by Peter Oxley
The Warlocks were incredibly powerful, and I could not tell how long Joshua’s resolve could withstand their onslaught. Kate’s gunshots were stopping the demons from focusing all of their ire on him, but surely it was only a matter of time before he was overcome.
“He needs help,” I muttered.
“What?” shouted back Kate, straining to hear my words over the discharge of her pistol.
“I’m going to help him,” I said.
She raised her eyebrow at me. “You plannin’ something stupid?”
I grinned. “But of course.” My mind made up, I charged straight towards the demons, ignoring Kate’s curses and Byron’s shout of alarm.
The Warlock did not see me until it was too late and I shouted with joy as my sword cleaved through its neck and torso with lethal intent. Then I blinked: there was nothing there. Before I could refocus on where the Warlock had gone, my world exploded into a red-hot Hell.
It were as though I had been thrust up into the burning sky, the land receding leagues beneath me. Everything around me twisted and turned as I realised that I was slowly and agonisingly being unmade.
At this point it is customary to say that my life flashed before my eyes, but even that cliché was denied me; perhaps a blessing given the many trials and terrors I would have been forced to relive. I instead stared into an abyss born of fire, housing at its centre a being I had seen before, a swirling red angry mass that wanted nothing more than my total annihilation. Who are you? a distant part of me shouted once more into this hideous, seething hatred.
Your doom, came the reply in a cavernous voice that would have snatched away my breath had I any to steal.
Why?
You… are repugnant, an abomination. You do not belong here; none of you do. I will destroy you all.
Once again, a million shadowy crows attacked me, gnawing into my soul, an insane flashback to the time when Maxwell sought to cure me of my demonic tendencies by forcing me to inhale his strange gaseous Compound inside his laboratory. But then my attackers exploded in a shower of jagged silhouettes and I fell to my knees, my hands buried in the coarse sand as I listened to the Warlock scream his last. I looked up to see Byron and Kate running over to me while Joshua glowered from where he had just torn the demons to pieces.
“You fool,” Joshua said. “You could have been killed.”
I coughed as I tried a laugh. “I managed to distract him for long enough so you could do your thing, did I not?”
The young man glared at me and then stomped away.
Byron and I stood on the edge of a cliff, looking over the cracked alien landscape of the world that we had nicknamed the ‘Red Desert’ The three suns hung in a blood-red sky that was dotted with at least five moons moving across the firmament in a perverse dance as dizzying to witness as it was surely impossible.
Below and around us, red sand and rocks stretched out to the horizon, interspersed with twisting towers of rubicund stone reaching up to the heavens, so high it seemed they would snag the celestial bodies whirling overhead. Nothing lived in that wasteland aside from us and our two friends, who were busy examining the demons’ work.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Byron.
I grunted. “Not quite the word I would use. A bit too desolate for my tastes.”
He gestured to the sky and expansive landscape. “Does all of this not astound you?”
“Makes me seasick, more like.” I turned to look at the Pooka, noting the way the hairs on his elongated ears rippled in the breeze. “Is this what your world was like?”
“A little. I have certainly missed having something interesting to look up at. The sky in your world is so… pedestrian. No wonder you haven’t explored the heavens: there’s bugger-all up there to inspire you.”
“It’s your world too now,” I pointed out.
Byron and his fellow Pooka demons had played a vital role in helping to repel the Almadite invasion of Earth six months previously. For that service they had earned the gratitude of the Queen and her government, who were moved to grant them citizenship of the British Empire if only to ensure that we kept such strong allies to hand in case they were needed again. For their part, the Pooka were happy to have somewhere they could at last call home, having lost their own realm to the Almadites a long time before. While they had been on Earth for many centuries, giving rise to a multitude of legends and lores, it was not until they stepped into the light to fight at our side that they found true acceptance.
“Yes, it is my world too,” he conceded. “Doesn’t make it any more interesting though, does it?”
“We could make Earth more interesting if you like,” I said. “For instance, we could reopen the portal and let the Almadites come back through—would fighting them excite you?” I grinned at him.
“That’s all right, thank you all the same.” He shuddered and looked at me. “Your kind have a bizarre sense of humour, you know?”
“It is the only way to stay sane in the face of all this madness,” I said. “Speaking of which, how is your prodigy getting on? He seemed to acquit himself quite well back there.”
Byron glanced at Joshua, who was busy examining the Warlocks’ device, Kate stood over him like a watchful angel. “Yes, he did. He is powerful, there is no doubting it, and we are only just beginning to tap into what he is capable of. But…”
I raised an eyebrow. “But what?”
Byron grabbed my elbow and led me away. When we were far enough to ensure that we could not be overheard, he continued in a low voice: “I am scared by what he is capable of. There is so much pain and sorrow there. I fear that his bitterness is what’s really driving him.”
A cold chill ran over me. “Lexie?”
