Then the attack stopped, its sudden absence surprising Pearl. Her concentration broken, Theseus’s mental attack caught her off guard as it rushed at her, punching her in the forehead and throwing backwards onto her back. This attack differed from previous attacks, forcing images and voices into her mind instead of inflicting pain. The world around her broke away, and she found herself in New Bethlehem.
“Not again,” Pearl grumbled in the vision. As Theseus had taught her to do in this situation, she focused on herself, and thought aloud, “I’m in the White Room. I’m in the White Room. I’m…”
“I missed you.” A woman with dark brown hair stood in the doorway of the house in front of Pearl. She knew this woman and this house, but didn’t know from where. Vague memories Theseus could utilize against her. Fog obscured the surroundings, those details unimportant to the memory. The woman stared at Pearl with sultry eyes and beckoned her closer with a single finger. A devilish air surrounded this woman, though more playful than sinister. “Let me show you how much.”
“Oh,” Pearl gasped, realizing she wasn’t in one of her memories. Something had gone wrong, and she felt guilty for trespassing. Just as she wished to leave, the world melted away, revealing a new one underneath. Even the woman changed.
“I will not stand here while a group of old men and an outsider abandon a village to the Khaous without even trying to save it,” yelled the woman, her hair now black and her skin paler, her narrow eyes glaring at Pearl. Pearl sat at a table of men, all with black hair and pale skin. They listened to the woman out of obligation, but their patience thinned. The woman pleaded to the elder man seated at the head of the table, next to Pearl. “Father, have you forgotten the words you taught me? The words of your father and his father? The words engraved on your blade? ‘There is always light.’”
The scene shifted again. The man next to Pearl now sat on an elevated platform in front of her, looking down at her. Some time had passed since the last memory, as black streaked the man’s gray hair. She could feel his gaze pressing down on her, and each of his words carried final, undebatable authority. “This boy will be raised by his people, by his true family, to carry on our traditions and heritage. He is your son no more.”
Darkness flooded the world, the only light now a single, fallen candle next to her foot. Pearl stood over a beast with the body of a man and the head of a bull, her hands strangling the hilt of a sword driven into the beast’s chest. It gasped for breath, but had stopped fighting some time ago. With a ragged cough, and deep, hoarse voice, it spoke. “I curse you, human. Enter my domain again, and it shall be your grave. Fire and blade will bear witness to your fall. This is my final vengeance. With my dying breath, I…curse…you…”
The memory ended with the jarring blink of an eye and Pearl crashed back into her body in the White Room. Blood coated her face from the nose down and her head pounded from the inside. It felt heavy and light at the same time. Her thoughts crawled at a sluggish pace. A loud thud drew her attention and she saw Theseus slumped against the wall, the blood dripping from his nose forming a small puddle on the ground. Pearl moved to help him, but her feet weighed her down like anchors and she dragged them as she crawled across the floor.
“Arrr yuuu wllll?” Pearl slurred.
“…Sorry…” Theseus gasped. He pushed off the wall, then fell back into it. He looked aged from the assault. “I’m afraid my own failings made this an ineffective lesson. As I said, my psychic abilities are not the best by any means and using them requires intense concentration. And mine faltered.”
“What happened?” Pearl massaged her head with the palm of hand. “I saw images. Memories.”
“During my final push, I lost focus and connected our minds by accident. Try to forget them. They’re of little import and deserve no reflection.” Theseus looked at the blood on his hand and on Pearl’s face. He tried to wipe some off her face, but gave up soon after.
“What do we do now?”
“Let’s wash up first. There’s no point in continuing covered in blood. Clean up, put on some fresh clothes, then we’ll return here to try again.” As they climbed up the stairs, Theseus asked, “What was that tree you used to protect your mind?”
Pearl smiled to herself. “It’s my secret place, my safe place, where nothing can get to me.”
***
After another hour of tense faces and nose bleeds, they went for a silent walk through the forest to rest their minds. With Nightfall only an hour, they didn’t venture far from Lightholme. Among the dense woods, they came across a clearing made just the night before, judging from the freshness of the fallen trees.
