Fallen Sepulchre

by J D Franx

  “We are magical creatures. You spit out the words to a spell to stop me when you were desperate and on the verge of blacking out, yet you formed that blade of ice without a spoken spell. Why?”

  “No idea,” he admitted. “I was in Talohna for about a year. I was hunted like a rabid dog the entire time and then killed. Most of that year, my magic refused to work. And when it did...”

  “People died,” Jasala said, finishing his sentence when he paused.

  His anger vanished. “Yeah.”

  “I know. I can show you how to use your magic properly once I’ve recovered. Understanding how it works will make a big difference, I imagine. You must know my story?”

  “Some form of it, yes,” he replied. “You’re the demon of nightmares in Talohna. From what I was told, you caused a lot of death and destruction.”

  “Well...” She paused as if choosing her words carefully. “I killed a lot of innocent people, but I didn’t destroy anything.”

  “Your death caused a major Cataclysm, Jasala. Hundreds of thousands died, and Talohna’s landmass broke apart. Oceans rushed inland, mountains rose on flat plains, and the Black Kasym was created, separating the entire north lands from Talohna’s mainland. Your tower is in a magical wasteland, and it is against the law to even enter the area. Some of your creations are still alive and wander the entire zone, which has been quarantined by magic for thousands of years.”

  “Oh, no.” She moaned. “The Sepulchre spell.”

  “What is that?” he asked. “You mentioned it in the letter you hid in your bedroom.”

  “You have been to the Black Arc?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “You really are something, aren’t you? Do you know why I fought all of Talohna, except for the Fae and DragonKin?” He shook his head but said nothing. “Where do I start? Do you know about the Animus Seals?”

  He nodded. “Intimately. I died on one.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, wincing. “So, it has already started. All right then. In my time the seals that held the Animus gateways shut had grown weak. They were mere years from failing. My Guardian and I created a new spell that allowed my magical energy to reinforce the seals upon my death. My only goal was to live long enough and grow strong enough to enhance the seals with a magical sepulchre, and if not, for the sepulchre to activate upon my death in the hopes Talohna had a few more centuries without the Ri’Tek.”

  “It did work,” Kael offered. “For five thousand years.”

  He could see the pure surprise in every feature of her face. “I never dreamed for so long...” She stopped and studied him closely. “But not for much longer,” she added with no hint of it being a question. Kael shook his head as she continued. “We weren’t ready, yet. I needed an artifact—a weapon—one carried or created by a god so I could control and direct the raw power of my life force.”

  Me. The voice said, returning.

  “Without the weapon, it was only a temporary solution.” She stared at the reaper blades poking out over his shoulder.

  “These,” Kael stated, pulling the second one from his back.

  “You found them.” Jasala stated. Still, there was shock in her expression.

  “More like they found me,” he corrected.

  “Of course, they did. Do you know what they are?”

  “Just a story a Dead Sister told me.”

  Jasala scoffed. “I know that one. It’s not true. The Vai’Karth are a weapon of the gods. That is all we ever knew about them. But they are supposed to amplify our magic, are they not?”

  “They do, to some extent,” he replied.

  Some? You would be in the Dreamscape if not for me. The voice snorted in his head, but Kael ignored it.

  “May I take a closer look at them?” she asked.

  Kael frowned, but the voice in his head was adamant.

  No!

  “I know I cannot physically touch them,” she quickly added. Kael stuck both blades in the dirt at her feet. “Amazing.” She gasped. Pointing, she added, “You can see the carving in the handles. I don’t recognize the glyphs...”

  The language of the Kahge... it causes the attraction to me that your kind have.

  On cue, Jasala grabbed her own hand as if having to forcibly stop herself from touching them. “Why do use them in that form?”

  “What?”

  “The offset double reaper’s type blade? Why not something more practical?”

  “Uh...” Kael shook his head, completely lost.

  “You know you can change their shape, right? From what Yrlissa told me, anything from a sword to full length reaper blade, even daggers or an axe.”

