“You think that reviving my submissive beast will make me go easy on you? You are not the only one with theatrics,” Ciardha answered.
“Guess he’s not going to give up,” Fanny whispered.
Ciardha began to grow, soon looming larger than Brighid had stood before she shed her humanoid form. Ciardha rose to a height as large as a five-story building. His voice now thundered, shaking the ground.
“I have fed off of the copious fears and insecurities of your darling chosen one, my sister,” he bellowed. “She has made me strong!”
As he said this, his humanoid body melted away, replaced with what looked like a rounded form of pure blackness. Where Ciardha had once stood, there was a swirling darkness, tinged here and there in its swirls with a deep, blood red. Ciardha’s true form was a black fire, erupting from time to time into licking black flames tinged with red.
Suddenly the sky was ablaze with a reddish-black fire, its flames spreading across the firmament of the Umbra Perdita, eating the lightning that had been there just seconds before. The bright radiance of Brighid’s lightning fireworks were replaced with a veil of black fire.
Ciardha again grew larger, as if inhaling as Brighid had. His form contracted as he exhaled a wave of pure Dark Energy at Brighid, making her form waver and dim ever so slightly. She seemed to simply absorb the dark energy, but the light that had radiated so brightly from within Brighid’s form dimmed slightly.
“Has he defeated her?” Greta whispered.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Just then, Brighid’s form grew smaller and tighter, pulling in on itself to form a small ball of tightly compressed, roiling Lucent Energy. Then the light emanating from her expanded, and her form grew as well, to larger than it had been before and even brighter. It was as if she had fed on the dark energy sent her way by Ciardha and grown even stronger from it.
“You won’t be able to defeat Lucent Energy with games and ostentatious displays, Ciardha,” her voice thundered. “You cannot win. Give up this foolish game while you still have the ability to exist at all.”
“It is you who will beg for my mercy, dearest sister,” he replied. Ciardha again gathered black, blazing energy and hurled it at Brighid.
As soon as he let his Dark Energy fly, Brighid once again gathered the Lucent Energy from her lightning bolts and hurled it at Ciardha.
They thundered, and the ground shook. Balls and spikes of light were thrown at Ciardha. Beams of Dark Energy and black fire were shot at Brighid. Their battle raged, and it seemed impossible that either side could win.
“This could go on forever,” Greta complained. “What if your goddess doesn’t win?”
“My Goddess? She’s your Goddess too,” I replied.
“I don’t know exactly what this being is,” she retorted, “but she’s not my God.”
“Then what are you worried about?” Jake asked.
“Look, I’m just saying that whatever she is, it seems like we’re stuck here forever if she doesn’t win this. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of this place.”
“We can all agree on that,” Jake said.
“She better win,” Greta said.
“She’ll win,” I said. She has to win.
“I’m having my doubts about it,” Fanny said. “Look at her. She’s getting dimmer. I think she’s weakening.”
I hadn’t realized it before, but as Fanny said it, I had to agree. For countless hours, I had shielded my eyes with my hands because Brighid’s light was so bright it hurt my eyes to look directly on it. I hadn’t even realized that, at some point, I’d lowered my hands because I didn’t need the shield anymore. Fanny was right. Brighid’s light was fading.
“Why so glum, sister?”
“Even if you win this battle, Ciardha, it is not over.”
“Do you concede?”
Brighid shot a strong bolt of Lucent Energy his way in answer.
“No? It is not like you to give up, is it? Pray fill me in, sister. Why is it not over even if I win the battle?”
“You may leave here, but once you are a part of my world, you will need to face me there, where I will pull from the Lucent Energy of all sentient beings, beings whose Lucent Energy hasn’t been weakened by spending time in your Dark Energy funhouse. Even if you win the battle, Ciardha, you will lose the war. Outside of the Umbra Perdita, I more powerful than you can even imagine,” Brighid thundered.
