I have no idea how one language splinters into another. Two very different languages. Why different? We could have stuck with the first one. The one I can barely speak anymore. That's why I hate going to others Worlds, like Lirio. Not knowing what they're saying, because I don't speak Maledictus very well. And I know they speak English too, everyone does. They do it just to spite me as a foreigner. However, even though I don't speak the whole language, I do know most of the spells in the Maledictus. The old-language is more powerful than English. A dark power for magik. I guess that’s why people stopped speaking it. But for some reason in certain Worlds they still speak it openly. Not just to wield magik either. Even in daily conversation, and taught at the schools. Though they say it curses your tongue to mutter even a word of Maledictus.
That reminds me, I'm getting old. It's weird how I know much more information just by sheer fact of my age. As well an amazing education. I'm pretty sure that had something to do with it. I mean, I'm not that old yet, but I'm most likely twice this girl's age. So young, but so frail and jagged were this cheetah girl's features. Looking at her in her natural state, I can't believe she was able to pull off Julia's likeness with a sense of ease. It's sad, because a talent like hers is hard to come by. She had an apparent knack for creating illusions, that much was obvious. But a wasted life with organized crime-folk like the Peligrosos is a terrible fate.
Though her life couldn't be much more grand as a great magik wielder here in Draconia. Especially because I'm an enforcer of the laws that restrict people from using or even learning about the wonders of magik anymore. Then again, the law has come to exist for good reason. Nights like this remind me why they were introduced. If they hadn't, our society would be run over by ferocious biting dogs without muzzles or masters to hold them at bay. Too many wielders had gone rouge. Something had to be done. The 8ights Council had no choice but to censor the use of magik in Draconia.
But this girl is no longer from Draconia now. The acting Chancellor, my good friend Sebastian, has disowned all those who take to the Gente Peligroso. So, I guess in some weird way, she wasn't truly breaking the law when she tried to break my neck. It's all semantics, but it's still kind of true. I don't want to do what I'm about to do, but it must be done. I've got to wake this gothic beauty from the fist induced slumber I put her in.
As I tossed my llave in the air, I started to think… what if Corinth was just a part of this girl's illusion? What if my boy is forever lost, and Julia and I will never reconcile? This had turned out to be a mission into hell. It's much easier to be detached when it's someone else's child at risk. But bringing back all these feelings about him is too much to handle. My llave dropped to the ground, and so did I. As I collapsed not so far inside of this eerie intersection, feeling bad for myself, but worst for my son— I heard a sound. A distinctive sound, much different from that of the water, and the buzzing lights attached to the ceilings. I heard footsteps!
Who could it be? I checked my watch. Only minutes had actually passed. The other men weren't set back this way for another nine minutes or so. But the halls could have been shorter than I anticipated. They could be doubling back early, or worst ... in trouble. Then it hit me. Where are the four other men I set out with? They had disappeared with the illusion, but didn't reappear as it fell apart. Corinth, he isn't here either. I already knew this, but hadn’t processed the full extent of its meaning. They're all either gone, or I'm still under somebody's spell.
I picked my llave up again, storing it and the cheetah girl's llave in one of my many pockets. I headed farther down the hall to investigate. The direction I'd been heading in before all this magik got in the way. My absorption gun was nowhere to be found. I'm convinced at this point that other forces must be at work. This wielder must be powerful, because I can't make out what's real from what's fake anymore. Nothing is out of place. The factory seems so perfectly proportioned. Who could be powerful enough for an illusion without any flaw? I've been wrong about things like this before, but there's no other explanation that I can see.
I turned the corner at the end of the path, and there lay a large towering flight of stairs. They're so creepy and so gray. And just like everything else in this building, they have more of that greasy oil slicked across them. I put my black steel-toed boots on the edge of the first step, and tried lifting myself up by pulling on the railing. Lest I knew, the railing was covered in that grease too, not just the walls and steps. I lost my footing when my hand suddenly whisked itself forward and into the air. Then my entire body followed suit. I fell from grace just like that. No warning or anything, just the cold floor to comfort me as I hit hard, with a loud thud to the back of my head. I reached behind myself, grabbing my upper back and head in horror. It hurt bad. But more like one of those quick sharp pains that come and go. I wasn't down for the count just yet. But another trip like that and no one knows where I'll end up.
I got up slowly. Took the liberty of caution this time around. I pulled out a pair of black gloves from a side pocket on my jumpsuit. They have this little sandpaper-like detail along the palms and fingers. They were perfect for traction. So it makes good sense that they could help me out right now. I slapped those sandy gloves on, and decided to give this staircase of doom another go. I put my hand on the railing, and positioned my boots so that the groves in the soles could fit into the edge of the steps. I walked, and I climbed, then I walked some more, and climbed a little farther after that.
Somehow, I made it up those dreadful steps unscathed. Now,I must enter the lion’s den, of sorts. There's a door up ahead. It's a dark woodcut. There are so many figures carved into it that the detail is breathtaking. There are animals, people, and people-animals. They almost look like hieroglyphs of gods and genetically engineered humans. Weird stuff that only exist in myths. This door looks a little too scary for my liking, but it's where the footsteps must have been coming from. I figure this since I haven't seen anyone my entire way over. But I definitely heard footsteps a moment ago, coming from this direction.
