Danielle heard the clashing sorcery behind her; Devon felt the ground shake from its power. They continued to trip into the engulfing gloom, for they were still human, and mortal.
But when they fell, Shadows licking at their heels, they did not meet the ground or even the end of the world. They fell into a bed of butterflies, as golden and miraculous as any summer dawn. There were millions swarming the darkness in a cacophony of light and triumph, pressing ever forward and forcing the two wayward heroes to crawl back with their prizes clutched to their chests.
The butterflies brought with them a deafening boom reverberating like a raging tsunami. They scooped up the baffled mercenaries and dumped them at the julah’s sides again. The sorcerers reacted to the surge with reverent awe.
“What’s happening?” Nerilis shouted over the deafening flutter of a half-billion wings. His concentration faded. St. Lucia the Relic unceremoniously clattered at his feet, frantic butterflies fading into its crevices. “Do you think it’s…?”
The booming blast quieted, although the butterflies continued to hover and corner the bodies taking up precious space in the blindingly bright cavern. From their midst rose a voice, its haunting timbre crossing the bleak landscape, and its power making spines shiver and hearts halt their beating. Each butterfly had a voice, and it spoke with unwavering authority.
“Do not touch this world as you have touched others,” it began. “If it is I who you seek, then it is I who comes to you now.”
Nerilis fell to his knees, face tilting toward the butterflies circling overhead. Before him, Marlow also knelt, hands clasped in a prayer.
The butterflies turned their attention to one of the women sprawled on the ground, as if they mourned the unconsciousness that would not witness the end of the world. One final surge pushed toward Miranda, until only one emerged around her brown hair. It disappeared in a flash.
All eyes were now on that body as it awoke, as it rolled onto its back, and as a hand pushed hair away and round brown eyes peered at the julah who knelt in reverence.
Devon was closest to her, and the first to see Miranda’s body stand on a pair of wobbly legs, flinching and flailing until whatever possessed them regained control. Miranda ignored Devon, stumbled past him and approached Danielle.
The julah kept their backs turned as Miranda bent down. While her musky scent hung in the butterfly-riddled air, a hand took Danielle’s. A protest formed, but the ring was soon taken from her hand.
“Can I borrow this for a moment?” Miranda’s voice was clear, but the tone foreign. Dumbfounded, Danielle let the ring fall from her possession and into Miranda’s, who folded it between her fingers. As she stepped away again, Devon crawled toward Danielle, who accepted his presence in this uncertain moment.
“Nerilis. Ramaron.” Although Miranda’s voice was low in the company of her companions, it was still loud enough to permeate the arc of infinity. “Please stand, my friends.”
They obeyed, dwarfing the feminine body between them as they embraced her.
She closed her eyes and held their arms in hers, Marlow’s gentle touch overshadowed by Nerilis’s frantic desire to hold the stranger close to him. Marlow acquiesced to his wishes and stepped away, his wrinkled face covered in shallow tears.
If this strange fellowship was enough to confound even Devon, who had regressed and was aware of his past life, then Danielle was beyond lost. Yet she stared in awe at the two worlds clashing before them. Her own, embodied in Miranda, possessed once more by a force more powerful than her… and the far-off past coming in the form of two old sorcerers who pulled at their graying hair to be with the lady between them.
With a face falling faster than each passing second, Nerilis released the body in his arms and allowed Miranda – or whoever controlled her body – to step back and kiss him on the grizzly cheek. She then kissed Marlow before facing the two mercenaries who remained huddled on the ground like forgotten garbage.
“Greetings. It’s nice to finally meet after I’ve been following you for so long.” It was Miranda’s voice, body, face, but the words were wrong. “Do you know who I am?”
Easy enough to feign ignorance when it was the truth.
“My name is Joiya,” she said, a ruffle of butterflies lining the air around her, “and I am the High Priestess of the Void. These are my friends, and this was once my body.”
FIFTY
“Was once…”
“…Your body?”
Danielle pounded her fist against the ground. “I give up!” she cried. “I don’t understand anything!”
The two older men parted as Joiya, the entity inhabiting Miranda’s body, shoved them aside and approached the huddling mercenaries. She extended both hands to Devon and Danielle. “I haven’t hurt her. I’ll give the body back when I am finished.”
Danielle still shook as she stared at the fingers held out before her. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry.” Joiya put her hand on top of Danielle’s head. “Even if you had regressed by now, I’m afraid you still would not know me. But you have no need to fear me, I swear.” She turned to Devon, who faced her with a defiant frown. “In my original incarnation, I was a julah like those men. They were my friends, until I was called to abandon this physical realm and live as a spiritual guardian of the Void. My body was reborn with a new soul to inhabit it. I’m sorry that your friend has had to go through this.”
Before Joiya could tear herself away from the mortals, Devon unleashed the question burning inside him for more than an eon. “What the fuck is the Void, and why do we give a shit about it?”
