In Creation's Heart

by Jason Hamilton

  “We’d love to help you find him if we can,” said Naman. He looked less anxious than his wife, but Jak could tell they were both ready for action.

  “I can have you go with some of the Shadow Elves up into the mountains,” she offered. The army wouldn’t miss two of its own. “I’m sure they would welcome help.”

  “We would appreciate that,” Jamilla confirmed.

  “But if you do find Cain,” Jak cautioned. “Or Marek, it will be dangerous. You cannot confront Cain or do anything to let him know you are near. Even if that means keeping yourself hidden from Marek.”

  Jamilla hesitated, but Naman nodded. “We won’t do anything foolish.”

  “Good,” said Jak.

  Several hours later, the armies were ready to move out. There were approximately six thousand of them, including the Fae who had agreed to go. Most of the gnomes, dwarves, Ice Fae, and Nature Fae agreed that they were needed in the fight against Cain and his demons. Even Amelia and the Water Fae wanted to send someone. Jak was secretly glad of this. Water Fae would be invaluable in keeping their defense. If they could use their magic on the moat and nearby river, it would take a lot for the demons to even get close.

  Only the Brandless remained behind. And from the many comments Jak had received since making the announcement that they couldn’t come, she knew they were not happy about it. But there was little to be done. They had to stay and that was final. This way, they had a much higher chance of remaining alive.

  Naem sidled up beside her. “Everyone is ready.”

  Jak took a deep breath. Moving this many people would be hard. She needed the Pillar of Time working together with the Pillar of Space to create portals. Without it, she would have to transport each person using direct magic. She could do it, and it might even be faster than walking through the portals. But it would take a toll.

  “Tell everyone to link arms,” she said. “Everyone has to touch each other, or they will get left behind.”

  Naem obeyed, and began running down the line, shouting the orders as he went.

  It took a while for six thousand men, women, and Fae to follow suit. But as the orders passed around, and word spread throughout the army, everyone began to link arms and form a giant chain. Within a few minutes, everyone was facing her again, a giant sea of people staring at her for guidance.

  Jak swallowed. It was an interesting feeling, seeing everyone look to her in that way.

  Naem returned to her side. “They’re ready.”

  Jak nodded, “Okay, then let’s do this.”

  She grabbed Naem’s arm, and the two of them walked forward until Naem could hook his other arm around the nearest soldier.

  In her spare arm, Jak held the Pillar of Space. Its power thrummed beneath her fingers as she called it forth. This was going to be bigger than anything she had done since creating Illadar in the first place.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated, taking a deep breath. There were so many people, and she could feel them all, connected like a web of living, breathing creatures. She brought the magic to bear. It resisted. There were too many people. The effort of transporting this many could kill her, or render her unconscious.

  Yet she did not back down. She willed the magic to life, weilding a greater portion than she had ever asked of the Pillar of Space. It could not do as much as it could together with the Pillar of Time. But it could do enough.

  Light blazed around them, and all six thousand soldiers and Fae suddenly left their place on Illadar, and reappeared moments later on a large plain on Earth, just outside of Foothold.

  Immediately, Jak’s muscles failed her. She collapsed to the ground and felt the Pillar slip from her fingers.

  Naem quickly stooped to slow her fall. He checked her pulse and placed her head gently against a bed of tall grass. “Are you okay?” he asked, concern in his eyes.

  Of course she was okay. She was clearly staring at him with her eyes wide open, and all it would take to tell him that was to open her mouth and…

  She blinked, the light faded, and she tumbled into unconsciousness.

  When she blinked again, it was to a warm light of a fireplace.

  “She’s coming around,” said a voice. It sounded like Naem again.

  A face appeared in her vision, partially blocking out the light. She recognized the short hair and towering demeanor, though from this angle she looked even taller. It was Skellig.

  “What happened?” she said. Her voice sounded fainter than it should.

  “You fell unconscious,” said Skellig, though there was a smile on her face. “Apparently you’re not as invulnerable as you seem to think.”

