The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One)

by Rob Blackwell

  Soren couldn’t see what happened next. He was buried under acolytes surging around him, climbing over each other in a frenzy and pushing him to the ground. Even with his renewed strength, he struggled to throw them off. Their weight bore him down, pressing on his chest, cutting off his air. But he was the Charred Man, a dead person. And dead things don’t breathe.

  He felt cuts from knives, sharp jabs as they stuck his flesh. But though they caused him pain, it was nothing compared to what he had experienced when he was on fire. He focused on the knife in his left hand. He began stabbing with it, blindly pushing it forward into the mass of bodies around him. He pushed up and out, to the side, putting all his strength against the mob.

  One by one the bodies started falling off him, the weight lifting. He began to see faces—and he cut those, too. He slashed the knife into an acolyte’s eye, then sliced it across another’s throat. He freed his legs and began kicking with such force that he could hear the crunch of his attackers’ bones.

  Finally, he crawled out of the mass of bodies, pushing them to the side as if they were nothing but sacks of flour, flinging away others who tried to rush toward him. He stood on a pile of corpses.

  “You have been born again,” Coakley yelled. “You are bathed in the blood of the righteous.”

  Soren looked down to see his black and pink skin smeared with gore. For all he killed, there were dozens more. Many were streaming toward the forest, trying to find the attacking Indians. Soren heard periodic gunshots ring out and saw Samuel bring down several attackers. But there were simply too many. They surrounded Coakley in a human barrier. There was no way to get to him.

  Fortunately for Soren, he no longer had to. As he fought his way forward, he saw one of the wooden piles near a stake was on fire. Somehow an acolyte must have succeeded in lighting it. With relief, however, Soren noticed it was Meredith’s. She was crying out to him for help, but he ignored her and started toward the body on the ground.

  Alice lay unobtrusively on the grass as the fight raged around her. Soren punched an acolyte who approached him and tossed another attacker aside. He reached Alice and lay on the ground beside her.

  “Tell me you have it,” Soren whispered.

  Alice looked up and grinned savagely.

  “All yours,” she said.

  She reached out a hand to him. Coakley must have realized what had happened. He started screaming.

  “Get the Beast!” he yelled. “Kill him!”

  “Close your eyes,” Soren told Alice.

  She did as she was asked, and Soren grasped her hand. He felt something cold and hard inside of it. She had taken it from Coakley right under his nose while he was busy choking her. Alice had then pretended to be dead or unconscious so none of the acolytes would touch her.

  She let go of the object, and Soren opened his palm. Inside of it was the most gorgeous jewel he’d ever seen. Soren’s breath caught in his throat. The gem’s translucent surface appeared expertly cut and polished. It seemed to gleam in his hand, appearing bright green. There was a symbol carved on its surface of two snakes locked together. As he watched, the snakes began moving in figure eights, each one chasing the other’s tail.

  A dark cloud formed at its center as Soren watched. It spread tendrils throughout the gem’s oval surface. After a moment the jewel became opaque, and the mass at its center began to pulse. As it did, the color of the gem changed from green to dark red. Soren felt bathed in its light and unable to look away.

  He was lost in the Gem of Darisam.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The world around him vanished and he stood in a large, darkened room. It was so big, he could see no walls on any side, and yet he knew he was not outside.

  “Soren,” a voice said, then “Falk.”

  It said other names, too, a list of them that seemed to stretch on for hours. Soren understood he wasn’t in a real place. Unlike Darisam, this was no hidden universe. Instead, this was the darkness of his own psyche. He had looked at the gem—and now must face his true self. He only hoped it wouldn’t drive him insane.

  He turned in a complete circle and saw that the room was not empty. Dozens—no, hundreds or even thousands—of rectangular pieces of wood two feet wide and six feet high stood around the room on identical small circles in the ground. The sheer number of them was daunting. In the cavernous room, they seemed to stretch on forever. Something about them bothered him, though they were just blank slates of wood. As he looked at them, he felt a mixture of dread and repulsion. He wanted to get away from them but there was nowhere to go.

  When he looked at the shapes at certain angles, he saw hints of movement and glints of a pale light. He stiffened and waited for something to attack him, but nothing moved.

  An idea occurred to him, and he walked forward cautiously. He put his hand out to touch the wood and the rectangle moved ever so slightly. He drew his hand back again, but nothing happened.

  He grabbed the edge again and slowly, tentatively, pulled it toward him. The small circle it stood on was nothing more than a crude stand. He turned the wooden edge toward him, seeing a flash of silver. A dark figure covered in blood and burns stood before him. He almost cried out before he realized he was looking into a mirror.

  He stepped to the next wooden rectangle and pulled it, too. It flipped around to show a mirror as well—but his image was not in it. Instead, he saw his old friend Mikey, who had died along with John and Edward, staring back at him. Yet when he moved, Mikey followed him exactly.

  He moved to the next rectangle and turned it. Like the other two, it was a mirror, but the reflection held no one he recognized within it. It was an overweight man who stared vacantly back at him. He waved, and the reflection did likewise.

