These lights gradually shone brighter and brighter, until the surface of Uërth blazed in a lambent lattice of overlapping radiance.
My eyes were wide as the vision unfolded, and I waited to see how it ended.
“This is what will be, Maeraeth: the world enveloped in a protective skein of Light.”
Rapt, unable to nod or acknowledge my teacher’s words, I watched as his vision grew to protect the world from the continued onslaught of Chaos.
Freedom
I had spent the entirety of my youth locked under a dome, dreaming of the day when I would be free to go outside, no longer constrained by the layers of complex ensorcellment that gave me my life, that shielded my valley from the throngs of Chaos.
Now that I was out, I wanted nothing more than to be back in, safe and secure.
I was scared.
I was bereft.
And I was being stalked by demons.
On the bright side, I did have a pet rock that just so happened to be a powerful, demon-smiting vortex of elemental destruction.
So, while I might not be able to deter or deflect attacks from ravenous, soul-devouring infernals, Lucius packed quite the demon-snuffing punch.
Quite a few, in fact.
Even without fists.
I stalked behind Lucius over the harsh, mountainous terrain of the Dragon’s Teeth, my feet sore and my stomach growling.
Unlike me, Lucius did not need to stop for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, so I had to remind him when it was time to eat.
Neither did he need to break for rest, so I also had to remind him of my human frailties by stopping.
Frequently.
He did not seem to mind, however.
If anything, he seemed to relish our pauses.
Now was just such a time as I waved him to stop.
“I need to sit for a minute, Lucius. My throat is parched, my stomach is empty, and my feet are throbbing.”
Although I was no longer in elemental form, I found the spell beginning to unravel within a few hours of its casting, and while I could not remain under its shield all day, the transformation’s effects did seem to linger.
I could still feel the faintest vestiges of the magical energies bathing us even when not pretending to be Lucius’s awkward little brother. So, too, could I understand, almost intuitively, what Lucius was trying to tell me.
At least most of the time.
I had called for us to stop beneath the shade of a large, scabrous rock, one Lucius insisted was a long-lost cousin several metamorphoses removed. I watched him floating in the rock’s shade, felt him drawing in the sense of the place, its elements and energies, while I recovered.
While I rested to regain strength, shrinking inward with my fatigue, he communed, opening himself to a wider world.
There was much I could learn from him, and much to be admired.
Not all rocks, after all, were created equal.
“How much farther until Kerraboer, Lucius?
“Can your friend tell us?”
My gaze shifted between Lucius and the large boulder expectantly.
When no answer was forthcoming, I asked, “Can he tell us of the land ahead? What dangers there are to expect?”
For all the response my queries elicited, I might as well have been talking to rocks.
Studies
I sat beside the stacked stone wall surrounding my village, leaning against the cool, rounded rock. To my right and left, the wall curved away in the crisp morning sun, mottled lichen speckling its surface in hues of rust and gray. Moss and small plants sprouted exuberantly from between the cracks. When the wind blew, an opportunistic flower tickled my left ear.
When I tilted my head and looked along its length, the wall appeared to be a rock garden in full bloom.
In my lap, The Big Book of Spells and The Little Book of Knowledge lay open. The Big Book of Spells could fit easily inside my open hand and rested on the open pages of The Little Book of Knowledge. The Little Book of Knowledge filled most of my lap. The two aged, leather-bound tomes formed the core of my studies. Frequent meetings with Master Nomba tested me on what I had learned in both theory and practice from them each day, often with additional exercises and suggestions on topics to explore, based on the results of my practicums.
Between them, the two books had access to almost all knowledge ever created or uncovered by humankind on Uërth. The caveat was that most of this lore remained inaccessible until the reader was capable of understanding it. As a result, the books were often used as teaching tools both to further students’ educational progression and gauge their development.
They also helped preserve knowledge when it would otherwise be lost.
Such as when the majority of the human populace was wiped out by marauding demonic hordes spewing forth from the darkest bowels of the Abyss after the fall of Heaven.
I had been struggling with Aeruyn’s Theory of Metamagic Convergence for so long, I might as well have been staring at a blank page.
My mind was that empty.
Or at least that was how it felt when I tried to gather my thoughts.
Although I understood the concepts, both broadly and specifically, primarily that higher magics converged upon certain key principles and techniques, the mathematics were eluding me.
As I read, equations flashed through my mind, projected from The Big Book of Spells while the book tickled my neurons attempting to facilitate my understanding by adjusting and sparking my neural network to no avail.
Under The Big Book of Spells, The Little Book of Knowledge displayed flashing imagery and text offering practical examples of Aeruyn’s principles, projections of Aeruyn’s lectures and scholarly articles, studies of her life and times, and many other fascinating topics, but the book would progress no further until I had grasped the practical understanding necessary to move onward, at least on this topic.
