Enigma: Awakening

by Damien Taylor

  They went before him. I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Wild eyes and an anxious countenance found me.

  “I’ll fight as well. I’ll need a sword, though.”

  With a humph, nod, and half smile, he obliged. “Very well, Fox. Thank you.” He snatched the one from the dead guard and tossed it. “That should do.”

  “It should.” And he started on the path beyond the rock arch, and I behind him until a painful and harsh thump came in my chest. I stopped and squeezed, dropping the sword.

  “No. You must leave now.”

  I breathed slowly. Spang came to me. “You all right, Fox?” I stumbled. He caught me with a hand. “Darwin,” he called. A sharp whistle came in my ears as if something piercingly loud had erupted. I saw Spang’s lips moving, but I couldn’t hear him. I swallowed.

  “I can’t hear you,” I expressed. But I couldn’t even hear myself.

  “You must leave now,” the Amethyst repeated.

  But the village is under attack.

  “And soon will be your home.”

  What are you talking about?

  I saw a vision, the very same from the shrine. Lucreris. It was burning. For some time, the Amethyst had made me forget with suppression, hiding it in a barricaded space somewhere in my mind. All that had happened to me, and what I was doing before I arrived in Hazelshire came back like a skin crawling revelation.

  “I did only what was necessary. It was pivotal that you become knowledgeable of your powers. You would not have been attentive otherwise. Trust me when I say you will know gratitude soon.”

  Anger flooded me. Take me to Lucreris now! I thought growlingly.

  “Very well. My powers are as limited to you as your ability allows. I will get you as close as I can.”

  Just do it!

  My body vibrated. My stomach turned with nausea. Spang was still in front of me. I saw him mouth the words I’m sorry. And then he left, running off to defend his village. I fell to my knees. Everything around me blurred and stretched. When I looked at the Amethyst, it burned blindingly; its purple radiance exploded before my eyes.

  Desert Flames

  “Thank you,” said Nova to a man who was but a stranger. Beyond him, she went and stood on a knoll, gazing over the wall into the inner city. “If only I could find a way inside. They’d never let a common girl like me through without an escort,” she said to herself and then poked her tongue. “I bet there're tons of doctors there.” None in the outskirts knew anything about this plague that could help make the situation better. She had, through pity, acquired some free herbs and potions that would help her mother sleep better and alleviate discomfort. But this Panacea Lily seemed to be nothing more than only a myth living in the translations of Doctrine.

  For twelve days, since Darwin left, she’d been on a fierce investigation to no avail. She wasn’t one to let up easily from a goal. “He’s been gone long—too long.” Southwood was only a few leagues away—a day there and a day back at most. She shook her head, sinking her upper lip into her lower one as she dismissed the notion of something being wrong. Her brother was good at what he did—vanquishing his enemies and surviving. Such a worrisome thought had been a living cliché in her mind that he thwarted every time. She had faith in him, as much as she did for the Superiors to whom she prayed to watch over him. Whatever he was doing at this very moment, in her heart she knew he was well and doing what was right.

  She moved on from the knoll, going to the market where she enjoyed listening to its fiery melodies and watching the entertainers who kept the outskirts alive. As she walked a road of sand and dirt, excitement struck her. Darwin wanted to take her with him this time, together with their mother, back to the Militia. It was what she’d dreamt of for years. Nova was full of adventure and a hardness not so readily accepted. She loved climbing things, tumbling, and sparring with the young boys who aspired to become Lucrein soldiers one day. At the age of the marrying girl, they were all unbecoming qualities. She had mixed emotions about womanly expectations. She wanted to marry one day, particularly to someone in the Militia. She believed them to be the only real men in the world. But it was a priority barely hovering over the bottom of her to-do list.

  Like Darwin at that age, Nova felt the call of war on her life and a burning desire to set things right. Had it not been for the close bond between her and her mother, she would have already packed a bag and set out to find the Militia in his footsteps. But for her, Nova tried sternly to be the girl she wasn’t. Her brother was her chance, her chance to grasp what she truly wanted. She only hoped their mother would accept Darwin's request. For her mother, Nova knew that it would be a long and arduous process to reach a conclusion. She cherished Lucreris more than anything.

