by D G Palmer
Things suddenly got a whole lot stranger; the world literally turned upside down, inside out and back to front. They couldn’t tell if they were coming or going. Communication between them became impossible as all that came out of their mouths was gibberish. The laws of gravity became temperamental and they began to float up into the air, or it could have been toward the ground. Either way, now that Daniel and Eric could barely get their bearings, the Shade serpent, unaffected by the madness that prevailed, finally made its appearance.
Daniel could do nothing to resist the creature as it wrapped around his body and began to squeeze. It locked eyes with him, it’s face inches from the boy’s, before the Shades giant maw opened wide and sucked on his Essence.
Then there was a moan of agony as the Dragon Claymore struck it.
The shadow snake loosened its grip on Daniel and, as the laws of gravity normalised momentarily, he fell to the ground. Eric was to feel the ire of the creature for his sneak attack, as it swung its head and slammed it into Eric’s chest, leaving him sprawled on the ground.
Daniel went after the fallen Claymore, intent on finishing off the Shade heart with it. He reached out his hand to take hilt of the enchanted Dragon Claymore. As his fingers wrapped around it, he heard the voice of the Magic Entity in his head.
‘The Mortokai has accepted the second gift.’
A volatile purple flame suddenly erupted around Daniel; his wide-open eyes mimicked the effect. His mind expanded and he could feel his Essence, not only in the three reservoirs Trinity taught him, but throughout his entire body.
Eric got to his feet and rubbed his aching body. It had been a long time since he had last been struck like that. He approached Daniel in sense of awe and wonder and couldn’t help notice that the Shade reptile was hesitant to strike, perhaps out of fear.
‘This is my birth right,’ Daniel said as he admired the Dragon Claymore. ‘And as the second gift, I accept it. This Shade did indeed learn from my encounter with the other, for all it was worth. Now,’ he addressed the Shade in question. ‘You will be my instrument. However, it is you communicate with your kind, you will let them know your fear, let them know your pain, let them know that they are now at the bottom of the food chain, let them know that The Mortokai is coming.’
Daniel held up his hand, fingers outstretched. As he slowly began to ball his hand into a fist, the Shade heart began to moan in agony. The creature began to crumple, as if it were folding in on itself, getting smaller and smaller until Daniel closed his fist tight and the Shade ceased to exist.
Eric had watched the whole thing. Seen his son do something he had never seen another mage do and with such ease. But the way he seemed to relish it, with a hint of malevolence and some enjoyment, troubled him. ‘Son?’ There was no response. He tried again, with more urgency. ‘Daniel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you ok?’
‘I have never felt better,’ came his reply.
‘What happens now?’
‘We wait.’
‘For what?’
‘For the portal to reveal itself, and also for them.’
Eric turned and looked in the direction his son pointed. Coming towards them he could see several wispy objects floating beside some familiar faces; the missing children from his newspaper cuttings.
Although the plan hadn’t gone exactly the way it had been formulated, Eric was a veteran of enough missions to know that they very rarely did. The fact that they had still somehow managed to partially obtain their objective pleased him. He just hoped that Finn was ok. She had been left to tackle the second part of the plan alone. He hadn’t known that there were three Shade when he had dived in after his son but he was anxious to return now that’s heart had been destroyed.
At that moment, a shimmering white ball began to swirl above where the Shade heart had been. The portal grew larger and larger until it was big enough for them to walk through, which they did with Daniel leading the way, his purple Essence still flickered around him.
FINN COULD HEAR ALL manner of sounds around her: chants, roars, stomps and general sounds of combat. Yet she got no response when she called out.
‘What the vekt is going on!’ Her curiosity was killing her. She was half tempted to jump down off the car and take her chances with the Shade tentacles in an effort to find out who was out there.
Fortunately for Finn, she didn’t have to.
She heard a sound very familiar to her ears. It was the sound of a Shade’s true death, the explosion of its petrified form. With the first Shade’s death, the darkness that permeated the carpark level seemed to lift slightly. Whoever these people were, they looked nothing like the humans Finn had seen so far.
