~
‘This is my mother’s,’ Isaac said, pulling loose a black cotton outfit from the pack. ‘She was here. Why with you people? Why was she not looking for me?’
‘She has been—’ the magus tried to say.
‘You say she ran toward the signal?’ the young man asked, looking back. ‘But I was being followed.’
‘By whom?’
‘He means to kill us both! My mother…’ He began to strip, pulling off a filthy white shirt and torn black pantaloons. He yanked on Sarai’s spare outfit, tearing out the voice-temper from the mask.
‘That won’t help you,’ Gabel said hoarsely.
‘What do you know?’ he snapped, throwing away a second facebelt and ripping off the rest of mask. He looked so much like Sarai, with his dark skin and matted black hair. All he was missing were the all-green errant eyes.
‘Where are you going?’
‘My mother’s in danger,’ he said, and vanished into the trees.
~
‘I understand that things have changed,’ Johnmal said, stepping close. ‘None of it matters.’
‘I want to see my son,’ said Sarai.
‘Will you not hold me first?’ He came closer still. ‘I want only you.’
She backed away and brandished her kukri. ‘That’s enough, Johnmal.’
‘You’d fight me?’ he asked. ‘But I love you. I love both of you. I want us all to be together, as a family.’
He lunged, and the object in his hand was revealed to be a short sword. It flashed through the cold air, as the forest was suddenly freezing now, no longer heated by the burning sun but cooled by the indifferent moon, and dampened by the still air. Sarai shivered as she leapt backward, Johnmal’s attack falling short.
‘Where are your senses, Johnmal?’ she cried. ‘If you’ve harmed Isaac, you’d better fall on that blade yourself, before I take it and do it for you!’
‘Such words!’ cried the man, swiping a second time, a third. ‘You’re threatening the father of your only son, and accuse him of monstrosities…’
‘You’ve become a monster,’ she replied, swiftly moving behind and knocking his legs from under him. He landed awkwardly but managed to avoid her second attack. ‘You said no matter what you’d do, no matter how long you’d stay there with him, you wouldn’t forget, you’d never forget who your son was!’
Johnmal’s roll turned into a leap and he was on his feet, swinging with his sword but missing every time, but his failures did not hinder him. He turned each unsuccessful sweep into another.
Isaac stumbled into the clearing then, first seeing the great obelisk rising up before him, and then catching sight of the two silver objects sending sparks off each other at its base. He recognised his mother and father, and their blades.
He didn’t call out for fear of distracting Sarai, but she saw him anyway – this reflection, standing by the trees – and she called out; it was all Johnmal needed.
The short sword was long enough to run her through to the hilt and still leave three inches to cut into the tower of stone behind her. She froze, nailed to the rock as Johnmal tore off her face mask.
‘You’re still beautiful, Sarai,’ he whispered, and now she could see his contorted face in the moonlight, an ambivalent grimace. She didn’t have the strength to spit in his face.
‘Father!’ Isaac screamed, and like lightning he was across the clearing and by his mother’s side. He didn’t possess Sarai’s errant genes, nor his father’s indoctrinated zeal for bloodshed, but he had Sarai’s training and his own strength and will. It showed when he pulled the sword from his mother’s chest and flung it to the ground, gently putting her to rest in the ferns.
‘You!’ Johnmal snarled, curling his lip. ‘What do you have? Your blood is plain and useless; you should lie beside her and save me a job.’
‘Have you forgotten again?’ Isaac hissed. ‘Have you let your mind be sullied again?’
‘You’re my son,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am, yet you would kill me?’
‘I would,’ Johnmal replied, taking up the short sword, ‘because those are my orders, and because there’s nothing but cold air between us to stop me!’
The sword gleamed silver as it swung in a downward arc—
—And Isaac caught a face full of hot sparks; Caeles’ wakizashi vibrated in his grip, struck firmly by Johnmal’s blade, but he kept his grip and persevered, pushing with all his strength and knocking his father to the ground. Johnmal skidded in the mud, but got up immediately.
