by Dawn Chapman
“All right.” I saw Abel look over to where we were talking, but he nodded along with Macie’s explanation and then Dovol did too. I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to do as I asked, but I was shocked when Dovol picked up his weapons, and within a minute, the both of them had started to head out to the river crossing. A small boat sat there, as if in wait. Abel didn’t glance back. He knew he was heading into trouble. I only wished I could be there.
Chapter 33
Kamaal lifted one long spindly finger into the air, and I watched as the veil around us moved from being in control by Macie to being his.
I had to admit I suddenly felt a lot more than intimidated. He was not only a powerful creature here but large. He had huge muscles and a thick neck to support the long black shiny horns that protruded from his head.
“Don’t worry. You can see clearly that your Fire Eagle has no concern.”
I looked to Zurath, who had, in fact, settled on my arm with one foot deftly tucked up into his wing. I laughed. “Lazy bird.”
“Come,” Kamaal said. “We’ll retire to my side of the river for this. It will ease the burden on your friends, thinking they can and can’t see you, and of course, if we mess up, they won’t notice a change in the surrounding grounds. I think, no matter how much you like someone, there’s still always a spy in the midst.”
I wondered that, and as I eyed over towards the camp, I noticed the way Dobo was looking in our direction. “You think we’ve been given some false information, don’t you.”
“Some, yes, but I don’t think he actually knew what he gave you or what Zurath brought back. He could only observe and listen, but it could mean that the others know that we may have a plan of attack.
“Abel?”
“I think he’ll be fine. The furry with him will do more than watch his back. They’re intuitive to severe danger, and believe me, if he thinks something is amiss, they’ll head back as soon as possible.”
I followed Kamaal over, and we crossed the bridge. The water on this side wasn’t as blue or was it just something that seemed to be like this because of the dark side of their nature.
“We’re creatures of the dark and night, Akillia. That doesn’t mean we’re evil by nature—just that your perception of us is different.” He stopped and pointed out to the water’s edge. “See that set of bubbles.”
I nodded and tried to focus.
“Tell me what you see. Use your magic and connect with the creature there.”
I took a step back, and Zurath put both talons down to grip on. “Is it a good idea to connect with a creature of the dark?”
I asked this of Kamaal more than I asked Zurath. Zurath gave me a look then lowered his head and looked out at the water.
So I had permission from the one bonded and friendly creature I knew. It was as if he didn’t mind me talking or connecting with anyone. I placed my arms on the railings, not so much for support, though Zurath was heavy after a time, but so that I could easily pull my energy down and into the tips of my fingers.
Kamaal watched from the side and grinned when my energy pooled this time with greying and swirling misty tendrils. I glanced at him, and he said simply, “It’s not who you are when you wield the energy that matters it’s who you are inside. You can call from both sides of the world, Akillia, a gift not many possess.”
“Usually, it turns the wielder insane,” I added, “but I don’t think it will for me.”
“Why is that?”
I looked out to the water and let the energy drift out to the creature beneath it. “Because I’m meant for both. To do the spell we need to use next, I need to know this. I need to understand how I can draw from both and you just initiated the spark.”
When he lowered his misty eyes and looked to the water and the creature, he spoke, “Carry on, she’s waiting.”
So I did.
This wasn’t a mind that was easy. I sensed her total insecurity, the anger and terrible emotion that she had to rip apart anything that crossed her bridge. So she was its protector. With the anger she felt, there was also a great purpose and satisfaction. She had one of the most important jobs to do here. She stopped people from invading, from destroying the area where her brethren lived, and also, where she was safe.
Swimming in the water also gave me a satisfied feeling, and I went along with her for a while as she moved in and past us under the bridge. She actually knew I was there on her bridge, a creature she would normally try to destroy, but she also knew her master, her lord and keeper was there. She swam on by.
“She is something else,” I said as I pulled my energy back from the depths and turned to look at Kamaal. There was something displayed on his face, and I struggled to see the actual emotion, but it was pride. “You are a great master over your domain, I see that,” I said to him. “I also see the harmony that comes with you and the world around you.”
“Thank you. I feared that you wouldn’t be able to separate the view of evil you have from your world.”
I nodded and moved to step off the bridge. Patrise waited with a fresh cloak for her lord. I wasn’t actually sure of his title. “You are a lord, then?” I asked.
“I think that would be an appropriate term from you. Yes.” He put his cloak on, and Patrise stayed close by his side.
“So, let’s get these mages gathered and then I can hopefully start to think about the layers I need to try to create what we need.”
Patrise looked at me. “We require all of your mages, Lord?”
“Yes,” Kamaal said. “Bring them to us, Patrise, at the far side of the camp. I would require your assistance to if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, my lord.”
I watched her as she almost seemed to float away, her agile figure never even swaying. “I don’t know what all of the creatures are in your care, but there are some beautiful and scary things I see here.”