“Oh, I can imagine it quite well. I have had plenty of time – millennia – to consider your power, sister. And to crave it for my own. You think I should be quaking to my core with fear. But I am not. Can you guess why?”
“I am in no mood for games, Ciardha.”
“Very well. After all these eons, you are as large a bore as you ever were. Your argument has a fatal flaw, sister,” Ciardha bellowed. He hurled a massive beam of Dark Energy at Brighid, larger than any beam he had shot at her yet. He held the beam against her like a dark hand pushing on her. Brighid’s light sputtered as she grew smaller and smaller.
“What flaw?” she asked, her voice less like thunder than it was before.
“You assume that you will be able to leave the Umbra Perdita.”
“Of course I can leave.”
“Not if you are contained in my prison.”
“No prison you create can hold me.”
“No? Shall we test it?”
Ciardha continued to advance on Brighid, his Dark Energy holding her. Brighid’s light flickered and dimmed.
“I did not agree to imprisonment as part of our accord, Ciardha.”
“Perhaps not. But you did not exempt it either. Tsk, tsk. You did not consider well the terms of our agreement, dearest sister. Loopholes. Next time, you should consider hiring a lawyer before you bind yourself in an accord with me.”
Ciardha pressed his Dark Energy even further into Brighid. She continued to grow smaller and smaller.
“Your arrogance has led you to this, you know. Your precious humans, so like you. ‘Made in your image.’ Perhaps you are made in their image. Either way, you are all weak. Weakened by your love of yourself. You are indeed, dear sister, going to be imprisoned here in this trap of your own making.”
Ciardha pressed his darkness ever further into Brighid, squashing the Lucent Energy right out of her.
“You can’t keep me here,” Brighid squeaked, her form now no bigger than a large dog.
“You underestimated me – as usual. That was part of my game. I knew that you would. Of course, I helped it along – didn’t show all my cards. But your arrogance put it over the edge. How does it feel now, sister, to be under my control? Look at you. Pathetic. Where’s your fire now?”
A coldness came over me, chilling me to my core. It was like every happiness I’d ever felt was gone, any joy I’d ever had a mere shadow of a memory.
Despite Fanny, Jake and Greta being pissed as hell as me, they all jostled closer to me and to each other, all of us affected by the spread of Ciardha’s Dark Energy. All of us visibly shivered. It felt like a cold that cut clear through to the soul.
“Emily, what’ll happen if Brighid loses and she gets trapped here?” Fanny asked.
“Our world – the entire universe – would be without Lucent Energy,” I replied.
“Also known as the Apocalypse,” Greta said.
“I thought you didn’t think she was a god?” I asked.
Greta didn’t say anything back. We all huddled together, trying to fight off the bone-chilling cold of a world without Brighid’s light.
I looked to where Brighid had been and squinted my eyes to find her. She was now no larger than a softball.
Ciardha began growing smaller as well, reforming himself once again into a humanoid form, now grown to a young adult. His black suit was impeccable, his face finely chiseled as if out of stone, his eyes smoldering blackness, his perfectly cut black hair flaming on the ends, matching the black flame that had spread across the sky.
He picked Brighid up in his left hand as he used his right to fashion a cage for her made of black electrical fields, much like the one he’d kept Fanny and Greta in. Brighid’s form was barely there at all, blinking and twinkling instead of being a steady beam of bright light. At least she’d stopped shrinking.
“My victory is complete,” Ciardha’s voice rumbled as he peered into his electrical cage. “Soon sentient beings will learn, finally, the power of your twin.”
Dark Energy released wholly into the world. Lucent Energy, imprisoned in the Umbra Perdita, a shadow of its former self. Nothing left to counter the effect of the darkness.
Apocalypse.
25
I looked over at Fanny. Her light was gone, replaced by the same smudgy blackness I’d seen around Owen and Ciardha and Macha.
Greta still had a small halo of pinkish light hovering around the edges of her body, but I saw the dark shadow around her too, as if it was pushing to get closer to her.
