The Shadow of Nisi Pote

by H C Storrer

  “Tristan!” Belle was even closer.

  Without another thought, Tristan leapt through the opening, hovering just above the ground. “Peter, where are you?” he called in a hoarse whisper. Only his echo returned. Squinting down a long corridor, past a toppled golden throne, Tristan watched as the wall appeared to change from solid stone to a shimmering liquid of black. One second, in the golden light of the runes, Peter stepped to the liquid, and then in a single ripple he was gone. Stunned, Tristan found himself racing across the distance. He had to stop this, whatever it was, before both of them were in a heap of trouble.

  ***

  Jack stood within the chapel of the old church, his journey almost like a dream. There was so much he remembered of the corridors that was not so. It was difficult to separate ancient memory, lives, and knowledge lingering within the power of the shadow, from his own. Confronted with the pews, he forced it all back. Everything was how he recalled it, excepting for his fingers leaving a track in the dust as they drifted over the oaken surface.

  The once long-tapered candles of the sanctum had burned nearly to the nub, the wax pooling about them and running to the floor. The sights were punctuated by wafts of a damp musty smell of disuse; it was strange to see the place so disheveled. Jack came to a stop. Sadness crossing his features as he surveyed the needled tapestry. It looked as if it had not been cleaned in years, with moth holes stretching the hem. “How long have I been gone?” His reverberating voice the only response.

  Beyond the sanctuary, bumps began to rise across his exposed arms. It was late afternoon, and the sunset cast long shadows through the chapel bringing a chill to the air as the musty odor broke with the unforgettable smell of late fall.

  “Who’s there?” An old, shaking voice cracked in an echo through the din.

  Jack’s eyes brimmed with tears. In the distance, past the last pew along the far wall, the office door of the parish priest sat ajar. Peering out of it was a familiar face in a black robe.

  “I don’t have time for games. Who is it, let me know. If you need help—”

  “Your Eminence?” Jack took a step forward.

  The good father froze, his eyes wide and then squinting. His voice drew cautious he asked the question like he already knew the answer, “Who?”

  “I have a tale to tell, one I don’t think you would believe.” Jack started towards the old man, his arms open.

  “Ahhhh!” The priest turned, hobbling. “Why haunt an old fool! Begone, spirit of Jack!”

  “Haunt?” Jack asked.

  “Please, trouble an old soul no longer!” The priest slammed his door shut, the latch clicking loudly followed by the turn of a lock.

  Shocked, Jack stood motionless, hands on his hips. The laughter in his belly built until it breached his lips in a bubbling chuckle. To be sure, news of the demise of the Faversham had reached English shores. Jack neared the heavy oiled planks of the good father’s door when his shadow stretched out before him to the lock, its black, smoky fingers reaching to the tumbler. As the lock released and the door swung slowly ajar, Jack stepped to the threshold.

  “In the name of God, I release you!” The father flung a splattering of water, catching Jack in the face, wetting him down his shirt.

  “Father, I took a bath just yesterday.” Jack wiped the water from his eyes.

  Stunned, John stood there, his hand finding the cross about his neck,“Jack?”

  “Yes.” Jack smiled.

  “Jack, is it really you?”

  “Yes.” Jack laughed, and then held up a calming hand, “It is me, and I assure you, I am very much alive.”

  “But the lock… the Faversham. . . the rumors of your stepfather, of Nathan?”

  “That man is no relation to me whatsoever.” Jack stood resolute, a hand resting on the hilt of his gladius. “But, make no mistake, I will put him down like the rabid dog he is.”

  The priest shuffled back to a chair at his desk and sat, his eyes never straying far from the weapon strapped to Jack’s waist. “I believe you. But I feel like we have had this conversation before.” His eyes drifted to the ring wrapped about Jack’s thumb while his own fingers worried the clear gem at the center of his crucifix. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”

  “Not if I get there first,” Jack replied with a smirk. “I remember this conversation as well.”

  The ancient priest sat silent, his stare piercing.

