by Billy Wong
It tried to slam its shield rim down on her, and she knew that its weight would chop her in half despite its blunt edge. She jumped back from that fatal blow as it gouged a trench through the cobblestones, but the Shadow followed up by thrusting the huge metal wall forward. It plowed into her with tremendous force, sent her hurtling into the side of a sturdy house several dozen feet away.
Spitting blood, Rose rolled over onto her belly. A roaring blast smashed her hard against the wall again and pinned her against it, crushing her against the stone. She felt bones snap and organs rupture inside her body and tried to drag herself away, but there seemed no escape from the pressure of the continuous attack. At least if she died here, she would have perished alongside her true love, fighting one last battle together...
Of course, she still didn't accept that fate for them. Rose rallied her will, forced herself with a shrieking effort to dive aside while throwing her shield the other way to confuse any attempt to track her by sound. She ran in, sliding under the energy beam as it swept wildly past, and reignited her blade with the flames lost along with her concentration during those grim moments.
As the blinded Shadow began to push itself up on its hand and knees, Rose hacked into its shield arm wrist, the plate doing it no good in this position. Severing it too, she left her foe with no hands and no weapons. But it was getting nearly impossible to keep her sword in its magically heated state, and she knew she had to hurry up and finish before her energy completely ran out.
With the loss of its second hand, the golem crashed to the ground loud enough to make Rose's ears bleed. It lay sprawled for the moment with its arms outstretched across the ground and she saw her chance. She pulled herself up onto a mammoth forearm by the wires of its severed wrist and ran down it towards its back. The arm flailed, trying to throw her off. But she managed to stay on, once stabbing down into the metal limb to provide a temporary handle for her to retain her footing.
Running up the Shadow's back, she jumped and plunged the sword down towards what would be the base of the spine on a human being. It batted her out of the air with the stump of a hand, one of the wires hanging out whipping against her chest with incredible force. It tore her already mangled chestplate away and ripped a deep gash across her bosom, nearly detaching her right breast.
Somehow she just held onto consciousness. As she flew over her opponent's shoulder and landed hard on the ground, she saw through blurred eyes its neck within easy reach. Drooling blood, she pushed herself up on her knees and drove her sword to the hilt into that great metal column. Though this would have killed a man, it did not stop the golem's now desperate thrashing, and she prayed that decapitation would do the trick. She began to saw through the immense neck, each movement tougher despite her determination as her strength waned. But she was almost there, almost finished separating head from shoulders, when the titan pleaded, "Stop."
"Why?" she spat while it grew still, grateful despite herself for the lull in the fight. "You might have killed my husband, why should I spare you?"
The golem's voice had changed before, and now back again, she realized when it spoke. "That was not me. It was the other, the darkness that shares my form. But it is no longer in control. Seeing your strength, your bravery, gave me the will to banish it into the realm of dream. I promise it will never surface again, or you can destroy me as you see fit. But give me one more chance. I am, though ashamed of what my body has done, innocent."
Rose almost beheaded it anyway, yearning to avenge the harm to Finn. But even if they inhabited the same vessel, Hope and the Shadow were two separate entities, and it would be wrong to destroy one in retribution for the other's misdeeds. It wasn't as if she was a complete stranger to seeing people controlled by other beings to do vile things they would never consider themselves. Of course, a possessed golem was far more unusual, but this one did clearly have a mind.
She sighed as she withdrew the sword, but kept it close to its neck. "Shrink back down. You've done enough damage to Gustrone today."
"I told you, I did not do that."
Even if it told the truth, Rose's patience for uncooperative metal giants ran low, and she growled, "Just shrink before I change my mind about finishing your sorry tin behind."
Finally Hope returned to its normal size, still missing a foot and both hands, and mused, "I can't believe what you, a human woman, just did to me—my body. Even to me, there truly are marvels in this world."