Isaac steadied his stance, putting one foot back and twisting it, digging his heel into the ground, just as Sarai had taught him. He could hear her shallow breathing behind him, quick and thin. He tried to keep his eyes wide, to concentrate only on what was happening: the way Johnmal moved, how the muscles in his legs bunched as he prepared to run, how the bulk of his shoulder twisted as he tightened his grip on the hilt of his weapon, and how he leaned forward slightly when he kicked off, and charged.
The metal blades struck against each other three times, and at the fourth Isaac moved not to defend, but to attack. The sharp edge sliced across Johnmal’s stomach and opened it. Johnmal’s hand lowered and he caught his insides, blood squirting through his fingers.
‘You little brat,’ he groaned. ‘What do you hope to achieve here?’
‘Vengeance for my mother.’
‘She’s not even dead yet. See for yourself.’
‘I will not.’
‘Not as stupid as you look!’ he cried, screaming the last word as he lunged and swung, but missed. Isaac dove around to the left, kicked Johnmal in the back of the leg. He dropped to his knee. He tried to stand but Isaac kicked him again, and blocked a weak strike with his blade.
Isaac’s father looked up at him. ‘I remember when you were conceived,’ he said quietly. The air was bristling with an impending shower, thunder rolling. The ground was still soggy from the latest rainfall, and mud swilled up around Johnmal’s legs. ‘It was far away from here. In Sarai’s own country. It’s always hot there, always bright. The people … they just lie around all day and smoke – smoke! – and do nothing. They fish for a living!’
‘Don’t try to distract me, father.’
‘You still call me that?’
‘I can’t change it, much as I’d like. I’m stuck with you. The man who killed my mother: my father!’
Johnmal’s breathing was ragged. Blood leaked out from behind his hand, soaking his clothes. It mingled darkly with the mud.
‘You’re not stuck with me. You have a blade in your hand. Only a single pull there, or just a quick plunge through my heart, is needed. You could hack off my head, even.’
‘I’d rather wait for your innards to fall out.’
‘That wouldn’t take long. It would … hurt me much more, though, my son.’
‘Don’t try to plead. Nothing will change by reminding me whose blood flows within me. It won’t work!’ Isaac yelled. ‘It will never work. But you don’t need to remind me; I know, father, I will always know and remember. But I will also remember that it was I that killed you. Are you listening?’
Johnmal was mumbling. His face almost touched the ground, and he clutched his stomach weakly. ‘One last time,’ he was muttering, ‘one last time, and I might not be able to turn back…’
‘Are you listening?’ Isaac screamed, lifting high the blade and preparing to swing.
Johnmal leaned back suddenly, cried out, and disappeared. Clothes fluttered like a fountain as they were thrown off and settled in the mud.
‘No!’ Isaac yelled, swinging the sword wildly, hitting nothing. ‘Come back here! Where are you? Let me see you!’
Laughter tinkled at him, dancing in circles Isaac couldn’t follow.
‘My son!’ echoed Johnmal’s voice. ‘You should have struck when you had the chance!’
Isaac lashed with the sword, the blade hissing in the darkness, but it struck only air. He stumbled left an
d right, trying desperately to find footprints but seeing none, hoping to see a branch move or a stone tumble, but his hopes were unanswered. He couldn’t hear Johnmal’s movements for the thunder.
‘Rain,’ he pleaded quietly. ‘Rain!’
‘Where’s the bad weather when you want it?’ laughed the voice. ‘Oh, Isaac, you’re so hideously pathetic, I can’t bear to be seen with you anymore.’ His voice was orbiting Isaac, around and around so that he couldn’t follow it.
Isaac was thumped roughly from behind, and heard laughter again. He spun, saw nothing.
Isaac was hit again, a hard punch to the face. He staggered. He pleaded for a storm, but got only thunder. Again he was attacked by the invisible assailant, knocked to his knees. A fist hit him in the face, and he felt searing pain. He was left on the ground, feeling his face swell. His vision narrowed. The rain wasn’t going to fall. He scanned the area and his eyes settled on his mother, who wasn’t moving. She was only a dark, still shape under the trees.