  “What?”

  “That is an interesting blade you wear at your hip.”

  “My sword?” Jack asked.

  John waved the comment away. “You are Jack . . . but not. I can’t explain it.” John shook his free hand. “Wha—”

  “I don’t… what are you talking about?”

  “You look like the boy that left here. You have the same soft features… but … well maybe it’s just the feeble eyes of an old man.” John smiled, trying to hide behind a contrived innocence.

  “I have seen and done much while I was away. I have learned of an amazing place.” Jack took a seat at the little table in the office.

  The priest leaned forward. “Tell me, Jack, where have you been these past seven years?”

  Jack gasped and leaned back involuntarily. “Seven years? It feels like only a handful of months since the Faversham sank.”

  “The Faversham was just one of many to fall by Nathan Rogers’ hands.” The priest’s gaze shifted to the window.

  Jack was awash in his own thoughts. “Seven years? What… do you know where everyone is? Are my lost boys well?” Jack sat silent, then muttered, “Seven years?”

  “I believe it’s Anna you wish most to find?” the Father asked.

  Jack nodded.

  “She still works for Lord Cunningham; she has never married.”

  With a great long sigh, Jack released the poison air of worry he held in his lungs. “And, any word of my other boys?”

  The priest slowly shook his head. “Without a leader... some are in prison or the workhouses. Some were shipped off with the Royal Navy, boys of war. The press gangs can be most cruel. I honestly don’t know, my son.”

  “What of you? Why is the church in such a state? Have you had no street urchin to clean up after you?” As he looked closer, Jack could see the toll that the last seven years had taken on John.

  “Oh, well. . . I’m old. Not too many want to hear the good word from a crotchety old priest with little experience of life out of the Lord’s service,” John spoke to his hands, avoiding Jack’s eyes.

  “John?” Jack noted how the old man smiled at being addressed by his first name. “Shall I tell you of my great adventure?”

  ***

  John looked towards the ground in deep contemplative thought, his fingers fiddling with his crucifix once more. Jack had eloquently edited his bouts of revenge while on the island but loved the widening of John’s eyes as he explained the fairies, their glow, and overall innocence and naivety. John gasped when Jack described his first fight with the giant Moremore and had looked on in stunned disbelief when he explained the magic he wielded on the island.

  “Jack,” John’s face filled with worry, “there are stories… they seem real to us—”

  “You don’t believe me.” Jack laughed as he stood. “Here, come with me.”

  Making the center of the chapel, Jack turned and asked, “Can a man fly with the birds?”

  “My tea, Jack,” John protested.

  With a whoosh, Jack lifted from the ground, shooting towards the vaulted ceiling. Angling in a wide arc, he sped around its perimeter, the priest a blur on the ground as he whipped in tighter and tighter circles. Jack could feel the excitement of the shadow as he sailed effortlessly through the air then came to a sudden and complete stop. Slowly, he lowered only feet from the ground. Pure energy flowing through him, he chortled as his hair whipped about his head in a frenzy, his blue eyes alight with the surge of power.

  “You were on Nisí Poté?”

  The words were a faint whisp
er, but Jack heard them nonetheless. In a blink of an eye he was on the ground. “I never told you that name. How?”

  “You came through the portal?” John ignored the question with one of his own.

  Jack reeled back through the air. “How do you know these things!” The stained-glass rattled with his uncontrolled shout.

  He could see fear in the priest’s eyes. “You must control yourself and Pan, Jack.” His voice was pleading, his hand back upon his crucifix.

  Jack slumped into a pew, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. “I think it’s your turn to tell a story, John.”