  Not without my help you can’t. The voice mocked.

  Care to explain? Kael said to himself, not expecting answer.

  No. You are not ready.

  “So, you do speak,” Kael said aloud.

  “Of course, I speak,” Jasala replied, staring at him funny.

  “Not you,” Kael barked. Realizing he snapped, he shook his head. “Sorry.”

  Jasala’s eyes opened wide. “They talk to you?” she whispered. “Yrlissa guessed they might.”

  “Not they,” Kael answered. “Him, and I wouldn’t call it talking. It’s more like I sense these thoughts.”

  Now, you’re just being an ass. The voice said.

  “Do you have a goddamned name?” Kael barked again out loud.

  “Akai,” Jasala said.

  Akai. The voice told him at the same time. Ooh. She is good. Hang on to her and maybe we can make you a real weapon. The spirit laughed, and Kael felt his presence slid away.

  “He says you’re right.”

  “So, he does talk to you?” she asked.

  “It seems so. He’s said more in the last ten minutes than in all the time I’ve had the weapons. Didn’t even realize he was real until today. I thought it was just more of Reetha’s games,” he said rubbing his chest.

  “May I?” she asked

  Kael nodded and shrugged out of his Orotaq cloak. Jasala lifted his shirt and ran her hands over his scarred shoulder and down across the dark wound in his chest the demon left him with.

  She continued down over the scar caused by the Zakair’s greatsword in her tower. “Your death wound?”

  “No. I survived that one.” He bent forward and moved his hair to the side and revealed the scar at the back of his neck. Jasala gasped and did the same. As he sat back up, it was impossible to miss the identical scar on her neck as it bisected a heavy brand.

  “Broken Blade assassin,” she stated. “Someone wanted you dead. Badly.”

  “You have a brand,” he replied. “It’s similar to the Orotaq brands.”

  “Yes,” she said. “My Guardian used it to keep me safe from the death spells used to kill our kind. It is a long story. If you’d like, I can...”

  Not entirely interested in hearing it, yet, he shook his head and tapped the dark scar from Reetha’s stinger.

  “Yes. Sorry. Reetha’s Ichor,” she said softly. Pulling down her threadbare shirt, she revealed a similar mark between her breasts. “It is designed to weaken your hold on reality and even your sanity. Had she hit you when you were in the DreamScape, you would never have escaped, and no one could have helped you.”

  “Why did she wait then?”

  Jasala scoffed. “The Ichor—the toxin—it weakens you, your strongest emotions especially. She wanted your emotions peaked, not dulled. She leeches more power from you that way. I am sorry, Kael, but you are in for some serious problems. No wonder you thought Akai wasn’t real. That is a problem you will have to deal with. It’ll take a millennia’s worth of years to wear off here in the afterlife. Less in the living world, but the effects will be far worse there.”

  “Then, let’s get out of here,” he said. “What do you need to recover?”

  “You happen to have a thousand years you can give me?” she said, but he could tell she was not serious. “It will take my magic that long to regenerat
e.”

  “But I have plenty of power. Take some of mine back.”

  “I cannot do that, Kael. It is against our beliefs. We do not syphon off our kind. I only did it to help you.”

  “Whose beliefs?” he barked. “Those of a dead society? A dead order of wizards? Take enough to be able to get back on your feet and fight. Take enough to teach me how to use mine properly.”

  Sighing, she held out her hand. “If you are sure, then I suppose we must.”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Fair enough,” she said, and he took her hand.

  The pull of magic from his body was much slower and much easier to handle. An initial wave of weakness washed over him, but it dissipated as Akai’s voice returned.

  If you’re going to give it away, then give her enough to make her the weapon she is. Your chances will be better.

  Kael gasped, and Jasala groaned. The power between them intensified as black energy rocketed from his body and into hers. She screamed and arched her back in pain, forcing him to quickly sever the contact. Pulling his hand back, he gasped as she tumbled onto her back.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  She laughed. “What happened? I haven’t felt like this since before I died.”

