by Clayton Wood
“Nope.”
“It's really there?” Kyle asked. Darius nodded. Kyle frowned. “Wait, so it really would've taken me back to Earth?”
“Yep.”
“But what if I'd used it?” Kyle pressed. He'd nearly used it when that Chosen had pushed its green shard into Kyle's forehead. He'd activated the bomb instead.
“Exactly what I said.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked, feeling suddenly alarmed. “You would've left me there on Earth forever?”
“Yep.”
“You would have?” Kyle exclaimed. “But what about everyone else?”
“I would've done the same thing I did,” Darius replied. “But you'd never have known it.”
“You would've abandoned me?” Kyle pressed, his tone incredulous.
“If you abandoned them,” Darius confirmed.
“But I'm your grandson!”
“And you're still here,” Darius stated. Kyle chewed on that for a moment, then sighed.
“I don't understand you,” he mumbled. He felt Darius's arm around his shoulders, and glanced up at the man. Darius was smiling.
“You don't need to.”
They both stared at the passing desert below, the canyon that had once been directly below them now barely visible on the horizon. The flat, rocky ground had given way to huge, rolling sand dunes.
“What now?” Kyle asked.
“I can take you back to Earth,” Darius offered. “Or you can stay on Doma.”
“Oh,” Kyle replied. He thought about it for a moment. “I think I'll stay on Doma for a little bit longer.”
Darius nodded, saying nothing more. Kyle stared at his grandfather, then at the scenery flying by below.
“Hey,” he stated suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“About my dad,” Kyle continued. “He remembers you, you know.”
“Maybe.”
“He does,” Kyle insisted. “He told me he remembered a man in a suit of black armor.”
“And?”
“Well,” Kyle replied. “...are you ever going to visit him?” Darius said nothing, staring down at the passing scenery miles below. Kyle sighed. “He's still your son, you know.”
“I know.”
“I think you should talk to him,” Kyle opined.
“We'll see.”
They both fell silent then, and Kyle felt an all-too-familiar frustration come over him. Why couldn't anything with Darius be easy? He sighed, kicking a nearby pebble off of the edge of the cliff. The stone tumbled downward, vanishing into the angry gray clouds of the alien atmosphere directly below Antara. But his frustration soon abated, replaced by the memory of Darius saving him from the Chosen, and bringing them to Sabin to save the Empire once and for all. He couldn't very well be mad at the man, given how Darius had managed to save them all from certain doom.
“Thanks,” Kyle mumbled. Darius said nothing, remaining silent until Kyle wondered if the man had even heard him. “Thanks for everything,” he added, more loudly this time. Darius smirked, looking down at Kyle, his metallic arm still draped around Kyle's shoulders.
“You're welcome.”
“Not just saving us,” Kyle continued. Then he paused, considering his words carefully.
“What?”
“Thanks for bringing me here,” Kyle said at last. “To Doma, I mean,” he added. “And for helping Kalibar and Ariana.”
“No problem.”
They stared off into the distance then, at the vast desert below, more huge sand dunes flying by. Kyle turned suddenly, wrapping his arms around Darius and giving him a hug. He half-expected Darius to back away, but Darius didn't. To Kyle's surprise, he felt Darius hug him back.
“I'm glad you're my grandpa,” Kyle said, his voice a bit muffled by Darius's armored chest. He felt Darius's gauntleted hand pat him gently on the back.
“You’re okay too, kid,” Darius replied. Kyle scowled.
“Gee, thanks,” he muttered. “You’re just warming my heart.” Darius smirked, giving Kyle a squeeze.
“I’m proud of you kiddo.”
Darius turned away from the edge of the cliff then, striding quickly back toward the path they'd taken to get there. Kyle hesitated, then rushed to catch up with the man.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“You're going back to Doma,” Darius answered. Kyle frowned.
“Where are you going?” he pressed.
“I don’t know,” Darius admitted. “But I’m done babysitting you mortals, that’s for sure.”
“Babysitting?”
“From now on, you’re on your own, kid,” Darius declared. “Good luck.”