  The next mirror showed yet another image he didn’t know. And yet at the same time he did recognize it from somewhere; he just couldn’t place it.

  Slowly, all the mirrors began to turn of their own accord, moving until the room seemed to be filled with people. They were mostly men, but otherwise there was little similarity among them. Some were old; others were young. They wore clothing from a range of different eras. There was a man in bell-bottom jeans and a tie-dye shirt, and another in suspenders and a long black waistcoat that had gone out of style in the 1920s. As the room stretched on, they grew steadily more ancient. He saw men in courtiers’ clothing. One was clad as a medieval knight, and one in the back wore a Roman toga.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  The images all around him opened their mouths and spoke at the same time. The reply came a moment later, a voice that drifted from the darkened room and sounded like his own.

  “Sometimes you can want a thing so badly you convince yourself it’s true,” the voice said.

  He remembered it was something he’d told Annika, but he couldn’t remember what he’d been talking about.

  “I don’t understand!” he yelled.

  The reflections changed. They no longer echoed his own expression. Instead, they all seemed to be staring at him with a similar look in their eyes, a mixture of disgust and hatred. They knew something about him—they all knew something—but he couldn’t see it.

  All at once he hated the reflections around him, even his own. That mirror had changed. It no longer showed Soren Chase as he was in the forest but Soren as he had been in younger, happier days. He looked like the picture he had in his office, the one where he had his arms around Sara and John.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” he asked it.

  But the reflection didn’t move along with him anymore. It just stood there, silently watching him.

  He could take it no longer and punched his hand into the glass, feeling a sense of satisfaction as it shattered and the pieces fell around him. He yelled again and moved to the reflection of Mikey, hitting that one, too, and breaking it into smithereens. He attacked all of them, screaming as he went. There were so many, but he ran forward and backward, knocking the mirrors down, smashing them to
pieces.

  When he got to the one with the Roman toga, he barely paused but drove his fist through it. He yelled in triumph, turning to see the destruction he had wrought. Instead, the room was unchanged.

  The mirrors still stood there, their reflections turned to face him and gazing at him with hatred. There was no glass on the floor, no shattered mirrors anywhere. Even the one with the Roman was now perfectly intact.

  He looked around him in horror. He was out of breath and exhausted, but he started attacking them again anyway, smashing every one he could until he fell down before the mirror that held the reflection of Soren Chase within it.

  When he looked back, the mirrors had once again repaired themselves. Of course they had. They were no more real than this place.

  “Tell me what to do,” he asked the mirror Soren, his voice cracking. “I need . . .”

  But he no longer remembered what he needed to do. There was something important going on, but what it was escaped him. He got to his feet and looked out at the thousands of reflections staring back at him.

  He noticed they had changed. They were now moving of their own accord, no longer content to just stare at him. Slowly—ever so slowly—they began raising their arms. As he stood in the center of an ocean of mirrors, he watched the reflections point accusing fingers in his direction.

  “You,” they said, and the sound was so loud that he had to put his hands to his ears.

  “No!” he yelled back, but his voice was tiny next to the deafening roar of their accusation.

  He dropped to his knees again before the reflection of Soren. He knew this was his last chance. If he didn’t break free now, he would go mad—and be trapped in this room until the end of time.

  “Please,” he begged him. “Please help me.”

  But it wasn’t Soren’s face he saw when he closed his eyes. Instead, it was Sara’s. He saw her sitting across the table from him, sipping coffee. She smiled at him and he felt warm inside.

  She was his anchor, his tether to what was left of his sanity. If he could not hang on to her, he would be lost.

  There was a flood of images. Sara as a girl riding her bike and waving to John and him. Sara showing up at John’s pool party in her first bikini, looking awkward and sexy at the same time. Finally, he found the right memory. Her face was shining with tears as she leaned in for a kiss, a truth he’d hidden from himself.

  “I love you,” she said.

  Yes. That was right. She had loved him and he had loved her. And if he did not free himself from this prison of mirrors, she would be lost—not just to him, but to Alex. She was the person he had to save.

  He didn’t understand what this place was trying to tell him. He couldn’t face the thousands of mirrors all around him. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was her—and her alone.

  “I love you, Sara. I will fight for you.”

  He repeated the words as a mantra, over and over—“I will fight for you.” When he opened his eyes, he saw the mirrors were disappearing one by one. They popped out of existence until the only one left was of Soren Chase. That reflection was pointing at him and mouthing a single word. But, finally, it also disappeared.

  In its place was a door. It looked ordinary, but he knew it was not. He stood up and walked over to it. Slowly, he turned the handle and it swung open. On the other side was Darisam. He could see Coakley and his acolytes, but they were frozen in action. He understood that all of this was happening in his mind so quickly that no time at all was passing there.

  Instead of stepping through the door, he walked around it and looked through it from the other side. When he peered in from that perspective, he saw Reapoke Forest in Virginia. He looked at the trees and could see dozens of gaunts hidden there, waiting. They, too, were frozen in place.

  On one side of the door was Darisam and on the other was Reapoke, two sides of the same coin. He could choose to go to either place.