I reached for the handle, and no sooner than I touched it, did it suddenly open itself. Freaky to say the least, but freaky doesn't even begin to cover what I saw as the door turned on its hinges, revealing the interior of this massive room.
Here before me, as I stepped in, I'm staring into the faces of seven tombs. Well, the faces aren't really dried out mummies or anything gross like that. Though the sarcophagus' I see in front me have outlines of those assumed mummy faces resting within. I guess the dead guys inside were represented on the outside to preserve their memories or something ridiculous like that. Maybe they were extremely important in their day. But the most I know is that they must have had a ton of money. I'm sure it wasn't cheap to commission those sculptures. They were gorgeous and detailed to a T. I truly feel like I'm peering into a past life just by gazing upon these dusty figures.
The coffins were set up around the room in a circular fashion. In the middle of the large room sat a table or altar of some kind. It was covered by a white sheet with some indents from something just beneath it. Everything in this room is so dusty and grimy. It looks like it hasn't been entered in ages. I can't believe this room and these coffins are here. This place has been canvassed repeatedly. Not recently, but still these things couldn't have been put here recently anyway. There's too much caked on dust and grime. Why weren't they found and placed on public maps of this factory? It's strange. But the thing bugging me the most is that I have yet to find a soul around. No Corinth, my men are still missing, and I haven't found the mystery behind the footsteps either.
As if a mystic force cued it, the altar at the center of the room began extending upward from its base into the air on a thick cylinder shaped marble pole that supported it. The sheet started to ruffle from the air currents it picked up upon its ascent toward the high ceilings. The platform of the altar started rotating counter-clockwise. And now I see something, something strange. It looks like someone is on the rotating platform. I saw no
one on it as it began to rise, but whatever was beneath that sheet now looks like a person as it flutters about.
Then suddenly, I sensed something or even someone behind me. I turned from the altar to see ... the doctor! Or rather, the jerk Gente Peligroso that helped that cheetah gothgirl put me under. He's standing beneath the archway of that detailed door I just walked through. Hell! I don’t know how this could be an illusion, but things are starting to get too real for my liking. His golden llave looks worn and rusted rotating in front of him. In fact, he looks worn and rusted too. His face is a dark, tan-like-red complexion and wrinkly. Very wrinkly! Probably too much time out in the sun, because Gente Peligroso are essentially a homeless folks guild. He had lines going all through his face. The folds in his skin looked like little dried up rivers that could no longer flow, so the earth around the banks just started to collapse inward. An unsightly fellow on quite a few levels.
Note to self, bring sunscreen everywhere I go this coming summer. My skin's a deep brown, but the sun doesn't discriminate, so I'll do well to be cautious. If I end up looking even half as miserable as this guy looks, I'm sure small children will flee at the sight of me every day. However, besides his dark demeanor, he does resemble an everyday old man with a chip or two on his shoulder against the younger generation. Unfortunately, his old age isn't an advantage for me if this situation turns sour. It usually comes like this; the younger the weaker, the older the stronger. This guy looks old, but powerful.
"Step aside, boy, I have business here," he said with his deep and rather silly voice. He sounded like he had peanut butter in his mouth. He also held onto every word an extra couple of seconds longer than he probably should've if he wanted to be taken seriously. Maybe there was no need to fear him after all.
"FIAT LUX!!!" he shouted,and instantly a red beam, a bright twisting light, sporadically shot from his llave with near the wind force of a hurricane. It pushed passed me and dumped into the wood paneled floor. The floor erupted into streamers of wood and dust that exploded into the air, clouding up the room and my sight. He wields in the cursed language. Powerful stuff. Stuff that I can do too, but wouldn't in a confined space… if I were a particularly smart fellow?
I flicked my shiny gold skeleton key out in front of me and it instantly started rotating. "Praeuro!" A flaming ball of gas poured out from my llave, igniting in front of me, slowly churning itself into a miniature replica of the earth's home star. Directed by my hands, the furious fireball blew its way across the room. Miserably missing its mark. But combusting against the walls instead. The small fire started spreading to the far side of the room, away from the door. It curled its way from the arches, crackling like a midnight campsite's only source of heat.
His blast was much closer to hitting me than mine was to hitting him. My aim is letting me down. But we’re both using too much powerful magik for a closed up space like this. Perhaps angry-eyes would like to talk this out instead? I was definitely right to fear this old guy. Still mumbling the cursed language while he steadily inched closer, taking no cover from me, the boy, in this situation. Though he stayed out, I ducked behind a wood table toward the right of the room. It's covered by a white sheet, like most everything in here. He wasn't scared of me one bit. Most people’s spells were performed in English. But this guy, just like me, knew that English never got the job done. Most people don't know near a phrase of the cursed language all across the Worlds. In Draconia, it’s forbidden entirely, but I need it now, so I’m not going to hold back. But first, I'd much prefer to reason with him.
"I tried to reason with you, boy, but you seem to desire pressing on," he yelled to me. Then, the majestic creep suddenly took flight. Levitating to the level of the spinning altar, so close to the ceiling.