  Jak pushed herself up onto her elbows, looking around the room. Skellig stood next to her, and Naem, Viona, and several others watched from nearby. She recognized the room as the same quarters where she had recovered years earlier after her fight with Kuldain. They were back in Foothold.

  “Did everyone make it?” she asked, groggily.

  Naem nodded. “Everyone is here,” he said. “You did it, Jak.”

  “We’ve been helping them get settled,” said Skellig. “The Nature Fae have agreed to help us grow food for everyone. But we’ve run into other problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, we’ve discovered more demons. To the west. We didn’t notice them at first because there are no towns out that way, and we didn’t send scouts or recruiters in that direction.”

  “How many?”

  Skellig exchanged a glance with Naem. “We think...all of them. They’ve been standing there for the last few days.”

  “Few days? How long was I out?”

  “Three days.”

  Jak nearly shot out of her bed. Three days? She had a Sleeplessness brand, she shouldn’t ever need that much sleep. The effort of using the Pillar of Space must have worn her out more than she thought.

  A sudden dizziness overtook her, as she tried to rise too fast.

  “Hold up there,” said Naem, reaching forward to push her back down. “Your brands will help, but give them a moment to kick in.”

  Jak glanced at his hands holding her shoulders, and he quickly retreated. Sometimes Naem forgot that they weren’t on close terms anymore. Allies, yes. Even friends. But as much as he seemed to want it, even now, they were never going to be more than that. Which reminded her…

  “Has anyone seen Seph?” she asked.

  Skellig shook her head. “I haven’t heard from him since we arrived.”

  A bubble of worry burst in her stomach. He would be okay. She would just keep telling herself that. If anything, he was off completing some kind of spiritual adventure out there. You never could tell with Seph. But right then, in that moment, she wished he was there with her. She needed his company, his comforting touch.

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Naem with a light shrug, sounding like he was trying to make everyone feel better. “After all, he’s probably the most powerful of all of us now, the lucky dragon.”

  Instead of making Jak feel better, his remarks caused another wave of unpleasantness to roll through her stomach. Was Naem jealous of Seph or was he…

  The sick feeling in her stomach only intensified. That was odd, was she getting sick or…

  Jak’s eyes widened in shock. Despite Naem’s protests and her dizzy head, she whipped out of bed and began flinging her travel cloak over her head. “Cain is coming!” was the only explanation she gave as she pulled her straps tight.

  At her words, Skellig immediately turned pale and raced out the door, barking orders. Naem was also pale but he remained where he was. “He has the Pillar of Time,” he said, solemnly. Jak met his eyes and pressed her lips together. Naem was the only one besides her that truly understood what the Pillars could do. “What are you going to do?”

  Jak pulled a strap tight on her wrist guards. “If he has broken the Pillar, enough to use it, we can’t assume it will prevent him from killing as it did me. But he might have a hard time of it. Th
ankfully, with everyone branded with Toughness and Healing, we might stand a chance.”

  “But why now? Why didn’t he attack us before?” Jak shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe because I was incapacitated. Maybe he thinks I still am.”

  Naem strode to the corner of the room and picked up a long object resting there. Jak could see what it was when he turned back. It was the Pillar of Space.

  “You dropped this after bringing all of us here,” he said, taking a few steps closer.

  Jak took the Pillar out of his hands. “We still have some advantages Cain cannot hope to fathom or weild.”

  Naem nodded. “Do what you do.”

  10

  Jak exited the doorway to find near chaos in the square beyond.

  Hundreds of soldiers were scrambling to get ready, and from what she could tell, many more were on the walls, bumping into each other to find a position. Through it all she could see Skellig shouting orders, throwing her hands up in exasperation as she wasn’t immediately obeyed.

  Jak swallowed. Perhaps they had spent so much time obsessing over branding that they had forgotten about basic combat training. Though she couldn’t really blame anybody, Skellig least of all. It’s not as though they had had much time.

