Reality Falling (The Book Wielder Saga 2)

by Davies, Sean

  With his normal wooden hand, Kelpbeard nudged Winston’s shoulder slightly to move his focus to the rear of the ship. Winston’s adrenaline rush increased exponentially and was spiked with flares of anger and rage when he saw Lewis and the Archmage standing on the balcony that ran around the bridge, waving casually in his direction.

  Kelpbeard took back his spyglass. “Are ye ready for this, lad?” he asked softly.

  Winston nodded and stared daggers at the rear of the ship. He would make them pay for what they had done.

  As the Driftwood came in range of the tanker, Kelpbeard started yelling orders to his crew. The pirate Alternatives frantically raced around the vessel with all of the urgency they could muster, and the other Galleon and two Ironclads began slowing to a halt. Kelpbeard’s ship turned slowly and came alongside the tanker.

  The Mayor grabbed Winston’s arms and held him firmly in place. “Remember, you’re supposed to be our prisoner, my boy,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” Winston whispered back. Suddenly he got the paranoid fear that the Alternatives were just stringing him along, and were in fact still under the control of the Archmage. They could have been lulling him into a false sense of security the whole time.

  Winston looked at Veronica and Alice; they were trapped within some sort of magical force field. Both women stood silently, staring at him fearfully as they awaited the Archmage’s next move. He then looked to the rear of the ship to see the Archmage levitating down from the balcony to the middle of the ship, where Kelpbeard’s crew were placing a long wooden ramp across the gap in-between both vessels. Lewis followed quickly on foot.

  The Driftwood dropped its anchor, and the pirate Alts scrambled up the ship’s masts and sails to get a good view of what would happen next.

  “Winston,” the Archmage said kindly, as the Mayor forcefully walked him across the ramp and onto the Destiny’s End. “I’m sorry it had to come to this, but I know that you’ve been having... doubts.”

  “We brought you Winston as you asked your excellence, that we did!” the Mayor said proudly.

  Winston glared at the Archmage and then looked towards his former best friend evilly. The Blonde haired Book Wielder had taken on a darker demeanour for the grand finale. He was still in his black pinstriped Shadow Circle suit, but he looked sunken eyed and withered. His body was hunched over, his veins had darkened and were highly visible against his now deathly pale skin, and his eyes were entirely black. As the friendship facade was now over, the Archmage had no reason to bother keeping him looking human.

  Without waiting for a response, the Archmage continued speaking proudly. “As you can see, all of your friends are either dead or my puppets.” He patted Lewis on the head like a dog with his white armoured hand. “The only person you have left is restrained over there,” Omniosis pointed to Veronica with his other hand, “and you know by now that I’ll kill her slowly and painfully if you don’t finish your task. Complete the merging of the two worlds like you were made to do, and as I am feeling especially generous on this auspicious occasion, I’ll allow you both to go free. Well, you’ll be my slaves at the best, but you’ll be alive at least,” he said in his warm distorted voice. “You’ll notice that the servant of the twin witches who caused this mess is also beside her. She is here mostly for my amusement, but you can see that she stands as a testament to just how futile attempting to overthrow me is. It didn’t work all those millennia ago when my rebel kindred attempted it, and it certainly won’t work now.”

  “Don’t give him what he wants,” Veronica shouted. “Restore the magic to the world, but don’t do it his way!”

  “He doesn’t want to release the source of magic,” Alice added loudly. “He means to absorb it all for himself!”

  The Archmage clicked his fingers and sound from the magical cylindrical prisons was cut off. Both Veronica and Alice were trying to yell more to Winston, but no sound reached past their own lips.

  The Mayor shoved Winston forward onto the tanker. “Get over there, you stupid boy.”

  Winston went tumbling towards the Archmage. He composed himself and looked at the Mayor, and the fat puppet Alt smiled menacingly at him. Winston couldn’t believe it; maybe the Archmage was right, maybe he had no friends left at all. However, the feeling of despair did not last long. When the Mayor lifted off his hat to bow formally to Omniosis, the well-stuffed puppet smiled evilly and unleashed a storm of green Blightmoths from the depths of his magical hat.

