Spellshift

by Allen Snell

  Her legs hadn’t moved. Behind her, dozens more had been crushed into silence. Garen shivered, his whole body frigid as ice. He shaped the dirt under her and cleaved it loose. He used his grip on the earth magic to lift her outside the walls. She didn’t fight it. Garen wished he could do more. No spot near the town would be perfectly safe, but she was as tucked out of view as he could manage. He looked back to Tragus, who clenched his fists. The General shouted once again, this time running forward. His men followed his lead. They had no time to grieve or rescue any buried survivors. The Apatten rushed into the market, treading over freshly tilled graves.

  A group of Centralians led an offensive bout near one of the supply silos. There was no telling how many Apatten were trying to exit the single door, but the pile of charred bodies were stacking up quickly. The obstacle helped contain them. Garen saw what the troops were quickly learning. These Apatten weren’t made of the same substance as humans. The white creases in their ashen skin showed how little water their bodies contained. Watching them go up in flames was the only solace Garen found in the massacre.

  Some Apatten stayed at a distance, taking cover until they had enough to charge. Others ran in packs of twenty or more, sacrificing the first few to the fires so that any remaining could meet swords. The Centralians didn’t have the strength or the sheer reach of these towering warriors. Garen saw a pair of men at the front overwhelmed and run through.

  Tragus took a few steps back to survey the entire market. Despair coated his words for the first time as he thought aloud. “If I group our men tightly, we risk another devastation. If we scatter, they overwhelm us.”

  Garen stood helpless alongside him. The screams engulfed the town. The General was right, and neither option would let Garen change a thing. He couldn’t protect them from earthquakes on that scale. He couldn’t win a hundred skirmishes scattered through the town. Morgan, perhaps, but not him. Why had he come here at all? To watch these soldiers die?

  No, he promised to balance the scales.

  “Group your men together and hold the market,” Garen shouted. “Whoever controls the Earth Spirit is about to be distracted, or if need be, dead.”

  Chapter 29

  Garen stepped through Kartik in spurts of light, trying to find anyone responsible for leading the Apatten. Garen resisted the urge to stop and assist the troops, even when they clearly needed help. Tragus commanded his men scattered along the wall to regroup, but the Apatten seemed to pour from every building and isolate a few at a time. Garen’s next step of light brought him to a pair of the creatures cornering one of the younger Centralian men.

  Garen tried to dismiss his instincts. Finding the new Earth Rogue would save a hundred lives. Stopping here would, at best, save one. It was a pointless waste of time. But since he had no intention of leaving the man to die, he would have to make it a quick waste of time.

  Garen took three steps toward the backs of the Apatten. He reached up and rested his palms on their shoulders. Both of their heads cocked to see who was calmly requesting their attention. They were engulfed in flames before they had an answer. Garen light-shifted away to continue his search before the young man could see why they burned alive.

  Garen knew if he couldn’t find the leaders of this invasion soon, that soldier would die by some other fate. His search continued. Kartik was an old town, but not a large one. Garen could see a hundred or so tightly-knit cottages beyond the market. Most people who claimed Kartik as home were probably far outside the walls, working the land for a living. These houses belonged to residents with trade skills other than farming. The hand-laid stone, wood, and thatch were remnants of a time before people could shape the ground with their souls.

  The rustic cottages made the boxy gray structure across the town stick out. In a historic little farming community, a giant stone cube with perfect corners was dreadfully out of place. Garen hastened his light-shifts down the dirt road until the painted letters along the front came into view: Trans-Empire Relay Station #3.

  Directly below them, a jagged breach was cut into the front entrance. Someone had torn the door off and half the wall with it. The ground in front had another tunnel opening, a quarter the size of the one from the market. If the newest Earth Rogue was trying to stay hidden, he or she had a terrible way of showing it. Garen stepped softly over the rubble as he passed through the entryway. He bent the light to hide from three Apatten standing guard inside.