“This was some battle,” Theseus broke the silence. “Something fought like hell here.”
“But what?”
“When food is scarce during a hunt, the Khaous will fight amongst themselves to cull their numbers. The Khaous need to devour living flesh for some sort of sustenance, though the specifics are unclear, with dissection being impossible. A group probably came across a deer or some large prey and fought until their numbers could be sustained by their catch.”
Deep cuts marked each of the standing trees ringing the clearing; so deep, Pearl didn’t understand how they still stood. As she ran her fingers over one of the cuts, a buried memory stirred within her: Pearl running her hand over a similar cut in a similar clearing, while other people stood around her, looking at something among the trees. She remembered nothing more, but the memory left a dark impression of her, and she drew her sword.
“I don’t like this. Something…there’s a darkness here.”
“Put that away. There’s no need for it.” Theseus rested his hand the hilt of his sword. “I’ll admit, it’s odd. Each of the trees fell to a single, clean blow. Not impossible, but I’ve never seen a Khaous take a tree down without any hacking and tearing. And look how the trees were cut from a central point…here…as though something stood its ground while the Khaous rushed in from all sides.”
“But what else is out here?” Pearl felt the eyes of the forest upon her, though a scan of the forest’s depths revealed nothing.
“Some time ago, Father Alexander created four beings to patrol the forest and hunt the Khaous. The Four Guardians, he called them. But they’ve been gone for years. The Ghost People could be out there still, though most native tribes moved west or north, and they avoid wandering too far from their homes. I’ve been all over the world and seen many things, but this new world is still strange to me. The furthest inland I’ve gone is to the Black Hill and that was by accident. We’ve yet to discover how far it stretches west. You ask what manner of beast and monster we shared these lands with? You’ll know when you find them. Or when they find you.”
This failed to comfort Pearl and she stayed close to Theseus, as she had done on her walks with her father, as they returned to Lightholme, the forest coming alive around them.
Chapter 9
“In the beginning, there was darkness,” Pearl told the darkened room around her. “Darkness and a small orb of light.”
“A ‘pearl’ of light, it is often said.” She slashed out as she spun towards Theseus’s voice behind her, but her sword cut nothing but air. She raised her blade into a defensive position and pivoted one slow step at a time, ready for an attack from anywhere.
“This pearl of light, the light of Order, contained all of existence. All that was, is, and will be. The darkness of Chaos surrounding the pearl desired to be the only thing in reality and attacked it, stabbing, pushing, crushing, doing all it could to destroy Order. But the pearl endured, every assault upon it a failure.”
A blade’s edge whistled closer from her right. Her Forewarn kicked in and Pearl raised her sword in time to block the attack. Sparks jumped from the clashing blades and illuminated Theseus’s face for a brief moment, his eyes full of excitement and an almost wicked smile on his face. Then he and his blade disappeared back into the darkness.
“Chaos stabbed Order with all of its force an
d for the first time, it pierced into the orb. It did not expect what came next.” Pearl raised her foot, focused her mana into it, and stomped down. A small wave of fire rolled out in every direction from her foot, and in the light, she saw Theseus and lunged at him. They fought, attacking, blocking, and parrying, but never giving an inch to each other, until the flames crashed and died against the wall. Pearl leapt away from Theseus and listened for his footsteps. “The orb shattered and everything within exploded out throwing Chaos back.”
A week ago, Theseus had approached Pearl about undergoing the First Fight, the final test in becoming a Sister of the Flame, named so as it marked an initiate’s first real fight in service of the Brotherhood and reminded them of the battles to come. The test combined a demonstration of her knowledge of the Brotherhood’s lore and history, and a trial by combat against Theseus. Pearl had accepted the challenge on the spot and since that day, she had trained on her own, so Theseus couldn’t learn what techniques she planned to use against him. Now, after what felt like hours of fighting and recitation, only one part of the Brotherhood’s lore remained: the beginning of existence. Her Forewarn had kept her alive so far, though gaining an advantage vexed her as Theseus could disappear into the shadows. “Released from its orb form, Order expanded. And as it expanded, it created, guided by the singular mind and soul that held it together as an orb.”
