by Peri Akman
Ser Hero nodded.
“Why?” Quinn shouted in the quietest voice he could muster.
Ser Hero looked down at the hand holding their mouth shut, and then back at Quinn.
“You can speak! Just quietly!” Quinn hissed.
“I was fulfilling your orders to kill demons!” Ser Hero whispered, in the loudest voice Quinn had ever heard.
“I didn’t tell you to do that!” Quinn snapped.
“Yes you did, Haldon’s Hairy Hero! Every time you’ve summoned me for a month, you told me to kill monsters, or kill demons! I heroically extrapolated from the situation at hand!” Ser Hero smiled like they had just figured out the trick question on a science test.
“You can do that?” Quinn sputtered in confusion.
“Well, yes. So long as you continue to summon me, I will always use past information to better my cause! It’s what you human folk do, is it not?” Ser Hero asked, still in the booming whispering voice.
“It is but…” Quinn stared down at Ser Hero. “How did you even know about them?”
“A party of them were congregating around the lake. I chased them down, after much inner turmoil, and found an even larger group! Then another one! And before I knew it, I was at the castle, saving many damsels in distress and having everyone cheer my name!” Ser Hero grinned from ear to ear.
“You just told people who you were.” Quinn stated, his eyes trembling with fear.
“Oh, no, I was very clever! You would be very proud of me, Ser Quinnion, I used an alias!” Ser Hero replied, continuing to grin.
“Serho,” Quinn supplied, grimacing.
“What? No! Serhehro!” Ser Hero corrected.
Quinn had a sudden vivid mental image of punching Ser Hero across the face. So that was what an intrusive thought was.
“So you more or less have free will,” Quinn stated dully. He was rather annoyed. It seemed like the Ser Hero thing was just a fluke.
Ser Hero stared at Quinn blankly. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Do you or do you not do what you want to do?” Quinn rephrased.
“I do what Ser Hero does!” Ser Hero unhelpfully supplied.
“Which is threaten people for hiding under a table?” Quinn pressed.
Ser Hero gave a faltering smile. “Well, they were getting in the way of defending the temple and saving the day!”
“Well, stop that! Don’t be mean to people! Especially since I’m pretty sure we might have a weird… brain connection… or whatever. Something,” Quinn said, fumbling.
“What makes you say that, tiny hero?” Ser Hero asked.
“I had a dream that sort of matched up to what was going on in the temple,” Quinn admitted.
Ser Hero clapped their hand to their chest. “And you hid that information from me? I am scandalized!”
“I’ll tell you about my dreams when you care to mention you fought a demonic horde without me asking you!” Quinn narrowed his eyes.
“You never asked me about my demon-hunting stories before. Would you like to hear them now? I can start right away! I have killed several thousand demons, each with its own unique story!” Ser Hero beamed at this knowledge.
Quinn banished Ser Hero and walked away from his hiding spot.
Just a fluke. An annoying fluke. Unless it was all an elaborate ruse, Ser Hero was lying to him, and there was something else afoot. Ugh, paranoia was so annoying! Couldn’t he just be satisfied with the answers he got?
Quinn hurried back to the camp to see everyone waking up and preparing.
“Where did you go?” Asim asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Bathroom,” Quinn replied effortlessly.
Kole tossed Quinn his clothing. “They’re dry enough now.”
Quinn wriggled back into his shirt and pants and gave Kay back her jacket. They were still damp, even with the magical air drying that probably happened, but he felt a bit better now. Less ridiculous.
Now if only his mind could feel less ridiculous, all would be spectacular.
Asim motioned for Tsalir to follow him. “Tsalir and I will test to see if it works at all; everyone else, keep watch.”
Quinn made eye contact with Kole and frowned deeply. Kole raised an eyebrow, and the two walked to somewhere private.
“The voice keeps talking to me,” Quinn whispered as soon as he could.
“Voice? One voice?” Kole asked.
“Yeah. It’s the same voice every time. It’s gruff and gravelly and full of echoes. And… and that’s the voice that gave me this idea,” Quinn said rapidly.
