The Circle of Duty

by Owen Elgie

  Before we reached the main door, it had swung open and Mark was stood looking casually terrifying in the doorway, his arms behind his back to display a relaxed demeanor but I could tell that he was anything but.

  “My Lord and Lady.” He bowed but without his usual coating of ceremonial pomp and circumstance. What was wrong?

  “If you would please follow me, I am afraid to say that the child has taken a turn for the worse. Mr. Christian is with her assisting the medics.”

  The gap between us had closed completely now and I could easily see the worry beaming from his eyes. They burned like beacons heralding the catastrophe next to his onyx skin. Mark was a man of few words, a giant pillar of resolute certainty in everything he was and did. If he was showing the level of concern that met my eyes, something very serious was happening.

  Em and I surged through corridor after corridor, passing by the maze of doorways and rooms as we headed for the suite Maria occupied. Mark followed behind wordlessly sharing the tension Em and I now wore. We hadn’t turned onto the corridor before the corridor we needed when we heard the first sign that Mark had been somewhat understated in his assessment of “taken a turn for the worse.”

  The sound which was piercing out in all directions threatening to physically damage any and all that dared get in its way. There was the most pure primal agony in that sound, showing the creator of it being both human and animal. And both were in violent pain. Even Em slowed her pace as she came into contact with the howling. Despite ourselves, despite the power and strength we both had at our disposal, neither of us wanted to get any closer to the sound. We both knew who was screaming and the reason behind the pain being felt but we were both reacting in a purely instinctual way. The most primitive sections of our brains were doing some screaming of their own, telling us not take another step for fear of befalling the same fate.

  Rounding onto the final corridor, we were both confronted by a rolling wave of invisible magical energy. It was surging up the corridor away from the room and Maria within, in rhythmic pulses. I felt the similarity to what had been in existence when we had first been introduced to Em and wondered how this was going to affect us as we closed on it. That said, Mark had said Mike was in the room with at least one other person who wasn’t as powerful as we were so they must be OK.

  We arrived outside the door and both stopped. There were no guards of any kind standing as sentry. There didn’t need to be. The screaming from the other side was moving in unending waves encompassing human and beast emotions. The owner of that sound was in the most horrific pain and it was down to us to be able to help her.

  Before we entered the room, I looked at Em and it was clear that she was feeling the effects of whatever was coming from the room.

  “You OK?” Aside from the instinctive need to make sure a colleague wasn’t in pain, the thought that Em was being undermined by something was quite unnerving.

  She creased her brow in concentration against the forces still booming from the room, and simply opened the door and walked in by way of answer. She wasn’t going to let the matter of her own discomfort get in the way of her being able to do what she was expected to. Mark remained outside.

  There was nothing in the world which could have prepared us for what was on the other side of that door.

  The horror. The abject suffering. The brutality which was being visited upon the tiny frame of Maria was so far beyond what any human should have been forced to endure.

  On the bed before us, four of Em’s guards held on for all they were worth to a limb, making sure that the child they restrained couldn’t spasm herself apart under the weight of those powers raging within her. Each guard remained fully encased within their suits of armour and by the look of the stances they were taking, each was having to really work against what Maria was doing.

  Two medics, one I recognized as Llewellyn, the other I’d never seen before, stood at the end of the bed, held their arms out above the child and chanted loudly. Their voices were twisted in effort as they did all they could to be able to help Maria. They were creating a deep blue haze over her, forming a spectral blanket of buzzing energy which hung over the bed and lightly touched her skin. Sparks of the sharpest green leapt into the air at random points, looking like a strangely compelling fireworks display as the powers being loosed in the room fought against each other.

  Behind the two doctors stood Mike, one hand on each of the medics heads. He too had enormous strain carved into his features as he added to whatever the others were doing. A halo of white light was beaming from the heads of the two medics as they worked, Mike’s augmenting power creating the coronal discharge.

  The waves of expelled power continued from Maria and tasted like electricity, like licking the points of a battery, but all over the body. Em and I could feel the power and it was making me feel sick, but by far the most awful piece of the image being played out before us was what was happening to Maria herself as she writhed on the bed.

  The small child was being dismantled from within, fighting to maintain her sense of self as the Dragon power within her fought to overwhelm her humanity. She was straining wildly against the arms holding her down and screamed out every last vestige of her pain from the magics being cast over her. But that was still a picture I could have tolerated if that had been all which had been befalling her.

  The clearest terror of what was taking place was the physical effects of the struggle. The Dragon she was supposed to become had been within her for weeks without there having been any way for it to have been released. She hadn’t gone through an Awakening like the rest of the Guardians, instead being forced to endure the power while a decision was made. She’d been forced by inaction to become the temporary vessel of the so called sacred gift while The Circle had discussed and debated the most appropriate next step.

  Thinking back to the time before my own Awakening, the pain and disorientation which had threatened to drag me deep under the ocean of insanity, it made it very clear that she was being dragged through the most completely hellish torture any human had ever been forced to endure.

