Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3)

by Brian Wilkerson

  Then, a bolt out of the blue struck the ordercrafter and melted away his power, leaving her defenseless before the newcomer. This fourth figure was also golden-haired, pointy-eared, glowing, and floating, but unlike the last one, there was no mistaking the inner divinity. Just like the first two, this trickster’s gender was a mystery to Eric.

  “Are you a deity?”

  The trickster reached through her mouth and into his soul and grabbed the most recently eaten one and ripped it out. Ignoring the pain she caused to the human, he returned the soul to its former vessel.

  “Yes.”

  A cloud of otherworldly smoke appeared out of nowhere and encompassed the pained human. Her eyes lit up and he stood up with newfound strength.

  “This is her deity,” the enforcer said.

  “If we fight this, then whole area will be devastated,” the trickster said.

  “This will ensure stability by any means.”

  “No more.”

  She ripped off his right arm and shoved it into the mortal at her side. The human spasmed as pure chaos rushed through his system. Her hair regained its golden hue and his physical injuries mended, but her spiritual one remained. He crouched behind the trickster’s legs and stared with wide-eyed and dry-throated terror at the enforcer-possessed human. The trickster patted her head.

  “Again?”

  The elf shook his/her head. “Never again, ever.”

  All four figures disappeared and the ashes of the fifth blew away. Eric assumed a thinking pose as he tried to make sense of what he had just seen.

  “That can’t be right. The place and the time are correct, but it was so short and the genders kept switching…” He snapped his fingers. “Compression! Geologic time is different from human time. I need to reconfigure the clock.”

  By the time he figured out how to do that, he had to rewind another two thousand years in order to make use of what he’d learned. After watching the scene a second time, he applied his new skill and the minute-long event separated into an affair spanning centuries. Just as Annala said, it was indeed more complicated than what he had just witnessed. He watched it several times from different angles to gain new perspectives. It was a heady tonic to watch the struggles of lesser beings from on high.

  “Annala is one of them.”

  “What?”

  “One of the ‘lesser beings’ here is Annala; one among billions. Can you find her? If you succeed, you will pass my test.”

  “My third one. I accept.”

  “Fair warning; she may not be as you remember her.”

  A girl awoke with a start. Heart beating furiously and sweat circling her brow, she sat up. Looking around, she saw no sign of anyone; a curious thing because she thought she heard someone call her. The sun was peeking through the windows, so she decided to dress. She put on a robe and walked to the back of her home for the morning cleansing ritual.

  She took extra care washing her hair. Its rich golden-brown color was proof that she was the granddaughter of Lady Chaos. She could not be permanently injured, never ill, never die, and her beauty would only grow as she aged. She was truly blessed.

  Once she was clean, dry, and clothed, she stepped inside the kitchen. As a chaotic acolyte, it was her job to make the morning meal. Her teacher’s wife caught and picked a lot of good food, so she was never hungry. In fact, with all the available ingredients, she could experiment: these nuts grounded into a powder and mixed with this sap made a tasty sauce, and boiling these certain leaves made a refreshing tea. Other experiments, she blushed to think, were not as successful. Her teacher and his wife ate them nonetheless and with good humor.

  "Good morning, Annala," an old man said. Most of his hair fell down his face rather than his head. In that regard, he was similar to men his age, but his ears told otherwise.

  "Good morning, Teacher," Annala said, bowing.

  "Did you slept well?"

  “I had a strange dream.”

  “What have I taught you about dreams?"

  "They are messages from The Trickster and we should pay heed to them. The reason they're so weird is because he wants us improve our reasoning by deciphering them."

  The old wiseman smiled kindly. "That's my favorite student."

  The younger frowned. "I'm your only student."

  "Good! Then I won't have to disappoint anyone when you finally succeed me."

  This was a game they had played for as long as she could remember. She hoped to continue playing it forever and why not? Both of them were immortal.

  If Annala closed her eyes, she could still remember the scene. Now it was gone...they were gone; killed by mortals. To think that the immortality bestowed upon them by Grandmother Chaos could be revoked made her shudder. She had never seen such eldritch magic before. Her fellow soldiers counted on her to protect them from it.

  Far from her secluded village, she marched with a company of elven warriors. They traveled the countryside searching for signs of the dark arts so they could kill its practitioners. Thus far, every human settlement they came across used it and so they had been very busy.

  Her job was to project the blessings of Grandmother Chaos to shield and inspire those around her. Between her power and their valor, even the empowered fiends were no match. Every trace was wiped out as if it had never been there. Humans bred like rats so there would be no harm done to their total population. Besides, they weren’t going to live much longer anyway. Their quality of life was so poor, their already short lives were cut even shorter. All she and her companions did was deny them a year or two.

  She shuddered. The others noticed and guessed its cause but said nothing. None of them wanted to talk about the blasphemous power they fought against. All of them were too scared to think about it. The only reason they sought it out was because they were more afraid of its users appearing on their doorstep without warning. There were rumors that an entire village had been enslaved and their imaginations spun ever more horrid tales of what happened to them.

