by M S C Barnes
While they had been talking, the golem was still moving and, with it, the flock of crows and the Guardians. Yard by yard the battle got closer to Seb, but several more of the crows had pealed off and were now focussing on Yvette and a sobbing Jean-Paul. As the numbers attacking them grew, The Caretaker left the other Guardians and went to help Yvette. Seb could clearly see the water-welts covering her; they had grown considerably in length. Jean-Paul was more affected, however, and the crows were furiously trying to get at him. He cowered behind Yvette, curling into a ball, and called out to Nicole.
“Help us!”
She glanced across but said nothing and then she looked back at Henri.
“Now Henri, I know Seb is making a big song and dance about them, but his present injuries, although painful, are just superficial, surface wounds. Look at my baby though, he travels well doesn’t he? If he isn’t stopped, more serious wounds will follow, and you are neglecting your post.” She grinned, looking over at the golem, which could only be seen intermittently as individual crows reformed from hazy black clouds and before others, being struck, dissolved and obscured it. It marched determinedly in Seb’s direction and, as Trudy, Zach and Reynard hit each crow, it gave the appearance that they they were actually clearing a path for it.
Seb was horrified by the amount of staining he could see over its entire body. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back under his jumper and knew it was soaked in blood. Nicole had said the wounds were superficial, but they were still bleeding considerably. Beside him, Aelfric had his eyes closed and his jaw clenched, grappling with the pain that should have been Seb’s to bear. Feeling utterly relieved at being free of that pain himself, Seb also felt utterly guilty. Sitting within the cocoon of Aelfric’s aura, he knew he should push Aelfric’s arm off, but he didn’t think he could stand to experience that agony again particularly as, very soon, it would get much worse. He tried to look at the feet of the golem, dreading to see threads dragging behind them, but thankfully, the figure had once more been hidden.
As the conflict continued, Dom ran into the midst of it and grabbed the torch from Trudy. She was lashing out with her staff while Zach and Reynard were using their two weapons to keep the crows at bay. Their strikes were fast and effective, but these totem birds were tireless; while the Guardians were becoming exhausted, the crows remained unaffected by their exertions.
Dom joined Henri.
“Henri,” he said, quietly, trying to prompt him to re-instate the barrier before the golem reached Seb. Henri ignored him. Suffering his own anguish over the fate of his wife, he seemed unable to turn away from Nicole.
“Riven,” he looked up at the Dryad, “Where is Lotty?” Riven appeared shocked by the question. “Please,” Henri begged. “Is she safe?”
“You say nothing!” Nicole snarled at Riven who, staring at Henri, suddenly looked heartbroken. He lowered his head.
“She is afflicted like Emile, only far more so. I believe she doesn’t have long,” he said, sadly. Henri gasped and looked furious.
“I said say nothing!” Nicole shouted at Riven who now rounded on her.
“He must know, Nicole,” he said, forcefully and then he lowered his voice again. “I love you as my twin, but what you are doing is wrong.”
“Where is she?” Henri yelled at Nicole. Dom, beside him, dithered, not knowing what to do. The golem was getting ever closer to Seb but he, like most everyone else, was looking at a man who was desperate to find his dying wife. Now, lifting his head, Henri stared up at the sky, as if trying to control his anger. “I will give you one chance to tell me, Nicole,” he growled, then glared back at her, looking as though he wanted to rip her apart.
“Nat, Alice, I have to stop Henri,” Aelfric whispered urgently. “Love is more powerful than hate; use that. Seb, I am sorry.”
Seb felt a jolt of adrenaline, knowing what was to follow as Aelfric unhooked his arm and, with Dierne’s help, stood up and ran, unsteadily, towards Henri.
“Henri, no!” he called. “Do not strike.”
Pain flooded back into Seb’s body and he cried out. Alice and Dierne tried to pull as much of it away as they could, Alice talking to him all the while.
“I am going to push some memories forward Seb, like we did with Dom. I believe these will help.” He began to flood Seb’s mind with vivid memories — the very ones guaranteed, above anything else, to distract him. He was using every single memory Seb had that was connected with Nat. It worked to a degree, Seb’s awareness of his current surroundings and situation began to fade. He could still register the agony throughout his body but not nearly as keenly, and now Nat grabbed his hands.
