If it was, then they had a fighting chance. I know how to extinguish a regular lumir crystal’s glow. If I reversed that process, could I switch off a black lumir crystal’s nullification process and render it harmless to all and sundry?
‘We were born to wield the life-fire of the universe,’ his magic had said during the Question, and the veracity of those words struck deep chords in Sarn because it was right. He wanted to wield that again and to feel powerful instead of powerless.
“I am magic.”
It felt good to say that aloud, to claim what had always been his right by birth.
And there was no denying it or sugar-coating it. I am half the man I was before that damned Question and the black lumir crystals took my magic. I never should have let it go without a fight. Well, he would fight to get it back as soon as his head stopped spinning. All this thinking was taking a toll on his concussed brain.
“So, get your magic back. I miss its warm glow.” Ran shivered, and his shoulder bumped Sarn’s thigh.
“I’m working on that.”
“Good.” Despite everything, Ran smiled up at him and hope shone in his eyes.
“Yes, get it back, so you can get us out of here,” Jersten said, spoiling the moment.
“Then head toward that light.” Sarn nodded to a bird-shaped glow falling toward the black streamers of fog rising to meet it. “Where there’s light, there’s usually magic in Shayari anyway. And I might be able to use that magic if we can get to it first.” The thought made Sarn smile.
His reserves were gone, but the strength of the promise he’d just made meant he could still use external magic. So, his gift must not be completely blocked. But Sarn had to get his hands on that light—and the power fueling it—before the black lumir crystal did.
“Is it a real bird?” Ran squinted at it.
“I don’t know. It might just be a lumir crystal carved to look like a bird.”
“No, I think it’s a real bird. Its wings are flapping, and crystals don’t do that.”
“Is that what that blur is?” Sarn stared at the glow—both of them since he was seeing double again. “There’s only one, right?’
“Yes, I see it too,” Jersten said, and there was a newfound conviction in his voice.
“Come here, little birdie. We’ll help you.”
“I don’t think that’s a bird, Ran. Something’s not right about it.”
The two bird-shaped lights Sarn saw kept merging and dividing the more he stared at them, exacerbating his headache.
“Maybe it’s a Ghost Bird come to take Bear’s place. Can I keep it?”
“What?”
“Bear’s been gone an awfully long time. I don’t think he’ll mind. There’s plenty of room in my Bear.”
Ran held his stuff animal up to illustrate his point. At least he wasn’t asking for a little brother or a puppy. There was that to be grateful for.
“Well, can I keep it?”
“We have to catch it first.”
And that didn’t look likely. Streamers of black fog were rising through the hole in the ceiling and obscuring the tentacles still digging around up there. They devoured spells as they went, and luminous particles funneled into its main body.
“No, little birdie! Don’t go into the fog. It’s bad.”
But Ran’s shout came too late. The bird’s glow winked out.
“No, no, no, why’d it do that, Papa?” Ran turned his tear-streaked face up to Sarn.
“I don’t—” Sarn paused as the words changed in his mouth because he did know, and the truth shocked him. The bird had appeared right after he’d voiced his plan.
“It overheard us talking.” Sarn paused again because the words rising to his tongue didn’t make any sense. But they were true, and they wanted to be said. “It sacrificed itself.”
“Why?”
“To give me magic. Look.”
White motes twinkled like little stars as they spiraled down through the black fog and were swept out of this cavern toward the pit where the black lumir crystals waited.
“Each ember is a little bit of that glowing bird’s magic.”
And Sarn itched to catch one. It wouldn’t fill the empty void inside him, but hunger had no interest in logic, and he was starving for a touch of magic.
“Oh, then that’s okay. They’re so pretty!”
Ran let go of his pant leg and clapped his hands together to catch one of those embers flying past. But he needn’t have bothered. They were at the edge of the wedge-shaped fog cloud, and those lights were swirling around them, catching on their hair and clothes. Ran giggled and squirmed as their touch tickled him. Sarn just held perfectly still as magic trickled back into his starving body.
