Absolute Heart

by Michael Vance Gurley

  Zachariah turned around to show his wide smile.

  “I don’t eat the flesh of animals, I’m afraid to report, but I am making a stew. You’re welcome to everything I have.”

  Gavin graciously accepted the spoon offered and dug into the stew, even though it scalded his tongue with every bite. Gavin ate like a ravenous creature.

  “What brings you to this little village with all these strange folk?” Zachariah asked. Gavin kept stealing glances at the boy and he definitely saw the looks returned. He was attractive, that was certain, but it was something more.

  “It’s funny you should say that. My father, um, he always said there’s nowt so queer as folk,” Gavin said. It deflected the conversation. “Although he never thought much of people, only country and duty.” He cut himself off before he gave away too much information. Why was he sharing anything with this stranger? He needed to focus.

  “Well, these folks are that. And what of your father? Where is he now?” Zachariah asked. Gavin started to fidget where he sat as if uncomfortable.

  “Not here now. Yours?”

  “Complicated, that is,” Zachariah said with finality that did not invite further comment. They eyed each other. Zachariah looked lost for a few moments in his head. Gavin was unsure what to do.

  “What’s that?” Gavin asked, pointing to the heart-shaped iron necklace around Zachariah’s throat. Zachariah reflexively reached up and tucked it under his shirt.

  “Gavin, Zachariah, do you lads mind if we join you?” They snapped their heads up to see Victoria step over a fallen log to sit. Next to her, an older monk glided to a stump and lowered himself with silent smoothness. He placed his long staff, its top adorned with a cross, over his knees. The man gripped and maneuvered the staff with the ease of guiding a part of his body. The boys both stood, but Victoria gestured them to sit back down.

  “Lady,” Zachariah began but paused and gestured to the old man.

  “He is simply known as the Monk,” Victoria offered as the Monk grunted.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure?” Zachariah asked. Victoria gazed his way for an uncomfortable tick and Gavin wondered if she was buying his attempt at charm.

  “Oh, Zachariah, we thought we’d learn more about you,” she said. Both boys stiffened. “And it seems you two have found one another. How nice?” Gavin watched Victoria as she talked and wondered if she already knew too much.

  “I… I could have eaten goat feed, I was so hungry, but Zachariah happened to be cooking,” Gavin said, wishing Lucas hadn’t said that thing about Zachariah being a goat herder.

  The Monk reached a bowl out to Gavin. “Young man, could I trouble you for some of the stew?”

  Gavin tried to hand over food but the Monk grasped his hand instead. The Monk’s eyes fluttered, and he kept a firm hold on Gavin’s hand, his mind filling with visions of Gavin surrounded by orange fires in a field of dead British soldiers, holding up a stone high among the chaos.

  The Dragon Stone. He kept digging deeper into Gavin’s untrained mind until he found it. Deep behind this terrible vision, Gavin stood defiantly fighting to keep it from coming to pass. His heart was good. Something else surfaced.

  MAGICK. THE Monk let go of Gavin’s hand and accepted the stew.

  Orion watched all of this from beneath his hood. He sensed power in the old monk, and there was a story in there he needed to get out. Orion knew the look of a warlock having a vision and guessed at what the Monk had just seen in Gavin.

  The Monk looked over and shared a long moment with Victoria. Did they share some secret question they were now confirming? She nodded at him to continue.

  “Do you believe in destiny, young airship pilot?” the Monk asked.

  “How did you know I’m a pilot?” a stunned-looking Gavin asked.

  “Your manner of dress gives away your aspirations. The gloves, your brass eyewear, I’ve seen these things many times. Do you believe in destiny?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve… I believe I will be a true pilot… someday.”

  “And you, our young Irish warlock?”

  Orion lifted his eyebrows in amazement that the Monk knew so much. He worried what Gavin’s reaction would be.

  “Warlock?” Gavin shouted. “You’re a magick wielder? I thought you were a Druid or something.” Gavin appeared dazed. “How have you avoided capture and torture?”