But she didn't much care about being a marvel at the moment, nor bothered to reply as she ran to check on her husband. Her heart pounded like it meant to burst through her ribs. To her surprise, her kids were already there in spite of her instructions to the contrary, yet she found no inclination to chastize them right now. She only felt grateful they were alive and apparently uninjured, though distraught over their father's condition. The still Finn's open eyes were glassy, and she feared the worst.
"Is Dad..?" Amber asked, moisture on her cheeks.
Kneeling by his side, Rose held her breath until she found a slight pulse and the very faintest of breaths issuing from his mouth. But though he lived for now, she had no idea if he would recover, and yelled at Hope as it tried to hobble upright, "What the hell did you do to him—and me, for that matter?"
"It was an attack directed at the soul which felled your husband. Such a blow can barely be withstood by the strongest of archmages, and even then at great cost. It is astounding just that he clings to life, and you..."
Well, she was no archmage, but not a girl who stayed down either. Everything hurt, though. She wanted to retch, but was afraid that if she did, it would be her guts she threw up. "You did this to him! Save him!"
"I cannot. I was not designed to cast spells such as that which could heal him, but only channel energy in limited ways predetermined by my creators to battle the demon."
"Then what do we do, how can I save him?"
"If knowledge of soul magic truly has been lost as I gather, then you can only wait."
She thought of Deathend, the resurrected Fanteian emperor from the Old World. He would probably know how to treat Finn. But he had recently vanished off the face of the earth, leaving Fanteia in chaos as various factions tried to take control. With no clues, not even solid rumors, as to his whereabouts, she had no illusions about being able to find him. She almost wanted to blame herself for not knowing soul magic, but knew that would be unreasonable since there was nowhere to learn it from. Still, she felt so unbearably helpless for all her strength... suddenly her legs gave out from underneath her, and she fell on her butt.
Her twins ran to her, holding her between them. "Mom!" Jacob's eyes were big with worry. "Mom, what's wrong?"
"I'm fine," she mumbled. "It's just—I don't know what to do."
Amber squeezed her hand. "Have some faith in Dad, like he must've in you all those times it was you who lay wounded on the brink of death."
Rose nodded weakly. She would try, but it was so hard not being able to do anything... They took Finn home, where for weeks she attended tearily to him. Her children insisted she get some bed rest herself, being horribly injured, but she refused. She fed him liquids for every meal and drew mild hope from the weight his body put back on, yet his continued lack of response outweighed it. Had he already died in reality, and only his husk still lived? What little sleep she got was full of nightmares about what life would be like without him. One day, she thought she finally heard him groan. She looked at him, waiting. His eyes opened, and she felt incredibly light. She hadn't even realized how much her dread weighed her down until it was lifted off her.
"So I assume we're not dead?" he asked upon focusing on her.
She laughed, though tears simultaneously rushed from her eyes. "No, we're not. Are you so surprised? We can't let our kids go it alone yet. Though, we both came really close this time."
He tried to sit up, and she helped him. His heavy body still felt weak, but she'd nurse him back. She kissed him slowly, tenderly, and when she wa
s done he asked, "What happened with Hope? Did you wreck the mountainous golem as I expect?"
It was impossible to keep a proud grin from her face. "Well, I dismembered it... though I didn't finish the job."
"Why not?"
"It seems to have suppressed the dark part of itself. I'm still worried it might become a danger again in the future, but I can't just kill it when it isn't."
He gave a grudging nod. "Where is it now?"
"I'm having it kept under watch here in the center for now—you know, until we can be more sure it's safe. So, ready to see the kids? They've been pretty worried about you, and me for that matter."
"Well then call them! The sooner our happy family reunion the better... and the less embarrassing time of viewing me as a feeble old man."
#
The Shadow, as it had learned the humans called it, walked through the dense forest crushing brush below its heavy feet. Joy bent its metal lips upward while it felt the power growing closer. It'd come inconceivably close to destruction at the hands of the female warrior, who it had underestimated for being a human with weak magic, but took pride in how it saved itself. The gambit of mentally withdrawing and allowing Hope to reassert control paid off; Rose had spared its body for Hope's sake, and squandered the only chance she would ever get to stop it.