“It’s not enough for what you need, but it was all I could give without permanently dissolving,” said a voice that didn’t belong to anyone in his little party.
“Who are you?”
“Ask J.C. when next you meet Him. I was sent to deliver a message to Him, but it can wait. You need my help more than He does. Besides, a certain angel is supposed to fix the mess in the Gray Between anyway. I’m just supposed to let Him know there’s a problem there.”
“What are you talking about? What’s happening in the Gray Between?”
Sarn started to shake uncontrollably. He had a feeling the ‘certain angel’ was his sister, Sovvan. If she was dealing with problems on the other side if life, that would explain her frequent disappearances. But she could be a little less cryptic. It wouldn’t kill her to explain when she’s here.
“Never you mind about any of that.”
“Papa? What’s wrong? Oh, no, the marks are moving!”
So that’s what that crawling feeling was. Sarn tried to stay vertical. If he fell, he wasn’t certain he could get back up again.
“You’re a good man, Sarn. That is your name, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you bear the Adversary’s mark?”
“I don’t know. He came after me, and then it was there, and I’ve been trying to get rid of it ever since. But no one will tell me how.”
“Do you repent?”
“Repent what?”
Sarn swayed as the cavern tunneled and dimmed. His knees buckled, but he leaned into the staff, praying it wouldn’t snap in half from the strain of holding him up. He might be rangy, but Sarn still weighed a lot thanks to the fact that he was nearly all lean muscle and bone.
Beku’s voice came out of nowhere. It was an echo of the past. ‘I’ll help you escape if you’ll sleep with me.’
Fates forgive him, he had, and Ran had resulted nine miserable months later. But she hadn’t held up her end of the bargain, and Hadrovel had almost killed him.
“Papa? Speak to me please. You scare me when you go all quiet like that.”
Sarn blinked and brought Ran’s worried face into focus. “I’ll never regret you. You’re the best part of my life. So, you might have come from a sin. I can’t repent that because that would mean denying you, and I can’t do that. I love you too much.”
A frisson went through Sarn, and everything fell into place. That’s what happened to me. I was begotten in sin then denied at birth. But not for religious reasons. That Sarn could not believe after spending time with J.C. He would never condone such abandonment.
I will never abandon my son. I don’t care what keeping him costs me. I’ll gladly pay that price even if it means carrying around the Adversary’s mark for the rest of my life.
“Well done, Curse Breaker. Repentance is about love, not punishment. It's about owning our failings and working to fix them, and you’re doing that with every hug, every smile, and every loving thing you do for your son. If you keep that up, you’ll defeat his mark.”
The voice went silent as its owner departed without ever giving his name. The messenger spirit left a spark of magic behind. When it touched the dry tinder in Sarn’s waiting heart, it ignited a fire that burned brightly within him where it had always b
elonged.
Ran beamed up at him. “I love you too, Papa. Could you brighten the little lights? They make me sad when they’re so dim.”
Ran held up his cupped hands. A white spark nestled in the hollow his hands made. It was part of the same fire inside them both, and it shined with the pure light of love.
“Maybe.”
The light in Ran’s hands squirmed as it transformed into a bird, and he squealed with delight as it flapped its wings.
“Can I keep it?”
“If it lets you. I think that bird has a mind of its own.”
Ran beamed at him again then stared into his cupped hands. “I’ll keep you safe, little light. I prom—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t ever say that word. I don’t want you binding things or getting bound to things, okay? Look at me, Ran, and tell me you understand.”
“But it was a nice promise. Making it made me feel all warm and fuzzy in here.”
Ran motioned to his chest then glanced around for Bear. The bird-shaped light took that moment to fly away, but Ran didn’t notice. He’d dropped his toy when he went after those little lights. Spotting his fuzzy friend nearby, Ran bent to retrieve it and blanched as his eyes took in what was happening behind them.