  An ethereal hand pulled her mind out of the illusion and back into reality. She was in a dungeon and tormented by an ordercrafter. That was what these fiends called themselves: “Those empowered by Order to bring stability to this world.” In addition to the physical imprisonment, they pulled their captives back and forth from illusions to blur their distinction of reality and break their will.

  Her wrists were shackled above her head and pulled so high she stood on her tiptoes, while her ankles were secured with manacles bolted to the floor. In normal circumstances, she could escape from these as easily as breathing via shapeshifting, but a metal collar clenched tight around her neck suppressed her chaotic ability. It made her weaker than a magic-less mortal.

  “The Age of Elves is over,” the ordercrafter said. “Never again will your kind threaten us. You belong under our feet and putting those clever minds of yours to our benefit.”

  “Go to the Abyss, temp!”

  The ordercrafter forced a rag into her mouth. She tossed her head and thrashed in her restraints, but it was tied behind her head. The blood that was drenching it dripped down her throat and infected her with its diseases. They would cause her tremendous pain but wouldn’t kill her. While diminished, her Seed of Chaos would still prevent her death. Escape was impossible.

  Again, she woke up. She was in her bed, in her home, in her village. She told herself it was a dream and recited the mantra her therapist taught her.

  “This is not an illusion; this is reality. I was rescued. I was saved. Tasio freed me from their clutches. He is my savior. He will come when I say, ‘Tasio, Tasio, Tasio!’”

  The Trickster appeared at her bedside and smiled kindly at her. There was no mistaking his divinity, his radiance, or his Lady Chaos derived goodness.

  “Another bad dream?”

  She nodded.

  He reached out and stroked her head. She leaned into his touch.

  “Don’t be afraid. No shadow of Order can withstand the True Light of Chao
s. The Elven Nightlight will keep the monsters away.”

  In the shelter of her god, she curled under the covers and returned to blissful sleep. When she woke up the next day, again in her bed at home, she returned to the work of the community.

  There was much work to be done and fewer hands to do it. The village was emptier than it was before the war. Losses to death, losses to enslavement, losses to the insanity caused by both, and few were able to replace those losses with new life. Female elves could only give birth once a century or two, and many of them lost this century’s chance to the depraved desires of humans, herself included.

  “Never again,” she muttered to herself.

  Stronger and better hidden; all villages needed to be stronger and better hidden. Their technology had to be ever greater and reach a plateau beyond the reach of ordercraft. Most of all, they had to develop their personal magic and potential for chaos so that they’d never need fear the chill of such blasphemous power ever again.

  All around the village, time passed. The seasons changed, humans were born and died, and their civilization stagnated, but the village of elves endured and thrived. After performing all the improvements that they could think of, they settled into their hobbies. After a long enough span of time, many of them gave birth and happy children ran around the village causing trouble that delighted their parents.

  As they grew up, they grew bored. They wanted to leave the village and explore the wider world. Annala argued with a younger version of herself about how this was a terrible/essential idea. It ended with her turning her back on herself.

  “I’m an elf,” she said over her shoulder. “We were never made to stay in one place.”

  She walked beyond the Chaotic Curtain and didn’t look back.

  Walking aimlessly, she had no destination but the direction of the wind. This was the freedom spoken of in the Elven Tome and preached by the priest. It wasn’t cloistering and developing power but living a constant state of motion. That was the only way to learn new things and to meet new people.

  Every one of them was a human. It was easy to tell, given their rounded ears. She hid her own pointed ones under a hat, just in case her parents were right, and talked with them. Many of them were sociable and some of them kind while others tried to steal from or take advantage of her. Even without her chaotic power, defeating them was easy.

  “Those paranoid old folks were right about one thing,” she said to herself. “Self-defense is important when traveling.”

  One day, while she was taking her leisure at a roadside tavern, two human children threw themselves at her feet. One was male and the other female; twins possibly.

  “Priestess! Have pity on us.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re the Golden-haired Priestess of Justice, right?”

  Annala looked sideways. “Uhh…yeah, that’s me. What’s up?”

  “Our village is beset by bandits! They’re taking all our food and killing anyone who fights against them! Please help us!”

  “What kind are they?”

  “They’re Hiksoss.”

  “What kind of monster is that?”

  The siblings looked at each other in confusion. “They’re monsters for sure, but not monster-monsters. They’re human.”

  “Really!? Humans attacking other humans and dominating them? Fascinating! I’ve heard about that, but I’ve never seen it before. Show me!”

  She remembered that day fondly; the day she met her two apprentices and came to inhabit this shrine. It wasn’t easy to defeat those bandits. All together, they inflicted damage as fast as her Seed of Chaos could repair. Nonetheless, she succeeded in routing them. Taking so much life in defense of still more life led to a reflective period later that day, which she recorded in her journal. After that, she was invited to live in this shrine, but it wasn’t as a priestess.

  “Good morning, Goddess.”

  “I’ve told you countless times before, a goddess I am not.”

  “You’ve been here for ages, you possess divine power, you protect us, and you ensure our prosperity. That makes you goddess enough for us.”

