Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God

by Scott Duff

  “What a load a’crap,” said Ferrin, scowling. “The councils are nothing but a bunch of blue bloods lording over the riffraff when they deign to look out of their ivory towers. You saw Marchand. He treated you like you were something to scrape off his boot before walking on the carpet and you can wipe up the streets with him.”

  “Well, I’d say this was a big problem,” I said, pointing to the map. “And they’ve come down from their ivory towers and Felix has done more, as a council member, than lord over riffraff. But that does show a difference of opinion on how the councils are run.”

  Kieran chuckled softly and said, “There always is. This argument can be extended into other areas as well, though. That’s the problem with disparity. It exists everywhere. While I don’t mind a philosophical discussion, I think we have more pressing matters to attend to. We need to decide what we know, what we need to know, and what we can actually find out.”

  “Yeah, well, we at least have some lead into the human aspect,” I said. “What about the mage side. The map is pretty one-sided on battle outcomes. No prisoners. Any forensic evidence?”

  “Don’t know,” Cahill answered, shrugging. “I very much doubt it, though. Fights of that kind tend to be very energetic and the winning side generally doesn’t want evidence of wrong doing lying about for public viewing, right or wrong.”

  “Hhn,” I grunted in understanding. “Guess that means we should’ve burned the bodies, then.” Peter and Gordon were both startled by the thought, eyes snapping together.

  “You used a disassociation spell,” Peter said. “I felt it.”

  “I’ll use a proxy,” Gordon answered, smiling slightly. “Another slim lead, but more than we had.” He scribbled on a notepad for a few moments, obviously enjoying the puzzles at hand. I envied him that, being able to enjoy this.

  “What about you, Mike?” I asked Ferrin. “Isn’t this your line of work?”

  “I’ve been out of touch since MacNamara’s,” Ferrin said. “’Sides, this ain’t the sorta work I do. I’d likely be too high profile for them right now, anyways.”

  “Okay, but could you find out anything about who was looking for people to do this kind of work then?” I asked.

  “Not from here,” he responded. “From Dublin, maybe, or London, more likely.”

  “How long will you need?”

  “Few days,” he said. “I’ll need some cash, to grease some wheels and loosen lips.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “We’ll get that tomorrow, too.”

  “You’ve got that much money at your disposal?” Ferrin asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

  “I have enough,” I answered calmly.

  “Yeah, I suppose you do,” he said, rolling the orange stone through his fingers.

  “Those are rare, Mr. Ferrin,” said Kieran. “I suggest you treat it respectfully. We have no idea what will happen if it’s damaged and I doubt you’ll be given another.”

  “I think that answers your questions, though, doesn’t it?” I asked Kieran. “We need time to question the prisoners from the school. Billy is talking to the colonel and the captain; Bishop and Marchand have the bulk of the prisoners at the school. Gordon is gonna try to backtrack the mages that attacked us without getting caught and Ferrin is gonna find out what he can from the rumor mill. I don’t see what else we can get from this.”

  “What about the elves?” Gordon asked.

  Damn. So close. The elves were a… personal problem.

  “What about them?” Kieran asked, taking a little weight off of me.

  “There were at least six cases where the attackers were elven,” said Gordon. “And Seth told Marchand that the two he destroyed were neither Summer nor Winter. He was quite emphatic about it. How is that possible?”

  “I have no idea how those things are set,” I answered, hoping to throw the topic off in some way. “Can their participation be bought and sold?”

  “Well, yes,” said Cahill, “but I don’t think their allegiance can, not to their court. The geas holds that in place. If the geas are failing, then there are big problems in Faery.”

  “The geas are not failing,” Kieran said. “But the question of the elves is not one we’ll be able to decipher at this juncture, I think. Maybe when we have more information about the rest of our issues.” That was authoritatively dismissive. I could see that Gordon was trying to come up with some argument for it, but couldn’t. There really wasn’t an argument against it.

  And I had a pretty big job ahead of me anyway.

  “Well, if we’ve done what we can here, I have something to do upstairs,” I said.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Peter, standing. “I need to get the laptops.”

