by Greg Curtis
There was silence after that, the only sounds Abel could hear being the noise of his own desperate breathing and the zaps as Barachalla struck at Master Zo'or's defences again and again.
“He came with her.” The wildred pointed at the princess with his wooden hand. “She tried to kill me.”
“Look behind you! That's her family you have chained to the altar like animals! Who you're planning on murdering! What did you expect her to do?”
“We're not going to kill them!” Finally Callum's voice showed some emotion as he defended himself. “This will fix everything!”
“Fix?!” Abel did his best to show his disbelief. “Look at the madman beside you. Does he look like he intends to fix anything?! He is a muckspout lost in his poppy dreams.” And truly Barachalla looked demented as he struck again and again at Master Zo'or. His ancient face was filled with thousands of wrinkles that together showed only anger and frustration as his lightning failed to get through. Meanwhile Master Zo'or lay silently at his feet. He was even flinching less. That had to be a bad sign.
“Now stop this! That is the only man who has ever cared for you! Who will ever care for you! And when he's gone you will have nothing. Nothing but the memories of what you've done.” Abel put everything he had into his words, and then worried a bit as his vision started going dark around the edges. He simply didn't have enough air to both breathe and talk. But finally he knew something must have struck a note with the wildred as he watched Callum turn away. Then he stepped towards his companion, a decision apparently made.
“Enough!” Callum raised his voice a little.
“What?” Barachalla seemed surprised. But he didn't stop raising his arm and continued sending blast after blast of lightning into Master Zo'or's prone form.
“I said enough!” He raised his hand and suddenly Barachalla found himself turned around, unable to strike again as he was facing the wrong way. “He can't fight anymore. He can't stop us. And we have work to do.”
Callum made a few more gestures and Master Zo'or was lifted gently off the ground and flown across to the cliff face where the vines quickly wrapped him up in their embrace.
“Boy?!” Barachalla raised his voice a little, upset at facing the wrong way. And he looked even more upset when Callum released him and he turned around to see his victim gone.
“What have you done?”
“You have work to do old man. A world to save.” Callum started walking back to the altar, and in time, after glaring angrily at them, Barachalla followed.
“Ask him about the family!” Abel did his best to shout after them. But his voice was weak. Still Callum heard him. Or at least he stopped walking for a moment. Then he turned to his companion.
“He says the four will be killed by this.”
“Sacrifices have to be made.” Barachalla dismissed Callum with a wave of his hand as he continued back to the altar.
“Told you.” This time Abel didn't have to raise his voice to be heard. Callum was listening. “Now end this madness.”
“I can't.” Callum's head fell.
“You can! You're the only one who can now. He's living in a dream world. He can't do anything he says he can. But he can kill so many more, starting with the Princess' family.” Abel pleaded with him as best he could.
“No. You're not listening. I can't.” Callum raised his head to stare straight at him. And then he did the one thing Abel had never expected. He pulled back his hood.
It was bad. Abel had known it would be but he had still not prepared himself for the truth. A head half of man and half of tree. And the tree half while it might move as a face did, was not the right shape. It was deformed and had knots in the bark. He was a man in two halves. Maybe literally in two minds. Most of all he was in pain. And in that moment Abel knew there was nothing he could say to stop him. But he still had to try.
“He can't help you.”
But Callum simply turned and headed after the technologist toward the altar. He would not stop. He would not turn around. And he would not listen. Because, Abel realised, he did not want to hear what he told him. He couldn’t accept that there was no hope for him. After seventy years of trying, he could not live without hope – no matter the cost or who paid it.
They had lost.
“Lord Sylvennia, hear my plea.” Abel lowered his head, knowing there was nothing else left to do. It was time to pray.
Chapter Forty Nine
Briagh returned to consciousness to see the wildred and the technologist continuing their madness. He had been drifting in and out for a while by then. It wasn't his injuries; they had been dealt with. It was simply exhaustion and blood loss. After a week or more of running through the accursed forest, with little to drink, less water and no real sleep, he had been shattered. The fight had also taken a lot out of him; his strength and his blood both. And finally, the constant straining against his bonds had exhausted him. He was at his end.
For a time, he had felt hope as he hung trapped in the vines. When the boy, Abel, had started sawing at his bonds. But then the vines had bled silver, shuddered and tightened their grip and he had realised that he couldn't be freed. The vines weren't vines but some sort of creature. Master Zo'or, their allied wildred, had said it was a magical creature at one point while he'd been alert enough to listen. A vineyard he called it. A monster from the Copperhearth Ranges that looked like nothing more than a cluster of vines growing from the rocks. But it grabbed people and animals and hung on to them until they died, and then fed from their decaying bodies. You could usually spot them by the pile of bones at their base – the boneyard as it was known. Master Zo'or had been full of useless information like that when he had been awake. Unfortunately, useful information like how to free themselves had been in short supply. All he could tell them was that since the monster was not naturally found in these parts, there had to be magic involved in its being here and more in its surviving. Weaken Callum and it in turn would weaken. Unfortunately there was an obvious problem with that.