  When Nova spotted the farmer, Markus snaking a line of horses through the crowd on a cross street, she went toward him. Her petite frame quickly weaved through others unwilling to move aside. Her face tightened as she came upon him. Her brow lowered. He was supposed to be watching after her mother. The farmer put up a hand. “I know. I know. Annette is with her now. She wouldn’t go to sleep, and I figured the company of a woman might be more suitable. Besides, I must still get work done too, you know.”

  Nova slung herself onto the first horse—a large gray-blue stallion of silver hair. The farmer smacked his lips and hissed. “Nova,” he said irritably.

  “What? I’ve been looking for that plant all day. I’m tired.”

  “Still haven’t found it, have you?”

  She growled. “I wouldn't be here if I had.”

  “The medicine has made her better. Maybe it will settle what ails her for good.”

  “I hope so. If I could just get into the city proper and speak with one of the doctors then maybe I could have some definite success,” she said, gesturing wildly.

  Markus rubbed his pointer over his chin. “That may be possible. I’m going there now to meet with some of the king’s breeders and soldiers to pitch a sale.”

  Nova’s eyes widened. “Right now?”

  Markus scratched his wild hair, answering hesitantly. “...Yes.”

  “You have to let me come with you. You must, Markus! Can I?”

  “I’m surprised you even asked.”

  She smiled. Markus grasped the rein of the horse Nova was riding as it weaved grouchily. “Any word from Darwin?”

  Her smile swept away. “No. But I do hope he returns soon. I’m ready to leave this place.”

  “Leave?”

  “He wants to take Momma and me away,” she said. “To join the Militia. They travel west.”

  “Really? Did he say what of the war in the Vanik Isles?”

  He had. But she wasn’t going to mention it to the farmer. The Horde had defeated the Militia and was coming to Memoria soon, Darwin had said. Looking off, away from Markus, she said, “He didn’t mention anything to me.” It wasn’t that she didn’t have the heart not to worry him, but she knew that a barrage of questions she knew not the answers to would come hurtling toward her. Markus was a loudmouthed man. She didn’t want to be responsible for bringing the outskirts into an uproar. By the way everyone carried on, the news had yet to reach Lucreris.

  The two left the market going a clear, direct route toward the gates leading into fortified districts. The tightened buildings loosened, and Nova could see far beyond the outskirts—countless miles into the undulating Endless Desert. As she admired the lines of overcast shadows, her sight fell on a rock formation she thought she spotted something standing on. She squinted. A black, hunching and heaving creature faced the outskirts, something oddly slender moving behind it with a broad object at the end of it. If Markus was talking, she had tuned him out.

  blitzkrieg came wandering into the outskirts of Lucreris unquestioned. He was invisible, it seemed. Several Lucrein soldiers had to have spotted him by now. He was sure of it. But he was robed, armored, and strapped with weapons. Amused, he whispered, “What sound man would dare approach me?” And neither would he,
had he been one of the mortals. The pathetic desert slum was hot and revolting, but not as hot as it would be soon. The nasracans had arrived across the dreaded dry land. He felt them like the wind at his back, just beyond the outland, waiting for his command, not that he needed them at all for this.

  He looked north to the tallest building: the Lucreris castle, an amber tower leaning against the foothills of the mountains. For the king and the inner city, Blitzkrieg, held a surprise, one that drew a twisted smile on his hidden face.

  “The nasracans can have the outskirts, but for you...” he said to the inner city— “I have another plan in mind.” He waited in the center of the market, unmoving. No one or nothing bothered him, and he remained still until the sun met the crown of a dune. Dusk. It was time.

  He turned about, finding the perfect specimen to commence his plan. Through his infrared eye, everyone, and everything alive was green and everything else gray or black. Those with stronger souls than others glowed with different tones of green. The young were bright, and the weak, dark. There was one he took interest in—a woman. She burned with the lightest and darkest of greens. Something made her more than every person who passed him—something feeding her spirit—something beyond the mortal world. “Faith?” Blitzkrieg questioned. The irony. Blitzkrieg laughed inside. The very thing that sustained her would bring about her untimely death.