  Orion pulled back his cloak hood and his eyes bored a hole into the Monk’s. He had been so easily uncovered, which might mean he’d need to fight his way out. He started building power.

  “What’s happening to your eyes?” Gavin asked. Orion knew his magick, and he knew his eyes flashed to silver when wielding.

  Victoria sat in silence, her eyes resting on each of them as they reacted.

  “You can settle, young warlock,” Victoria said. “We are all friends here.”

  Orion eased back, but he remained rigidly focused.

  “Thank you, Orion of Eíre,” the Monk said. Orion’s head snapped up. The Monk continued, “Heh-heh. Yes, I knew your queen. Long ago. You didn’t think I would be fooled? Names are not the truth at your core.”

  “What the hell are you all talking about?” Gavin demanded. He scooted farther away from Orion. “You’re not…. Your name isn’t really Zachariah?”

  “Sorry,” Orion said.

  “You’re an Irish warlock?” He stumbled back, waving his hands. “No more magick.”

  The Monk ignored the outburst and leaned forward on his staff, his long fingers wrapped loosely around the shaft. “There is much you should know if you are to begin your quest, young sons of the powerful.”

  “Sons of the powerful?” Orion asked. Gavin was in his vision so he knew him to be important, but powerful? What did that mean?

  “Um…,” Gavin said, clearing his throat, standing up. “What quest? Would somebody tell me what in blazes is going on?” Victoria placed a hand on his shoulder, easing him back down until he seemed more settled.

  The Monk radiated energy. Orion retreated into his hood to shade his eyes. He tensed in preparation to fight his way out of the village if need be. Did this Druid know who his father truly was? Had he scried his future to know what he intended to do?

  Before Orion could shield himself from mental attacks, he felt himself drawn into a vision unlike any other he had known. This one was not his own.

  Gavin’s mouth fell slack when the little firepit disappeared in a haze. The village, the fire, and the smoke all blurred away from them. A vast field of another place materialized. The world changed around them. Orion felt Gavin next to him, their knees touching as Gavin’s nervously bounced up and down. Orion steadied his leg with a hand.

  For you both to understand, the Monk said without moving his lips, I must begin, like all things, from the beginning.

  The Dragon Stone

  IT WAS the end of the age of dragons in a time before Councils of power, before clockwork engines sent their white smoke to choke the air and poison the minds of the people, when the land followed the rule of the true king. The Crown had conquered Scotland and several Isles, forming a mighty empire, but found itself embroiled in terrible war, defending its people from attackers both human and not.

  The earth drank deeply of thick blood as thousands lay dead along the castle grounds and the fields for a dozen miles in every direction. Hundreds still clung to life, their swords and shields cracking like lightning amongst the bodies and broken castle walls, into the keep forever stained.

  The expansive castle behind the destroyed walls burned from its towers and smoked from most of its windows. It had been devastated by weaponry and magickal bombardment. Even the church building crumbled under the flames.

  A Templar Knight wearing the red cross of his ilk engaged in a life-or-death struggle with a demon, whose pitch-black wings beat as it pushed the brave knight backward. The creature leaned its burned face in close to the soldier. It snapped its maw shut over and over to masticate the warrior’s face.


  The Templar’s name was Gregor Travail, captain of the king’s guards, devoted Christian servant of the Crown, who had proven his worth a hundredfold. He leaned in just outside the reach of the demon’s teeth and smiled as he plunged his sword up and through the thing’s chest. The beast’s innards sprayed ichor across his breastplate, and bits caught in his graying beard. Its scaly face twisted in horrid agony, knowing its long life was at an end, and it fell dead.

  Gregor turned to the next demon, ignored peril, and slashed his way toward the center of the battle. Trebuchets flung fire toward the already burning castle, the air filled with flame.

  “Onward to victory!” he screamed to rally his troops.

  A simple priest in a friar’s long brown wool robe crouched behind a wagon. Blood caked his cheek. His faithful servant’s tool, his cross-tipped staff, dripped with blood. He looked out on the carnage and prayed as much for himself as for others, “Lord, my God, deliver us from evil. And steady my wobbling feet, Lord… and my fearful heart.”