“The Presence.” The cracking of lightning drowned out the echoes of Theseus’s voice and the bolts dancing around him illuminated his position on the opposite side of the room. With a thrust of his hand, he shot the lightning at her. She dropped her sword and threw up her arms to create a shield of pure mana. As the lightning fizzled away against the shield, Theseus rushed towards her. Pearl kicked her sword off the ground up into her hand, snatching it in the dark. But Theseus never attacked.
“Yes, the Presence. The origin of all souls and minds. As existence and Order stretched out in every direction, so too did the Presence.” Fighting in the dark had grown tiresome for Pearl. Though she didn’t know the layout of this room, Theseus’s reason for choosing this room, she remembered seeing torches on the wall before Theseus’s lightning had died away.
Mana gathered in her hand and ignited. She threw the fireball and chased it to the wall, reaching the wall just after the fireball burst against it. She shuffled along the wall, her body pressed against it, feeling the space above her head until her hand brushed against the wooden shaft of the torch and the cold iron mount holding it on the wall. She removed it with caution, careful not to alert Theseus to her position. “Spread too thin, the Presence, Order, and all existence shattered, and their many different pieces scattered throughout the fledgling universe.”
She covered her mouth. Her voice. Theseus followed the sound of her voice to attack her. But she couldn’t stop her recitation. Too hell with it, she thought, and lit the torch. It flared to life, illuminating Theseus lunging at her. Pearl parried his attack away and swung the torch at Theseus. The fire licked his coat’s edge before he jumped back into the shadows.
“As the pieces of existence continued to break apart in an expanding universe, multiple realms formed in the tears created by this expansion. And it was in the space between these realms that Chaos settled.” Pearl kept her back against the wall as she made her way to the next torch, lit it, and moved on to the next one. Now and then, a torch would go out as Theseus tried to return the room to total darkness, his movements sporadic to keep them unpredictable. Pearl noticed something in the dark, but her torchlight blinded her. Moving the torch behind her, she could see specks of faint, red light glowing in the dark and moving around.
She threw her torch aside and rushed at the specks, slashing at them. They twisted away and Theseus parried her sword out of her hands. Her Forewarn made her jump backwards and she heard the swish of a sword passing right in front of her. She channeled mana into the red specks, the embers on Theseus’s jacket, and ignited them, fire erupting up his side. He danced away from Pearl, his swears drowning out the roar of the fire as he tried to pat it out. Pearl chased him down and, with a “Hee-yah!”, struck his forearm with her palm, making Theseus drop his sword. She kicked it away before continuing her assault, landing several powerful blows, though Theseus protected himself from the worst, despite being preoccupied with his burning jacket. A jump kick to the chest knocked Theseus off his feet, but he rolled out of the way when Pearl tried to stomp on him. He jumped to his feet, threw off his jacket, and ignited all torches in the room with a clap of his hands.
“Scared of the dark?” Pearl mocked him with a cruel smile.
“Just the things that go bump in it, you little monster,” Theseus chuckled. He lowered his stance and raised his arms in front of his body. Don’t forget your recitation.”
“As far as we know, there are three realms. Our realm, the Mortal realm, and the realm of the gods, the Celestial Spheres, with the Chaos realm laying between and around them.” While faster on her feet, Pearl’s punches and kicks couldn’t compare to Theseus’s raw strength, and with him on guard now, she would have push harder to knock him off balance. Focus on key spots, she told herself when her blows didn’t even faze Theseus. Between his swinging, crushing blows, Pearl darted in and struck at his joints. “The remnants of the Presence coalesced into lifeforms which would one day become gods. With only a fraction of the power the Presence possessed, these proto-gods couldn’t travel the universe and settled in nearby growing planetary systems, claiming newborn planets as their own. As they shaped these planets, they grew more powerful, more unique, more individual, becoming the gods they are today. Once powerful enough, they were able to journey to the Celestials Spheres and claim spheres for themselves. This led to the creation of the different pantheons and, eventually, religion—agh!”
