly high above him, rendering him dizzy with its scale.

  Air, in its many vessels, tiny, fleeting, flying about the cavern on trails of light.

  And finally, Water, standing on the same island of onyx as him, the embodiment of the raging ocean in woman-form, steaming slightly in the rippling heat of Fire’s domain. She walked up to him and he felt sick, blasted on one side by ferocious heat, the other, by waves of chill, oceanic spray.

  “Who made me?” he asked her, his mind a whirl of confusion.

  She answered with a voice like the crashing of surf on storm-blasted rocks.

  It is better for you not to know, for some things are not meant for mortal minds to grasp. Leastways not yet. Suffice to say, there are dark forces abroad that crave the life we give.

  He shook his head in confusion and denial.

  “I had a life once, before all this. But I cannot remember anything about it. Perhaps that would have shed some light on everything.”

  Water nodded, but it was Air that answered, swooping down in dazzling, spinning arcs amidst torrents of delicate, tinkling laughter.

  “We can feel it! Locked away, it is, there but guarded, not even we can see the truth for the hand of the Enemy has bound it.”

  Earth rumbled as it joined the conversation and Stone felt surreal, as though this were all a dream; how ludicrous a concept, that he be stood here, being discussed by the four elements?

  Perhaps, it began, the word shaking the cavern and sending ripples through the sea of magma, our brother Fire can burn away the barrier to his memories?

  Stone flinched for a moment, wary of yet more pain, before realising that this might perhaps be the only way to ever retrieve his memories and find out who he really was. He thought hard about this. He was comfortable in his life with the Plains-People; he was well-liked, with good friends and – he admitted to himself for the first time – he had even found love. What if he didn’t like what he found out about his past? What if it shattered this new life he’d made for himself?

  A war raged within his head, until finally he came to a decision, opening his mouth to answer.

  Just as the words were about to leave his mouth, a flash of light and the taste of tin scorched his tongue and the cawing cry of a raven caused him to start and turn around. He frowned in puzzlement as the same bird from before came swooping down from nowhere, so close to the magma he was afraid it would catch alight, before gliding up and onto his island of stone, swirling and transforming in a trail of feathers and smoke until it landed in the form of a tribesman, kneeling in worshipful respect.

  Stone gasped.

  “Wrynn?”

  The Shaman didn’t look up, addressing instead the elements.

  “My Lords and Ladies, please forgive my intrusion.”

  The Avatars didn’t seem the least put out, nor angry, not like they had at Stone’s entrance into their underground realm and, as they spoke to him, he wondered at the familiarity he heard.

  Wrynn, crackled Fire, it has been a while. What is the meaning of this visit?

  The Shaman looked up now at the gathered elements, casting a brief glance over at Stone, before replying.

  “The balance of power shifts in the world of men; the Barbarians of the Steppes move against the Plains-People, threatening to wipe us out. We need Stone, for we have no time to mobilize an army of our own and he is our only chance of survival.”

  He is not ready. We have not yet given him our blessing. We have not yet made our judgement.

  “Then I implore you do so fast, for time is of the essence.”

  There was an urgency in his eyes and voice that Stone had not seen before and it worried him, tearing his mind away from the matters of before.

  There was silence as the elements conversed in ways beyond that of mortal men, before Water spoke.

  We agree to give our blessing, but in return for this concession there is a forfeit to be paid. Only Stone may return to the surface world. You, Shaman Wrynn, must remain here with us until we see fit.

  Stone’s eyes widened at this, memories of Yalen’s words leaping to mind unbidden.

  “No! You cannot do that! The Plains-People need Wrynn!”

  The old Shaman turned to him, his face resigned, acceptance of his fate clear to see, yet also a paternal love and pride for his pupil.

  “No, Stone, they need you. Go, do what you can for them. I will see you again one day.”

  Then it is decided.

  “No, wait!”

  Stone’s head was spinning. He was just on the cusp of revelation about himself, now all this; his friends, Lanah, all in grave danger. Wrynn, gone, for god knows how long. It was all too much.

  “Go,” spoke Wrynn, gently. “And remember, no matter how hard life gets, your roots are what you make them.”

  Stone opened his mouth to reply, his eyes glistening, but he was consumed in a flash of blinding white light, the metallic taste lingering in the air long after he had gone.

  Wrynn closed his eyes and bowed his head.

  “He won’t get there in time to make a difference, will he?”

  Water was at his shoulder as
the rest of the elements looked on.

  No. The time difference is insurmountable. The deed will already have been done.

  Wrynn nodded, things having moved far faster than he’d wanted but accepting of this all the same, before Fire enquired.

  Will he endure?

  “He will have no choice.”

  And will the world endure his vengeance once the Enemy has him?

  Wrynn looked thoughtful.

  “I believe so. No matter how deep his fury runs, he will never lose himself entirely, even if he forgets for a while. He will never forget this summer; it will lay a groundwork.” A single tear rolled down one cheek. “The sacrifice of our people will be a worthy one.”

  The Avatar of Air landed on his shoulders, stroking his greying hair, no laughter for once, issuing from their fey mouths.

  The Earth rumbled, the tones shattering the peace in an earthquake rumble.

  Have you made provision for the survival of spirit-craft?

  “I have.”

  Then we can do nothing more than wait.

  Chapter Ten:

  The family of rabbits huddled close together beneath the faint moons of early evening as they grazed on the grassy plain, ears scanning this way and that for predators. It wasn’t their hearing that warned them, however, but their innate connection to the earth, triggering some deep and primeval flee response in their primitive minds, causing them to scatter and race for their burrows despite not knowing the reason why.

  A moment later, a crack like the splitting of the heavens, before the plains whited out in a searing flash, bleaching the retinas of any poor beast unfortunate enough to be looking that way. A circle of dried grass, scorched and smouldering, in the centre, a mighty warrior rising up, breathing in, as though for the first time, the sweet, fresh plains air.

  Stone opened his eyes, the dizzying sensation of dislocation, his being in two places at once, slowly fading, before looking about. Something felt odd and it took him a few moments to work out; the world seemed bustling, vibrant, more alive, somehow.

  With a grin, it became clear; his connection to the elements had been restored, the blessings of the Avatars renewing his might. With a thought, as though flexing a muscle, he tested, feeling the surge of power rushing to the fore, the strength of the earth, the roar of the water, the speed of the air, the sucking destructive hunger of the fire all channelling through him with ease and he laughed at the thrilling one-ness with the elements.