  He moved toward the center of the battle. A demon broke the lines and charged the young monk, who stepped back to brace himself, his staff pointed forward. Before he could do anything, a Templar slashed the demon down in front of him.

  “Thy will be done,” the priest said.

  “Are you all right, father…,” Gregor inquired, unable to see the priest’s face.

  “Thibaud—”

  “Ah, Father Goudin,” Gregor said, able to see him as he stood. “I appreciate the prayers. Keep them coming. We will need them.”

  A tall man of about fifty, in a black robe, stood on a small hilltop to overlook the melee below. The war had been brought by this man, Corigan Lorcan, the Dark Mage of Eíre, and he was the most dangerous enemy the empire had ever known. His warlocks swept across the known world, burning through the British Empire until he and his army swelled grand enough to land on and march across England, directly to London. His long black hair whirled around him in mad abandon, his hands raised to the air. He chanted. His face twisted and contorted as he roared incantations and conjured demons.

  “I call on you, Djin, King of Flame, to set forth a wall of flame to drench my enemies in hellfire from your ancient belly. Your will be done.”

  Thibaud Goudin grimaced, clenched his teeth, and muttered, “Sacrilege.”

  Above him enormous translucent red dragons appeared from the smoke and started to circle the battlefield as if created from aether. Their terrible fire scorched the earth and everything in their path.

  “Dear God in heaven,” the priest prayed.

  The tall sorcerer screamed with wild abandon, both arms flung high in triumph. His dark robes set to flapping like sails unfurled in a heavy wind. “Now, my children, take your place at the side of the Mage. Earn your place in eternity. Attack!”

  Lorcan strode into the battle as his demons and dragons formed above him, destroying the fleeing soldiers. He thrust out his hands and flung bright-green flames that incinerated knights and horses alike. Swords and lances fell short against him, as if an invisible barrier protected him from their anger.

  Gregor charged headlong toward the Mage. He hefted his large sword and swung it forcefully down on Lorcan, who slowed his stride to address the attack. The sword struck the barrier and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

  “Foolish dog. Do you doubt my absolute power?” Lorcan challenged. “I’ve held the stone for mere moments and already I am more powerful than your army. I have brought your beloved empire to its knees. I am infinite.”

  Gregor gasped. “You dare steal from the Holy Church, Lorcan, or the Mage, or whatever evil name you now hide behind? That belongs to my king, you Irish scum. How did you get it?”

  “Nothing is farther than my reach. Your king should have known that. And where is he, your weakling king? Hiding behind castle walls, behind his remaining magicians?” The Mage gestured to the side, and Gregor looked on in horror. He saw the king’s warlocks now standing with the Mage. They discarded the blue-and-white mage robes of the empire. “Magick does not belong to petty British kings. Even your own wielders know this. They delivered the Dragon Stone to me. They belong to me and will serve in my everlasting Brotherhood.”

  “Turning your backs on England now, when we need you most. You traitors. I will kill every one of you!” Gregor vowed.

  Goudin had crept along the edge of the main battle and now witnessed the Mage hold the most powerful weapon the world had ever known. There would be no stopping the man who held it and knew of its potential.

  “Grant me the courage and the faith to do what must be done,” Goudin said, crouching near Gregor. “For I am not a brave warrior, but your meek servant. In your name. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Gregor said.

  Gregor gathered men to him and began a charge with a new sword picked up from the heap of bodies. Lorcan parried them with mere flips of his hand. The soldiers burst into green flames and screamed in torment. As more Templars threw their might against his shield, Gregor’s sword finally sliced through. Before it could do damage, Lorcan lifted a staff from the ground using magick into the sword’s path to block it, smiling, laughing.

  Lorcan grabbed the Templar captain by the throat and pulled him easily off his feet. The Mage laughed in Gregor’s face, squeezing the life from him.

  Goudin was all but ignored in the melee, like many men of faith in a time of magick. He leapt over the bodies of fallen brethren to get to the center of the confrontation. With all heavenly imbued might, he thrust his staff at the back of the distracted Mage.