“Um, Papa, there’s a big wave behind you.” Ran darted in front of Sarn and cowered against his legs.
Jersten screamed then fainted dead away as watery fists struck Sarn hard in the back.
This Death is Not for You
Nolo became aware of a rhythmic pounding as he reached for a Quick Death in his quiver and, instead, touched the fletching for Death by Magic. He froze. That fell arrow sent a cold shiver up his back, and an image of Sarn blossomed into his head.
In that memory, the Kid knelt in the heart of a cyclone whipped up by tongues of his fiery green magic. Death by Magic had appeared in his hand then too with its head pointed at the Kid’s heart. Nolo had fought it and managed to get Sarn’s magic back under control, but it had been a near thing, and the fear that one day magic would destroy his apprentice had left a scar on his heart.
Maybe magic would kill Sarn, but not today and not ever if I have a say in it. Nolo batted that arrow aside, and this time, his hand closed around the shaft of Sudden Death. It pulsed indicating it was ready to sever someone’s life-strings in the quickest and most painless way possible.
He nocked, aimed and sent that arrow on its way to relieve the suffering all around him. The arrow fluoresced as it flew toward a fluttering hand—the only part of the trapped woman visible under the pile of broken stones. As that now incorporeal arrow struck her hand, she stilled and sighed as if a great weight had been lifted from her. A luminous mist streamed from between the rocks that had been slowly suffocating her as her liberated soul rose and coalesced into a fist-sized shining ball.
“To me,” Death said, and the newly freed soul flew into her skeletal hands on wispy wings.
“Is that the last one?” Nolo asked, hoping it was as he slumped to the ground. No amount of mental prodding could lever his tired body up until it had taken a brief respite. Come on, move. Get up and find Sarn. The Kid needs you.
“You must rest now,” Death said as she gazed into the ball of soul-energy in her hands.
“I will when this is over.” Nolo shook his head in a vain attempt to clear out the exhaustion fogging his mind. “Is that the last one?”
“You tell me. You’re my marksman. I take only those you mark.”
Not the answer he’d been hoping for. “So, you’re saying we’re done when I stop marking people?”
‘Marking’ was an interesting way of putting it, but Nolo supposed she was right. The black quiver held all kinds of deaths, but he delivered a ‘Merciful Death,’ a ‘Quick Death,’ a ‘Just Death,’ and a ‘Peaceful Death,’ also known as dying in your sleep, more often than any of the others. The types of deaths at his disposal changed with the circumstances, but those four were always there, waiting to deliver some much-needed relief.
“What does your heart tell you?”
“That I should get up and find my apprentice, Sarn.”
But Nolo continued to sit there and stare at his hands. They were fifty shades paler than the rest of his skin—a bizarre side effect of prolonged contact with the Black Bow and Death’s Arrows. Their power bleached everything they touched. As if summoned, the black bow appeared in his hand, and desperate prayers echoed through his mind:
“Miserere nobis—have mercy on us. Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace.”
Under the black veneer, the bow stave was made of pure belief and sanctified wood, and part of Nolo wondered, as it always did when the black bow appeared, if he was holding a piece of the True Cross. He’d never asked, but this didn’t seem like the right time for such a discussion especially since he was too knackered to properly appreciate the answer.
“The bow argues there are more lives in need of cessation from their pain,” Death muttered. “Stretch out your senses. Feel their suffering and turmoil. Let their distress guide your hand.”
“You mean my arrows.”
Death inclined her head, but her fathomless stare remained locked onto the soul in her claw-like hands.
Nolo rolled his shoulders. Just great, she wasn’t ready to stop. Well I am. I’ve had enough death for one day. It’s time to get back to the living and help someone who isn’t going to die. Like Sarn, that Kid had better be hale and hearty when I find him. Nolo didn’t know what he would do if Sarn wasn’t, nor did he want to contemplate that and not just because the Kid belonged to a noble lord.