And with that, he vanished.
Epilogue
Sabin felt his mind rip away from his avatar as an enormous hunk of stone crushed the ancient body, destroying it instantly.
No!
Through his own eyes, he saw the ceiling collapsing before him, his Chosen falling before the incredible weight of the earth crashing down upon them. He heard a cracking sound coming from below, and then felt himself starting to tip leftward and forward from within his crystalline tomb. Horrible pain ripped through his midsection.
No no no!
The massive cylinder that held him continued to lean leftward and forward, until Sabin felt the unmistakable sensation of free-fall twist his guts. He could only watch as he fell, the shattered floor of his once-magnificent cavern rising upward to meet him.
He couldn't close his eyes, couldn't turn away. He could only watch as his world – everything he had created over the last two millennia – was destroyed.
The cylinder around him fell faster and faster, and then it struck the ground with a horrific crash.
And then there was darkness...and pain.
Sabin felt terror grip him, and instinctively reached into his mind's eye, grasping for any hint of magic there. But all of his magic had been siphoned into his network during the battle with Ampir. He had nothing.
Invisible flames licked at his flesh, his eternal curse consuming him. Without the sanctuary of his network...without Xanos...the agony was beyond imagination. Though he'd felt its full force before, it had only been for a few minutes at most...and he'd always known there was a way out.
But now he was trapped. Unable to move, unable to weave, there was no escape.
Sabin screamed silently, willing his arms to move. They betrayed him, as Ampir had betrayed him. As his Chosen had so unknowingly betrayed him two thousand years ago, when he'd woken one day to find himself like this. Lying in bed, unable to move. Only able to breath, and to move his eyes a little. And to feel the incredible pain searing his flesh, worse than he'd ever felt before.
They'd come for him then, his Chosen. His original Chosen...the two men who had volunteered to risk death for a chance at immortality. Alarmed by his absence, they'd come to his bedroom, staring down at him, unable to understand what was happening to him. They'd known about his disease, of course. The strange numbness and paralysis that came and went, but had grown steadily more severe over the decades he'd lived with them. And, of course, the pain.
Amazing how quickly he'd gone from fearing death to begging for it. Or trying to; unable to speak, unable to move, he'd only been able to scream silently at them.
Kill me!
And then the third Chosen had come for him. His wife.
He’d felt a sudden fear then, seeing her standing over him. Beautiful as ever, she’d been turned immortal while still young, undergoing the process after the first two Chosen had been successfully created. But something had gone wrong...terribly wrong.
She’d left then, returning moments later with something clutched in her hand.
A green crystal.
He'd felt terror then. Absolute terror as he'd realized what she was about to do.
No!
He'd recognized the crystal instantly. It was the shard he'd created for himself, to one day join the ranks of the immortals. How long had he waited to use hi
s shard, hoping to first find a cure for his terrible disease? How many decades had passed, his health failing despite his every effort to keep himself alive, far beyond the lifespan of a normal man?
What bitter, bitter irony, that at that moment, at the apex of his disease, trapped in his body and engulfed in pain beyond his wildest imagination, she would grant him everlasting life!
Kill me, he'd screamed soundlessly at his other Chosen. Unable to hear him, they'd leaned over him, the smooth facets of his shard glittering in the morning sunlight. He still remembered the feeling of its cool tip pressing into his forehead, a sharp pain lancing through the front of his skull as it pierced his flesh, sinking all the way to the bone.
Not like this, he'd begged. Not like this!
It was only then that he'd thought to end his own life. To weave magic to destroy himself. And weave he had. But his Chosen had stopped him, preventing him from escaping this personal Hell he'd been so suddenly pulled down into.
Furious, he'd attacked them then, tried to kill them.
It hadn't worked.
Sabin stared at the swirling blackness before him, pushing past his pain to focus again on his mind's eye. He had only one goal now. Despite centuries of doing everything he could to ensure that his undead life would never end, despite the fact that, only minutes ago, he would have done anything to cling onto his existence, now all he wanted to do was die.