My brain was stubborn in its desire to remain unaltered and uneducated. And, as an unjust consequence, fundamental axioms of higher magic frustrated me.
Which forced me to stare at the books even longer.
I knew what Master Nomba would say. “Sleep on it, lad. Your mind will work it out.”
Sadly, I had been sleeping on it for weeks, but my mind was taking a vacation.
At this rate, it might be on sabbatical.
Permanently.
On the March
When I finally felt well enough to continue, Lucius needed but a few more minutes to complete his conversation with his distant metamorphic cousin.
As I loped up the mountainside behind him, I learned that Raoul the Rock was a prince of his kind and had decided upon this particular perch millennia ago because he especially loved the view.
Although I appreciated the sentiment, the xeric, blasted rock of the mountain’s flank held little to draw my interest other than potential crevices in which demons could lie in wait for unsuspecting prey.
“How does he manage to survive all by himself with demons constantly scouring the landscape?”
“Who says he is alone?” countered Lucius simply.
As I scanned the tumbled slopes behind me, I realized Lucius did have a point.
There were many rocks, boulders, and pebbles that could be elementals taking similar advantage of the valley’s particular charms.
I had been so absorbed in my own suffering, I had paid little attention to my surroundings.
A mistake that could get me, unlike Lucius, killed.
“If an el’amin wishes to remain unnoticed, even a juel’dara will not find him. An el’amin has but to retreat into himself, and he will be indistinguishable from native, sleeping stone.”
There was that as well.
In the future, if needed, I could always play rock.
Opossums would be dead with envy.
The grade became much steeper as we—or I— struggled up toward the summit. Lucius just floated, the ease of his upward drift mocking my cumbersome attempts to haul myself upward over the ro
ugh stone.
When I could go no farther, my butterflies mocking my every motion with their effortless flight, my arms and legs shaking with the effort of clinging to the almost sheer slope, I finally invoked my elemental translation spell. Then Lucius, my butterflies, and I crested the mountain with ease, one cloud floating among many others.
Taking a moment to survey the next line of jagged peaks before us, along with the one after that, which soared even higher heavenward, the gnarled summits covered in perpetual ice, I asked Lucius, “What exactly did Raoul have to say?”
Lucius had been even more quiet than normal after speaking with his elemental kindred.
There was no hiding that the matrix of energetic flows revolving around Lucius, his dyunda, were more turbulent, more agitated, than normal.
At least based on my limited experience.
Lucius took a long time before he finally answered.
“The war with the juel’dara has come to our home.”
His focus was to the north and west.
Why, I did not know.
“Hasn’t it always been so?” I asked. Though I was sad for my friend and troubled by his words, as far as I knew, this had been the case for time immemorial.
“The el’amin have always been at war with the juel’dara. This is true on Uërth and wherever life holds.
“With the fall of the Chaos Gate, the juel’dara have fled the Front at Kerraboer. Many are massing at Noema’jin, earth’s gateway, the entry to our realm on Uërth, drawn by the lure of power, wanton destruction, and lust for revenge.”
“And you intend to stop them?
“Or at least try?”
My question did not warrant an answer, for there could only be one.
I saw then what must be done.
As had Lucius.
I did not hesitate.
“Would you like my help?”
Even if my help was more of a hindrance, I would give what I could to my friend.
Lucius dipped most cordially in answer. “Such would be the offer of a true hun’zar, Maeraeth.”
I smiled. “What are hun’zars for, if not for our friends?”
A slight bob was all the acknowledgement I received, but I could sense in Lucius’s dyunda a focused realignment and deep appreciation.
Or at least I thought I did.
“Noema’jin is far from here, to the north and west, but following its currents will not take us too far from Kerraboer.”
That, at least, was something of a positive.
“Tell me of Noema’jin, Lucius. What exactly is it?”
Since he had neither front nor back, bottom nor top, sometimes it was hard for me to decide what, if anything, I should focus on when speaking to Lucius, just as it was sometimes difficult for me to determine where his focus was directed. This time, however, it was clear. His attention was inward, and his aim was drawing me in as well.
“Noema’jin is a way into the heart of the world, a place where el’amin are born, a place where el’amin thrive, and a place where el’amin gather should the need arise.
“Noema’jin is a sacred place, a place full of our history, our knowledge, and our way of life.
“We are Noema’jin, giving life, vitality, and energy to the world, basking in her inner fires, her shifts, and transmutations.
“Noema’jin helped birth many of us, and we seek to carry her gifts into the world that others may live.
“The juel’dara would destroy our home and us with it, so that we, too, would become but lifeless dust.”
Lucius paused for many long seconds.
I let him have his space of mind, not pushing forth or interrupting with any questions to disturb him in his reflection.
“Dust, however, is far too worthy a destiny for the juel’dara.”
Note to self: do not get on Lucius’s bad side.
Self’s note: noted.