One seemed to be a red, partially feline woman. She moved exceptionally fast with incredible agility. Finn thought that she might actually be able to give the Shadow Dancer a run for her money. The next stranger was like a huge satyr, but instead of goat’s legs, they seemed to be more akin to the hind legs of a horse and with the hardened bone sticking out which it used to attack as well as stomping the ground with its powerful legs which caused shockwaves. Finn determined that the one with the white ponytail and goatee beard was the magic user as she saw him let loose several spells. She saw the fourth one, a boy that she thought looked like he was in desperate need of a hospital, talking to the goatee guy.
Whoever these four individuals were, they had been fighting the Shades, which was music to Finn’s ears because she was dangerously low on faerie dust for her guns.
The remaining Shades, depleted of Essence, couldn’t withstand the assault on them for much longer and they soon lost cohesion, dissolved and seeped into the ground, which caused celebration among the strangers, Finn was less than pleased however.
‘What the vekt do you think you’re doing?’ She yelled.
‘Saving your backside by the looks of things,’ replied the big one. ‘You’re welcome by the way.’
‘Stop it, Borion. She’s probably in shock at seeing the Shade and us. A quick wipe of her mind and we’ll be on our way.’
‘Praise be, Ferin,’ Borion said with a clap of his hands. ‘Me and Katrin can’t wait to get off this dump.’
‘You know it, baby,’ she agreed.
‘I might be able to help you with that,’ Finn stated as she trained her guns on them. ‘Nobody’s wiping anything.’
‘Well that’s gratitude for you,’ the feline said as she bared her fangs and claws.
‘Uh-uh, down kitty,’ Finn said with a shake of her head, ‘unless you want putting down permanently.’
The air was thick with tension, neither side willing to stand down. Things were on the verge of kicking off. An ill-conceived twitch could be all it took to light the fuse. And the boy, Finn believed to be sick, detected something that could be such a twitch.
‘Ferin! That energy I sensed within the Shade that exploded...’
‘Yes, Jostin, what about it?’
‘It’s here!’
‘What? How can it be, if the Shade is gone?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s over there!’ Jostin pointed at the portal that was opening.
‘Is this your doing?’ Ferin questioned Finn.
‘No, it’s not, but I know things are about to get evened up a bit,’ smirked Finn.
The four strangers, had no idea what was coming through the portal, so they kept their guard up. They were a well drilled fighting unit; they didn’t need to be told what to do. They kept half an eye on Finn also, just in case she tried to take advantage of any distraction.
Daniel stepped through the portal and surveyed the scene before him. He pointed the Dragon Claymore at the four unknown people and demanded, ‘Who are you and where are the other Shade?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eric stepped out of the portal with the children, immediately after his son, but when he saw that things weren’t quite safe, he told them to go hide. Instead of the two Shade he had been expecting, Eric saw four i
ndividuals, that were obviously not from Earth realm.
Finn’s elation at seeing Daniel and Eric return quickly became tinted by trepidation as she saw that her friend was in the same powered but disconnected state he had entered the last time Daniel had battled the Shade. Although, this time he wasn’t exhausted by it like he had been in Ariest, it seemed like he had more control. She had her suspicions as to why, the Dragon Claymore.
Being such a huge fan of Eric’s, Finn had heard the stories and songs about him hundreds of times. And those songs and stories, more times than not, included facts about the mystical blade. Such as the fact that only someone of the Mondragon blood could wield it with ease, and that it was immune to enchantments and could cut through magical defences. But the most incredible thing was that it could increase the strength and abilities of its wielder, affectively taking them to the peak of their prowess.
‘The Shades are dead,’ Ferin answered. ‘Just why does it concern you?’
‘Because this is my world and your ignorance delays my work. All you have done is put the creatures into hibernation.’
‘We know plenty about killing The Shade,’ said Borion, ‘we’ve been doing it for a long time and we’re good at it.’
‘It’s true,’ Eric stepped in, ‘the only way to kill them is from the inside, by destroying their heart.’
Ferin and Jostin looked at each other. That’s why the boy could sense energy inside the Shade. Perhaps there was some truth to their claims after all.