I reached out my hand to touch Fanny’s arm, and she withdrew from me, backing away slowly. All the brightness I usually saw in Fanny’s eyes was gone, replaced with a dull, vacant look.
“Fanny, what’s wrong? Don’t shut me out. I can help you. Please let me help you. If your light goes out, Ciardha wins.”
“Help me? I don’t need help from the likes of you.”
“‘Likes of me’? What’s that supposed to mean? That’s Ciardha talking, not you.”
“It’s you that needs help,” she sneered.
“Greta, you still have a spark of light around you. Do I?”
“You’re glowing like a damned light bulb.”
“Greta, you’ve got to hold on – don’t let your light blink out on me. Think pleasant thoughts – think of things that bring you joy – happiness. And mostly don’t dwell on the bad stuff.”
“You mean like how you screwed up everything so bad that you single-handedly started the Apocalypse?”
“Yeah, don’t think like that.”
“So you want me to lie to myself?”
“Yes, if that’s what it takes to fortify your inner fire. Look, just think the most positive thought you can. I know you must have something hopeful buried in there somewhere. You can think crummy stuff about me later.”
Greta didn’t say anything, but her light got a bit brighter. Most of the black holes in her aura disappeared.
“You too, Jake. Reach for a positive thought – anything joyful. You have to fight the darkness that’s creeping into us.”
Jake glared at me at first, his aura full of black smudges and holes. But soon it brightened, some of the smudges gone.
“What did you think about?” I asked.
“It’s none of your business.”
He had found a hopeful thought. That’s all that mattered. I’d have to try to patch things up with him after we got out of Ciardha’s nightmare world.
“Ciardha, you promised to return us to our own place and time. It’s time to fulfill your promise.”
“Brighid’s little minion,” he bellowed.
Macha flitted over to me. “How do you like your goddess now, huh? Not particularly powerful, is she? Just like your ancestor Saorla, easy to dispatch with the power of Dark Energy,” she sneered.
“Shut up, Macha, you vile twit.”
“That’s a lame retort, even for you,” she spat back.
“I don’t care what you think, Macha. You can never extinguish Lucent Energy. You can’t put out Brighid’s fire. Did you hear that, Ciardha? You may dim it, you may think you’ve won, but you will never extinguish Lucent Energy. It’s too powerful.”
Ciardha responded with a jolt of his Dark Energy voltage aimed at me. I felt a searing pain like a fire exploded within me. Within seconds, I dropped to my knees as Ciardha instantly appeared beside me, Macha flitting about him.
“Too powerful? Look around you. I’ve already won. Your little dark-haired friend is mine now. The darkness fills her. And soon, the other two will be wholly on my side. Easy, really. They are weak, their fear larger than their so-called light. It will be easy to take over your world. If you’re the best my idiotic sister had, it shall be quite easy indeed,” he thundered. I writhed in pain, sure that he was going to finish me off.
As suddenly as he jolted me, he let me go. The feeling of a fire burning through my veins stopped, but I was still in considerable agony. As I gasped for air, my lungs wanted to explode from the searing heat of breathing in the toxic air of the Umbra Perdita.
“I will return you. And not just because of the accord between my sister and I writ in the fabric of the universe. No, I shall return you and your friends because I still have need of you.”
“What need do you have of us?” my voice croaked out.
“That, too, is none of your business.”
Ciardha sent another bolt of his black, electrified fire into me, bringing me to my knees.
“You will serve me. You will call me Master. You will submit to my Dark Energy.”
“I will never serve you. I will never submit. And I will never call you master,” I said. I struggled to breathe as the black flames continued to lick my insides.
“You will serve me or else …”
“Or else what? You’ll kill me?”
As suddenly as he put me in the grip of his power, he released me. I gasped for air and was rewarded with the foul acrid crap that passed for air in that place.