“Some can still be saved,” he said because someone needed to. Death tended to get carried away when tragedies struck.
“Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, no. Would you leave them in such dire straits when you can give them peace?”
Not a fair question. The bow vibrated in his hands, and not just the bow, the floor under his rump shook. Was it another earthquake, or had that monster decided to knock this area down too?
“Dona nobis pacem …” Death broke off her chant and hummed the rest of the hymn. She still hadn’t taken her eyes off the soul in her hands, and that was more than a little creepy. Nor did she send that liberated soul on its way to the Gray Between Life and Death like she normally did. Maybe she, too, was tiring and in need of a short break.
“No, that soul must be the last for now. We both need a break.”
The bow vanished from his hands and went somewhere between worlds to wait until he recalled it—maybe even the Gray Between. Angels had to store their weapons somewhere. Why not at that crossroads?
The quiver remained though. Maybe it hoped he'd need it again soon. Nolo hoped not. He'd had enough death for one day. Nolo scrubbed his now empty hands over his face and pushed the Marksman down. He didn't need that persona anymore. It resisted, as usual. His shadow-self, the part of him he'd given to Death so long ago, refused to go quietly.
“You still need me. We’re stronger together. I’m your right hand,” it said but Nolo ignored its protests.
The more often Death's shadow fell over him, the harder it was to put that part of himself away. I must fight free of it. Images of Sarn falling haunted Nolo as that pounding grew louder. He winced and rubbed his brow wondering if this was the onset of a headache from overdoing it.
He hadn’t let the Marksman takeover like that for so long a stretch of time. In fact, Nolo had no idea how long he’d been one with it. Since the Marksman was ageless, its touch tended to warp all sense of time.
“We’re done. Send that soul on its way, so I can return to my other duties. You’re not my only boss.”
“We’re never done. There are always more lives guttering in the winds of eternity, but they can flicker fitfully for a while longer if you're too tired to go on,” Death said sounding downright eager to snuff those lights out.
A strange hunger shot stars across the black orbs of her eyes the longer she stared at that harvested soul. Its luminous ball was too close fo
r comfort to her crooked teeth.
Just looking at her made the Marksman rise to the fore again. It didn't like what it was seeing. Neither did Nolo. An arrow appeared in his hand—the Angel Killer. I didn’t know I had such a death in the Marksman’s quiver.
Before Nolo could suppress the Marksman, the bow seated itself into his other hand, and the Marksman was notching that fiery arrow to its string.
“Whoa there, what are you doing?” Nolo shouted, but his question just bounced around inside his skull. He had no idea if his alter ego even heard it.
The Marksman shifted his aim, so the arrow pointed toward the heart of the shadows circling Death. Her black robes swirled around her as if caught by a sudden updraft.
“What are you doing?”
“So pretty,” she crooned as she rocked on her bony heels. He coughed on the acrid stench of burnt feathers as her wings drooped and started to smoke. Something was definitely wrong with Death. She looked less angelic and more—well, like what he’d always pictured a fallen angel to look like.
“What's wrong with you? You’re supposed to escort the liberated souls to the Gray Between Life and Death. Have you taken leave of your senses?”
She must have because Nolo had never seen Death like this.
“Shoot her,” urged the Marksman.
Its voice was a basso rumble in the back of his mind that momentarily drowned out the prayers whispering from the bow in their hands. The Marksman swapped the Angel Killer for an arrow Nolo had never seen before. Unlike all the others, it didn’t offer up its name and purpose.
“Why?”
“It will shock her back to herself.”
“So innocent.” Death patted the glowing ball in her hands.
For a moment longer, she gazed into the soul cupped in her claw-like hands than she remembered who she was, and what she was doing here. Death shook herself. The hunger receded as she removed a stoppered glass vial from a satchel that materialized at her shoulder.
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