Just then, Katrin pounced on the unsuspecting Finn, disarmed her and knocked her to the ground. Daniel reacted instantly by unleashing a volley of eldritch missiles at her. She evaded some of them but there was just too many and she was struck over and over again.
Borion, seeing his mate with smoke rising from her crumpled body, let out a roar of rage and charged. He covered the ground with just a few of his exceptional strides and delivered a kick at Daniel, powerful enough to knock down a wall.
Yet, the young man didn’t flinch.
The shield Daniel had erected reflected the force of Borion’s attack back at him and sent him flying across the carpark.
‘Impressive,’ Ferin complemented. He tried to give an air of bravado but knew he was vastly outmatched even if he had once been the Archmage of his own realm.
We have our mission to complete, Ferin thought to himself, and this may be our toughest test, but I promise you, Gydion, we will not fail you.
‘Gydion?’ Daniel was more than a little surprised to hear a familiar name.
‘How did you - wait, you know Gydion?’
‘Yes,’ replied Eric, ‘I have quested with him and my son is his student.’
‘His student?’ Ferin exclaimed as he eyed Daniel, shocked that a student could already command so much power.
‘Ferin is it?’ Eric asked the stranger. ‘What’s your connection to Gydion?’
‘He rescued me... rescued all of us... gave us purpose. Each one of us is the last of our race, the last survivors of Shade massacres, The Eims. Katrin is from Lo’Crae realm Borion is from Kkangea and Jostin is from Maeriis I myself am from the Te’fety realm, where the arcane is held in reverence and magic users live solitary lives in the pursuit of knowledge. But when the time came, when the one we called The Harpy Queen and Gydion called Sayyidah, brought those Essence vampires to my world, our understanding of magic wasn’t enough to stop them.’
‘They killed your entire race?’ Finn was astonished but not as astonished as what she heard next.
‘The extinction of my people fell to me,’ Ferin admitted. ‘I killed of my race. When Gydion rescued me, he rescued another of my people, a female named... Cera,’ he stared at the ring on his little finger as he said her name. ‘Gydion tutored me, progressed my magic, taught me the spells necessary to kill the Shade. I could have lived out my days with Cera, started our race anew. My mage ministry was gone, my vows now meaningless should have died with the ministry and yet I still clung to that life. I had a choice, a life with Cera as the father of my people or a life of vengeance.’
Silence can be golden, a blessing, but it can also force you to revisit decisions that, given a second chance, you may or may not repeat. Ferin had enough of such moments to fill a lifetime, but as he got older the visitations came more frequently, the choice made, more regrettable.
‘We all have tough decisions to make in our lives,’ Eric said thinking of his own past choices, ‘we can’t dwell on them, we can’t change them, we can only forge on with the choice that we made and make it the best we can.’
‘You’re right,’ Ferin said, as his resolve returned. ‘Gydion set us on this path, brought us together, directed us to a portal corridor which we used to hunt down Shade, now we get to do it again,’ he smiled and turned to Daniel. ‘So, you’re saying that Gydion was wrong about how to kill the Shade?’
‘Nobody knew how to truly kill them then,’ Daniel explained, ‘the secret would die with anyone that had discovered it.’
‘It was by chance that Daniel found out, to be honest,’ Finn said.
‘Or divine providence,’ Jostin replied as he stared intently at Daniel. The boy, like all of his race before their extinction, had incredible sensory abilities. What he could see in Daniel was like no other mage he had come into contact with. Ferin and the people from Te’fety had two Essence reservoirs, other races had larger reservoirs. However, with Daniel, he couldn’t sense any reservoirs at all.
Eric thought that it would be better if Daniel were to show rather than tell The Eims how to dispose of a Shade. To facilitate this decision Daniel radiated his Essence, just enough to reawaken the two that had fallen to the Shade hunters.
Daniel used his magic to make a duplicate of himself and took Ferin and Jostin into one dazed Shade whilst the other Daniel escorted Katrin and Borion into the second.