Hiding while their body slowly repaired itself, it had almost died, extinguished by Hope's essence which sought unconsciously to claim full ownership of its form. But then it had sensed a familiar power draw near, and known that power to belong within itself. So it'd retaken its body with a burst of will to seek it, and could now almost touch it with its mind. The power was so close, almost within reach... then it saw him between two trees, and knew its target. "Didn't Hope destroy you?" it asked.
The spiky blue figure, which the Shadow easily recognized as a vessel for the same power it was created from, blinked in confusion. "Are you... talking about yourself in the third person?"
"I inhabit the same body, but am another being entirely. How are you still here?"
"You think I'd die so easily? I pulled myself away through the gaps in space to safety—an advanced technique of the air element, using the same principal behind portals."
The Shadow felt the pull of conflicting urges. It could kill this arrogant creature that its body was meant to destroy, take his power into itself and bring the ancient demon's energies together in one. But it hesitated, feeling a strange kinship to this other child of sorts of the demon lord. "I felt your energy calling to me, though not through any sense I know. Did you experience the same?"
"Yes, your presence flared like the sun in my mind, only to suddenly fade like a snuffed flame so that I could not sense it anymore. Still, I came to see what remained of the force akin to mine, and when I got close to your former location, I could feel you again. What happened?"
The Shadow pieced it together quickly—the other had sensed its unleashed power when it attacked Gustrone, but when it began to fade while lying low after the battle, it had been reinvigorated by this creature's approach. This... Justin, who the humans had told stories of, might have saved it, however inadvertently. "And what now?"
Justin frowned, realization seeming to dawn in his eyes. "You're the one who the prophecy really referred to. The destroyer Rose's children would release. The one I always meant to stop, even if I didn't know your face."
Oh. It'd forgotten this demon heir had sought to kill Rose's children for the sake of stopping himself from destroying the world. "Must we try and kill each other now?"
"Does either of us have a choice? We are not meant to coexist."
No, it supposed not. It was just as well—the energies of the demon lord would be put to better use united within it. A soul-searing black beam shot from its mouth, intended to rend the very spirit. Justin darted out of the way without difficulty. "You—your vesselmate—surprised me the last time. It won't happen again."
"But I'll still win. This body was made to beat yours, when it had its full strength."
Encasing the Shadow in a solid ten-foot sphere of ice, Justin smiled. "You don't know me. I may not be as strong, but that makes me use what I have better."
Blasting out of the icy cage with a ebony lance of heat—it preferred coloring attacks of any element the same shade, both to confuse and for aesthetic purposes—the Shadow clipped its enemy with the same discharge and sent him reeling. "Perhaps, but even then the power is wasted in you. And it won't be much longer."
It pressed its attack, hurling a smoking Justin against a tree, and watched him flop to the ground. As it prepared to deliver a lethal blow, it thought of something and stopped. Killing Justin outright might waste the demonic energy, as it might dissipate with his death. It stepped forward instead, reaching out as it prepared to suck the magic out of him. But he was playing possum, and lashed out with intense lightning that turned part of its chest into molten slag which dripped towards the ground. What—how could he inflict such damage with simple elemental spells? Then it considered it might not have recovered as fully from the fight with Rose as it'd thought, and...
Rushing to take advantage of its staggered state, Justin leapt with white fire blazing around his claws. The two of them fell together grappling, but the Shadow remembered its ability to grow. It began to expand and gripped the sides of Justin's skull, trying to absorb his energy. He resisted, thrashing in the golem's grasp, and then cut partway through a metal arm making it go slack. The Shadow readjusted to pin him down with one hand and continued to pull at the magic it sought. It felt a shocking pain in its head, like its mind was being crushed in an invisible vise, and reeled back.