  But more importantly, he realized he didn’t have to. He was in control of the key now, not Coakley.

  Instead of pulling everyone into Darisam, he could push them all out. He reached forward, grabbed the door, and began to work his will. It was time to go home.

  Soren felt the change almost immediately. He found himself on the ground, still clutching the gem. Coakley and the acolytes were all around him.

  But something indefinable had been altered. It was subtle but powerful, like feeling the air pressure change while traveling on an airplane. Alice was just a few feet away and staring at him.

  “Do something!” she shouted.

  But he already had. On their way to the hilltop, they had passed a tall church and a bell tower. Those had now vanished. They were no longer in Darisam anymore; they were back in Virginia.

  Soren hadn’t just brought Alice and his friends, however. Coakley and his acolytes were here, too. Only the preacher seemed to realize what had happened.

  “What have you done?” he began shouting.

  “You wanted an apocalypse,” Soren yelled back. “Now you can have one.”

  He looked away into the forest around him and saw movement in the trees. There was the distinct sound of screeching.

  Soren stood up and grabbed Alice. There was still pandemonium around him. The acolytes had regrouped amid the Chickahominy assault, with most rallying around Coakley, who stood among them now, facing away from Soren and toward the forest. Soren could tell Coakley knew something was coming.

  Two acolytes came running at Soren, but he stabbed one and knocked the other to the ground.

  “Get to the trees,” he told Alice.

  She fled up the hill, not looking back. He turned and faced the trees where Kael and the others were hiding.

  “Retreat!” he shouted.

  With alarm, he noticed a bright-burning pyre immediately to his right. It stood tall against the night sky. He looked up to see Meredith burning. He could barely see her amid the flames, but he heard her screams. She sounded like she was also calling his name, though whether in accusation or in hope of rescue he would never know. She was already far beyond saving.

  The fire had spread to Sara’s stake and she, too, was calling him. He sprinted over bodies and up the hill. He paid no attention to the fire, running right through it. He registered pain, but only dully. He stood on top of the burning pyre and cut her bindings. As she sagged from the heat and exhaustion, he scooped her up and leapt through the fire.

  When he landed on dry earth, he ran with her in his arms to the woods. He didn’t know if the acolytes were pursuing them anymore. By now they must know they had other enemies to deal with.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Sara as he ran.

  She nodded her head, which was covered in ash and soot.

  “I think so,” she managed.

  As Soren reached the line of trees, he put her down gently, helping her to stand. They looked out behind them. The acolytes were no longer focused on Soren or his friends.

  Soren watched as a line of gaunts emerged from the other side of the field, drawn by the fire and shouting. They loped toward the acolytes, who rushed forward to meet them with knives at the ready.

  “What have you done?” Sara asked.

  “What John told me to,” Soren replied. “I changed the rules of the game. The jewel that Coakley had allows you to control who enters and leaves the place we were trapped in. I used it to kick us all out. Now Coakley’s crew isn’t just dealing with us.”

  She looked over at him and briefly touched his face.

  “John’s favorite cliché,” she said. “Fortune favors the bold.”

  She took a half step as if to kiss him but stopped herself.

  “Soren, how are you even alive?” she asked. “I saw what Meredith did to you. And the way you walked through those flames . . .”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  He truly didn’t, but it felt like a lie anyway. How was he alive? He’d assumed it was something unique about being inside Darisam, but the flames
had killed Meredith easily enough. They’d barely hurt Soren. He watched as a shadow crossed Sara’s face. She stepped back from him.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  But her expression had darkened. She looked at him the same way the reflections in the mirror had.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  They were interrupted by Kael, who came running out of the forest. Sara practically screamed when she saw him.

  “He’s a friend, he’s a friend,” Soren said.

  Kael was holding his side, and blood covered his hand. He was quickly followed by Mingan, Brian, Danny, Owen, Samuel, and Alice.

  “I gather we’re home,” Kael said. “I felt something when it happened. It was like my head cleared, only I didn’t know it was fuzzy. You did it, you son of a bitch.”

  “No time for celebrating,” Mingan said. He nodded in the direction of the field.

  Soren looked out to see the two armies tearing each other to pieces. He would have assumed the acolytes would fall easily against the gaunts, but it turned out not to be the case. He watched as one congregant cut a gaunt’s throat before stabbing another. Through it all, he heard Coakley shouting orders.

  Still, he thought the gaunts were winning. There were hordes of them now all over the field, screeching and attacking various white-robed figures.

  Soren also saw that the fire was spreading. It had completely consumed the two stakes and now covered much of the field. Several trees were also engulfed in flames.

  He turned back to Kael.

  “Time to get the hell out of here,” he said. “I just need to give the jewel to . . .”

  Soren stopped in midsentence, realizing the flaw in the plan.

  “Shit,” he said. “Where’s Edolphus?”

  Kael looked at him in alarm, and they both turned back to the field. The last time Soren had noticed Edolphus, the acolytes were dragging him away, but now he stood at his father’s side. Jeremiah Coakley held a knife to Edolphus’s neck.