“No, you small, loathsome speck of dust. Killing you would end your suffering. And where would be the fun in that for me? No, if you do not serve me, I will simply bring you back here to live every petty fear you have ever had. To wallow in your self-pity as I slowly torture you to the brink of death simply for the pleasure of sucking up your fear like the tasty morsel it is to me. You will live your nightmares for all eternity.”
“I am Akasha. You cannot extinguish my light.”
“Such brave words! Stupid and naïve, but brave. We’ll see how bravely you walk through life now,” Ciardha said as he raised his arms and sent a bolt of black energy in my direction. I thought for sure I would die if he filled me with the burning heat again. I didn’t think I could take one more second of it.
Instead, I once again felt like I was being ripped apart, cell by cell. The last time I went through it, I swore I wouldn’t survive it again. Maybe this is what it feels like to die?
The pain began to subside. Death must be close. All I could think of was how if I died, at least I’d be able to escape the mess I’d made and join my mom in the Web of All Things. And I wouldn’t be there to feed Ciardha anymore.
And just when I started to be okay with the whole dying thing, I felt pain shoot through my body as I landed, hard, on my backside.
I was afraid to open my eyes. Afraid to see where my fear had taken me this time.
I sat with my eyes closed, taking in what I could with my other senses. The first thing I noticed was that my throat didn’t burn when I took in air. And oh, the air – it was clear and delicious. No foul odor. No stinging in my nose. Clean, crisp, fresh air.
Then I heard a THUD and opened my eyes at last. Greta had dropped down a few feet from me. And we were in the graveyard. The place where the whole nightmare had begun.
Within seconds, another THUD, and there was Jake. We all sat silent, blinking and gulping in the fresh Illinois air. The graveyard was empty except for us. It was night, but what night? How long had we been gone?
“Where’s Fanny?” Jake asked.
All three of us looked around. I got up, and when I took a step, it hurt. My feet and legs had gotten used to walking in the spongy insubstantial ground of the Umbra Perdita. Solid earth felt hard and unyielding under my feet.
We fanned out and walked around the dark graveyard, lit only by the moonlight, calling out Fanny’s name. She didn’t answer, and there was no sign of her.
We circled back and met up where we’d landed.
“She should have come through by now,” Greta said.
>
“Ciardha promised – he swore to return us – all of us – to our own place and time,” I said. “She’s got to come through.”
“Maybe another of his loopholes,” Jake said.
I wracked my brain trying to think of a loophole that Ciardha had implanted in his accord with Brighid that would let him keep Fanny. But puzzles weren’t my thing, even under normal circumstances, and my brain was fried by countless time in the Umbra Perdita. I couldn’t come up with anything.
“Don’t you get it? He lied, Freak Girl, your little friend isn’t coming back, thanks to you.”
“Shut up, Greta! Just shut the hell up. I don’t need any more of your crap! Don’t you think I know that I failed, huh? Don’t you think I know that? And now I’ve lost my best friend …”
“You’d already lost her,” Jake said.
Ouch, that one seriously hurt. Even Jake wouldn’t let up on me.
“I’ve got to go back to the Umbra Perdita and pull her out.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough dimension hopping?” Jake asked. “You have to face the fact that you don’t know as much as you think you do. If you go off trying to open another portal, you could end up going to another place entirely. Did you ever think of that?”
I hadn’t thought of that. My brain was through with thinking. I had turned into a tired, adrenalin-driven automaton in reaction mode.
“I’ll admit one more time that I frickin’ messed up, okay? But I can’t do nothing while Fanny’s still there – with him.”
“Fanny’s my best friend, too. But you lost more than Fanny. You’ve created chaos for all of us – everyone. Everywhere. Don’t you think you should focus on a plan for how to set things right?”
I took in what he said but didn’t answer. I had no clue what I was supposed to do. I was exhausted through and through.
“You’re right,” I said at last. “I need to come up with a plan. Jake, you’ll help me, won’t you? You’re the puzzle solver, not me. And Greta, you too. I’m going to need help from both of you.”
“I’m done with this little party,” Greta said. She began to walk down the small hill toward the street.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 44