  “And I’d like to check on Ian,” said Ferrin. Gordon offered to walk up with him to show him the way.

  I’d created a train of people leaving the room, but my mind was on what I would say to Ethan. I didn’t have a clue.

  Chapter 46

  I closed the door to my room, kicked off my shoes, and jumped onto the bed spread eagle, springing up and down a few times, just to relax. It didn’t help. I still have no idea what to do or what to say. I sighed heavily, closed my eyes, and let my body take care of itself while I centered my full attention down in my cavern.

  There were still three batteries sitting there, two fully charged and one still feeding energy through the spot caught between the Pact and its lock. I slowed the feed down to a stop then disconnected it, looking at the little dot on the colorful sphere carefully. This was my connection to Ethan and his connection to everything. That’s just… weird.

  “All right, Ethan. Time to quit sulking. Talk to me,” I said to the spot, arms crossing on my chest. I didn’t expect this to work, so when it didn’t, I also didn’t feel too foolish. He was going to make me work for this. Or maybe he thought I wouldn’t know what to do, which both did and didn’t make sense. It made sense since no one should be able to do what I was about to do, at least the way they explained it to me. I mean, this was going between worlds, out of normal space, where I would be losing, what, height? Width? I didn’t notice the first time, I was moving so fast. It didn’t make sense because I’d done it once already. Now it looked like I was going for twice.

  “Eth’anok’avel, come to me or I’ll come to you. Your choice,” I said, pushing power into the words as I said them. My intent was clearly not a threat, but promising to follow through on coming to him. He knew that was dangerous to me. I knew it was dangerous to me. So did Kieran and he knew I’d do it. And Ethan still wasn’t coming.

  So I was going. Centering myself on Ethan, first on his physical self, picturing his blond haired, blue-eyed muscle god physique with the impish grin. He tried desperately to fit in with the three of us, but didn’t know how to do it any better than I did. I didn’t realize how much I missed him till I pictured him like this. Then I lit him up, lit his aura in my memory. Now I really missed that. It’d taken me a while to get used to seeing it in the first place. Even with Peter’s brightening so much, without Ethan the world just seemed so dull. Not sure that made sense, even to me.

  Even this, though, was only part of Ethan. I needed to find all of him and go to him. I needed the part that I’d only brushed up against briefly, a chaotic memory. Even that wouldn’t be enough though. Power would be necessary, but I had that in spades. And I had his name, the only name he’d ever had. Names had power, but I didn’t know how to do that, did I? Make spells to use Names? I could make portals readily enough now.

  Who was I kidding? I didn’t have chance of creating a spell of any kind. I was just gonna have to wing it. I projected my conception of Ethan in all its parts and I placed him on the other side of the anchor on the Pact sphere. Drawing as much energy as possible into my imaginary form, I said clearly and forcefully, “Brother to the Fires of Creation, I am coming.” Except, I didn’t know the language I spoke in. The power I had drawn in knew and it exploded through me and the world went black. />
  Totally and absolutely black.

  Not just the absence of light. This was the absence of all energy.

  Black.

  Nothing was visible. Nothing was audible or tactile or sensible in anyway. Then something bit me and I began to see what the sensory issues were—I wasn’t looking in the right spot. An odd realization, but when you’re not dealing with reality, it makes a difference. All my life, I’ve opened my eyes in the morning and there’s the world, boom, no surprises. Here? First off, there’s the issue of light. Its dual nature is easier to see here, because you can see it here, both wave and particle. Obviously, my vision at the moment had nothing to do with receiving reflected light on receptors that my brain would then translate, not here anyway.

  That’s when it hit me what had happened, what I had done. I’d done almost the same thing Ethan did; I had anchored myself in him. I came to Ethan and he was all around me. I was currently coinciding with whatever conceptualization he held of me. If I wanted autonomy here, I could make a body of some kind, I suppose, but I only wanted to convince him to come home. What this world seemed to be to me didn’t matter so much. I needed to make similarities so I could communicate with Ethan. Therefore, I needed an Ethan, so I made one, a simulacrum, and linked it to the sensation I had of that “something” that bit me.