  Her flesh was being distorted by the energy within her, the shape of the Dragon pushing against her skin, fighting for a way out. At so many points all over her body, were cuts of various sizes, some partially closed but others fully open, blood seeping out to soak into the now bare mattress beneath her. Stains of several kinds spread out all over the surface of the bed and it was agonizingly clear for everyone to see that there was no way this poor child was going to be able to survive this horror for much longer.

  Em and I stood motionless and just stared at what was before us. Mike looked up and nodded slightly to me by way of greeting, his face filled with the concentration needed to maintain whatever he was adding to the treatment of poor Maria.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to join you my lord and lady, my skills are required here to add to what we need to do to try and save the child.” He was speaking from between clenched teeth but seemed to be oblivious to the sour waves of energy thundering out from Maria’s body.

  “And by the look on you two, you need to be away from what’s happening here.” Mike could recognize that both of us were both physically and emotionally affected by the suffering on one so young.

  “Mark can fill you in but I’m afraid I’m needed here.”

  “Thank you. You all OK?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Not a good response but there really didn’t seem to be a great more that needed to be said. My stomach was feeling more and more twisted as Em and I suffered through each of the power pulses from Maria so I knew I had to be out of the room. Mike returned his focus to the medical procedure he had been working on and I turned to leave. Em, though remained rooted to the spot, either unwilling or unable to break her eyes from the bed.

  “Em. You coming?” Simple sentences seemed all I could muster. She didn’t move.

  “Em! Come on.” More forceful this time but that was all I could
drag together. I needed to leave this room. Em turned to face me and her face was almost as shocking as the tableau of pain on the bed. Her powerful demeanor was gone and had been replaced by the most unnerving expression of all.

  She was crying.

  That made me feel even worse.

  Her resolute features had been criss-crossed with tiny waterways as the tears had wound their way down. There was no attempt made to conceal her sadness or to pass it off as anything other than the outpouring of awful emotion. She was at the mercy of whatever she was feeling and it was as clear as day that she wasn’t familiar with any of the sensations she was experiencing and was without escape as the tumult continued.

  Placing a hand on her arm, she stared up at me, eyes pleading for something she just didn’t know how to name.

  “Come on Em. We’ve seen enough here. Let’s plan how we save her.” I tried to be as consoling as I could, showing her that I understood and that I was going to make it all alright. She nodded back gently and headed to the door, her shoulders hunched and her arms crossed across her body. For whatever reason, Em had been reduced to tears and was now far from the warrior I’d first met.

  Closing the door behind us, I moved us both quickly away from Maria’s suite towards a study which was close enough to what was happening but far enough away that the power of whatever was going on inside Maria wouldn’t wear us away. Mark followed behind without a word. He had dropped casually into step behind us as we made our way but he had immediately taken on the air of a soldier on high alert as we emerged from the room. He was prepared to do violence in any and all directions because Em was crying and I looked so washed out.

  Arriving at the room I wanted, I could feel that the power coming from Maria was still too strong for us to withstand. We had to be further away still and quickly.

  “Mark, can you carry Em please?” I had been feeling the sobs getting stronger as we’d walked but now they were starting to have a ruinous effect on our Messenger. I’d have done the carrying myself but I could feel my own body wobbling under the psychic attack. Wordlessly, Mark swept Em from her feet and cradled her gently as he waited on word from me. I couldn’t risk a bridge jump, even a small one, feeling like this. We needed a sanctuary.

  “We’re going up to my room.”

  Climbing the stairs slowly I could feel the effects of the power waning with each step. Closing on the room, I was starting to feel a little better but still far from good. Eventually, we arrived.

  Mark opened the ornate, heavy double doors and I guided Em inside. I thanked him with a glance and he nodded in response as he closed the doors behind us. I knew without fear of contradiction that he was taking up a guarding position outside the door, just in case we needed anything. He’d rightly assumed that if we had both been affected in such a way, something serious was afoot so he was going to defend us with his life if needed. That was more than just duty, surely?

  Em was curled in a ball, laying in the centre of my bed. She had stopped crying on the way up the stairs but it was still clear for all to see that she was going through something unpleasant. The decoration of the study I’d originally aimed for was the familiar heavy dark wood and plush fabrics which had been in every other room I’d walked in in the mansion. All of the furniture was perfectly sculpted and positioned to somehow make sure that the maximum effect of stately wealth was reinforced without there being any confusion. My room was much less intimidating in its décor, having more muted colours and welcoming ‘feel’.

  Moving slowly across the room, approaching in as sympathetic a fashion as I could manage, I edged towards Em trying not to seem in any way confrontational. She remained on her side on the bed, hugging her knees up to her chest and doing her best to hide behind them, her own protective shield against the world. Her head was resting on her knees, her eyes hidden.