  The Blightmoths engulfed the Archmage, and the Mayor advanced with his cane raised ready to strike. The Archmage sighed loudly, and light blue electricity crackled all around him, killing the swarm of Blightmoths in one go. As the Mayor went to slam his metal cane into Omniosis’ primary mask, the Archmage slapped him with the back of his hand. The Mayor went flying into the air and crashed into the sea.

  “Mr Mayor!” DVAF cried, and he jumped from the Driftwood onto the Destiny’s End.

  Winston watched in confused horror as DVAF slammed his fists at the Archmage furiously. Omniosis chuckled as he caught the Alt’s clockwork fists in his hands, and steam sprouted wildly as DVAF struggled to overpower the Archmage, but he was completely unable to overcome his demonic foe. Omniosis span around and around with DVAF still attached, and then flung the poor Alt in the same direction as the Mayor, who was now bobbing face down in the water near the rear end of both vessels.

  “Open fire, ye scurvy dogs!” Kelpbeard shouted, raising both his crab claw and his cutlass into the air.

  His crew repeated the order to open fire in hearty cheers, and a pirate Alt on the lookout post sent a flare of witchfire high into the air. The other Galleon and the two Pollutian Ironclads fired their ‘smaller’ guns at the Archmage’s position, and Winston jumped out of the way but the projectiles never even got close. Omniosis had deflected the attacks metres away from the tanker with just one hand raised casually.

  The Archmage laughed maniacally as he raised his white gauntlets into the air. Tremendously bright multi-coloured energy pulsed from his arms and intensified into magical flames. He swept his arms in two arcs of movement and sent the energy soaring through the Driftwood, which was strangely unaffected, and towards the Alternative ships nearby. The multi-coloured energy stuck to the hulls of the ships and spread quickly. Alts scrambled off their vessels, dived into the water, and swam towards the Driftwood. Once the ships were consumed completely, the energy disappeared leaving absolutely nothing behind.

  Once again the Archmage began to cackle his mad distorted laugh. “You may have had some friends after all, Winston,” he said comically, “but instead of rescuing you, all they did was provide me with even more leverage over you. Now, I think you should carry out the task that you were made for before I get bored. We wouldn’t want any limbs to come off that wife of yours, would we now?”

  Lewis giggled stupidly, and Winston looked at him with pitiful and disgusted eyes. He turned to Veronica and said, “I’m sorry Veronica, this is just the way it has to be,” and he turned away and looked towards Central Isle. Winston took out his book and quill and held them in his hands. With one last fleeting glance at Veronica, he flew high into the air and sped off towards the middle of Central Isle.

  Veronica wasn’t sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she could have sworn that Winston gave her a cheeky wink before he went.

  Levitating high above the Central Tower, Winston held his golden quill artefact to the sky for one last time. He closed his eyes and focused as the beams of white and black energy shot into the sky. Dark purple and black clouds curdled violently around the entry point and spread out to cover the entire Isle. In his mind, he pictured the two worlds becoming one, merging together and existing as one.

  The entire world trembled as the merging of the two worlds continued, and the thin purple clouds that looked like veins spread from each major city and connected, giving the sky the appearance of cracking glass. Bolts of multi-coloured lightning flashed and danced across the sk
y and into the ground, causing havoc wherever they landed. The water in the oceans and rivers darkened – not to the pitch black state of the Gloom, but it definitely had a noticeable black tint.

  The ground on Central Isle began to crack and float in the air, defying gravity, and the tremors started shattering glass and crumbling walls. Winston opened his eyes and Flesh Mountain crashed into reality, bringing the source of magic along with it. The towering construct of pallid half-rotten flesh and exposed muscle lashed its tendrils that spanned for miles and miles against the freshly merged ocean, stirring up massive waves wherever they landed. Thousands of mouths screamed and wailed in tormented lament, and hundreds of thousands of different coloured eyes stared around wildly. Countless orifices opened and closed revealing masquerade masks decorated with different styles and patterns.