  The relay station was almost bare. Tables were overturned, and bodies lay beside them. Unlike the Kalyx relay, this room had two cylinders stretching from the floor to the ceiling. One was dark and silent. The other pulsed blue with each word, filling the room with questions shouted by angry kings.

  The fourth figure in the room was too short and slender-framed to be an Apatten. She stood facing the glowing relay, letting the blue light cast a sharp silhouette. Garen knew who he was looking at long before he could see her face. Her sleeveless robe hung exactly at floor’s length. The light reflected off her arms, a metallic blue at this moment. The curly, dark hair he’d seen her with last time had been replaced by woven vines—actual green and growing vines. Daisies sprouted along the crown of her head.

  “How could we trust you?” Micah shouted from the relay. His voice bounced inside the chamber. “You say your grievance is with the East, and yet you decimate Vikar-Tola and ransack my kingdom!”

  “Vikar-Tola was regrettable,” Aethis answered. “But that was the product of Sarkos’ ambition to rule, one of the many things I do not share. Though you must admit, his predictions weren’t wrong. You’ve sent your best soldiers to stop us from reaching the Eastern Kingdom. Imagine how much more of a nuisance you’d be if we let your recruitment continue.”

  Micah didn’t back down in the slightest. “Are the people you’re murdering in Kartik such a threat, too? Would they have chased after you with their pitchforks and sickles?”

  Aethis sighed. “Again, your outrage is justified. Your people are paying heaviest for the faults of your brother. If the force required to bend Amiri’s arm wasn’t so steep, I wouldn’t have to pillage every food storage along the way to keep them fed. The Western taxation was barely enough to satisfy them.”

  Garen worried about how long she’d been talking here. Unless Aethis arrived at the relay right before him, it wasn’t possible for her to be the Earth Rogue. Garen could hardly believe a person so new to the spirits could upheave that much ground at once. He certainly couldn’t believe Aethis had done it from across the town. Drake’s murderer might still be somewhere else in Kartik.

  Amiri gave a more composed rebuke. “I’ve already offered to meet with you. You can halt the Apatten advance and give us your demands before anyone else has to suffer.”

  Aethis snickered at his proposal. “First of all, Amiri Jundux, I think negotiations will go a lot more favorably when you can see the death at your doorstep. And second, I won’t be meeting with anyone. I’m only here at the request of my master to find out how little you know.”

  Both kings paused for a moment before responding. “Your master?” Amiri asked.

  “That’s the answer I wanted,” Aethis said. “How long do you think they’ll keep rattling off what they don’t know for me?”

  “A bit longer,” Garen answered, assuming she intended the words for him. “Less since you started gloating, but it’s a fair question. Who is this master?”

  Aethis turned to face him. The shimmer from her skin intensified. She smiled wide, her excitement eerily genuine. “And what makes you think I’ll answer you instead of them?”

  “They’re not here to beat it out of you.”

  Aethis craned her neck back and pursed her lips. Before she could vocalize her thoughts, Garen took action. He light-shifted to one of the Apatten in the room and plunged his katana through its heart. He pulled his sword clean and made no effort to hide from the remaining two.

  “Is this all you brought?” Garen asked. “I thought I’d see more of y
our freakish Sanstric when we met again, especially if one has a spirit they don’t deserve.”

  Aethis kept smiling and shook her head. “My students are not soldiers. I value their lives more than you seem to.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Garen nodded. “But there has to be someone other than the Apatten here. As a certain gold-skinned freak once told me, ‘you have the power to choose.’ You tell me who killed Drake and is using his Earth Spirit, and I’ll gladly spend the next few minutes hunting them instead of you.”

  “That easily?” Aethis mocked him. “You are truly the kindest of your murder-for-hire friends.” While she paused to think, Garen noticed the Apatten beside him had not slumped over dead yet. No matter what kind of creatures these were, they shouldn’t be able to function without a beating heart. Wherever that heart was. Goff.

  The Apatten swung his fist square into Garen’s jaw. The blow staggered him backwards. The ringing in Garen’s head didn’t help his balance. He hit the floor hard, feeling the impact everywhere but his shoulder. He knew why that should concern him.