Kole took a deep breath. “It will be fine, Quinn. I promise.”
“How? How can you possibly know that?” Quinn spat, his breath uneven. Now that he was talking about it, his anxiety was just flooding through. He should have just kept his mouth shut.
“Because I’m here,” Kole said, her voice strained. “If something goes wrong, you can rely on me to help you out.”
“What if this is all a demon influencing me, though?” Quinn asked as he swallowed his bile.
“Then demons have a new skill up their sleeves, and next time we’ll know better. If this is some elaborate trap, then we’ll get through it. The only way to go through life is forward,” Kole replied.
“Is that supposed to calm me down?”
“No. Panic all you need to. Get it all out of your system however you want. You won’t figure out the best way to handle your stress for a few years, so start experimenting now. If you don’t want to experience some emotions, I can give you the strategies that worked for me, but any advice I could give you is better suited to when we’re not in the middle of a very stressful camping trip,” Kole replied with a shrug.
Quinn took a deep breath. “Fine… I don’t feel better, just so you know.”
Kole made a sound as if she was about to reply, when they were interrupted by noise coming up from the lake.
Quinn hurried over to see Tsalir and Asim emerging from the lake, gusts of wind swirling around them in a finely controlled air bubble.
“Well?” Dale asked.
“It didn’t even see me!” Tsalir crowed.
“It’s true,” Asim said.
“You—!” Kay suddenly bursted out, pointing to Asim’s hand.
The skin was cracked and darkening. He had become infected. Asim lifted his hand up with a shrug. “It seemed advantageous at the time. And it was. We were able to interact with the orb as if it were malleable.”
He shook his hand, wincing at the pain.
Tsalir grinned cheekily. “Yeah, it was pretty cool. But when I tried to destroy it, I just began to fall in, so we bailed.”
“Good job, Quinn, your intuition was spot on,” Asim smiled pleasantly at Quinn as he said this.
Quinn felt his face flush. His “intuition” had been correct.
Maybe… maybe the voice was a summon? Like how Ser Hero knew things Quinn didn’t? That was… oddly comforting, and it would make sense, to some degree. He could deal with that. If it was true.
“All right, then how about this: Asim, you, Kay, and Cosime stay up here, Dale, Quinn, Tsalir, and I go attack the orb,” Kole suggested.
Asim frowned. “That… does not seem like a good idea.”
Kole stared him down. “Why not? Dale hits well, and you would be able to get anyone out of danger if they attacked. I can supply the air, and Quinn is more than capable of taking care of himself.”
“I’m already infected. Also, I’m the one with the most experience in direct combat. You, me and Tsalir, with the rest staying behind,” Asim countered. Quinn could see Kay’s face noticeably twitch in the background.
“Wow, I can’t believe it, but I’m almost agreeing with Kole. Cosime and I should go,” Dale cut in.
“Cosime is a kid and shouldn’t be anywhere near the area!” Kole snapped.
“Oh, but your apprentice is fair game?” Dale shot back.
“Quinn is nearly an adult, and works better if he’s with m
e!” Kole hissed.
“Then how about Cosime and I go down to the orb, and you two stay up?” Dale replied, her eyes narrowing.
“Cosime is, like, ten!” Kay shrieked. “Stop treating them like it’s the same!”
Everyone turned to look at Kay, rather shocked by the outburst.
“I just want this to be over with! I hate camping! You guys clearly hate each other too! So let’s stop this orb so we never have to see each other again!” Kay pleaded. “We’re so close, please not now!”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” Kole snapped. “She’s been planning to report me to the government ever since this started.”
“That’s not true, Kole,” Asim cut in.
“Oh it totally is,” Dale said, baring her teeth. “You reap what you sow and all that. You’re abusive, cruel, and Quinn deserves better than your clear manipulations.”
Instead of replying, Kole uncharacteristically deflated. Quinn felt his jaw drop open. Where did he fall into this? Why was he a point of interest? He had defended Kole to Dale, and now Dale was acting like he was the victim?