“Nothing will hurt you now. You’ve had my apologies for before. I can only do so again now.”
“It’s fine.” I smiled as I started to see several figures moving our way.
I still couldn’t stop the ache in my stomach. Was the path I was going down darker than most? Was this something I could do, let alone wanted to do?
I looked back to the other side of the river where the others were all talking. For them, yes. I felt the weight shift on my arm, and Zurath planted a head on the side of my face. I reached out and scratched the feathers on the tip of his beak. “For you.”
The mages were getting closer, six of them in total, and I immediately saw their images—horrific, disturbing pictures of the undead. Necromancers, I believe would be the right term for them. The largest of them indeed was just skeletal, his eye sockets almost like Kamaal’s but they empty, nothing at all inside, no emotion, no give away to what he thought. There was no flesh on his bones to stretch into a smile or a frown.
“Please make a circle,” the voice asked of the others.
I moved to stand near Kamaal while the others started to surround us. Zurath fluffed his feathers, agitated, and managed to spark his energies.
“Calm him, please, Akillia. They will not hurt him.”
I placed my hand on his back, gently soothing him with words that I only knew as a child’s nursery rhythm.
He responded. And within a moment, the energy had gone.
The largest necromancer moved to start a protection spell, and I listened. It was similar to the one Macie had used on us, but his words were unintelligible. The energy, though, was amazing.
I watched on as the crowd around us drew in the most miraculous dark magic I had no doubt this side of the world had seen in a very long time.
“You started this, Akillia. The day you turned up was the day I made an allegiance with these lords. They’re not all from my area. They’re here because they took the information I gave them and listened to me. Not like the Forest Elves, who have lost countless lives.”
I noticed him lower his head. “All life is sacred. W
hen you come to learn that, you are the most powerful being there can be.”
I admit I was a little confused, but feeling the magic was accumulating for us, I decided it had better be now that I tried to do the one thing they couldn’t.
Reverse the energy around us. Of course, easy enough to take it, but that wasn’t what we wanted. It had to be reversed, back into the system. It had to feel like it was dead. Not their kind of dead. It had been hard to explain it to Kamaal, but I think he’d have to see it—if I could actually do it.
I motioned to him. “Help me sit, kneeling with a large bird is not so easy.”
There was a moment that he looked at me sideways, and then offered me one of his hands. His nails were almost as sharp as Zurath’s talons, but I felt at ease holding on as I settled down. Carefully, I crossed my legs and asked Zurath to hop from my arm to the balls of my shoes. He was not happy being on the floor, but there was nowhere else for him to go that I felt he could be useful. I wanted to see into his eyes if I needed. Kamaal moved to sit across from me, crossing his legs. I smiled losing all focus from the necromancers around us as the whirling energy spun faster and faster.
“If your people could only see this now, I think there would be much fear of healing into our territories.”
“I agree.” There was darkness upon darkness and layers of energy that I couldn’t comprehend. That of both light and dark, and when I looked further, there were even emotions like love.
“There’s a lot you do not understand, but that’s okay. Try to concentrate on what it is that you want from this. You’re here for a different reason. Maybe later, if you’d like, you might come and study with one of us.”
The question caught me off guard. “I’ll think about that,” I said in reply.
Taking a deep breath, I sparked the fire inside me and focussed on what I knew needed to happen.
With looking into Zurath’s eyes, I found the extra light I needed. Together, we began to spread it out. He copied my exact energy output, not too much, nor too little, not to fight the darkness. We wanted to try to stop it, not to absorb it, but to also turn it around.
This was something I knew that Kamaal was both scared for and excited. I could feel his intensity as we did indeed begin to take the edge from what was swirling and competing to get to us.
I laughed as the first, the largest necromancer, let out a gasp. But his energy output didn’t decrease.
I did, however, hear his words to Kamaal. “How is this possible?”
“Only Akillia and Zurath know the details to this. I had no idea that we could.”
“We?”
Kamaal’s smile wasn’t that of a demon out for blood. It was much more. There was hatred here and something else. The fact these others were and had killed his own. He didn’t just want blood—he wanted their destruction, for good.
I felt that energy also within the others, but Kamaal’s was more intense. I felt the hierarchy within the six. Kamaal had said they’d come from all over Puatera. I didn’t know how they’d gotten here so quickly, but Zurath turned to the opposite side of the fields. There were two of the largest creatures I’d ever seen.
I heard his voice in my head as he said. “They are Tromoal. The creatures that you sought for the Hismaw, except these aren’t on the same side. Well, you understand me.”
I did. So they’d had a way to arrive in style. The Tromoal looked a little like dragons in tales I’d been read as a child—yet much more terrifying. I’d part expected wings and flames, but these were skeletal, dripping flesh and rot. I looked back to Zurath, focussed again on what I needed.