Joiya sensed his soul burning behind his eyes. In that instance, she caught a glimpse of the past millennium and the multiples lives he had lived since the death of Sonall at Nerilis’s hands. A wall of pity encompassed her heart so she would not become lost in such bitter eyes. “The Void is the source, the cauldron, and the destination of all souls in the universe.” Joiya took another small step forward. “You were born there before you drew your first breath. It is a plane of existence that transcends this world. When you die, your soul is meant to return there. It is my duty, as Head Priestess, to guard and keep watch over the souls that reside there. It is paradise. It is Heaven.” Her demeanor lost luster. “It is dying.”
Devon shook his head and Danielle lifted hers, her eyes now meeting Joiya’s. The priestess took the same account from Danielle that she did from Devon a minute before.
Joiya’s essence faltered beneath the weight of Danielle’s soul. “I…” she began, “I am so sorry.” She touched the edge of Danielle’s face and caressed her cheek. “It is no wonder that you cannot regress.” Danielle shook her off.
The priestess stood again, her legs wobbling; once she had her balance back, she returned to her brethren with a solemn face. Nerilis was still on his knees, tears gushing as he stretched out his arms to take Joiya’s hands.
“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed into her forearm. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. Please forgive me. You must be so angry with me.”
Joiya removed her hand from his grasp. “I am not angry at you, Nerilis. I would have never believed you would work so hard to become Head Priest just so you could go on to create the destruction that you have. I’m just… disappointed.” She faced Marlow, who stood behind them both in silence. “I’m also disappointed in you, Ramaron.”
Marlow dropped his stoic façade. “What? Why are you disappointed in me? I wasn’t the one running around the universe destroying planets and killing a trillion people!”
“The disappointment that I hold toward Nerilis is grand, indeed. What he has done is unforgivable, and for that the entire universe should hold him accountable…” Nearby, Nerilis shuddered at her calm, harsh words. “But my disappointment toward you is personal, Ramaron. Do you not recall what I said to you thousands of years ago, before I left?”
He lowered his head. “You told me to make amends with those I loved. I have failed you in my voluntary
solitude.”
“It is your own fear that holds you back,” Joiya said to him, her fingers stroking the edges of his hairline as if he were her brother. “To think that you have allowed yourself to suffer for so long, when I once knew a young man who pushed everyone else around him to their limit. It disappoints me. I thought you were better than that.”
“That’s still beyond the point.” Marlow shook another finger beneath her nose. “My own shortcomings as a man do not compare to what this bastard has done. Don’t tell me that my actions break your heart more than his ever have.”
“No, I could not tell you that. As I said, Nerilis,” she turned to him again, “you will forever answer for what you have done.” She side-eyed the mercenaries in acknowledgement. “To think that you, a brilliant student trained in the culture of our people, could give his heart to the Priesthood, and then betray it. As Head Priest, you swore to protect the living souls in the universe, and in the end, you left that position to become a harbinger of death. And yet…” his sobbing could not rise above Joiya’s soft words, “I am not angry at you, for I understand.”
Nerilis sighed in relief. “Thank you, Joiya,” he said. “Thank you for believing me.”
“That doesn’t mean what you’ve done is right, or that you should not have tried to find another way. It is disgusting and deplorable what you have done. But you have bought time, nonetheless, and it is invaluable time. All I can do is condemn you, and that is punishment enough, I think.” She inhaled a deep breath. “Swear to me that it ends today.”
Nerilis prostrated himself at her feet, his hands clasped together in prayer as if he were a peasant begging forgiveness from a queen. “For you I would swear allegiance to the Devil.”
“As you have already,” Joiya mumbled. “But swear that your reign of terror upon the universe ends with this planet today, with these people, and with these battered souls that you deem yourself worthy to judge. Your business is with what comes from the Void, not what goes into it. Do not play God any longer. Swear it.”
Never had such an old man appeared so weak and vulnerable than now, when Nerilis displayed his awe for the woman standing over him. “I swear it.”
“How should he be punished?” Marlow asked. “He cannot just be released.”
Joiya shook her head. “Let the rest of his days pan out as they will. There will be no greater punishment than what he will do to himself.”
They thought that would be the end of that, but Marlow frowned until the golden butterflies shuddered around him. “How naïve and foolish you still are,” he accused the woman before him. “You really think that because you’ve shown up, that he’ll heel and end his addiction to this power he’s chanced upon? This isn’t about what he’s done for you anymore, Joiya. This has become a sick pleasure for a man you once knew. I’ve spent my life chasing him and doing as much damage control as I possibly can. I’ve seen the look in his eyes as he destroys and kills. The man you once knew is dead. He has become a shell of evil, and it will never end as long as he is alive!”
The silence following Marlow’s tirade made the mercenaries shiver. “What would you do to him?” Joiya asked. “Kill him? Is that the only way for him to hold his vow to me?”
Marlow did not change his hateful face even for her. “It would turn you pale to know how often I’ve dreamed of ramming this man’s heart with my own fist.”
“How much of that wishful violence stems from what he did to the cosmos… or what he did to you?”
That’s what finally stung Marlow, as plain as the gasp now covering his face. He glanced past Joiya’s body and regarded his nemesis with an expression singing disdain. “You give him too much credit, truly.”
Joiya placed a hand atop Marlow’s thinning hair. “You have both sworn to me what you have sworn. Honor your vows. I can do no more for the living world.” She turned toward Nerilis. “You do more dishonor by submitting yourself like that after all you’ve done.”