  Chapter 38

  “I believe in the one true God.” John looked deep into Jack’s eyes as if to convey the importance of that statement. “But, the world at one point was not so cut and dry. In ages long ago, there lived a group of people that, for lack of a better term, were ‘gods’. They had the ability to control all aspects of this world: the land and sea, weather, death, and so on.” John broke off, swallowed hard, then continued, “Others could control or dictate emotions . . . feelings. One such being went by the name of Aegipan, or as you now know him, Pan. The god of the wild, as his followers called him”

  Jack sat up. “Where—”

  John held up his hand. “Please let me finish. Pan was the first, maybe the only of these gods to die. I don’t know… the histories are not complete. What I do know is that he retreated to his island kingdom, Nisí Poté. With him, he took his guardians of the wild, his fairies, and the last group of warriors that worshiped him, a ferocious people that refused to be tamed.”

  “I know all of this and more!” Jack was impatient, leaning upon his knees, ready to stand.

  “This church was constructed over an ancient secret, built to protect, but also to keep hidden what you have discovered,” John continued as if Jack had not spoken. “Pan had the ability to control that which should not have been controlled, the beasts on the ground and birds in the sky. It was rumored that as he departed this life, he imbued his power into an emerald ring. The ring that you now wear.” John pointed to Jack’s hand. “That is why you can fly. That is why you have the keen senses and strength of beasts. Pan also had the unholy ability to control that which could and should not be touched but left alone. Shadow. It was this ability most of all that some feared, while others sought to harness it.”

  Jack clenched his fist as he stared down at the ring that garnished his thumb. “I’m a god.”

  John shot up and wrapped his withered hand around Jack’s wrist. “I can see it in your eyes, Jack. The wild. I fear it will consume you if you do not go and put that ring back into the hellish pit whence it came.”

  Jack recoiled. “Why would I do something as foolish as that? I won this ring with my blood and sweat!”

  “Because you also won it through deceit.” Tristan filled the gloom with his golden glow, darting from the back of the chapel.

  “In all my years…” John was in awe, his eyes unable to detach from the transparent flicker of Tristan’s wings.

  Tristan hovered away from Peter, landing before John, his eyes searching.

  After a long pause, John broke the silence. “You don’t remember me, Tristan. I am not surprised—it was Fering I knew best.”

  “Latavius!” Jack and Tristan exclaimed in unison.

  Stumbling backwards, Tristan nearly fell. “You’re still alive?”

  “Alive...” A troubling frown pulled at the corners of John’s lips as he slumped back into his pew. “Barely.”

  “How?” Tristan stood with his hands on his hips.

  “That is a harrowing tale, but I am afraid we have a more pressing matter. Jack, what does this fairy mean by winning it through deceit?”

  Tristan turned to Peter. “And why does he call you Jack?”

  “That’s a funny story.” Jack smirked, unperturbed by either question, propping his feet on the pew in front of him; he now held more power than all the fairies combined, Tristan was no threat. “My real name is Jacques Edward Peters.” A contemptible sneer marred his lips as a flood of bitter memories came unbidden to his mind. “I changed it to Jack, because no one would trust or even look at me if I used that filthy French name. As a sailor, you are only known by your last name. When I washed up on my island, you asked for a name. I barked out Peters. It was a simple reaction, a product of my training, and it kept you from tossing me back into the sea, so I didn’t feel any particular desire to correct you.” Jack finished by shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t look at me like that. Why should it matter to you if my name is Jack or Peter?”

  Tristan was crestfallen. “Our writings tell of a coming man, one who is honorable and noble and a protector to Pan and that he shall be known as Peter.”

  “This is indeed troubling,” John chimed in.

  “Well as far as I’m concerned my last name is close enough.”

  “You can’t live a lie, Jack.” John warned.

  “Live a lie? You’re a fine one to talk, John.” Jack belted the old man’s name with a sarcastic flourish. “Your name is not even true, John. So what difference does it make if I use a name that actually belongs to me?”

  John nodded in thought. “You are right, my name is… I have gone by John or Johan since the third crusade. Trust me, I have lived enough lifetimes to gain this wisdom. There is no good in a power like that. Trust the fairy, and my history; put the power back.”

  Tristan stood with his mouth agape—those were wise words he had never expected from Latavius’ lips.