"Why?" I asked him in a rather mousy voice. A simple enough question. He might respond to reason, after all that’s what he just said he tried to do. Though I don't recall that ever happening. "Why are you doing this?" Whatever it is that he's doing anyway. I needed to know for my own sake, but more importantly for Corinth's. This so called routine job, isn't going so routinely. But still the old dog hasn't given an answer to my question. So I yelled out with much more force this time, from behind the cover of this table. "What do you want, you said you used reason ... so let’s talk!" I screamed with as much control as I could exert over my voice, but I choked on the last words. The gas from the growing fire and the dust from his attack on the floor started creeping into my lungs.
"Why am I doing this you say, boy?" he cried out, with traces of cynicism through and through. "I'm doing this because no one else has the guts to master the El Muerte Vivo curse. Not a soul. Better yet, to challenge the glory of a Secretist!"
I have no idea what the El Muero Viv is, or that other thing. But I know this guy is creeping me out more and more with every word. As he hovered in the air with his llave spinning in front of him, he started to gravitate toward the altar. I'd say he was only six or seven feet out from it, but it seems he wants to get a closer look at his specimen. The object in question still lay there on top of the altar, just as oddly as I noticed it when it began to rise. Then the tensed atmosphere shifted even further into madness.
The old man flung his hand through the dust in the air, and the white sheet that covered the altar responded to his will immediately. It flew off of his subject, revealing a shocking sight—that I should have seen coming. My boy, Corinth, is his victim. It should've clicked earlier, but I can't think straight with so many variables involved. Still, I can't begin to imagine what he could have to do with all of this. How the heck did they get him here? I'm not even sure what's going on, but I've got to get him down and out of this building. The situation kicked into overdrive, and I tried to as well. But I don’t have a clue how to sensibly do that.
Looking at him up there, I can see his face and I know it well. Yet I feel I hardly recognize him as that little boy that craved chocolate all the time. Smoldering Golds, his favorite brand. Our favorite brand. Now that same boy, whom I haven't seen for nearly two years, is lying defenseless on that spiraling altar. Up against the grandfather from hell. I won't let him slip through my fingers again.
From the back, near the door, someone yelled out, "Criston, get down now!" The doorway was too clouded up with smoke, I couldn't make out the voice or see the person. The aura blasts sent debris from the floor and the walls flying everywhere I looked. The room was big, but so was that hole in the ground and the growing fire. The dust was spreading out from the middle of the room, where the altar towered over me, and then farther toward the back wall where the voice came from. Whoever is near the creepy frontier door is going to be taking backseat to Corinth.
"How dare you intrude on this sacred ritual? We must perform the— TRANSFER!" the old man shouted down to me and whoever else was stocking the grounds in this dead man's labyrinth. "This child has been chosen by the Bone Creator to unleash the Chain of Divinity, without any objections. He must deliver the Nexus to the Worlds, to bring forth the New Age Order, rue drawn from the iron fisted Bone. All who stand in our way will be obliterated," he droned on like a sidewalk maniac, then shouted out.
"YAY-Y-Y!!!!!"
He let out a terrifying screech that sent shockwaves through the air. I guess peanut-butter tongue could annunciate when he wanted to. The sharp, deafening noise left me disoriented, but I used all my will to concentrate. I let myself look from just beneath the table, and I could see the air vibrating like some sort of vortex in deep space. The sound was such a high pitch that it woke Corinth from whatever spell he must have been under. He was awake now. I knew right away that this was my chance to try to do something. Something to get his attention, so I can get him down without using magik, putting him in even more danger. I was about to shout up to him, but before I could get out a word, I heard an absorption gun go off.
CRACK!!! Goes the heavy gun. ~ A heavy, dark precession of cloaked transparent netting thrust through the fire, dust, and screeching shockwaves cre
ated by the old Peligroso dude. The blast casted a deep shadow over my ears. The silence crept in, and all I could hear was a constant buzzing. I must have been well within the blast radius, and now I know who was calling out to me. I assumed then, and know for sure now that my Squadron team members were in the coffin filled room with me. But unfortunately, I'm starting to leave it. Passing out twice on one mission isn't fun. The absorption guns are really useful tools in the presence of magik. They suck all the energy out of any host wielding it. After the old Gente Peligroso guy blasted that whole in the ground, I goaded him on with my own spells. Though I wasn't trying to miss my mark, as he seemed to be. But now, I'm being drained of all my energy because of it. I guess that's why the guys told me to get down. I wish I had listened.
Chapter 2:
Worlds Away
March 25, 1002 ~ Midday
Julia definitely didn't like my thoughts on how to protect Corinth from the Gente Peligroso, or the swarm of other things the red-eyed man mentioned back at the factory. She had her own, more radical, ideas about the matter. She couldn't believe he'd been found, and neither could I. By my squad no less. Seems so perfect, but nothing's ever just perfect here in Draconia. I know by now to take note of that. I'm the only member of my squad that really knows what went down at the factory. She's been probing me for information ever since I woke up from my absorption gun induced coma.
Original Souls (A World Apart #1) Page 3