  And, lo, “Go home, Seth,” Ethan said angrily. “You could get hurt here, or lost. You shouldn’t be here.” I wondered idly how I was hearing anything. There wasn’t any atmosphere around us to vibrate for sound. A question for another time, though. I was doing that a lot, pushing questions to later.

  “I’m not going without you, Ethan. Why are you sulking in here, anyway? You were so gung-ho to protect Kieran and now you won’t come out of your hole? Why?”

  “Because the enemy has found me and Kir du’Ahn is not ready yet to meet him,” Ethan said, seriously. “If I am with him, he will die.”

  “The enemy?” I asked in disbelief. “Kieran has an enemy? Who? And who are you afraid of?”

  “Des’Ra’El’s enemy,” Ethan said with mechanical coldness. “The first enemy and the cause of Des’Ra’El’s Folly, the failure of the First Realm.”

  I stood there on inky blackness and let that sink in. It was pretty much meaningless to me since I had no idea who Des’Ra’El was, outside of Kieran’s teacher, or even what Ethan meant by “First Realm.”

  “You’re gonna have to do better than that, Ethan,” I said, shaking my head. At least I think I was shaking my head.

  He fixed a blue-eyed stare on me that chilled me. “All right, I will.”

  Once again, my world exploded, but this time I got the sensation of rapid movement and I saw light. It was everywhere at once, bright traceries of it everywhere, going far too fast to follow. Definitely out of Ethan’s world then. I erupted outward with it, first in a straight line, then dipping and swirling as gravity was born and time took hold. I was creating space just by being and it was a glorious feeling, like dancing to the music of an angel’s choir. And I didn’t know why.

  Suddenly, Ethan stood ahead of me, bright in the darkness. Not wanting to stop, I changed my course slightly, but he stayed in front of me regardless of my changes. I expected our collision to be full of force. Instead I was simply standing beside him, looking out into whatever I was just part of.

  “You’ve just witnessed creation,” he said softly, watching the light parade by us, as awed by it as I was.

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “Of everything,” he answered, chuckling, then moving back into a depressed monotone. “I’ve been here since the beginning. Not like I am now or was before, but here nonetheless.”

  We watched for a time as the energies flowed around us at speed, awash in them without knowing their cause or nature or purpose. There were billions of changes that neither of us could possibly follow going on around us so we just watched. It was rather like a fireworks display. Sometimes it was boring, but if you looked another way, something exciting was going on with flares of light and sound.

  “Then I was given purpose,” Ethan said. Suddenly our world was snapped taut and our attentions were centered in two directions only: up and down. Our movements were restricted in this dimension as well. “My countless brethren and I were given the purpose of protecting this world from intruders. At the time, we didn’t know by whom or why, we just did; it was our purpose. We were quite successful for a long time.”

  He gave me the sense of his Brothers as he felt them. As well as he could, anyway. Countless wasn’t exactly the same as infinite, but in my mind it may as well have been and my mind isn’t geared toward handling infinity beyond a symbol. Then I felt an intruder, someone trying to breach the Brothers’ shield for the first time. The Brother at the point of the breach merely brushed it off, but when the intruder pushed harder, all the Brothers answered with a decisive “no” and there was no longer an intruder to insist. It was like the heat of a hundred suns suddenly opened up and said, “Wanna bake some cookies?” The intruder’s whole realm burst into a nuclear conflagration and was never heard from again.

  But there were others, better prepared and stronger. Many of them through time, some of them were even slightly successful in that some of the brethren were removed, but they were countless. It was like digging through the Atlantic with a shovel—you weren’t getting to the bottom of the ocean that way.

  “So for a very long time, we guarded a dead world,” Ethan said. He changed his perspective from his Brothers to the world they guarded. It had an ethereal beauty to it, rich in red rock, veined in yellow and pink. I doubted it had any elemental relationship to what I was used to. I wondered which metals could be mined from the terrain. Did iron even exist here? Or water? There was no life evident anywhere, plant or animal. I got a vague impression of something like a river in the distance.