“Seb,” she cried into his ear, and he turned to look at her. She had tears running down her face. “Believe in Aiden and believe in me.” Aiden was nodding madly beside her. Taking the effigy they had made, Nat thrust it into Seb’s hands. He looked at it; she had wrapped it in the tissue she had used to dab away the blood from the backs of his hands. “I love you Seb and I won’t see you hurt. Believe in me.”
The memories were still running through his mind — his first meeting with her and the instant attraction he had felt towards her; a moment, standing in the dappled sunlight under a tree, looking at her turquoise eyes as she stared in fascination at a squirrel disappearing into the branches; the many times she had sat with him, listening to him tell of his feelings of failure and inadequacy; her stepping towards him in the Hellfire Caves and, touching his hand, telling him she was pleased the door had led him there. His mind was full of her — her beautiful, open expression and sparkling eyes, her golden hair and lithe body and then he registered her words — I love you Seb and won’t see you hurt; We made this, Aiden and I … with the intent, Seb, that it would protect you; you have to believe in me … I want to protect you … Believe in me … I love you Seb …
He tore his eyes away from the effigy and stared up at her. She looked so upset — as upset as Henri looked on hearing that Lotty was dying. This influence is borne out of hate. Aelfric had told him. There are other influences and love is a much stronger source. You can overcome this.
“If you believe that Nicole’s influence works, then you need to believe that mine will too, Seb,” Nat whispered, wiping her eyes. “I love you,” she repeated and Seb felt his heart leap. He stared at the effigy in his hands, noting how carelessly and hurriedly it had been made but how carefully Nat had wrapped it within the tissue — covered in a sample of his own blood. She wanted to protect him — so did Aiden — but more than that, she loved him. Suddenly euphoric, Seb felt power spread throughout his body and then surge outward, radiating towards the golem. As though hit by a sudden, powerful blast of air, all the crows around the Guardians were sent flying, along with the small, cloth figure, which, with them, slammed into the invisible enclave boundary and then fell to the ground as if stunned.
The sympathetic link between him and the effigy in the golem, Seb knew, had been broken. Though his body was still bleeding and he was still in pain, he barely noticed it. Kneeling up, he took Nat in his arms and, smiling at her, wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I loved you first,” he said.
His Heart
All those in the mausoleum, even Henri and Nicole, for just one, stunned second turned to stare at Seb. Oblivious, he held Nat close, feeling elated and it was only when Aiden screeched and pointed that he was brought back to reality to witness the consequence of his action. Even as he hugged Nat, Aelfric, holding on to Cue, was staggering past Henri and Nicole, heading for the enclave boundary. Seb, looking to where Aiden pointed, gaped in horror.
The power he had used had caused the small golem to hit the boundary with such force that the thin and worn material holding it together had split. It had fallen to the ground, its innards spilling out and, as soon as that soil had made contact with the soil beneath, it had begun to absorb it. Already the size of a man, the golem was growing at an astronomical rate, bulging and burgeoning, rising up from the groun
d carrying the flock of crows with it. They pecked and clawed at it and cawed and squawked, flapping their wings furiously as they were lifted upward. The noise, as more and more mud and shingle was sucked from the ground into the golem’s body, was like the rumbling of a thunderstorm and Seb could feel the earth beneath him trembling.
Releasing Nat, he stood up. Though he was free from suffering further injury in sympathy with what happened to the effigy within the golem, and had spared himself the agony of being torn apart as it grew, Jacqueline had said that this golem’s order — the one it would act on without deviation — was to crush his heart. And so once more fear gripped him, especially as now the golem turned and took two faltering steps in his direction.
Henri, his argument with Nicole forgotten, ran after Aelfric as Zach, Reynard and Trudy sprinted to join him too, forming a line between him and the golem, which was now over ten feet tall.
“How do we bind it?” Henri shouted over the rumbling and squawking.