From the corner of his eye he saw movement: Johnmal’s short-sword had been knocked from him and stuck point-down in the mud, but was now being moved. It floated upward and, as Isaac feigned ignorance, bobbed mid-air toward him. He looked down at the floor for a second—
There was a flash of blurred blade and silver, and Isaac slashed with the wakizashi; the floating sword fell, and in its place shot a bright spurt of blood. Red poured eerily outward from an invisible stump as Johnmal lost his sword, and the arm with which to lift it. Isaac heard a scream right beside his ear, and an unseen foot suddenly connected with his face. He fell.
The sword was once again lifted, carried presumably by Johnmal’s other arm, and Isaac felt himself pinned down by the chest. The sword swung viciously upward, and Johnmal’s voice growled from very close by:
‘You don’t deserve a father like me!’
There was a flash of light from near the treeline, and a screaming bullet tore across the clearing. Blood spouted from mid-air and spattered Isaac’s face, another cry hurting his ears. The sword fell. The cry was cut short by a second gunshot, and there was a thud. The weight lifted from Isaac’s chest.
He looked up, confused. Blood slowly stained the grass in front of him, gradually pooling as if coming out of the ground itself. His eyes looked to where the gunfire had come from, and there stood one of the strangers from the camp, tall and frowning, a fedora pulled low over his eyes. He lifted up a silver pistol.
‘Lucky for you,’ Gabel said.
It began to rain.
*
Thirty
UNCLEAN
The summer had arrived, and the rain that fell was hot and came in floods from the sky. It washed over the forest floor, taking with it organic rafts of red ants, forcing giant shrews up into the trees, and soaking the legs of the travellers.
Just two days earlier Isaac had buried his mother in a mud-swilled leafy clearing: the same spot her life had been taken, by the father of her own child.
‘I don’t regret killing him,’ he told the magus. ‘He deserved death.’
And that was all he said, until they were just two days from Hermeticia.
The magus seemed to be growing uneasy. Gabel spotted this as they camped, roasting preserved vegetables over the fire. The old man had always seemed meditative, contemplative. Usually he would sit with his eyes closed and his hands resting on his crossed knees, deeply breathing in the night air.
But now he seemed uncomfortable and anxious, as if some great anticipation had settled upon him and he couldn’t shake it. He stared blankly toward the direction they travelled, always looking upward as if he expected to see something in the stars or the formation of the clouds.
Rowan had fallen asleep. Isaac was sitting elsewhere. He had requested that he join the party on their mission to find and destroy his father’s employer, the same man who, ultimately, was also his mother’s killer. They agreed to let him come, but he refused to sit and eat with them. He said this was because he had yet to prove himself to them, though they denied that this was necessary. The true reason was that he had felt the unease that permeated the dwindling group, and didn’t wish to be a part of it.
Gabel had been watching the magus intently when the old man met his gaze suddenly, stood quickly and said, ‘Joseph, come with me.’
The hunter took to his feet, surprised, and turned to Isaac. ‘Watch her with your life,’ he said, regarding Rowan. The young man nodded.
~
Gabel put on his hat and followed the magus out of the fern clearing and into the dense, hot rainforest. The insects were for some reason silent that night, and the chatter of birds and monkeys could not be heard.
‘Old man,’ he said, ‘tell me what’s going to happen. Something is coming.’
‘It’s the universe,’ said the magus. ‘Joseph, when I came to you almost eight months ago and asked you to come with me, I tried to prepare you for what you would eventually face. Do you remember?’
‘You called me stubborn.’
‘You see, then, that you haven’t changed.’
‘You also said it was an age of monsters and demons.’
‘Exactly,’ said the magus. ‘That’s exactly what I said. We hunt a monster. You are the demon. I think you have realised this. You are a demon, but not a monster.’