Nerilis stood, and Marlow followed in wary suit. The two old men kept their backs pressed against each other. “What remains now,” Marlow muttered, “is to set Earth straight.”
His words were barely uttered before the butterflies scattered and the earth they spoke of shook with a ferocity rivaling the greatest storm. It was enough to send Joiya off her feet with a shout and for Nerilis to catch that possessed body. When he lifted her up, she was lifeless.
“Joiya!” A single butterfly lifted from Miranda’s body and hovered above them. Joiya lingered.
“It’s too dangerous for me here now,” she whispered. “I must return to the Void. First, we must stop this destruction. Is it too late for Earth?”
Nerilis gritted his teeth like a dog ready to attack. “Everything is unstable. While it won’t disappear if the Relics remain intact, Earth will continue to dismantle if they’re together.”
“What does that mean?” Devon asked.
Nerilis clutched Miranda’s body closer to his. Marlow answered in his place. “This planet thinks it is on the brink of destruction and is fulfilling that prophecy. Destroying the Relics is a clean way of destroying the planet without disrupting the order of the universe, but if Earth destroys itself this way… not only would everyone die, but it would create a chain reaction that could extend beyond the Milky Way and possibly to incorporated Federation territories.”
“Then why are we all standing here? We have to do something!”
“But what?”
“Don’t look at me!” Devon pointed a hasty finger at them. “You’re the sorcerers! You started this whole fucking mess! You find a way to fix it!”
“It’s possible,” Nerilis muttered, “that it’s too late. Best to evacuate.”
Devon shook his head. “No. This planet won’t be the last to die. What about us?” he then shouted at Marlow. “Where does that put Danielle and me? Do we die here and be reborn with no purpose? Won’t that trap us?”
“Yes, possibly,” Marlow responded. “Which is why he is suggesting we evacuate. You could break from the Process on another planet and die naturally there.”
“Fuck that! We want to die here! Don’t we, Danielle?” He looked down at her, but she regarded the situation around her with blank eyes and a quivering visage. “Danielle?”
Her desire to move was trumped by her brain refusing to process the situation. She wasn’t like Devon, who had regressed and could see what happened with both his old soul and new mind intact. She was afraid that if she acknowledged anything, she would go into regressive shock. It took Devon shaking her by her shoulders for her to grasp that she was back in that dark and cold pit with the world ending around her.
“Snap out of it!” His face sieved his anger into fear. “We’re going to be trapped forever if you don’t snap out of it! Help us!”
Her body jerked in his grip. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean? You don’t want to die like this, do you?”
Danielle pointed her head downward. “I guess you’re the stronger one after all.”
“The stro…” Those blasphemous words left Devon frozen. “That’s a lie,” he barked, “and you know it! Now get your ass up and let’s save the world!”
He coerced her to stand before him, the earth shaking but their collective balance strong enough to withstand the force. When the tremor ended, Devon led Danielle to the two standing julah and the remaining butterflies.
“Tell us what to do! There’s gotta be something!”
Marlow and Nerilis shared a look, the one sizing up the other’s answer before he could even say it. “Something that doesn’t require them to kill themselves, Nerilis,” Marlow muttered.
“What?” Devon retorted. “What do you mean kill ourselves?”
“It’s quite simple, really,” Nerilis said. “As it stands, you two are still bound to the Process and have an unlimited number of potential lives inside of you. But if you died now, you’d be trapped forever since you would have no goal to achieve in the future now
that I’ve vowed to, ah… retire. That means if you were to die, right here and right now, the amount of power that would erupt from your spiritual energy could placate this planet.”
“Except we’d die! And be trapped!”
“Surely there’s another way,” Marlow insisted. “We didn’t spend so many years in an academy to learn nothing. How else could we stop Earth from destroying itself?”
Nerilis shook his head. A millennium’s worth of guilt and amassing sin weighed upon his face, the lines pulling against his eyes as deep as they were dark. If there were a single soul in the universe that would know what to do, it was the same man who had the power – and the knowledge – to destroy that same planet. But it’s far easier to destroy than it is to create. A soul is snuffed in an instance. It sometimes takes an aeon to bring it back.
Darkness shuddered around them. A contingent of butterflies either dropped into a pile of ashes or winked from existence. There was no time to waste on debates or faint chances of hope. Nerilis said the first crazy idea to come to his head – he had crazier over the thousands years of his life, anyway.
“We could pull this universe into a parallel dimension and hope they fuse.”
Marlow’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.” A butterfly landed on his head. Yet how could he feel it when it turned to golden, glittering dust the moment it contacted the tips of his graying hair? “That’s not even possible.”
“How would you know?”
“It’s never been done before!”
“Are you kidding me?” Nerilis scoffed, because what better time to express his disbelief than when a whole world was coming to a violent end? “You’re a kerpahzid if I ever heard of one,” he continued, switching to their childhood language of Julah. They were the only two on Earth – alive or obliterated – who could understand such an ancient tongue that didn’t get much attention off their home planet. “Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done!”
Rebirth (Cross Book 1) Page 52