He almost missed the academy. There, no one noticed him and everything made sense. Now it seemed like everyone was whirling around in their own tornado of drama.
“I like Kole!” Quinn stepped in. “She doesn’t manipulate me. You never even talked to me about this, why are you acting like I’m on your side?”
“You just don’t see what she really is!” Dale shot back.
“I see her better than you do!” Quinn replied. “I like her! And she’s my teacher. And faults or not, you’re not that better! You’re going to turn her in for hating you? What kind of logic is that? How does that even work? Kay is… Kay is completely right. This isn’t the same.”
His heart was pounding. The words had tumbled out of his mouth, uncharacteristically charged. He didn’t know what to say next, or what was going to happen next.
Kay gave an awkward expression in Quinn’s direction. He didn’t know if it was happy, or just annoyed that he dragged her back into this.
“Let’s reach a compromise here,” Asim said, his voice ever calm. “Kole is harsh, but she means well. So, how about, Kole will stop acting the way she does, and in turn, you allow Cosime some degree of freedom, and perhaps don’t instigate.”
Dale wrinkled her brow. “Why would I do that? It’s all her fault.”
Asim took a deep breath. “Can you at least accept that maybe this is an issue that hurts Kole deeply, and has possible reason to why she acted the way she did?”
Dale gave an audible laugh. “Well, now that means that when I report her, I should do it for inability to interact with people without being a complete psycho. That’s the only reason something random like me having an apprentice would cause her to go off the deep end.”
“It’s not about having an apprentice, it’s about the constant unending control,” Asim said. “If we’re going to work together, some compromises should happen.”
“No. That’s why the brands are there. Why are you enabling her? Aren’t you from the military? Do you think that your position is so secure that you can defend anyone you want? What type of egomaniac celebrity move are you pulling here?” Dale replied, her eyes boring holes into Asim’s head.
How were you supposed to convince her of anything? Quinn was baffled. She was a bully. She was acting like a bully. She was an adult and she was acting like the eight year olds at the Academy. It didn’t even matter if Kole was overreacting, and by this point, it really didn’t feel like she was. What would be so wrong with letting Cosime some free time? The amount of mental acrobatics she was going through to justify it downright unnerved him.
“You guys are pretty blasé for a temple being under siege,” Tsalir chimed in. They still had that air of casualness to them, but it seemed a lot more forced.
Kole continued to not respond, and there was a prolonged silence as Asim tried to pivot.
“All right, Kole and Quinn are with me, Dale, you and Cosime stay with Kay,” Asim suggested. “Fair to all?”
Kay began to say something, but stopped.
Dale rolled her eyes, and sat down on the beach. “So good to know I’ve wasted all of this time here for no reason whatsoever.”
Cosime sat next to them, silent as ever.
“Hey, you helped save the temple,” Tsalir pointed out. “That’s not nothin’.”
Dale did not respond.
Asim turned to Quinn. “Are you fine with heading to the orb? You can also stay behind if you want.”
Quinn shook his head. Kole was right; he could handle this. He had Ser Hero on his side, which was a tad important.
Asim began to create an air bubble and Kole generated black discs of energy to stand on. The four of them shortly descended into the lake.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Before they reached the orb, Asim reached his hand out and instructed Quinn to touch the infected skin.
Quinn gingerly prodded it. Instantly, his fingertips became burnt and cracked. At first it was merely odd, and then suddenly a burning sensation overtook everything. Pain wracked his body, and Quinn fought the urge to violently spasm.
“OW!” Quinn screamed. Colors inverted, and he staggered back.
Kole grabbed him, albeit not particularly well, and instead a secondary disc caught him.
“Quinn, are you all right?” Kole asked, worried.
“You didn’t say it would sting that much, gods,” Quinn panted.
“It didn’t sting that much when I did it,” Asim admitted. “Sorry about that.”
“You know, if you can just exchange the infection that way, why is Tsalir even here?” Kole snapped, irritable for some reason.
Asim sighed. “We promised them that they would be with us the entire time.”