But his mind, again, was empty of magic.
Sheer panic gripped him then, exactly as it had all those years ago. He could almost see his Chosen surrounding him, feel them lifting him up from his bed to carry him through his house, then outside of it. He could almost see the treetops as they'd been then, two thousand years ago. Their branches swaying in the wind, oblivious to the horror being perpetrated below.
How long had they carried him for, to bring him to the largest of the caves he'd spent so much of his life studying? To a deep underground lake over a mile below the surface, one so filled with Void minerals that it was supersaturated? And this, ironically, all according to his instructions.
How he'd begged for death then.
His lofty goal, to become like the Reaper Queens. He'd instructed his Chosen to do exactly as they did. To lower him into the supersaturated lake when he gave the order, to immortalize him and send him to the bottom of that lake so that he might weave a crystalline tomb around himself. So that he might become the great brain that would control a vast army of Chosen, as the Reaper Queens controlled their swarms.
And yet they’d done it without his consent, convinced by his twisted wife that it would be his dying wish.
Sabin felt a slight vibration, felt the tiniest thread of magic appear in his mind's eye. He grasped at it desperately, clutching it in his mind and holding it there. He felt it grow slowly within him.
Engulfed by agony, every nerve fiber feeling as if it were being torn from his flesh and roasted alive, his first thought was to end it. Once and for all. He began to weave the thread of magic, twisting it this way and that, forming the necessary pattern in his mind's eye.
Then he hesitated.
His Chosen – the Originals – were still out there, he knew. Never a part of his network, they could not have been killed by Ampir's ingenious weapon. No one knew where they were...including Sabin. But they would know that he had been compromised...would feel the sudden absence of Sabin's worldwide communication stream.
They'll come for me, he thought. But not his wife. Without him, she would finally be free.
But the other Originals would come for him, as they had sworn to do nearly two thousand years ago. That had always been Sabin's rescue plan, if his network were to somehow fall.
Sabin paused, letting the thread of magic unravel into a straight thread in his mind once more. He held the magic there, feeling it continue to grow. Magic must have leaked out of the crushed rock and crystals all around him. His shard was automatically drawing it inward, exactly as it had been programmed to do.
They'll come for me, he repeated to himself. And when they do...
He pictured Ampir then, that smug smirk on his face as he'd betrayed Sabin, destroying everything Sabin had worked so painstakingly to create.
He felt magic continue to pour into him, felt his mind filling with it. Enough magic, perhaps, to allow him to burrow upward through the earth. Not to the surface, where he'd be vulnerable, but at least far enough so that the Originals might find him.
The memory of his Chosen lowering him into the ice-cold water of the pond came to him, the water draping over his bare skin. Sweeping over his eyes and filling his mouth and nose. How he'd panicked then, utterly terrified that he'd drown in that water.
And at the same time, desperately hoping that he would.
Sabin held the growing magic in his mind's eye, his flesh consumed with torment. He hesitated, knowing that he could end his pain once and for all. He could be free of this hell he'd suffered through for so long.
With a single thought, he could finally be at peace.
They’ll come for me, he reminded himself.
He hesitated for a moment longer, then gathered his courage, twisting the strand of magic in his mind's eye. He wove quickly, until the strand formed a tight, pulsating ball in the center of his brain. He held the pattern there, feeling one last burst of fear grip him. He ignored it, secure in the knowledge of what he had to do.
So be it, he thought.
He shoved the pattern outward, and streamed as much magic as he could to it.
###
About the Author
Clayton Taylor Wood is the self-published author of the Runic series, a three-book fantasy series, and Hunter of Legends. He's been a computer programmer, graphics designer, martial-arts instructor, and now works in the medical field. He has a wife and two wonderful sons...and is busy writing epic fantasy series for each of them.
Writing was always Clayton's passion, but it wasn't until the birth of his first son that he found the inspiration necessary to finish his first book. Five years later, he published Runic Awakening, the first entry in the Runic Series. With four books published so far and many more to come, he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon!
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