  A tremendous white shockwave emanated from Flesh Mountain and spread outwards until the whole world was enveloped. Slaver’s Basin appeared in Calousha Crater, Rigorton and Exhaustown were combined into one, and all of the other villages, towns and cities across the entire planet of Mydia were blended unevenly with their Gloom reflections. Alternatives stood side by side with humans and Supernaturals, and even the animals, monsters, and savage Freaks stared up at the sky, as massive sections between the cracks broke away and fell down towards the surface. Lucky for those standing below, the sections flickered in a mad blur of static and disappeared before they impacted. The dark purple Gloom sky could be seen in the gaps where the blue used to be.

  Alice looked at the hazy purple sky in the massive broken sections of blue sky, and saw the twinkling remains of the rebel Archmages that had once opposed Omniosis. Chief amongst them were two bright stars; they were the Twin Book Wielder Archmages that had successfully purged the magic from the planet, to prevent Omniosis and his mad power-crazed followers from savagely oppressing it. Her religion had sprouted from their legendary actions, and tears flowed down Alice’s face as she watched them and their fellow rebellious kindred fade from existence.

  The Archmage was almost keeling over with laughter as he pointed towards the heavens, “Look, servant of the twin witches! Look and see the pathetic power of your goddesses dwindle away into nothing. Soon you will see what a true god looks like!” he roared in demonic distorted voice.

  Alice tensed her muscles and bared her teeth at the Archmage. She felt so angry, so fierce, and so powerful. Then she remembered the writing in her book, and with a surge of defiant hope she realised what had happened. The rebel Archmages hadn’t simply vanished; they had sacrificed themselves to strengthen her. Something clicked at the back of her mind, and it all made sense now, but she had to wait for Winston to finish playing his part before she played hers.

  Winston looked down at the disgusting, reeking, slab of meat that was Flesh Mountain and knew that it wasn’t the end of his story. When he had first found his book, he’d been plunged into a shadowy world hidden within his own, a world that had overwhelmed him at first but that he had quickly became accustomed to. The book made him feel special, and his natural talents made others treat him specially. For the first time in his life he was in a position where every day was an adventure, whether it was harvesting reagents within the Gloom, advancing through the ranks of the Shadow Circle, or even in the bedroom with Veronica. He’d never thought of himself as anything other than a normal boring guy who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. One out of a billion to receive so much in such a little amount of time, one of the few lucky ones to be blessed with a life that others would die for, but now he knew with the utmost certainty that it wasn’t luck. He was special, and he was made for this moment.

  The cost in lives had been unfortunate, and although he tried not to think about it, the loss of everyone who had died due to his actions weighed heavy in Winston’s heart. But death was a natural part of life, and the force that Winston inadvertently served did not view it as an overwhelmingly bad thing, nor did it callously view it as a good thing. Instead, it viewed them both as two sides of the same coin, and sometimes death had to precede new life. Events were not simply black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, until they were interpreted and labelled afterwards, and some events simply had to, and must, happen. In this case, the restoration and resurrection of the planet Mydia in its true and original form.

  Some kind of intangible knowledge had blossomed within Winston’s subconscious mind. He imagined it to be how Veronica and Azalea felt dealing with their sight beyond sight. Now he knew, without knowing how, the reason why his book had found him, the reason he could talk to the Alternatives when no one else could, and the reason he could wield the quill. Looking around at the chaotic scene before him, the darkening seas, the broken skies, the furious magical lighting storms, and the mountain of amalgamated fallen Archmages beneath him, Winston knew that it wasn’t the way the planet was meant to be.

  He looked at the quill in his hand and felt the massive amount of magic contained within. It was an artefact capable of drawing holes to other dimensions, of manipulating reality as easily as an artist applies paint to a canvas, and the instrument that the twin rebel Archmages had used to purge the world of the majority of its magical energy. But now he felt like he could truly see just how much the amazingly advanced mixture of scientific technology and magical power, which had been crafted by a being so complex he could hardly comprehend it, was capable of.

  By Winston’s will, the quill radiated a fiery golden aura, which was soon followed by his book and then finally Winston’s whole body. The golden light intensified and the artefact melted into a globule of liquid gold. He elongated the gold and began growing it in size, and in a mere few seconds it had gone from being a needle, to a javelin, to a long burning lance.