  Kneeling down at the edge of the bed, I spoke as soothingly as I could muster.

  “Are you OK Em? We’re away from Maria now. I’m feeling a little better now we’re away from her. How are you feeling?”

  Em lifted her head and her eyes were a picture of emotional hardship.

  “That poor child. What have we done to her?” The pleading in her voice whimpered for attention, begging for someone, anyone, to take the pain away. Tears were flowing freely down her face again and her face was puffy with the outlet of emotion.

  “She’s a tough nut. We need to get that power out of her and into the new Guardian before she loses her mind or spasms her body apart. We’ve just got to find the Drake Stone and use it as soon as possible.” I was trying to remain as factually solid as I could in what I said while being as positive towards the entire situation as I could, despite not truly feeling that way myself.

  Em sniffed and juddered against the sadness which was washing over her. Her posture remained the same, clutching to her legs, making herself into as small a ball as possible. I just had no idea why she was crumbling like this. She had been utterly single minded in everything she did when we’d first met but she’d been getting more and more, not unstable, just, more tender. She was feeling.

  Again, looking at her shivering form, listening to the sobs which were filling the quiet, still air of my room, all I could see was a person who needed help. She was dealing with something which she had no prior experience of and she was being beaten down by the sensations she was feeling. She had seen countless battles and from what I’d seen, was more than capable of handling herself in the depths of the most awful fighting but it was clear that her current predicament was new to her and was proving too much.

  The anger at what was happening to Maria and what was, potentially by extension, happening to Em was bubbling inside me and I knew that I had to do something. Andrea had been feeling the same uncertainty before all of this and there had been very little I could do to help her. People around me were being hurt. I needed to crush something, to incinerate an enemy, to blast The Drake Stone free of whatever place it was secured and save the people around me from all the horrors they were seeing.

  I could feel my clothes becoming tighter as my body began to spill over into the early stages of transformation. It was purely a reflex to my feelings but I knew I needed to act.

  Em must have been able to sense what I was feeling.

  She lifted her head sharply from its resting place on her knees and pushed herself into a sitting position and looked into my eyes.

  “You’re going to save Maria aren’t you? You’re going to re-claim The Drake Stone.” She tilted her head in that familiar curious dog fashion and her pain was gone.

  “You’re going to take the pain away and save us all.”

  Her voice was suddenly resolute. There was no tremble there, instead it had been replaced with a sliver of steel. She sniffed again but for the final time. Then lunged forward, flinging her arms out and hugged me with enormous force, pressing her body to mine tightly.

  I didn’t move and for a second I swear I must have looked like I was a statue, stuck rigid in one position which didn’t fit the hug, my arms outstretched as balance following her forward momentum. All I could do was wrap my arms around her and console her, again doing my best to be reassuring.

  There was no hint of anything more than just reassurance from either of us. Em was hugging me in much the same way a child might hug their parent who’d made the monster under the bed go away, and I was no more than just the parent in the equation, protecting someone who needed my help.

  For me, there was no purer demonstration of what a Guardian was.

  The problem was that it was at that exact moment that the heavy doors opened behind us and The Elder and Andrea strode purposefully into the room, followed closely by Mark.

  Judging by the expression on the two Guardians faces, I hadn’t managed to convey the same sentiment as I had been feeling.

  26

  “UNHAND HER YOU ANIMAL.”

  The Elders voice screamed throughout every last space within the room and I swe
ar it made a few more. Its piercing edges practically sliced into me and I couldn’t help myself but recoil from Em, almost dragging her from the bed as I did.

  I burst backwards and stood up with my arms spread, showing in one move that I had released the hug but was also not holding any weapons.

  The Elder seethed but Andrea was worse. Her white hair was rigidly frozen into place and there was a cracking sheen of ice all over her body but her face was the clearest sign of her anger. There was unbridled fury smashing behind her eyes which were fully the grey colour of her Dragon form, her own transformation leaking out around the edges. And all of that fury was squarely aimed at me.

  “Ladies, The Messenger is feeling the effects of what’s happening to Maria. I tried to comfort her with a hug. That’s all.” My arms remained outstretched in an exaggerated show of submission but there seemed to be little sign that it was having any effect on either The Elder or Andrea.

  Em slowly eased herself to her feet and stood next to me, possibly a little too close.

  “Guardians.” Her tone wasn’t back purely to the usual resolute explosion which simply demanded obedience regardless of what was said but there was still a very clear sound of power in what she said.

  “Anthony has been comforting me. Surely you can feel the effects coming from Maria. I have been affected somehow and he has shown me care and attention.”

  The Elder was far from happy but she was being spoken to by The Messenger of The Circle, a position she had held in such high regard for so many lifetimes that she couldn’t do anything but bow. Andrea was far from convinced though.

  Her hands were clenched tightly and even though the ice covering her body was receding, her eyes remained those of her Dragon and the barest hint of a snarl played at the edge of her mouth. She was calming down but not by much.