Tsalir grinned cheekily, flashing their incredibly white and sharp teeth.
“Lovely. You’re gonna die, kid,” Kole warned.
Tsalir rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Quinn here seems the most squeamish, currently.”
“I’m not squeamish, it just… wow, that really hurt!” Quinn whined, clutching his hand.
“Well, skin up, Kole,” Asim said stretching out his hand.
Kole wrinkled the bridge of her nose in disgust. “No.”
Asim rolled his eyes, and poked Kole in between hers. Kole winced and reeled back, but nowhere near to the extent that Quinn had reacted.
In the center of her face was a small black dot. Kole went cross-eyed in an attempt to stare at it.
Asim withdrew his blackened hand and went back to focusing on keeping the air bubble solid.
They continued their trek down to the center of the lake. This time there were no demons at the bottom. Whatever strategy they had had, it was apparently completely blown on the temple.
As they got within the area of the orb, Quinn held his breath, terrified that it would see through them and start attacking. It never did.
The orb shimmered and flickered underwater, but not once did it lash out. Quinn let out the air from his lungs. This was so needlessly stressful. It wasn’t helped by the pounding pain from his hand.
Kole gripped Quinn’s shoulder tightly. “I’m sorry for dragging you along.”
Quinn smiled and shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I like feeling useful.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Quinn began to reply, but was interrupted by Tsalir.
“All right, guys, let’s go on this convoluted adventure,” Tsalir said, sticking their hand into the orb.
Kole’s grip tightened.
Tsalir disappeared into the orb.
“How do we know they’re not dead?” Quinn asked, eyes wide.
“They stuck their whole head in to make a point before,” Asim grumbled. “It apparently looks like some giant cave in there.”
Asim motioned to Kole to keep the air orb going, stepped into the orb and disappeared.
Quinn hesitantly took a few ste
ps towards the orb. He turned back to Kole, who had not moved.
“You coming?” he asked.
“You have to go through first. I’m maintaining the air,” Kole replied.
Quinn nodded and stepped through the orb.
For a second, he couldn’t breathe.
The next second, he was in a cave.
Well, a cave really wasn’t the accurate way of describing it. There were steel poles along the sides, very similar to the main city of Shorne. The ceiling was nonexistent, with a black swirling void above instead.
Atop a pillar in the center of the area was an orb, much like the orb from the outside. The pillar was shrouded at the bottom with black cloth. A few demons lay on the ground, not bothering to move, or even react.
Behind him was the entrance. It was a glowing white crack in the stone wall.
“Woah,” Quinn said in awe. “This is… crazy.”
“I’ll say,” Asim agreed. “That orb in the center is the size these nests are supposed to be, by the way. This is… a bizarre level of trickery. Whoever writes the paper on this is going to get a lot of attention.”
Quinn spun around as he looked at his surroundings. Out of the corner of his eye, Kole appeared into the cave as well.
“So this is a first? No one else has done this?” Quinn asked.
“Sorta. There’s been theories about this, but we’ve never been able to just flat-out enter,” Asim explained. He motioned to the smaller orb. “Kole, mind destroying this?”
Kole didn’t respond.
Quinn summoned Ser Hero’s sword. “I can do it.”
The air was punctuated by Tsalir’s shrieks.
Everyone turned to them in confusion.
“That’s a person!” Tsalir shrieked, pointing to the mess of cloth they had had the misfortune to idly step on.
Asim practically leaped to the cloth, and dove his hands in, uncovering a solid mass from underneath.
Quinn raced forward, and dropped his sword in shock.
The person was starved, clearly. Her skin was sunken in, her eyes were distant, and her heartbeat was visible from her chest.
“Serethen,” Asim whispered.
No… It couldn’t be! Quinn took another step closer. Much to his surprise, Asim was right. She looked different than at the Academy. She didn’t have that glare, and tufts of hair were growing feebly on her heavily scarred head. The only aspect of her that was unrecognizable was her neck, which had taken on the black coated texture of Tsalir’s back.