  The Archmage was so happy. After thousands of years of planning, he was finally free of the Gloom and ready to siphon the source of magic out from the centre of his fallen kind. Soon he would be more powerful than ever. He stopped himself from laughing madly to enjoy the look of terror in his audience’s eyes, but when he looked he saw that Alice, Veronica and the Alts were looking up in the sky, high above Flesh Mountain. Omniosis followed their eye line and saw a burning golden star above the living remains of his people.

  “No… no, you can’t!” the Archmage uttered fearfully.

  Both Alice and Veronica smiled. They knew that Winston was and had always been on the right path. He was a servant of Fate, and Fate’s will was about to be done.

  As Winston launched the burning golden lance down below him, he transferred all of the power he’d summoned to go down with it, and from the decks of the Driftwood and Destiny’s End it looked as if a fiery golden comet was plummeting towards the tip of Flesh Mountain. The Archmage screamed an ear shattering cry of despair as the lance punctured the corrupted flesh and muscle, and detonated at the heart of the source of magic. The blinding white explosion disintegrated Flesh Mountain in an instant, finally putting the fallen Archmages out of their misery, and the pure burning energy quickly spread down its tendrils that spanned the world’s oceans until nothing remained.

  A second shockwave followed, and just like the first one that Winston had created, it spread until it had engulfed the entire planet. The magical storms dissipated, the waters cleared and sparkled slightly, and the cracked and broken sky was replaced by a new light blue one with a slight purple tint. Old buildings and ruins that had vanished during the purge of magic, from the times a millennia ago when humans and Archmages had lived together, sprang back into existence like they had never left. New magical plants, insects, and animals appeared amongst those of the real world and the Gloom, and all around people of all different species’ stared in both fear and wonder at the newly restored magical world that was to be their home.

  Omniosis dropped to his knees screaming and sobbing, and Lewis stood strangely like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Alice knew that this was her moment to strike.

  Calling upon the temporary surge in st
rength that the rebel Archmages had bestowed upon her, and exploiting Omniosis’ moment of despair, Alice used her negation magic to cancel out the Archmage’s magical prisons. Without stopping for a moment she charged towards Omniosis, who looked up at her with his masked face a moment too late, and she slammed the spell-forged steel directly at his brow. The strike connected perfectly and he went flying into a metal cargo container, denting it severely and falling to the floor in a heap of broken armour and torn fabric.

  Seeing that Alice was free, Veronica followed suit, but instead of heading for the Archmage she rushed towards the floppy-formed Lewis. She raised Xavier’s spell-forged sword and went to sweep it at the traitor’s neck, but as Veronica got close, Lewis shuddered and straightened himself up. He looked towards her with scared blue eyes, stopping the Vampire in her tracks.

  “Veronica?” he said faintly, like someone half asleep.

  “Lewis…?” she said scared. Had the young man once been a friend after all?

  The blonde haired Book Wielder began to shake all over violently like he was having a fit. “You’ve got to kill me, V, quickly before he takes control again. Please, do it quickly… before he gets in… my… head!”

  Veronica was stunned silly. It had been easy hating him when she thought that he was nothing more than the Archmage’s puppet, but now that she knew that Winston’s best friend was genuine and still somewhere underneath Omniosis’ layers of control, it was a whole different matter altogether. She lowered the blade, and then he charged at her.

  Lewis ran towards her snarling like a feral beast, black blood oozing from his mouth and curdling in his eyes, making them pure black once again.

  The Vampire heroine could feel him trying to drain her powers, but it was a sloppy and slack attempt. It seemed like he was battling his own self as he swung and clawed his hands at her. Veronica dodged the attacks effortlessly, and then, left without a choice as Lewis’ nails began to grow like little black blades, she hesitantly swung her blade sideways at his chest. He moved backwards so that he would be out of the path of the attack, but a look of confusion and fear crossed his deformed face as he moved himself back into the way of Veronica’s meagre attack. The blade flashed as it cut across his stomach, and steaming grey stuffing, black blood and half-rotten muscle tissue spilled from the wound.