He nodded. “He has not yet recovered from her death. It is as though there is a void where his humanity should be, if that makes sense.”
I shook my head. “He is the most human of us all,” I said. “He is grieving; that is only natural.”
“It has been six months, Gus, and he has shown precious little emotion aside from anger and a single-minded focus.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Letting his magical studies distract him from his grief and sadness?”
“Ordinarily I can see how it would be beneficial, perhaps. But I know something about it from personal experience, and I can tell you that the worst thing you can do is refuse to talk to anyone about how you are feeling.”
I tensed up with the instinctive reaction of a true Englishman discussing such alien things as emotions. I had lost my parents when I was a child and, in spite of how I had felt about them, I could not deny that their loss had affected me, throwing me down into a rebellious funk that shaped my formative years. It sent me spiralling from the potential for a respectable life into a chaotic ramble around the world as I tried to run from my problems. Indeed, my brother Maxwell had often pointed out that my tendency towards an overreliance on alcohol and laudanum no doubt stemmed from my seeking release from the feelings I sought to repress over the years. No doubt my addiction to the runic sword had its roots in my troubled past as well.
It was somewhat ironic, therefore, that I should have found release and purpose thanks to the one creature that was truly responsible for the loss of my parents: the demon Andras. In driving Maxwell towards creating the portals to the Aether, Andras had also inadvertently pushed me into a position of responsibility, one where I was a key driving force in the battle against the evil Almadites.
Byron, on the other hand, had not only lost his parents but also his entire dominion. In a hideous foreshadowing of what they intended to do to our world, the Almadites had invaded the Pooka’s homeland when their defences were down. They had done this by constructing an elaborate bluff that led them to believe that the intended target of their invasion was the valuable Eternal Mines and its seemingly endless supply of power and resources. While the Pooka army had readied themselves to defend the Mines, the Almadites, led by Andras, had swept into their realm
and enslaved their people, stripping them of everything so that they were nothing more than mindless slaves, unable and unwilling to do anything but serve their new masters.
By the time the Pooka army had realised their mistake it was too late, and their attempts to mount a counterattack fell flat in the face of the superior numbers of Almadite warriors.
I knew from many nights speaking with Byron that he never stopped dwelling on those he had lost and the destruction of his culture, but he and his people had learnt to move on and now had finally established a home once more.
“I take it he has not talked to you about his sister?” I asked.
“No. Nor has he spoken to Kate or indeed anyone else.”
“It could be that he does not wish to think about it just yet.”
Byron shook his head. “His every waking moment is directed by her memory.” I shot him a questioning glance and he tapped his forehead. “I am experienced in such matters, as you know. I wonder whether I should stop teaching him for a time.”
“No,” I said. “We need all the powerful individuals we can get, especially now. If anything, you should be considering how you can accelerate his training.”
“Normally I would agree with you, but his aims and yours are not truly in alignment. You see, you believe he is learning how to create portals and fight Warlocks so he can help in the defence of Earth.”
“Of course…” I said slowly.
“But his real motivation is to find his sister.”
I blinked. “But she’s dead; we watched her die. Does he not accept—?”
“Don’t worry, he is not delusional. But he is focused on learning everything he can so he can travel to the spirit world.”
I could not help but laugh in disbelief. “Max proved a long time ago that the Aether is not the spirit world, that the creatures there just prey on those desperate to believe. Even you have told me that there’s no such place…”
“No,” he said. “I have said that I have never encountered such a place. But I’m just a plain old soldier who sometimes acts as a tutor to desperate humans. What do I know about the mysteries of the universes?”
I paced back and forth for a moment, trying to consider the implications. “As long as our interests are aligned, then surely it is not a bad thing that he explores this other option?”
“Unless he gets distracted at a crucial moment. A rifle is only useful if it fires when you need it to.”
I glared at him. “He is not a weapon. He is…”
“What? Do not tell me you are intimately concerned for his welfare as a person and a friend: you have hardly spoken to him over the past few months.”
“Well, I shall remedy that.” I folded my arms.
Byron chuckled. “No offence, Gus, but maybe you should ask Kate to make the first move. A woman’s touch may be better than you blundering in.”
“Have you met Kate?” I asked with a half-smile. “She is probably the least empathetic out of all of us.”
“Regardless, I think she should try speaking to him first. Before it is too late.”
“What, before he disappears on some wild goose chase trying to find heaven so he can resurrect his dear departed sister?”
“Possibly,” mused Byron. “Or before he gets himself killed trying. I have noticed a rather reckless arrogance about him in recent weeks. For instance, back then—attacking two Warlocks on his own. He is powerful, but not that powerful. He took quite a risk.”
“He still managed to defeat them, though.”
“Yes, but only because you nearly sacrificed yourself as a distraction. Do you fancy doing that every time he gets himself in a tight spot?”