But who was he to criticise? The party of four had fought well. Better than him. Master Zo'or especially. It was just that they'd been outmatched. And Barachalla had been expecting them.
He seemed to have been expecting an army. He'd certainly prepared for one. Now that Briagh had had a chance to look more closely at things he'd realised just how much he'd missed initially. The batteries and wires laid out on the ground between the alter and the path. It was some sort of magnetic field device. He'd seen them before though never so large. But it had meant that all of the Princess' arrows with their steel tips had gone sailing off into the sky. And the lightning bracelet he wore had ten charges. Capacitors he thought. But so small compared to the ones he'd seen in the electric workshops. Each one fired a blast after which he pulled them out and replaced them. And then there were four heavy pistols he'd set out on the edge of the altar, ready to be grabbed the moment he needed them. One of them was the huge bomb throwing weapon he'd seen in action back in Perna Sil.
As for the half tree wildred – Callum the others called him – he was Briagh assumed the one who had sent a drake against the barbarians. Anyone who could summon a drake was a force to be reckoned with. And he had a pair of stone trolls standing guard over them as they worked.
Even if he could have freed himself, Briagh knew he could not have won a battle against them.
Their only hope now he realised, was to divide the pair. To set Barachalla and Callum against one another. Something Master Zo'or was desperately trying to do. But his chances were poor. The man was half tree and Briagh could only imagine the suffering he was going through. The desperation in his heart. Maybe he wasn't a bad man or wildred or whatever he was, but even the best had their limits. Still, he could hear Zo'or trying to make him hear the truth.
“Callum, this isn't the man you are. Sacrificing others for yourself. It's wrong! You know that.”
“No! This is wrong!” Callum pointed to his face. The wooden side of it.
“They're not innocent!” Callum raised his voice. “They volunteered! They thought they'd become kings forever.”
Briagh winced. He was however, infinitely pleased that just at that moment the Princess wasn't able to speak. He knew the invective and angry denials that would gush forth from her mouth. But so too did the wildred, which was probably why he had wrapped a vine around her mouth.
“Even if that's true they were tricked. Lied to by the old man beside you. Just like he's lying to you.”
The old man in question didn't seem to mind being called either an old man or a liar. He just kept on working on the globe in his hand, reciting his spells or his prayers. And Briagh noticed that it had started glowing, just a little. That had to mean he was close.
“No.”
“Yes! They don't deserve to die for a mistake. And even if they did, Endorian Long doesn't. He is a complete innocent. Torn from his family, imprisoned, chained and twisted like us against his will. You and I, we at least chose this fate no matter how stupidly. He didn't. He had it forced upon him. And all those others out there, transformed into wolves. They didn't choose their fate either. They were attacked by his army. Your army.” Zo'or spoke calmly, but firmly. There was an air of certainty in his voice.
“And now you're going to kill them.”
“No!” Callum's voice rose another notch. “They'll recover.”
“Not the dead. And how many have died now? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? More? And all so the Barachella can gain what he thinks is his true form. He’s making the same mistakes you and I did, but on a much larger scale.”
“No, he's going to fix this!” Callum cried out almost hysterically. “He'll put things right!”
“Look at him! Look at what he's doing! He hasn't fixed anything. He isn't going to. He's too busy destroying everything else. How many lives have already been lost? How many more have been ruined? And how many more will be? Those things can't be put right! This is wrong! And he doesn't care!” The wildred tried to reason with his former student.
Briagh could see he was getting through. He could see the hesitation in Callum even though half his face was wooden and the rest of him was covered by his robes. He could see it in the way his head moved back and forth between his old master and his new one. But he could also see the way Master Barachalla was ignoring them both as he worked, reciting his spell or prayer. And the globe was glowing brighter in his hands.
There wasn't much time. Briagh breathed deeply and then shifted again, several more times, working hard to loosen the vines' grip on him, straining as hard as he could. It was the only thing he could do. The others were doing the same. But the vines refused to give. This vineyard creature was a tough beast.
Then the technologist startled them all.
“Show yourself you vapid bitch!” Barachalla screamed it at the sky with all the strength he had, his face screwed up with emotion. A lot of conflicting emotions. Anger and pain, but also longing. Even pleading. In that moment everyone understood that things were not as they had thought. The technologist was insane.