  Through his other eye, she was a woman of flesh and dark hair. Her scarce clothing made his head tilt. She was attractive and young. A fair sacrifice. As he raised an arm, someone hit him in the back. A nobleman. A long fur-trimmed robe dressed his fat frame, and he walked with a cane. Gold rings gleamed upon his meaty digits and a circlet crowned him. An entourage of noblemen and commoners were behind him—slaves. “How dare you touch me, you hooded mongrel! Go to a corner if you wish to stand still.”

  The nobleman was dark green, worthless, but a sacrifice by default nonetheless. It was to this man, instead of the woman, that Blitzkrieg lifted his gauntlet.

  “Did you not hear me, swordsman? Park your steely posterior elsewhere before I summon the Guard.”

  “Call them,” dared Blitzkrieg. But he wasn’t going to give him the chance. Before the nobleman could bark again, Blitzkrieg gripped him with magic. The man’s body tightened, his swollen face vibrating in exertion. Many around him gasped and retreated. If unnoticed before, it was no longer the case for Blitzkrieg now. All eyes fell unto him. The noble’s eyes, ears, and gaping mouth expelled green light that found Blitzkrieg’s hand. Then the man hovered the air, black lines like veins etching his face, skin hardening like stone. Then his entire form blackened and evaporated to dust that came seconds into the Whole Abyssian’s grasp. Black Salt.

  Alarm ascended upon the market. Blitzkrieg tossed the Salt into the air, and as it drifted in palls, it transformed to animals as large as lions with deadly manes meant for stabbing. sifters. Five formed, quickly rousing horrid violence that ruined the musical marketplace and summoned screams from the guts of many. Blitzkrieg used the Black Salt from his body to create more sifters. They would be his eyes and ears.

  The death of the nobleman had been purely for entertainment. When more than a hundred sifters crawled from the market into a scatter, he walked forward. “Come,” he commanded airily to the nasracans beyond the outskirts that yearned to hear his voice. He felt their eagerness to feed, and the thumps of their foot claws pounding across the sand.

  “Markus, what’s that?” said Nova in slight distress.

  With a hand cupping over his brow, he looked.

  Scratching his chin, he said, “Hrm... I don’t know. Seems like some sort of animal. That’s a tail moving behind it. But what’s on its head?”

  Nova’s stomach convulsed. Horns. Long and twisting ones. The hair on her arms rose. Darwin’s stories had suddenly come true, bringing a dreadful epiphany that she hoped wasn’t real. “Is that a—”

  There was a scream that came from the marketplace, one loud enough to reach those a mile away. When Nova and Markus turned behind them, they spotted creatures on top of a building—catlike and fleshy with living manes—crawling with increasing speed and leaping to the ground.

  Like them, many commoners on the same road froze, their attention captured. “We’re being attacked,” someone screamed. The creatures came from behind places no one could see, pouncing upon their feasts like game.

  A hapless woman took flight, fumbling her vase. One of the quadruped monsters leaped out of an alley in front of her and chomped her to the ground, her blood gushing as she screamed. The creature’s beaded eyes flashed green, and the woman was lifeless; her skin grayed and shrunk to her bones as if she’d aged beyond recognition, her eyes empty and white. Within the minute, everyone around Nova and Markus perished. Several men, a husband and wife, and their four children—were all butchered the same.

  Markus’s horses sprang from their forelegs in terror. Nova’s horse bucked so vigorously it nearly threw her off. She rolled into a flip from the momentum and hid behind it. Markus, who was desperately trying to keep control of his steeds, kept yanking the first horse toward him. “Nova, this way!” he said. “Back on the horse you go!” He swung himself onto the second steed beside it. Nova was petrified, her adrenaline and anxiety peaking. “Come on!” Markus barked.

  Like an arrow, a soaring monster stuck the farmer, thrusting him across the air. Several yards they flew then rolled on the ground. Nova heard the farmer growling and squealing as they struggled. By the time they stopped, the creature pinned him, and he was bleeding from the neck down. His arm lay under the monster's forelegs. On her palms and knees, Nova watched.