I rubbed my head, remembering the horror of that formless voice that had bellowed at me: alien and yet somehow familiar. “Not really,” I said with a wry smile. “I don’t like him that much.”
A shout from behind made us spin round to see Kate in the grip of a Warlock, the demon holding her in front of him like a shield. Joshua was slowly rising to his feet as we ran over.
“No one thought to check there were any others around, then?” shouted Kate.
“Be quiet!” snarled the Warlock, making her cry out in pain as it squeezed her closer.
“Impossible,” muttered Joshua. “I didn’t sense it—”
“Time for that later,” I said, then louder to the demon: “Release her and we will let you go unharmed.”
The Warlock cackled. “Do you really think I am so stupid as to trust the likes of you? Do not make any moves or I will kill her.”
“What do you want?” asked Byron.
“Exactly what you have given us,” said the Warlock. A swirling vortex appeared behind the demon and he stepped through before any of us could react, taking Kate with him.
We all shouted as one, charging forwards, but the portal sealed shut with a pop a moment later.
Chapter Two
All three of us ran over to the space where the portal had been mere seconds before. I cast around, hoping in vain that some vestige of the demon’s spell remained that we could hitch on the back of.
“No-no-no-no!” shouted Byron, his cheeks flushed with rage.
“Open it,” I said to Joshua. “We need to go after her. Do it now.”
Joshua shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. “I cannot.”
I stomped over to him, jabbing my finger at his chest. “You transported us all here single-handed. One more portal. Now please.”
“It is not as simple as that,” he said. “I do not know where the demon has gone.”
“Almadel would be a fair bet, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, but… I don’t know where Almadel is.”
I expelled a puff of air and turned to Byron for support, but the Pooka just nodded. “He is right. You can only conjure a portal if you know exactly where to point it. So far we have not been able to pinpoint the location of Almadel.”
“But all these years of you fighting the Almadites…”
“Strangely enough,” Byron said, “I have always been keen to keep as much distance as I could between me and the beasts. Finding out the location of their home has been right at the bottom of my list of priorities.”
“But the amount of Almadites who have been summoned to Earth,” I tried again, turning to Joshua, “including by you. How did you…?”
“They came from the Aether,” said Joshua. “We have never needed to reach into their homeland to summon them. Not that we would ever want to.” He shuddered.
I clenched and unclenched my fists, the helplessness of our situation making my skin itch. “We have to do something,” I said. “We cannot leave her with them…” An image flashed across my mind’s eye of Kate surrounded by demons in their own realm, of the unspeakable things that they were doing to her.
Byron looked down at the equipment the Warlocks had been assembling prior to our attack. “Anything here that could help us?” he asked.
Joshua shook his head. “From what I can tell they were constructing some form of divination spell.”
“Divination?” I asked. “So not trying to form a portal?”
“No. It would appear that they were trying to find something.”
“Any idea what?” asked Byron.
I threw my hands in the air. “Should we not be focusing instead on the more pressing matter at hand?”
“If we know what they were looking for it might give us a clue as to how to find them, or at least it might give us something to bargain with,” Byron said, as though he was speaking to a small and somewhat hysterical child.
“Difficult to tell,” said Joshua in answer to Byron’s initial question. “We should take it back to Maxwell: he may have some insights.”
“Agreed,” said Byron. “It is pointless us remaining here.”
“So we go back to Earth. And in the meantime, what about Kate?” I asked as they gathered up the equipment.
“There is someone there who can help us. Someo
ne who knows where Almadel is. Remember?” Byron watched as the realisation dawned on me. “Good. Now help us to get all of this back into the capsule.”
The Aether is a vast and dangerous place, and travel through it is not for the faint-hearted. My own experiences of that terrible void had been enough to populate a lifetime’s worth of nightmares. As such, when it came to voyaging through the Aether to other realms, we were keen to take as many precautions as possible.
Given that our original incursion into the Aether had nigh on resulted in us falling victim to the grasping hands of the undead creatures trapped there, we had all agreed that we would feel a lot better if we had a protective barrier between us and any potential attackers.
Maxwell had therefore designed for us a machine that was, true to form, as functional and effective as it was dispiritingly ugly. The best way to describe the ingenious craft that conveyed us across the Aetheric wastelands on adventures to fantastic worlds was that it resembled a simple wardrobe. When Maxwell had shown me his original sketches I had been naïve enough to hope that he would adorn the cabinet-like contraption with at least a few ornamental flourishes to pique the imagination and hint at the vehicle’s amazing potential. However, once again he had rejected anything that did not add to its utility.
We were therefore reduced to travailing in a tall, rectangular box that had been painted a rather dull blue colour, the only features of interest on its exterior being the doors through which we entered it and a narrow slitted window. Inside it was cramped, with just about enough room for six people as long as they did not mind being pressed together in an overly friendly fashion.