“That’s a problem. We can’t make a binding net,” Alice said to Seb pointing to where the air around the golem shimmered and rippled. “The inferno shield is still in place and is expanding with the golem. We can’t contain it for Aelfric or Henri to deal with it.” Dierne and Dæved, Seb noticed, hovered beside their Custodians, not making any attempt to approach the golem.
“We will have to manage without,” Aelfric called back as Lily ran up to him. He lifted his hand, using the light from Dom’s torch, reflecting it onto the golem; but it had grown so large that all the crows attacking Yvette and Jean-Paul suddenly lost interest in them and flocked towards it, surrounding it and obscuring its top half in a black cloud of flapping wings. Aelfric stood still, trying to get a clear shot to light up the head, but now, covered in this shroud of furious birds, the golem took another giant step forward. Cue, leaping in front of Aelfric, snarled at it and it swerved away. Trudy pushed Henri back while Zach and Reynard jumped forward, swinging their swords, each taking a swipe at one of the golem’s legs. The swords cut clean through them, severing them below the knee. The golem toppled, crashing to the ground with such a heavy thud it shook the walls of the mausoleum.
With more of its body in contact with the soil now though, it grew even faster. Leaving the severed stumps inanimate where they were, it formed new legs and rose up yards ahead of its previous position — and much closer to Seb.
“Seb, take Nat and leave,” Aelfric shouted at him, staggering to get ahead of the golem. “Go to the church — to the circle.”
The massive mud figure took another enormous pace forward as Yvette and The Caretaker sprinted across to Aelfric. The golem, ignoring them as though they didn’t exist, moved on, heading for the wall where Seb stood. Greg tugged his sleeve.
“Do as Aelfric says. Open the door,” he shouted.
But as Seb turned and lifted his arm to make the doorway reappear, he found Nicole in the way. Unnoticed, she had darted across to the large puddle in front of the wall and stood in the shadows, between Scarlet and Aiden. Grinning at Seb, she reflected light onto the surface of the puddle and muttered words he couldn’t hear. The water bubbled and beneath it a massive black circle appeared which rapidly formed into a whirlpool.
Aelfric, still trying to run past the golem, shouted out, “Scarlet!” But as he did, Nicole raised her left hand. Dierne swooped and lifted Aelfric sideways just as a bolt of light shot towards him from her palm. Laughing, she jumped into the whirling water. Grabbing Scarlet by the arm, she dragged her in with her; the whirlpool closed and Scarlet and Nicole were gone.
Zach let out a bestial yell and sprinted towards the wall. He arrived just as the golem brought its foot down, with a splash, into the puddle. Pace barged his body into Seb, pushing him to the side and Seb dragged Greg with him as Nat and Aiden leapt the other way.
Zach was in a rage. “Get your clod-hopping foot out of it!” he screamed, launching himself at the golem’s leg, striking it with such force with his shoulder that the limb actually cracked and the golem tottered to the left, overbalancing. Zach jumped into the puddle, stamping his feet, trying to follow Scarlet. “Open it! Someone open it!” he yelled.
By now the other Guardians had joined him and Trudy pulled Zach around.
“We have to deal with this first!” she shouted at him, pointing at the golem which, to Seb’s horror had righted itself once more and loomed over him. The crows covering its top half were in a frenzy, pecking and clawing viciously, and, it seemed, quite pointlessly, at it. As he braced himself for this monstrous figure’s attack, Seb realised what they were doing. They were pecking and tearing around its thick neck and had actually dug deep into the mud beneath the head leaving only a thin column attaching it to the body. Zach saw it too.
“Right,” he said. “You want this dealt with? Watch.”
He took a running jump, splashing through the puddle, and leapt. Reaching out with his sword he rammed it into the hip of the golem and hung from it momentarily before reaching up with his other hand and driving his staff into the rib area of the mound of animated soil. Using the momentum of the golem’s movement, as it twisted to take another step, he looped his body up and hooked his legs over the staff so that he hung upside down, ten feet above the ground. But now the golem’s foot was on its descent. Seb, a mere yard from it, prepared to leap aside and then stood open-mouthed as the golem turned away from him; its focus elsewhere. And suddenly he understood. This golem’s order was to crush his heart; and that was what it planned to do. Leaning forward it drove its foot towards the ground aiming for Nat, who cowered beneath it.