  “It seems like these histories would have been something you could have shared with a friend.” Jack looked pointedly at Tristan and then John. “But,” Jack stood and shrugged his shoulders, “I kept my secrets, and you all kept yours. I’d say we’re square. Now if you all don’t mind, I have someone I am quite keen to visit.” He turned in the air and began to glide towards the doors in the back of the chapel.

  “STOP!” Tristan’s voice boomed through the room.

  Jack halted and turned, his eyes dark with warning, “It would be better for you if you didn’t issue orders to your king.”

  John’s eyes narrowed. “Jack?”

  Tristan disappeared into his fairy size and in a flash of golden sparkle reappeared in Jack’s path. “Your name may be close enough, but I am not convinced you meet the other criteria. You are neither noble nor honorable, and I am not sure everything you did on our island was to protect us.” From the back of his belt, Tristan pulled the Roman dagger and held it before him.

  Jack took the weapon and twisted it between his hands for inspection. Reflexively, he smirked at the marker of Fering’s demise; the thought of the council tree burned to a stump was another happy memory. An unheard whisper echoed in Jack’s ears—the shadow was eager to see what else they could do.

  “You have to resist giving yourself to the shadow, Jack, before it consumes you.” John implored as if he could hear the shadow himself.

  Ignoring the old priest’s pleading, Jack faced the fairy. Residual feelings for his friend stayed the more destructive desires, but Jack didn’t need some external conscious following him around. Reaching out with the shadow, Jack sought to take hold of Tristan’s essence, but the fairy stood unchanging. Seeds of annoyance began to fester within Jack as he applied more and more pressure, searching for a chink in Tristan’s invisible armor. Whatever guarded the fairy, it was flawless. With a surge of power, the very dust became unsettled as the shadow took complete control, seeking to strip Tristan of his aura like it had the council, but to no avail. Two words echoed again unheard, ‘The Guardian.’ It was even more angering that as his own ears pulsed with the power of destruction, Tristan stood as if he hadn’t a clue anything had happened at all.

  Jack slumped his shoulders in defeat as he slid the dagger in the sheath behind his own back. “Perhaps you’re right, friend.” He looked Tristan in the eye. “What can I do to right my wrongs?”

  Tristan exhaled a breath. “You must return the ri
ng to the tomb and seek a pardon from the council. I trust you, Pet . . . um, Jack, and I still do think you are destined to be the Pan, but it must be done the right way.”

  Jack smiled at his friend. “Always there to keep me on the straight and narrow, eh?” He sighed, “You’re right! Of course you are. Let’s right my wrongs.”

  “Jack?” John pressed.

  “Why do you look so concerned? I said I was going to put it back, what else can be done?” Jack replied.

  “I—” John hesitated, worrying his crucifix once more. “Take the ring off and give it to Tristan, he can take it back.”

  “I can’t actually,” Tristan resisted, “You must have forgotten much, Latavius. It is forbidden for me to even touch it.”

  John sighed with frustration. “You fairies and your impossible rules.”

  “There, it’s decided, then,” Jack chimed in, a comforting hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “I will go with Tristan and put the ring back. You shouldn’t worry. I must apologize for my behaviour to you both. I wasn’t thinking about… I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “Jack, take the ring back and leave it. Its power is too corrupting.”

  Jack’s smile faltered at the priest’s knowing look. “Never fear, Your Eminence. All that was done wrong will be made right!” With that, he turned away, ignoring the anguish on John’s face as he and Tristan slipped from the chapel.

  ***

  Jack wiped his ringed hand over the worn face of the grand lion carved into the stone wall. A soft green glow pulsed within the emerald upon his finger, growing with intensity until like a bolt of lightning it filled the room with a flash of the whitest light. Blocking his eyes with his hand, Tristan squinted as the glow subsided. All about him, various forgotten carvings within the stone sparkled with a golden, crystalline glow. Just as on Nisí Poté, the limestone wall shimmered into a smooth sea of black, the faint shine of water visible on the other side.