‘I’m sorry about bailing out on you like that, Finn,’ Eric said once they were alone. ‘I just saw Daniel disappearing into the Shade and lost it. If I’d known there were three of them, here, I never would have...’
Finn who had been twirling her guns in deep thought cut in, ‘Don’t worry about it, Eric, I totally understand. Besides,’ she nonchalantly fired a shot at both of the Shade, ‘we have to worry about Daniel.’
A look of worry crossed his face. ‘That change in him, that wasn’t Daniel; that wasn’t my son, he was so distant, so disconnected. And that was how he was before?’
‘Yes, but it didn’t last this long. I think it’s because of the sword.’
‘Goddess!’ Eric exclaimed. ‘Of course, it is. His spells wouldn’t work until he held the claymore, which, not only put him in that higher state, but gave him the stamina and endurance to persist at that level.’
‘What do you think will happen if we take it away from him? I hope he doesn’t fall into that coma again.’
‘I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon enough. My biggest worry is that he almost seemed to enjoy having the power. From being bullied and having none to having it all, it must be addictive.’
Finn’s mind returned to the moment on Ariest when he had returned, before his collapse, the words he had said, that he had been everywhere and wondered what it must feel like to have that vast amount of power.
Before they could dwell on it any longer the Shades both exploded. Eric heard the children jump in their hiding place and he went to comfort them. They were happy to see his friendly face and they all gave him hugs.
‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured them, ‘we’ll get you home soon... somehow.’ He knew that would be the difficult part, the how, it wasn’t as if they could walk into a police station, there would be hundreds of questions, the majority of which would be unanswerable.
Daniel and the Eims returned from their mission of discovery. The two Daniels placed their palms against one another’s and, as they stepped forward, they merged together. Daniel was whole once more.
Although the Shade hunters knew that they would hav
e to revisit realms they had already been to, so they could eliminate the Shades they, at the time, believed had killed, the Eims were actually excited about it. Especially Borion and Katrin. The Equilons from Kkangea realm and the Felitrini from Lo’Crae realm were similar in the fact that they were warrior races, from childhood they are taught to hunt and hone their combat skills. That understanding and spiritual connection made it easy for them to gravitate towards each other.
‘We need to be going,’ Ferin announced. ‘We have a lot of work to redo. I’m sure our paths will cross again someday, Gydion always knows where we are.’
Katrin and Borion said their respectful goodbyes as did Jostin, who made a point to bow before Daniel and express his pleasure at meeting him.
‘Eims!’ Ferin called. ‘Let’s move.’ With that final command, the four-dimensional refugees activated their camouflage and vanished from sight.
‘Well, that was fun,’ Finn said once she, Daniel and Eric were alone again. ‘And I thought you said that there was no adventure on your realm, Daniel.’
‘Things are changing,’ he replied with a distant look on his face. ‘Things have been set in motion that will alter this world forever. We must ready ourselves for when that moment comes, even you, father. Your self-imposed exile is at an end.’
‘What is coming?’ Eric asked.
‘Something ancient, something hungry. We must all prepare ourselves. The Dragon Claymore is yours...’ Daniel handed the sword back to Eric. ‘For now.’
‘What are we going to do about the children?’ Finn asked. ‘We can’t leave them here.’
‘And we can’t take them with us,’ retorted Eric.
‘Children, come to me,’ Daniel summoned. They slowly made their way to the young man with the purple flame. He spoke the little brunette girl in front. ‘What is your name?’
‘My name is Rosalyn Hargreaves and I’m four-years old,’ she replied in a voice with little to no fear, surprising for one so young.
‘Did you hear what I said to my friends, Rosalyn?’ She nodded. ‘That was for you, too,’ he said before he bent down so only she could hear and whispered ‘Prepare.’ Daniel straightened up and addressed the children. ‘I want you all to close your eyes and think of your homes, picture your bedrooms. Have you all done that?’ When they all said yes, Daniel held up his hand and four beams shot out of his palm, struck each of the youngsters and transformed them into multicoloured shimmering spheres of light. The balls flew up, passed through the ceiling at tremendous speed and were gone. ‘In a matter of moments, they will all be back home.’