  These humans had never seen an elf; no human living had ever seen an elf before because all of them died of old age. Between her chaotic power, golden hair, and pointed ears, they thought she was a trickster. She didn’t protest too much because it was kinda true; elves were created to be lesser tricksters and so it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call them “demi-gods.”

  She learned much about humans from living among them: their personalities, their culture, their beliefs, their architecture, and many other things. What occupied them the most was food. It was never a problem for her, but these humans required it to live. As the spiritual leader of the community, they looked to her to bring Eaol's, Forol's, and other gods’ favor on the village in order to ensure that they had enough food. Fewer things stirred up more sorrow or joy than a shortage or surplus of food. It was quite fascinating.

  Soon she realized that her job was also known as “scapegoat.” If hunters failed to bring meat, then it was her fault for not performing the proper rituals. If crops failed, then it was her fault for not invoking divine influence. If a plague swept the village, then it was her fault for casting defective blessings. Any misfortune that befell the village could be blamed on her action or inaction. One day, she decided that if she could switch so quickly from “goddess” to “fiend” in their opinion, then she would be neither and leave.

  On the road again, she investigated this human behavior and discovered it to be a common one. Humans possessed contradictory opinions of Grandmother Chaos. Like herself, Chaos was thought to be the greatest good and the greatest evil, the giver and the taker, the one who caused bountiful harvests in one year and famine in the next. Accompanying such talk was praise for the stability of Order.

  This made her cringe, distasteful. All her life she’d been taught that Order was evil. An evil necessary for the continued existence of Noitearc and thus all of Creation, but evil nonetheless. It made sense to her at the time but hearing all these people speak of ordercrafters like noble and virtuous heroes, it made her wonder. Talking to one would be too dangerous. Her parents must have a reason to be scared of them. Thus, she would observe from afar. In the worst-case scenario, she had the power of chaos, which trumped all other powers.

  Her travels followed rumors of a town free from monsters. The rumors led to a town that never faced mana storms. In its center was a grey obelisk. She disguised herself as a human so she could approach unseen, but still far enough away that she could run if she found trouble.

  A tremendous pressure forced her flat. She couldn’t move her body or her mana; every part of her was paralyzed. Someone locked a collar around her neck and two more people chained her wrists and ankles.

  “I’m a peaceful traveler!” she insisted. “I mean you no harm!”

  “You’re a wandering elf and thus a threat to local stability. The risk your power and philosophy pose to the realm’s security is too great. That’s why I can’t let you leave.”

  “Tasio, Ta—”

  She was cut off by the collar constricting. She could barely breathe, much less talk.

  “If you say that name, I will have to hurt you again."

  His followers handed him the collar’s leash and another hauled her to her feet. She was then marched directly into town. The shackles gave her just enough slack to walk. It made her claustrophobic and she yanked her feet back and forth. The ordercrafter's only response was to choke her again. Then, to drill his point further, he pushed her face against the obelisk.

  “See this? It transforms this area into a place of power for ordercrafters. An immature elf like yourself is no match for me here.”

  For the first time in her life, the elf felt fear and helplessness. She was alone. Her power was suppressed. Not even her patron god could hear her. She had never felt so vulnerable.

  “Wh-what are you going to do with me?”

  The ord
ercrafter’s reply was light and casual. “You’re going to be my slave forever. Considering your age, I bet you’re still a virgin.”

  She gasped and backed away. “Please tell me you’re joking. That’s human-style humor, right? I’m sorry if I didn’t laugh. I’m still learning about—”

  He yanked her forward and kissed her. Struggling only made him kiss harder and hold her tighter. He didn’t break the kiss until she started crying, and then only to lick her tears.

  “This is ordercraft; the power of absolute control,” he whispered in her ears. “No matter what I say, you have to obey.”

  “You monster!” she cried.

  He snapped and the collar constricted.

  “Scientifically speaking, you are the monster because chaos runs in your veins and distorts your thought processes. Monsters do not speak.”

  In her new master’s home, she wore a new outfit that pleased him. Her own clothes were taken from her and burned. Her days were spent in domestic labor and always in his sight. At night, she performed a different service for him. Her shackles might be removed depending on the task, but the collar was permanently fixed to her neck.

  Time passed. Her belly swelled with new life and, every day, she contemplated terminating it. No matter what its gender, its life would be horrid, but what if she gave birth to a daughter? The only way her suffering could increase would be if she were forced to watch her daughter suffer the same. She concocted a plan, but before she could carry it out, her master found out. She spent the rest of her pregnancy bound spread eagle. When her child came out, he refused to let her hold it or even tell her its gender.

  No one else visited her for a long time. She was alone in the damp and dark, until a small human child entered her cell. Without a word, they released her, but she didn’t move. Her captor had sent people to do this before and punished her severely for trying to escape. What the child said next rattled her to her core.

  “You should have joined my barbershop quartet.”

  “You...You couldn’t be…”

  The child grew in height and their hairstyle changed until they were an adult male elf. Instead of tiny rags, he wore armor emblazoned with the Flower of Chaos. On his shoulders and head were a trio of puppets.