Time seemed to stop for Seb — all he was aware of was the icy wind racing around the enclosure which seemed to freeze his heart as it went. He stared at Nat, the most precious person in his world, who, in a second would be crushed by this grotesque incarnation of Nicole’s hatred of him. And then, a millisecond before the golem’s foot slammed down, Alice whizzed over and pulled Nat from underneath it. The leaves covering his back instantly ignited and he cried out, pushing Nat away from himself and to safety just as he was engulfed in a fireball. He fell to the ground, his whole body burning with green fire. Nat screamed his name and tried to go to him but The Caretaker grabbed her and held her back.
Seb, aghast, now acted on sheer impulse. He swept his left arm up and over and as he did so, water from the large puddle, beside which Alice lay writhing in agony, rose up and over. Like a storm-driven wave, the water splashed down onto Alice, snuffing out the fire. But before Seb could run across and check on him, the golem slammed another foot down, missing Nat by a hair’s-breadth as The Caretaker pulled her to the side just in time. And now Aelfric, staggering to the wall, knelt beside Alice, who was moaning. He hooked his right arm around him and held him close, and Seb watched his blue aura expand, enveloping Alice.
Already, the golem was lifting its foot for another attack on Nat and as it drew more soil into itself, the ground rocked and heaved, making it difficult for those around it to remain standing. Reynard, realising that Nat was the golem’s target, now joined The Caretaker and the two stood in front of her, struggling to keep their balance as the soil and grass were sucked from under them. Reynard lashed out with his sabre, striking at the golem’s ankle, severing the massive foot which fell harmlessly to the ground. But the golem seemed oblivious and simply drove its stump towards the two Guardians, trying to crush Nat behind them.
“Finish it, Zach,” Aelfric shouted up to him.
Zach, had swung himself up onto the golem’s shoulders — pulling his sword and staff free as he did. He now stood with one foot either side of the head, a weapon in each hand, and crows flapping wildly around his feet and legs.
“Here it comes then,” he shouted back. Springing upwards, he swept the sword under his own feet, slicing clean through the golem’s neck. Instantly its body stopped moving and Zach, still mid-leap, kicked the detached head away from its shoulders.
“Trudy, that is the original section; keep it off t
he ground so it can’t reform,” Aelfric called to her. Trudy jumped, stretching her arms out, and caught the head. All the crows still flapped madly about it and Yvette sprinted to her and pulled six or seven of them off, exposing the area where the forehead would be on its blank face. Dom joined them, holding the torch high for Aelfric as Trudy span quickly and lifted the oval-shaped mass of dirt in the air. Aelfric immediately illuminated it. Lily, a few feet to his left, nodded.
“I can read it,” she said to Dierne. He was hovering beside Aelfric, looking at Alice, appalled, but now he glanced at Lily and a moment later, Aelfric spoke.
“Wicca e hen o ruin,” he paused then spoke again, “Ruin o hen e wicca.” Now a twirling trail of green mist lifted from the golem’s head. Instantly it fell apart, raining soil and shingle down on Trudy. The entire flock of crows lifted into the sky and then the decapitated remainder of the golem also collapsed into a harmless pile of earth. As it did, Zach jumped, somersaulted, and landed beside Trudy, who was brushing mud from her hair.
“Finished!” he said, and she nodded in satisfaction.
Seb ran to Alice. He was moaning and seemed barely conscious. Nat knelt beside him, crying.
“I am so sorry, Alice. So sorry. You shouldn’t have,” she sobbed.
Aelfric, still holding Alice, looked up at Henri and spoke urgently.
“Jean-Paul and Yvette, get them to the caves,” he said, making the door behind Aiden reappear.
Henri glanced up at the flock above their heads. They had begun a new descent, swooping towards the far side of the mausoleum where Jean-Paul leant against the wall, struggling to stand. The water-welt tendrils had grown so long on his skin that his normal features were hardly visible until, seeing the crows approaching, he gasped, taking a deep breath, and the tendrils disappeared, sucked inside him. They reappeared as suddenly when he let out a loud scream.