A solid blow to the head surprised Pearl and threw her off her feet. She hit the ground and recovered, rolling backwards into her stance, just in time to knock away Theseus’s fist. She spun along the length of his arm and chopped at his neck, but he ducked under it. Pearl leaned back and kicked at his face. He caught her foot with his hand and wrapped his other arm around her leg. He pushed her off balance and threw her leg up to drop her on her back. Again, she rolled off her back onto her feet.
Theseus didn’t pursue her and gathered lightning around his body. He flung a bolt at her before she could gather any mana for a shield. She cartwheeled to dodge the first bolt, and dove to evade the second. She fumbled into a kneeling position and shot a fireball, but a third bolt reduced it to a cloud of embers. The bolt was too fast to avoid, so Pearl caught it, a thin, glove-like layer of mana protecting her hand. Theseus’s mana within the lightning attack and burned the mana over her hand, like warring armies of ants. With an agonized scream, Pearl forced the lightning into a ball and launched it back at Theseus. To her groaning dismay, the lightning ball sailed pass Theseus and crashed into the wall behind him, breaking off a large chunk of stone.
Exhaustion washed over Pearl’s body, but only for a moment. Theseus rushed forward and her second wind kicked in. He tackled her, all of his weight thrown on top of her. She caught him, weight shifting from her front foot to her back, and threw him off of her. He twisted in midair and landed on his feet with a stumble.
Now, Pearl shouted in her thoughts. Mana gathered over her whole body sparked, covering her in fire. She threw her arms out at Theseus and the fire flew at him. He waved his hands in front of him, the air becoming misty as he created a mana shield. The blaze surrounded the shield and pushed against it, trying to break through. Pearl channeled her little remaining mana into the flames and directed it to the weak spots in Theseus’s shield. She could feel Theseus pushing from within, reinforcing his shield and trying to break free. She concentrated as hard as she could, keeping Theseus stuck within his shield, but with a primal roar, Theseus expanded his shield, extinguishing the flames on top of him. The shield kept growing, smashing into Pearl and shoving her across the room into a wall. The shield a
nd the wall crushed the air out of Pearl’s body. Spots of light formed in her vision before the shield dispersed.
She fell to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. Her neck strained to lift her heavy head. Theseus had retrieved his sword and stood over her. Pearl searched the room for hers and saw it laying against the wall to her right. Her body exhausted, she had a slim chance of beating Theseus to it. She struggled to her feet, her legs shaking the whole time.
A slim chance indeed. Theseus walked to his left, cutting off her path to her sword. She swore under her breath and weighed her options. Weaponless, her body sore and tired, with no mana, she would need to force him to make a mistake and then take advantage of it. The problem laid in Theseus. Despite the burns on his discarded jacket, he looked no worse than when the fight had started, the occasional deep breath the only sign he fought at all.
“Surrender, Pearl. I’ve won. You put up a good fight and there’s no shame in losing.” Pearl clenched her fist so hard, she drew blood from her palm. She wanted to beat him or, at the least, make him look like he had to try to beat her.
“No. I won’t.”
“What do you plan to do?” Theseus asked. Pearl didn’t answer, her silence speaking her defiance. He sighed. “If your wish is to suffer a greater loss, I will grant you that.”
He took cautious steps towards her, watching if she would make a move, and when she didn’t, he rushed towards her, his sword ready to strike. Pearl’s Bloodlust fed off her burning frustration, roared out of her and pushed her to charge straight at Theseus. Her faraway Forewarn tried to warn her of Theseus’s sword, but she ignored it, her focus locked on Theseus’s throat. In her Bloodlust-induced bestial frenzy, she hungered to rip it out. She no longer noticed his movements, seeing him only as a target. She heard the clanging of metal, then a punch to her gut knocked the wind and the Bloodlust out of her. Theseus followed through with his punch by lifting Pearl off the ground, then grabbing her and throwing her down. Pearl gurgled in pain with no air to scream. The Bloodlust’s sudden removal left her mind somewhat vacant, until her thoughts returned in fractions.
The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 9