  The monster turned its head toward her, pausing. When its undershot fangs spread, a piercing shriek speared from its mouth, stabbing her ears. Tears streamed his cheeks. Its head jabbed downward, teeth sinking into the only consistent man in her life. With a gasp, Markus was no more. It crept toward her, and she froze. But it wasn’t long before she found courage somewhere inside. Nova bolted into any direction but didn’t make it several seconds before the creature took her down in tumbles as it had the farmer. She spun quickly, and a second later she was beneath it, lying with red pigtails over her face.

  The monster drooled. Its mane spread and curled toward her. It shrieked, and she cringed, looking away. There was a long pause. When she opened her eyes, the monster’s liquid silver eyes peered. A hum resonated from it, one like the purr of a cat. Suddenly, as if it heard something, it looked up and bound away.

  Nova stayed on the ground for several minutes, listening to screams and shrieks. They were far more frightening than any she’d ever heard during the night. When finally, she stood up, she bolted for a tower of scaffolding, climbing three stories, nearly falling from the adrenaline coursing through her. On a flattop building, she looked toward the market. Like ants scattering from the anthill, these creatures crawled in all directions, and on every piece of architecture, there was at least one.

  She heard something beating in the distance and found its source on the rock formation in the desert. Charging from that direction were black humanoid figures of flashing arrow tails, a hundred of them. Nova sank to her knees. “nasracans,” she whispered. And then she winced with striking suddenness, freeing a gasp. “Momma!”

  It was almost dark when Blitzkrieg found the gates of the city proper. More than twenty guards stood before them, brandishing their sabers high. “Stand fast, men.” Blitzkrieg stopped and drew a sword, though not to duel with these feeble mortals but to call upon the thing that would. From the tip of his longest blade dripped a remnant of darkness that pooled the ground. Within it, no larger than a throwing stone were a thousand hardy souls. Their number and strength were vital to his plan—perfect for the entity he needed to construct.

  From the darkness crept a flame that etched a circular symbol in the ground several yards in diameter. He knew not what the symbol meant or rendered, comparable to the amount of knowledge he held for his own purpose.

/>   Its completion birthed a roar beneath the ground, and then a red fist, large as a boulder, burst through the mantle. A towering demon with black horns curved forward from its ears burgeoned from the earth. It was a beast with unfurling leather wings one story in length from tip to tip. A stripe of fire ran down its spine from head to tail, a fauld of rigid black armor concealing its haunches.

  Another roar shook the gates. Blitzkrieg marveled at the necrein he’d created. “What is your name, Abyssian?”

  The beast looked at its master. “We are Roth,” announced the souls within it.

  “Impressive.”

  “What is your command, oh great Abyssian?”

  “This city, burn it to the ground. Spare no one. The king is yours to kill, but he is my prize. His remains belong to me.”

  “As you wish.”

  The necrein wasted no time. It ran for the gates, shaking the earth with every stride. The guards had no chance, though they were brave. Roth crashed through them, leaving not a single man alive. The gate burst from its hinges and the parapet collapsed, killing the archers atop it in the fall. Blitzkrieg marveled until something hit his body, and the souls within him leaped in alarm. He focused on the thing that triggered him. The sight in front of him disappeared, and his eyes became the eyes of a sifter.

  He saw a girl’s face, her head red as wine and olive eyes filled with fear. The thing his maker had been looking for. “A girl?” It confused him. Yet he was sure of it. Something within him calmed at the sight of her face. It made him gasp in surprise. It was as if he’d reunited with a long and lost loved one. “But how?” How could he have been a demon with such tranquility in him? Before that moment, he once thought that there was no other feeling better than being Whole. But this sensitivity was riveting. Exhilaration screamed within him.

  Blitzkrieg ordered the sifter onward, commanding every soul-reaping Abyssian not to lay so much as an eye on her. She belonged to him. Thunderously, he retraced the direction he came from and halted momentarily when an abrupt obscure emotion overwhelmed him. Warm reveries flooded his mind. He knew her. “Nova.” He resumed his hike.