I could see the first few layers of what I was trying. There was a certain ease to doing it, moving the energy, swapping the way it flowed, but then it became more complicated, and I started to struggle. The way it zipped past me and into the ground and the skies so fast. I needed to up my game. If I had any chance of doing this on the epic level, I had to do it.
“Don’t worry,” Kamaal said. “That’s why we’ll be there. Once we have the integral side of the spell down, we can expand it. I even think the mages on the elven side will be able to help, but they can only provide us with the means to keep going.”
“Okay, keep them focussed,” I said meaning the necromancers.
“But of course,” he made sure they didn’t look my way again.
As I saw the swirling energies once again inside Zurath’s eyes, I looked deeper this time.
There was a familiar ping, and then a message displayed even within this magical circle.
UPDATE: You’re on the right path, there’s a point you will have to break through. You can do this.
I almost replied but realised I didn’t have the energy to think of one. I pulled my focus back to Zurath and then looked again deeper into him and to what I needed. I felt him inside my mind. “You know this. I’ll let you lead now.”
And he did, he made one flap and went to the air. Then he did the most unexpected thing—he actually went to land on the largest necromancers arm. Kamaal nodded his respect towards the giant mage and then all eyes turned back to me.
Sweat dripped down my back, my chest, and forehead. I wiped it away and dug deeper into the world around me. As I did so, there was something else working alongside me.
This time, I did ask, “Tibex, is that you?”
“Yes. I will be doing what I can from my side. You are phenomenal, keep going. This is the world’s code in its purest form. Something even I’ve never seen before.”
Code, and then there it was. I could see alongside the energy were lines of writing. Not in English. But in something else.
“My language,” Tibex said. “If you understood that, then there would be something else entirely going on. But no, you’ve uncovered it for me. Keep going.”
That was when the energy started to change once more, and the darkness around me started to brighten, but not with light—something else. Almost as if the energy were burning off, but then died—it turned white. Like there was nothing good or bad about it.
“That’s it, Akillia. That’s it.”
I felt the excitement from Kamaal and the others, but I couldn’t stop. This was something I had to reverse all around me for, or we’d never succeed. I had to turn the full length of the river.
As the white spread out, encompassing the entire area, there was a dull quality to it that we could see and feel. I liked what I saw. It was almost…
No, it was. It was a blank page.
Just that—a page waiting to be re-written.
It all made sense.
I looked out to the party around me, and Kamaal helped me to stand. We stood in a pure white environment, and the trees and surrounding area melted into it.
Kamaal’s men, and even Patrise, made a great bowing gesture to me, and I had no idea as to the why—until I looked to Kamaal who was reciprocating the gesture.
“Hey!” I said. “None of that. We’re all here to do the best for Puatera.”
“Respect where it is due, Akillia. Without learning what and why this has been happening, you cannot help to fix it. I believe our time to attack is coming. They are already preparing on the other side. They think they are coming up against something they have already beaten, but they haven’t met you yet.”
I held out my arm for Zurath.
I saw back across the river and into our camp. Several eyes were staring at the area, and then I saw Abel, with Dovol. I looked to the skies, noticing for the first time it had almost been a full day’s pass.
“Yes, we’ve been inside the circle for nearly forty-eight of your hours, your friends have returned, and they have the girl responsible for the flowers, also.”
“Girl?” I was confused for a moment. “She’s a mage too?”
He shook his head and shrugged. It kinda looked funny for a demon to do this. He walked with me back to the bridge, and we crossed over.
It was Abel that came to me first. “We knew you were still there. Patrise
came across to show us briefly what you were trying. I can’t fathom how you managed to wipe it clean, but you did.”
“That is exactly what I did. I reversed the code just like the message said.”
“My message,” a young voice spoke clearly from behind him.
When she stepped around, I saw a beautiful redheaded girl. Her hair circled around her head in almost several crowns. On her forehead was a headpiece I wanted to reach out and touch.
“Hi,” I said. “Who are you?”
Abel spoke, “We have a lot to catch up on, but this is Jessica.”
My memory thought back to the quest I had pop up, the view of the portal and of Maddie and the Visitor. “Where’s Maddie?” I asked.
Abel frowned. “She’s not seen or met her.”
Chapter 34
There wasn’t any time for this. I had to put it on hold. “We’ve got to hit them now while I know we have the energy and the capability,” I said.
“Jessica wants to help. She’s been doing the same thing you’ve worked out, but on a much lower scale. She could also see through the necromancer wards.”
Kamaal stared at the young girl. She, however, didn’t flinch.
“There will be sixteen mages. I suggest we spread out between them. I believe that is a good way to make sure the energy and the spell don’t get twisted.”
“You think you can guide a necromancer?” I asked quite shocked at her confidence.
“I’ve spent the last few days of my life fighting to get home. I will tackle anything this game throws at me. It’s telling me if we band together then we have a chance of winning, but not without help.”
“I agree then. Kamaal spread the necromancers out within the mages that we have. I’ll take centre point, you to my left with...”