Had Justin done this? Looking effortfully at its opponent, it saw him convulsing on the dirt, looking in as much pain as it felt. For a moment, it thought that some other party had ambushed them in the midst of their battle. But that didn't appear to be the case, as no third presence made itself known. They were both dying, it sensed, though it couldn't say why. For a moment it realized it could see inside Justin's mind, knew his thoughts as if they were its own. Then, they both ceased to be.
#
The remains of the golem and demon began to meld, pulled into one another by a force like that of a dead star. Their bodies were twisted together into something halfway between the two, a hulking humanoid mass of bluish-black metal which darkened the air around it. Abruptly, their minds snapped back into awareness or a semblance of it, everything a jumble of wild, disjointed thoughts. Justin remembered fighting himself, and the Shadow recalled the deaths of its human uncle and brother because of Rose's negligence though it'd never had such. And then they realized they were one.
"How did this happen?!" one of them asked the other—itself.
"The demon's energies wanted to join together, I think. They wouldn't wait for us to kill each other before returning to their proper unified state. So we're stuck together..."
"This is an abomination!" It would have been a ironic thing for either of its old personas to say, but it said it anyway. It didn't think two souls had ever merged into one before, literally speaking at the least. One of them wanted badly to separate again, but no matter how hard he strained with his will nothing happened and he gave up. The golem's original "Hope" consciousness they detected no trace of, perhaps departed to wherever minds there was no room for went or gone altogether.
There were so many contradictions in its mind, its viewpoints opposed each other, its memories conflicted... "So what are we going to do?" Its conflicting opinions made it lack any consistent purpose, and it might have stayed there on its back forever if it hadn't found one thing in common between its competent beings. They both desired to make the world a better place. Even if it hadn't yet decided what that improvement should be, it did know it would have to take control before it could change it.
#
"Any news on where Hope went?" Amber asked as she peered out a window at the still empty courtyard, where the golem had rested before.
Jacob shrugged. "No, but what does it matter? I'm sure he'll be back soon. I just want Mom and Dad to come home already!"
The pair had gone on a trip to celebrate Finn's survival at his insistence once he regained enough strength to travel. Not two days later, Hope had disappeared from Center for Magical Study grounds. "Me too. But it's weird how it just got up and left like that without telling us—and where would it have gone?"
"Maybe it wasn't done fixing itself up, and needed to go somewhere else to finish."
"For a week? It might be lost or something, we should go look for it again."
"Who cares?" Jacob snapped. "It's just a stupid piece of junk that hurt Mom and Dad, and..." Could have killed them, he had meant to say, but found himself not wanting to articulate it.
"Hope didn't do that. It was the other, who's gone now."
Who knew how golems' minds worked? Jacob felt like his mother might have been unwise to spare it. It was too dangerous to be allowed to continue to exist, though Amber didn't seem to share that stance. He supposed she probably found it novel, given she had visited it regularly despite its boring personality. "What do you think our parents are doing now?" he asked.
She closed her eyes as if doing so would allow her to look into another place, or at least one in her imagination. With a smile, she said, "Fighting, maybe."
"Fighting?"
Amber giggled at his puzzled look. "Not like fighting for real, silly! I meant like wrestling on a tavern floor, having a good time. They're pretty prone to that."
"Yeah, maybe. I hope they get home soon. We could use their help finding Hope if it doesn't come back soon."
"We don't need to bother them with that, we're seasoned warriors now. Besides, it's not like there's any danger-" Her too-confident grin evaporated when a massive impact rocked the tower. Books tumbled from their shelves around them as the stone building shook like it was made of gelatin. "What the..?"
The siblings looked out the nearest window, and to their shock saw numerous monsters like the ones they'd fought up north spilling through the streets, slaughtering with impunity. They must have somehow bypassed the walls, but how? Jacob could only think a portal must have been opened inside Gustrone, to destroy it from within. Following the waves of monstrous flesh to their source at the center of the city, he deduced its location, and hoped somebody would seal it...