  With a small burst of her power, Jak propelled herself upward than forward towards the wall. She could still feel that unease in her stomach, growing in intensity, the signal that Cain was on his way, and fast. Very fast, in fact. He might already be using the Pillar of Time.

  Jak held the Pillar of Space at the ready as she stepped gracefully on the forward facing wall.

  “Demons, sir,” said a soldier beside her, his face a mixture of fear from the situation and relief at seeing her.

  Jak narrowed her eyes, bringing her Sightseer brand to her aid. Yes, the man was right. In the distance, a shadow covered the Earth. A mass of demons coming from their west side. Thousands of them. No, hundreds of thousands. As she peered closer, it only seemed to get larger and larger. This had to be literally every demon ever made.

  Broken brands. Cain, on his own, they could maybe deal with. But with this many demons, her entire army would be occupied. If Cain also joined the fight, she would have to put up with him alone, and that was something she wasn’t certain she could do.

  “Remember the plan,” said Skellig from behind her. Jak glanced back at her. The woman had moved fast. “Get him to talk.”

  Jak nodded and turned back to face the demon army. She would need no spear or sword. No such weapon would do any good against Cain. Besides, she was a weapon far superior to anything that could be made. Jak’s brow furrowed as she prepared herself for an attack. Cain was coming ahead of the army, and he was coming swiftly.

  That feeling of slight nausea in her stomach was only getting stro…

  Jak gasped as a fountain of pain split through the arm holding the Pillar of Space. For a moment frozen in time, she stared at it, seeing a blade going through the flesh and muscle and bones. Yet even as it did so, the torn flesh began to knit back together. As the sword passed through her arm, it healed itself just as fast. Her extra Healing brands had seen to that.

  In that split second, she saw a flash of something else, a pair of icy blue eyes embedded in a horrific face of drooping skin and covered in brands. Cain was finally here.

  Jak thought she caught a hint of a frustrated growl before the demon king had disappeared. Jak whipped around and opened her mouth to warn the others, but just then the man behind her flew through the air, his head severed from his neck in a clean stroke. Both head and body flew into the soldier behind him.

  For a moment, she panicked. How could she go up against someone who could move in the blink of an eye? Clearly her enemy had the use of the Pillar of Time, and even she couldn’t stand against magic of that power.

  Something seemed to pulse in her hand, and she looked down to see the Pillar of Space, its runes fluctuating slightly. It must be reacting to the magic of its partner.

  Another soldier flew backwards, similarly dismembered, then another and another. Cain was destroying her army one by one before any of them could react. Few had more than one Healing brand, and that wasn’t going to do any good against dismemberment.

  Moving the Pillar of Space almost as if it had a will of its own and was guiding her, she tapped it on the ground, activated its magic, and sent herself through space to appear instantly just a few yards away, right into the path of a phantom sword that was about to cut its way through another of Jak’s warriors. She brought up the staff, its polished metal able to withstand all but dragon fire, and caught the sword on its length.

  For just a moment, a form materialized in front of her. Cain bore the sword in one hand, and in the other was the Pillar of Time, a polished black staff, the inverse image of the Pillar of Space. His face was haggard, he bore no shirt, and his flesh glistened with fresh sweat.

  Had the situation been different Jak might have smiled. Cain was tired. She had never seen him sweat before in her life. It had to be the Pillar he wielded. The power of time took effort to use, and Jak often found it draining her of energy before, much as the Pillar of Space had done when she took her armies from Illadar to Earth. Perhaps for Cain, that effort had to be increased.

  She knew it had resisted his attempts at bending it to his will. Perhaps it did so still, fighting him and draining his energy faster than it had for Jak. Or perhaps it was the fact that Cain was killing people using its power. It hadn’t liked that when Jak had tried to do the same, even when killing demons. It had brought on a nausea whenever she tried to use it as a weapon. In the end, she had surrendered to its wishes, using the Pillars only for the betterment of her people, and not for death.