  “Then the impossible happened,” Ethan said. “Someone got through.” He shifted our perspective again, moving us closer to the river I felt, and showed me a body: a boy, skinny, exhausted, near death, and totally naked. He looked emaciated, both physically and in his aura. Emotionally he was totally despondent. It was like he was willing himself to die from sorrow and the universe was obliging him. The boy looked a lot like Dad to me.

  “Is that Kieran?” I asked Ethan and we were suddenly standing beside the prone body, seemingly solid but I knew this was a memory.

  “No, not yet. This is Ehran McClure,” Ethan said. Then I felt another presence, much larger than Ehran or Kieran, larger than the Faery Queens, together even. It was moving toward us, slowly, ponderously, measuring the intrusion into its world. This was something that hasn’t happened in a long, long time. It wasn’t exactly curiosity that drew the being to Ehran; it was more like a feeling of kinship—their sorrows held similarity in their depth and shape. It was almost like they resonated with each other. As slowly as I felt it moved, it was still on us amazingly fast.

  “And that is Des’Ra’El,” Ethan whispered, nodding toward a hulking purple mass that approached from along the river of thick azure liquid that wasn’t quite water. It flowed forward quickly toward Ehran on six legs that held aloft the base of the chitinous body. It vaguely looked like an eighty-foot inner tube filled with moss and lichen in purple, tinged in pink, going flat in places and bulging in others. Not a good coloration. Ethan moved us back away from Ehran as it closed on him. It stopped a few yards away and physically did nothing. Magically, though, it started probing and tearing at Ehran in ways I couldn’t begin to comprehend. That thing took him apart and put him back together just to take him apart again. I felt like I should have been horrified, if I only knew what it was doing to him. It sank slowly to the ground on its six legs and when it touched the ground, it changed.

  In its place sat a man of immense proportions. Easily fifteen feet tall when standing, his facial features were child-like, with a pug nose, round eyes, and a small, pursed-lipped mouth. He had shoulder-length hair of corn silk yellow that mat
ched the tunic-like garment he wore, the only thing he wore—no jewelry, no weapons, and no shoes. His skin was a deep red as if he was perpetually sunburned. He had no aura and no sense of power around him, much like Kieran when I first met him, so I knew not to trust that.

  But his most striking feature was his eyes. I’d gotten used to seeing the double iris in the eyes of elves. It was a part of their magic and part of the geas that bound them. The color of the second iris mirrored that part. MacNamara’s elves had the bright orange of the rising sun, Summer had the fiery red of the midsummer day, and Winter had the bluish-white of long-frozen ice. But for this, they still had the iris, the pupil, and the white of the eye in each. This giant had none of that. Where his eyes should have been was blackness filled with many different rings of color, never really seeming to focus on anything, just dancing constantly around in the sockets. It defined weird. It got downright creepy when he looked directly at me through Ethan’s memory and all of those rings lined up. I felt like he was actually seeing me through Ethan’s memory. That couldn’t be possible. Could it?

  Ethan pulled us up again and we watched from above and the giant healed the body of Ehran and greeted him. They talked for a long time but I couldn’t hear anything from here.

  “What are they saying?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “It’s only recently that I’ve been able to speculate. But he’s only part of what you need to see. Keep watching. I’m going to move a little faster for a while.”

  True to his word, Ehran and the giant started moving rapidly around the countryside, as if reviewing some scenic pageantry we couldn’t see. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, there was something to see in the terrain. Ghostly images appeared everywhere they went—buildings, people, animals. As they interacted with these ghosts, Ehran slowly became, well, happier, less morose, less filled with sorrow. The chasm in his soul began to mend. And the giant sighed with relief.

  “This is what he’s been waiting for, all these millions of years,” Ethan said. “This is when Ehran begins as the Bridge of the Way.” I watched as Ehran turned from a conversation with a ghostly giant to Des’Ra’El and smiled. Then his aura literally sucked down into his body and all of I saw of him was his physical form, just like in the forest when we first met. I had to remind myself that this was Ethan’s memory.