  “Akai helped I think,” he replied.

  “Thank you,” she said, sitting up. “We should go. This dimension of hell is run by Inys and the Fails. We have to find them to get your tokens.”

  Too late.

  “We’re out of time,” Kael stated.

  “Akai?” Jasala asked. He nodded as the sound of growling hounds echoed through the cave’s entrance.

  “Goddammit. I hate dogs,” Kael muttered.

  Getting to her feet, Jasala smiled. “You met my pets at the Arc?”

  “They call them darga now,” he replied, pulling his blades from the dirt.

  “Elvehn for Demon dogs,” she said, translating for him. “Appropriate.”

  He turned toward the opening as a pack of white dogs raced through the entrance. Over half his height and made of solid muscle, Kael frowned and quit counting the number coming for them when he hit ten.

  “Too many,” he growled.

  Jasala laughed and he glared at her sideways as she winked.

  Lifting her hands above her head, Jasala spread the fingers on both her hands and raised them palms up. As the last dog entered the cave, she pulled her hands together in front of her. Kael held his breath. Hundreds of stone spikes exploded from the ground, ceiling and walls. The light vanished from the cave as the overlapping spikes blocked the cave’s pathway.

  Kael a deep breath and held it in the dark as he listened for any sound of the dogs. Some whines and some scuffling reached his ears but nothing else. His hands ached from holding his blades so tightly and sweat trailed into his eyes as Jasala summoned a globe of light.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. The dogs he could see were beyond dead, either crushed or impaled. as the devastating spell destroyed every mutt in its path.

  “How?” he managed to get out.

  Jasala laughed and glanced his way. “Let’s find a new hiding spot, and hopefully you can figure it out,” she said. He nodded, still dumbfounded by her display of power. “With some help, you’ll be able to do far more than I, Kael. It’s time you learned exactly what it is our Kind can do.”

  7TH HELL

  LOWLAND CAVES

  Kael sat against a cave wall with Jasala by his side as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. It felt like months had passed as they fought and hid in and around the valley where they had first arrived in the 7th Hell. The further down the valley they went the more sweltering the caves became. Now, they had nowhere left to go. Hordes of Hell’s minions roamed the lowland valley floor, waiting for them.

  Not before long, Kael realized something in the caves and out in the valley had changed. He cautiously crept to the entrance with Jasala on his tail.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know...” He trailed off. He peered over the top of a piled stone wall. Outside, the valley swarmed with denizens from the 7th Hell along with those from another dimension.

  He grunted softly and frowned. “Those are KiPara demons,” he said.

  “They are.” Jasala agreed. “And look over there,” she added, pointing to her left. “There are also Ferro and Tanz’I demons marshaling the Verali dogs.”

  Kael shook his head in disgust. “It won’t take them long to find us.”

  “The Ferro demons will find us the moment they get to this side of the valley,” Jasala told him. “They can smell the scent of magic from half a mile away.”

  “They’re searching the southern cave system. We should have a couple of days. Let’s get some rest and practice before they get here.”

  She nodded and followed him along the wall back to their meager possessions. He sat back against the wall and closed his eyes as Jasala sat facing him.

  “If we can’t get you to better understand how your magic works, Kael, this escape is over. We haven’t really had time to practice much, but Garz’x has to be nearby if the KiPara are here.”

  “I figured as much. Don’t suppose I’ll have any power over him here, will I?”

  “No.” She stared at him funny, and he could not meet her eyes. He felt her fingers on his cheek, and she slowly turned his chin back to her. “Why?”

  He groaned. “I might’ve pulled him into Talohna while fighting Sythrnax.”

  “Holy shit,” she exclaimed. “He is gonna tear you limb-from-limb, then get the Tanz’I to put you back together just so he can do it all over again. Demons hate being collared by a wizard, but demon lords? Ah, Kael. What possessed you to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug. “His voice was always the loudest one offering to help.”