  The sharp point of the cross buried itself into the center of Lorcan’s back, into his black heart. Gregor was released and fell to his knees. Goudin pressed the staff down farther into the Mage, who screamed with deafening shrillness. The remaining stained glass not destroyed by fireballs exploded outward from the windows of the church. The traitorous warlocks stood in stunned, frozen silence.

  Gregor felt around in the muck and blood on the ground until he clasped his hand around a sword hilt. He tilted it and thrust up with everything in his being, pushing the sword into the chest of the Mage.

  “This… cannot be,” Lorcan said, his face a mask of shock.

  The Dragon Stone dropped from his fingers and rolled across the battlefield. Goudin freed his staff from Lorcan’s chest, raised it as high to the heavens as he could muster, and screamed for help from God. He opened his eyes as he slammed his cross down on the center of the stone.

  “No…,” Lorcan, the once powerful mage, gasped with his last breath.

  A blinding white light filled their vision and seemed to take over the entire kingdom. When it dimmed, Gregor stumbled, blinking, as he tried to regain his composure.

  Below them, the Dragon Stone had been broken into pieces. The warlocks turned and ran. Soldiers chased them down and slaughtered them for their treachery against the Crown. The aethereal dragons and demons dissipated in midair.

  When Gregor could see again, he noticed the Mage had disappeared. There had been nowhere to run or hide on the field. He was simply… gone.

  “How is this possible?” Gregor asked.

  “Your pure, true heart defeated him,” Goudin explained. Gregor cocked his head to the side in disbelief, so the priest added, “Corigan Lorcan did not know what he held, not really. Given time he would have learned how to use the stone, would have been utterly corrupted by the deepest of strength, and become unstoppable.”

  Gregor reached for the stone pieces to pick them up.

  “No!” Goudin shouted, his hand splayed open and held out, but it was too late. Gregor touched one of the pieces. He made contact with what would become known in some circles as the Knowledge Stone. A million thoughts raced around Gregor’s mind at lightning speed. Things he had never thought, and those he had not known moments before, consumed every corner of his being. It hurt deeply to bear the enlightenment. His mind was set afire with thought.

  His body shook as the priest took th
e stone from him in burlap and placed it into a pouch pulled from the priest’s hip. Goudin used the leather of the pouch flap to scoop up the other parts of the shattered stone without touching them.

  Behind them the bell tower on the castle rang out the hour and shocked him from his stupor. Gregor turned to see a soldier ride across the field from the castle. When the Templar reached them, he dismounted and ran in a panic up to Gregor.

  “Sir Travail, they’re dead.”

  “Who? Who is dead?”

  “The King?” asked the priest.

  The horseman nodded, tears streaming from his eyes. “All of them. All of the royal family. Warlocks, sir. They turned on us and… they were traitors, sir. They murdered them, butchered them all.”

  Gregor dropped to his knees, looking tired, his armor dented and stained. The pain of losing everything he had spent his entire life protecting consumed him. He sobbed and pounded his hands against the blood-soaked mud under the unbearable pain of it, the searing race of thoughts in his head tormenting him. When he had exhausted himself against the earth, he finally gave heed to the powerful voice that had now taken root in his mind. He slowly lifted his head until his gaze settled on the pouch hanging heavy with stones on the priest’s hip.

  “No, Sir Knight,” Goudin said with gentle sternness.

  “But I know things now. We could—”

  “No, sir. You have a glimpse. Slivers of knowledge can cause obsession and madness. Are you to go against God and be like Lorcan now with your newfound magick?”

  Gregor hung his head in shame. He had felt it, the enticing moment he himself could use the power to rule. He looked deeper inward and knew that path was not meant for him. His was a duty to his king, dead or alive. The king had not wanted any one man to possess such strength. He stood, straightened his armor, and looked upon the holy man for guidance in these matters.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  Goudin sat quietly a moment before answering. “The Dragon Stones hold unknowable power. They must never be united. I believe you and your Templars have a sacred duty to perform.”