  But Cain was killing, and if Jak knew anything, she knew the Pillar would not be pleased.

  “You look tired, Cain,” she said, keeping every ounce of fear out of her voice. She would never again address this man as if he were her better.

  Cain didn’t respond. Jak’s last view of him was a sweaty, measured scowl before he disappeared and Jak felt a rush of air as his form sped past, towards the soldiers behind her. Cain was moving fast, but not nearly as fast as Jak had personally experienced with the Pillar. Perhaps that was another side effect of Cain using the Pillar in a way it did not want to be used. It didn’t respond to him as it had to her. He wasn’t as fast.

  But he was still dangerous, far more dangerous than any army of demons. And he would keep attacking unless she did something about it.

  Again, almost instinctively, the Pillar of Space activated and transported her just feet away from her original position. She raised the Pillar and once again caught Cain’s sword just inches away from a would-be victim. The soldier, a man Jak didn’t recognize, widened his eyes and broke out of his rank.

  Cain moved again, and again the Pillar seemed to act as though it had a mind of its own. Jak appeared just in time to block his next attack, and his next. Cain changed direction, this time he did not attack a soldier, but sped through the air towards the top of the tower.

  Jak called on the magic of the Pillar of Space, allowing it to take her there. The staff responded as commanded, eager to help her stop its partner from doing Cain’s bidding.

  “You move fast, Jak,” said Cain as they faced each other on the top of Foothold’s signature tower.

  “My Pillar doesn’t like what you’re doing,” she replied.

  Cain eyed the Pillar hungrily, causing Jak to tighten her grip. If she somehow lost possession of her Pillar, it would mean the end for her. Cain would easily best anyone who stood in his way with the help of both Pillars.

  “I will have that one soon,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  With his last word, he vanished as he sped towards her with unmeasurable speed.

  But Jak was ready for him. Already she had constructed a wall of Telekinetic energy. She felt something press against it, then retreat, then press again harder.

  Not wanting
to push her luck, Jak used her own Pillar to transport her to the other side of the tower platform.

  “You can’t take me for such a fool that you think simple tricks like that will help you,” she said, keeping the calm in her voice.

  Cain appeared across from her. “I will kill you.”

  Okay, he was talking. That was good, she had to keep him visible. “We hold all the advantages,” she said, peering closely at his brand-covered body. He had multiple brands on his face, though no duplicates of the same brands that she could see. Perhaps that’s why she hadn’t noticed until recently that he had multiple copies of the same brand. The rest were hidden on his body.

  “Ha!” he laughed, “All you have is the Pillar of Space, you have no idea the assets I have at my disposal, what my parents brought with them from the stars.”

  “I’m sure it’s fascinating. But…” she couldn’t tell him about Seph yet. That was their greatest asset, and one that he didn’t know about. She just had to stall. “The Pillar of Space holds more power than you think.”

  “So it does,” said Cain. “And yet…” he cracked a smile at her. “You don’t know all that it’s capable of, do you?”

  She counted at least three Telekinesis brands, and four each of Thunder and Flamedancer. Quite a few Healing and Toughness brands as well. But where were...ah! She finally found them, a cluster of circular brands representing the Anti-brands that she had only recently discovered. They were all fairly tiny on his skin, and there were at least a dozen that she could see, wrapping around his arm. How many could he even fit on his body with all of those other brands?

  Cain took her distraction for confirmation of his guess. His grin widened. “You don’t have any advantages, do you? You’re just hoping that if you face me in combat, you’ll get lucky.”

  His words broke Jak’s concentration and she stared back at the man. “I won’t let you kill another soul.”

  “Very well, I will leave you alone,” he said, surprising her enough that she didn’t continue counting the Anti-brands. “This...thing takes some convincing,” he shook the Pillar of Time in front of him. “But I’ll be back after my demons have had their way with you. Let them do the dirty work, and I’ll clean up the pieces. Who knows? Perhaps one of them will get lucky and kill you too.”