  “That’s insane. Normally, only the weakest demons of the lowest hells offer the call. There is something very different about you.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” he said.

  “It might someday. You might just have what it takes to get us out of here. You are far more powerful than I was. I can feel it in your magic. You even recover faster too.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Your power is there, Kael. If not, I couldn’t have taken it from you, and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to share it with me like you did. You gave me all I had in life and more, and it barely affected you. When you were alive, what did you feel when using magic?”

  “It took a while,” he started, but stopped to think about it before continuing, “speaking the words to a spell began a power build up inside me. When I finished the spell, the magic unleashed and gave me a rush like I have never felt before.”

  She winced. “That’s how normal wizards cast magic. You shouldn’t even be able to..” He stared at her as she went quiet, clearly thinking. “Turn and look at me,” she said. He shifted and did as she asked. “Our magic isn’t bonded magic.”

  “From what I was told,” he interjected. “We are bonded to both life and death. We have two crua.”

  “That is what we always thought, too,” she answered. “But I do not believe so. If that was the case, we couldn’t cast what is considered normal magic here in the afterlife.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “A wizard’s cruus collapses when he dies. Only his current reserve stays within the body. It is what produces the deathflower when a wizard’s body decays. That means we should have no power here, but we do.”

  Kael sighed. “You do. Ugh. This makes my head hurt.”

  “Listen to me,” Jasala said. “Our magic is unique compared to every other source in Talohna. We were born with this power, Kael. It’s part of us. We don’t draw our power from a source. We are our own source. Does that make sense?”

  “It does actually,” he replied. “Explains why we don’t have to cast spells in a traditional sense. Though, I used to be able to.”

  “I never tr
ied traditional spells. I had a Guardian. I knew it wasn’t the right way for our kind to use magic. But it is also a lot more than just that. We can manipulate more than just the energy within us. We can affect our surroundings, nature, the dead, and even the living. Watch.” Jasala pointed to the cave wall and gently wiggled her finger. Smokey-black magic swirled off as her fingertips brushed the surface of the wall. The stone responded and slowly grew outwards in a sharp point as if being coaxed out by her finger.

  “Like you did with the dogs,” he offered. “Bigger scale though?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Our willpower and our magic can physically and mentally alter certain—most aspects of our dimension.”

  “What about a dimension that has never had magic?” he asked, thinking about Earth. Her lowered eyebrows prompted him to continue. “There’s no magic where I came from. On Earth. It’s common knowledge that there never was.”

  “I believe ours would work, Kael. We are our own source of magic, remember? It is always with us.”

  “Damn,” he whispered. He wondered if the ancient gods of Earth had been like them, but quickly dismissed it. The theory created more questions than it answered. As he sat in silence, his mind buzzed with questions, but he did not know what to ask first. A black millipede crawled up over his boot.

  Jasala pointed and gasped with quiet excitement while she held out her hand and curled her fingers. The bug immediately changed its direction, crawling off his boot and onto her hand. It circled her hand, finally coming to a stop when all eighteen inches sat comfortably curled in her palm. She pointed to a twig laying on the ground at his side. He picked it up and offered it.

  “Hold it by the tip and place it here,” she said, gesturing in front of her hand. He did, and with a slight twist of her hand, she activated her magic. The millipede lashed out.

  Its massive jaws crushed the tip of the stick.

  “Bloody hell,” he snapped.

  Jasala tossed the stick and millipede into the corner. “Yrlissa taught me as I grew up that our kind are limited by only two factors. Our imagination and how quickly we can recover, our health and our magic. I can recover incredibly fast for our kind. I could cast magic for hours and need only a single hour to recover. It is what helped me keep Talohna at bay outside the Black Arc for eight months. Had I not been fooled and betrayed, I could have held my post longer. Perhaps long enough for Yrlissa to return with those,” she said, pointing to his Vai’Karth.