‘How could I be such a thing? I understand that I have … transformed, but—’
‘The form you are in now is your transformed self, a shell,’ the magus said impatiently. ‘You must examine yourself and realise that you are a stranger here. Your anxiety—’
‘That’s not so much a problem now.’
‘…Your anxiety was your unconscious way of acknowledging the fundamental differences between yourself and others, although you never allowed yourself to remember your true origin. You were not born here. You fought your way here, from Hadentes, forging yourself a new body in place of your unwanted memories.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Gabel murmured. How could this be true? His mind shoved against the idea, but it felt forced, as if by habit.
‘You were born by the hand of Erebis to be its ferryman of souls. There is a being called Charos that still does this now, in your place. Imagine how furious Erebis must be now, to have its offspring abandon it so.’
‘You couldn’t possibly know all of this for fact,’ Gabel grunted. He felt himself becoming defensive, but he knew that there must have been at least some truth to what the magus was saying. How else could he have transformed in such a way?
‘I have been around for a long time, and I’ve been to a lot of places,’ the magus replied. ‘And I know others who have travelled even further. You are what I say you are. But you must remember that while you were born of its loins, you carry only a fraction of its black essence. What I mean to say, Joseph, is that you have its shape, but not its heart. That is black and withered, and old and decaying. Yours has yet to find itself.’
‘Are you saying my heart could still blacken?’
‘It is already doing so, Joseph, don’t you understand? You’re letting yourself be taken by the evil inherent to your blood. The evil it put in you. But you are more than that.’
‘What can I do?’
‘First of all, you can tear down that tree.’
The magus pointed with his finger to a large, vine-choked tree that reached far, far up into the canopy. Its branches reached out for metres. The trunk was twenty paces around.
‘This tree?’ Gabel asked. The magus nodded. ‘I can tear down such a thing?’
‘You can tear down things of all sizes and shapes, Joseph. Just try harder.’
The hunter stood by the great trunk. It was ancient and huge. He stretched his arms to their fullest span and wrapped them around it – and he could still see both sets of fingertips.
‘Not like that,’ the magus sighed.
Gabel looked at him angrily, then took his left hand and forcefully jammed his fingers through the bark like spears. He put his right hand a
good half a metre directly above it and did the same. Then, without groan or even clenched teeth, he lifted the great tree out of the ground, pulling back to take out all the roots, then dropped it on its side with a resounding crash. The ground shook. Leaves and other torn vegetation fluttered up into the air. Its echoes rang out again and again through the forest.
‘Well done,’ said the magus. His green eyes smiled at him. ‘Do you now understand what you can do? You’re not a monster.’
‘I feel like one.’
‘Don’t be infantile, Joseph. Just know you’re better than the one you now hunt, this man Tan Cleric.’
‘Why is he so dangerous?’ he asked, rubbing his fingertips. They were bleeding from behind the nails.
‘He would destroy everyone on the planet by activating his machine.’
‘The war relic. You called it the Hahnium.’
‘It would kill everyone. And Cleric means to use it.’
‘How could it destroy everyone? Surely there would be survivors – it’s only one machine…’
‘You can’t conceive,’ said the magus, shaking his head. ‘Initially it blows out radiated particles that would poison those in the vicinity. After a few minutes it would begin super-heating the atmosphere, boiling the air until the heat begins to self-perpetuate, like a star. After that, it’s only a matter of hours before all things begin to perish. In a day, there will be few living creatures left on this continent. Beyond that, there’s little anybody could do to—’
‘Wait,’ said Gabel. ‘I can hear something.’
Almost instantaneously a dark form descended upon them, leaping from the thick fern to land on the fallen trunk. It was a boy. He crouched there, shaking like a leaf and surrounded by a shower of disturbed rainwater. Short, wet hair moved from the boy’s pale face as he looked up, his eyes shining in the sparse light.
‘Joseph,’ he murmured. The stranger was a young man, perhaps of twenty years.
‘Yes. What is it to you?’
‘I know that you’re travelling toward Shianti. You wish to stop the madman that digs up the war relic,’ said the young man.
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