Everyone's head turned to face the ancient technologist. Even Callum's as he finally stopped staring at his former master. His eyes widening as he obviously started to realise he'd made a mistake. A terrible one.
“What are you doing?”
“What I must.” Barachalla answered him, but he never took his eyes off the sky. And then he yelled at the sky once more. “Now show yourself or I release this thing and the world ends.”
The world ends? Briagh couldn't believe he'd said that. But he realised as he stared at the insanity glowing in the technologist's eyes that he meant it. And he wasn't the only one to realise that. Callum had realised the same judging from the way his eyes had widened.
“No, you can't.” He raised his arm and cast at Barachalla. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same result. A look of horror dawned on the flesh half of his face. Suddenly Callum collapsed to his knees in pain.
“What?”
“No more magic,” Barachalla told him tiredly. “I'm sick of it.”
“What have you done?” The wildred screamed it at him, panic growing in his voice. He tried to get to his feet again, but couldn't.
“Fenton bloom.” The technologist finally stopped staring at the sky and turned his attention to his companion. Then he raised his arm to reveal a small leather pouch full of white powder. Powder that was already dust in the wind. “Witch bane. Your magic will return in a few hours. Your health with it.”
But a few hours would be too late Briagh realised as he struggled against his bonds. Barachalla would have done what he meant to do by then. And whatever he had planned was clearly bad if he expected the world to end. Briagh redoubled his efforts against the vines. He had to get free before whatever the madman was going to do was done!
“Why?” Finally Callum asked the question that mattered. But it was too late. He could do nothing. He still couldn't stand up. The witch bane had robbed him of his magic and his strength both. “You're supposed to be fixing things!”
“I am! She abandoned me!” The technologist yelled at his companion. “She should have loved me!”
“She? Morphia?” Callum clearly didn't understand. “How? You're supposed to be fixing things. Letting us find our true forms. Helping everyone else do the same.”
“Your true form?” Barachalla unexpectedly mocked his fallen companion. “Don't you understand something so obvious?! This is your true form! You can't change it without becoming something or someone else! How can you be so stupid?!”
“By the gods!” The wildred collapsed a little further and stared down at the ground in bitterness. “What have I done?”
“But you were useful.” Barachalla continued, completely unapologetic for his betrayal, or for the pain he was causing his companion. “And maybe when she comes I'll have her make you into something else. A bird maybe. You'll be able to fly away and will never remember any of this.”
“Won't you, Bitch!” He threw back his head and screamed it at the angry sky again.
“What have you done dotard?” Father Argen spoke up suddenly, surprising everyone. “You seek to strike a bargain with a goddess? Don't you know they don't do that?”
“She will if she has to, Priest.” Barachalla turned to him, his wrinkled face lined with anger. “You just have to make the stakes high enough. And this is high enough!” He held up the now brightly glowing globe as though it was some sort of prize.
“Once I place this on the altar, the curse I created from her favour will explode. It will cross the entire world in weeks. Every man, woman and child of every race will be transformed. There will be no stopping it. And when there are only wolves there will be no more worshippers. No more faithful. No more followers. And without them the gods will be weakened. They may even die. The Goddess will be brought to her knees! She will beg me for my help!”
“I nearly did it ten years ago. But there just wasn't enough power. Her favour simply wasn't enough on its own. And what should have been a worldwide curse became only a minor disease. I thought it was because the blood was weak. The morph wasn't powerful enough. The minds of the royals too corrupted by their lust for power. There was no genuine belief.”
“But then I realised what I had done wrong. It wasn't the blood that was important. Not of the mortals. The blood was only ever the key to the globe and it unlocked what it needed to unlock. What was important was that the globe represented the Goddess’ favour. She had given the globe to her lover as evidence of her favour. It represented a way to awaken him again and again. For him to find her. Each time he was returned to the world.”
“For it to work as it had, I would have needed to find her lover. But I do not know who he is or where he is or even if he lives in the world. He may not yet have been reborn.”
Reborn! Fina
lly Briagh understood something in the madman's spiel. Because while he had never attended any of the services or learned any of the stories of Morphia, he remembered that the Goddess had taken a number of lovers. And from their unions the morphs had been born. But according to some she only ever took the same lover. He just had different names and faces, as he died and was reborn. Briagh remembered his mother speaking about it a very long time ago. About how romantic it was that the Goddess and her lover found each other over and over again.
It was a strange thing to find himself suddenly remembering the way she'd smiled when she'd spoken of it so many years ago, just as he had been trapped by a madman and was probably about to die. But the memory of his mother's smile was with him just then and he was glad of the memory.
“But then I realised. There's more than one kind of love. I could not find her lover. But I could find the focus of her worshippers' love. And I could use that.”