  “The question is more difficult to answer than you might expect,” Aethis spoke calmly over the struggle. “And that’s assuming he’s even dead. Wresting that spirit free wasn’t easy, which makes it so hard to pin his fall down to one person.”

  Garen took in a breath and released an inferno upon the Apatten that leveled him. The creature was reduced to pitiful shrieks as it flailed along the ground on fire.

  “Say that again,” Garen demanded. He stood and locked eyes on Aethis’ distant gaze.

  “So hard to pin?” she feigned ignorance.

  “About Drake!” Garen shouted in a monotone rage. “How did someone take his spirits if they didn’t kill him?” He wouldn’t have thought it possible if not for Karna, but now he knew the Gate of Choice had the power to remove a spirit. He’d watched Ampelis force Therov out of another person’s soul. He also knew how frightfully capable Aethis’ followers were with that very same gate.

  “You know what, I remember her now,” Aethis said. “The woman who ended Drake. She’s rather forgettable, with her short mop of hair and a neck thicker than yours. I know it’s muscle and she could probably beat me senseless, but from behind she literally looks like a man.”

  “Her name,” Garen persisted. Both Apatten took measured steps toward him.

  “Equally forgettable,” Aethis said. “Morgan, I believe—”

  Garen’s guttural scream cut her off. He lunged at the two Apatten, trying to engulf them both in a sheet of flame. In his efforts to hit both, they dove out of the way and he harmed neither. They were quickly back on their feet and charged him from both sides. Garen light-shifted to the opposite side of the chamber.

  “Then again,” Aethis said, “blaming just one person for a death is quite naïve. So many choices led to that moment. In the end, yes, you were the one who killed your mother. But what foolishness brought you there?”

  Garen could taste his disgust for her. Contempt focused his rage. “You think that’ll upset me? I know what I’ve done and who I’ve let die. I can’t get their screams out of my head! There’s nothing you could say worse than what I have to live with.”

  Aethis showed a rare moment of surprise. “I guess not. But that’s something I can admire about you. You’re one of the few people who can see the impact your actions cause. It’s enough to make me wonder why we’re on opposite sides of this war.”

  “I’m done playing your games! Tell me if Drake is alive and who took his spirits. Otherwise, I’m ending you.”

  Aethis grinned, unaffected by his threats. “Drake was a spirited individual. I think he’s still with us, buried somewhere. As for who controls the spirits, I can’t wait for you to meet—,” Aethis stopped herself. “Very well,” she said. Before Garen could ask, the ground shook under them. He barely stayed on his feet.

  Both Apatten sprung toward him simultaneously. Garen regained his footing enough to intercept the left blade and spin behind his opponent. Garen met the next head on. With both Apatten directly in front of him, he summoned a flame intense enough he had to turn his face away. The pulsing blue and white cone engulfed both Apatten. It left only their charred remains.

  Garen couldn’t feel the kick to the side of his numbed knee. Instead, he heard the snap of tendons and felt it swivel in a direction it shouldn’t. He fell backward as Aethis stood over him. The pain shot up his leg and he screamed. Kallista’s suppression had reached its limits.

  Garen tried to steady his breathing and looked down. His body was resting firmly on his knees. One of his legs bent at a natural right angle, backwards. The other bent forward.

  “I’m always impressed by your convictions,” Aethis said, “but they’re in all the wrong places. I need you to see something. Then maybe you’ll understand your part in this.”

  Garen flailed forward with his hands and released an unfocused arc of flame. She dismissed it with a twist of her hand and grabbed Garen by the wrist. She was stronger than he’d judged. It was hard to size up a person covered in gold and wearing vines and flowers for hair. She tugged on his wrist and pulled him across the floor, dragging him through the brittle Apatten corpses. They flaked into ash as he passed through them.