The thought of charging into Noema’jin ready to fight off any and all demonic usurpers might fill Lucius with purpose; it might fan the flames of his inner elemental, burning off any fear and doubt, building his rage into an all-consuming conflagration.
For me, the effect was rather the opposite.
I wanted to be safe and secure behind walls, much like the magical barricades I had observed Master Nomba tending in our valley, the ones I had studied at his side, not outside them, face-to-face with extradimensional horrors intent on consuming my fragile, fear-filled soul.
The thought of entering Noema’jin, surrounded by hostile demonic throngs, made my knees weaken, my bowels loosen, and my teeth chatter.
Thankfully, in my elemental form, none of these physical side effects were real, but my imagination did not seem to know the difference.
Despite my fears and failings, I would, however, do my best to help my friend.
He had saved my life, protecting me from demons.
The least I could do would be to try to help him protect his home.
Was not that my mission in the first place?
To help protect those who had survived demonic assault?
I only hoped I would not make things worse.
After all, there were things scarier than demons.
And sometimes I was one of them.
Dust and Debris
An explosion rocked the mountainside.
Massive rocks hurtled through the air, arcing gracefully along parabolic trajectories with little regard for the gravitational forces that had willfully constrained their flight for billions of years.
A bloated plume of roiling dust blossomed up and outward, consuming the slopes in an undulating, mottled gray cloud.
Within moments, the rock and debris engulfed us in a swirling wall of chaos.
I could not see land.
I could not see sky.
I could not see the mountain behind us, the top of which had been vaporized in the attack.
The mountaintop we had been on just moments before.
I could, however, still see Lucius.
Though the smooth surfaces of his tumbled faces were lost within the blowing grit and dirt, the swirling matrices of his inner radiance were still apparent.
Thankfully, mine were too.
If I had not translated into elemental form, I would have more holes than the top of the mountain just a short distance above us.
“Flee, Maeraeth!
“Fly to the bottom of the valley and hide!
“Emulate the rocks and play dead!”
Still in shock, overwhelmed, and surprised, I hesitated.
Lucius’s words were eerily like Master Nomba’s last.
I could stay.
I could help.
“Move!”
I could leave.
I could run.
Fly.
I could fly.
Quickly.
Far and away.
Ghastly reddish lights began whipping through the plume, hellish wisps scouring the destruction—for what, I did not know.
But I did know.
Me.
The demons were hunting me.
I darted downward, blind and heedless, cracking against boulders, bouncing down the slope, and otherwise doing my best impersonation of one of the other countless rocks blasted from the summit above us.
In my blindness and haste to put distance between myself and the unholy lights, it took me some moments to realize that my fluttering entourage was nowhere to be seen.
They must have stayed back with Lucius.
Along with what little was left of my bravery.
Rattling and rolling, with gravity as my guide, I finally found the valley bottom and lay still.
In the thinning gray air, I could not see the peak from which I had fled, but I could see horrific lights burning along the mountainside.
Then I fled into myself and knew no more.
Earth Storms and Thunder Quakes
The reverberating crack of thunder and the roiling vibrations of earthquakes gradually r
oused me from my inner meditation on rockitude.
Above me, the mountain had come alive.
Surging, gnashing, roiling, and crashing rocks, pebbles, and boulders heaved and thrashed, churning up the mountainside into a living plumous cloud of raging dust.
Within the enlivened gray mass, sickening flashes of baleful scarlet lights darted and thrashed, burning into my vision as well as my soul.
Caught within the gnashing teeth of a mountain roused and going to war, the demonic entities did not stand a chance.
Though fevered and furious, the vile lights gradually dimmed and grew still.
My heart, or at least my mind’s recreation of it, did not follow suit as I waited anxiously for the battle’s aftermath to reveal itself.
Bedraggled, tattered, covered in dust and riddled with holes, my splash of butterflies emerged triumphantly from the settling particulates, their erratic flight leading Lucius down the slope toward me, and they eventually perched densely and protectively upon my rocky surface, frail wings fanning in the now still air.
“What was that?” I breathed.
Lucius shrugged.
Or seemed to.
“The duer’dun, the souls of the damned, picked the wrong mountain from which to lay their ambush.
“For that, they have my thanks.”
“Raoul and his kindred will now have a new view to appreciate.
“And stories to make it come alive.”
He eyed me seriously. “Without their help, you might no longer be with us.
“Your butterflies, your djen’gar, however, will protect you so long as your soul abides.”
“Djen’gar? Soul guard?”
This was a term I had never encountered.
Djen’toth, the legendary soul stealers of humanity’s distant past, were a topic I knew well from numerous lessons and projects with Master Nomba.
But djen’gar were something else entirely.
“Though your body may be weak, your spirit is strong.
Lucius moved side-to-side, indicating the glimmering butterflies. “This is your spirit’s outward expression. It will protect you in ways nothing else can.”
Legacy of the Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 24