  She pulled his body over the entryway debris without concern for his pain. His belt caught on a fallen stone, and she attempted to tug him free. His shoulder popped out of socket, and once again, Garen heard tendons snap. This time he felt it. He cried out, but the sounds of fighting were drawing closer as she dragged him. His voice was lost to the noise of it all.

  She let go and he slumped forward. His gaping jaw took in a mouthful of dirt. He spat it out and tried to raise his head. He could see the battle raging on above the scattered bodies. There were more Apatten corpses than Centralian ones, but also far more Apatten still standing.

  “I know you’re listening,” Aethis said to the ground. “I need two. Can you have them brought to me?”

  Seconds later, a pair of Apatten approached with a Centralian each at sword-point. “Garen, you’ve surprised me once. Let me give you a test and see if you can do it twice. Pretend you were a wise man. If so, you’d have tried to challenge Amiri and his corrupt city. But I never expected that level of bravery, so let’s pretend you’d been a foolish one. You might have tried to dismantle the Geonode Guild by itself. Either would have been acceptable, but choosing neither isn’t wise or foolish. It’s evil.”

  The Apatten kicked their captives forward. The men were already bruised and bleeding. If they had any depth left to defend themselves, they didn’t show it. Both Centralians knelt to be executed.

  “Your course of actions would be like me telling you to choose one to save. And instead, you spit and tell me to kill them both. Pointless for your friends, and a blessing for your enemies. That’s what you’ve become.”

  The soldiers looked at Garen, confused and broken. Their silent stares pleaded an unspoken, “Why?” They’d both trained under him for the short few weeks. They were two of the more gifted recruits and eager to learn how to protect their kingdom. Garen wanted to give them an escape, a second chance to fulfill that dream. He was in no position to help them. The only person he could save was himself.

  The battle spread over most of the town. There was no call for retreat. The outer wall was barely visible in the distance. It poked out above the flat roof of a ransacked stable. Garen shuddered at what might pass for food to these creatures. The light-shift would be a long one, but he had to get out of here. He didn’t look back to Aethis or the other men about to die. He set his sights on the distance above the wall and shot away.

  Garen felt the weight of his body return immediately. He fell a short distance, and once again his knee crunched against stone. The pain welled tears beyond his control. He tried to move his right leg but couldn’t. He’d only moved a dozen feet from his previous spot. The ground rolled underneath him. The dirt carried him back to where Aethis wanted. Did she have th
e Earth Spirit this whole time?

  “Garen, I need you to stay and listen. I believe you are important. You have a choice in the fate of our kingdoms. But running away like you instinctively feel is the worst option of all. Now is your chance to realize it. Can you stomach the death of one man if it saves another?”

  Garen tried to speak up, but his breaths were too rapid and shallow. He trembled in agony and forced the words anyway. “They came prepared…to die. I think they’ll also die to keep me…from becoming like you.”

  Aethis cocked her head. “There is a part of me, deep down, that admires that nobility. Then I remember how many people you’re going to get killed because of it.” Aethis turned to the Apatten, swords ready on their captives’ shoulders. She shrugged. “Give the man what he wants.”

  Garen didn’t look. He laid his head back on the ground, ready to die as well. A deep, bellowing shout charged closer. For the briefest moment, Garen smiled at the feeling that Argus was rushing in to save him. His friend might still be alive if Garen thought more like Aethis. They’d have fought the slavers of Kalyx instead of Sarkos. What a different reality that could have been, and Garen wondered if it was better than the path he chose. He shook off the dark fantasy and leaned up to see who the voice truly belonged to. He witnessed General Tragus lop an arm off one of the Apatten.

  Aethis simply watched, enjoying every second. “This is the kind of response I wanted,” she said and turned back to Garen. “He commits to a cause, no matter how unthinkable, because it’s still better than watching those you care about die.”

  With surprise on his side, Tragus was able to cut down the first Apatten. He found himself more evenly matched by the second. Unlike most of the Centralians, he had the combat training and the stature to hold his ground. Swords moved quickly, one fueled by rage and the other by soulless obedience.