Chapter 30
A Battle Within
It's a strange thing, being dead. Almost as strange as being alive. -Jazlyn
--
Mavik pulled his foot free from the scagazi’s grasp. He stomped on the pincer-like hand sending it back into the earth. The Guardian ring in the ceiling shook and then shriveled into nothingness. A high-pitched noise pierced the air. Whatever had happened up there, it had loosened the resistance on the metal tendrils. Mavik felt a distant pull to another Soul Host. One of the pulls felt familiar—was Wayden nearby?
“Let the Source guide you,” Jijari thought.
I better focus on not getting eaten by scagazi, Mavik thought.
Mavik yanked the copper snakes from the Heart Stone. The stone stopped beating. The amber shield around the woman in white vanished.
The Shadow Queen flexed her pale white fingers. She smiled at Mavik. "It seems you got my message, boy.” Her face was old and wrinkled. Her eyes blank. She stepped forward. The wriggling mass of shadows at her feet moved with her. “I sent it to you through the pulses of the Heart Stone and you came. I should be grateful. As a reward, I’ll let you bear one of my wraiths."
Mavik’s stomach churned. The Shadow Queen had sent the prophecies? She's the wraithing Source? It wasn’t possible. It went against everything he had thought he knew. He’d teased Jijari about her devoutness, but he had believed her. The Source would guide them. Everything would turn out all right. Except it wouldn’t. It hadn’t. Nothing would ever be right again.
Jijari was as upset as Mavik and having a harder time accepting the devastating truth. "No…no…No! It can’t be! It’s a trick! A lie!"
Emerelda threw up a shield of energy snakes around them. The Shadow Queen opened her mouth. Dark silhouettes danced on her lips, like dark smoke. Then she blew. A shadow emerged, then another, and on and on they flowed, an oncoming storm of darkness. The Guardian shield kept them safe from the wraiths hissing and clawing at it.
One of the wraiths moaned, "The snakes. Centuron's curse."
The wraiths that dove at the scagazi sent the monsters howling upon a touch. The scagazi fled, leaping headfirst back into the ground.
Mavik recalled the story of The Boy and The Rats had chased rodents away by releasing an army of tigers who then ravaged the village. Had Mavik done the same? Solving one problem, by creating a worse one? What have I done?
A stone wall slid open, revealing a secret passage. An old woman wearing a hooded shawl woven of spider webs, stepped out of it. She clutched a staff with a glowing, blue jewel in its pommel. Tiny lightning bolts seemed to exploding inside the jewel. Her cowl shadowed her face and Mavik could not make out her features. By her side was a blue-haired boy of about ten years.
“Weaver. You have come,” the Shadow Queen said.
The woman in the shawl crossed her arms, fists against her own chest. "Beneath the shadows the spiders rule."
Behind her, rows and rows of Woven Men trudged forward, called, “Hail to the Weaver. Hail to the Shadow Queen. Long may you rule.”
Mavik recognized Finder and Queranos in the ranks of Woven Ones, though he didn't see the Ozac, Anaz. An army of darkness: Woven Ones, Wraiths, the Shadow Queen, the Weaver… I’ve released the queen of darkness. I’ve doomed us all.
--
Jazlyn floated above her corpse, as a pure soul mist, coursing towards her murderer.
“It's a strange being dead,” she thought, "almost as strange as being alive."
No one answered. She didn’t have Asgaroth or her mother’s necklace anymore. Somehow the loss of it made her sadder than even the loss of her own body. She stared down at her corpse. It had been a good body. She’d taken good care of it. All those lima beans had been for nothing.
She entered Rif’s mouth and then darkness…
…and then a soft gray light.
Where was she now? Was this the Sunken Lands or the land of the Eternal Fires? She could hear birds, maybe those were the phoenixes heralding her into the afterlife? She heard water rushing, which might be the Sunken Temple- the Alatians had it right all long. Water was holy, not fire. This wasn’t Alatia thought, she thought staring up at the sky. It was gray, not with clouds, but a fleshy material. It was as if she were in an enormous living cavern.
The landscape looked Tulkarian: a tropical jungle, lush with palm trees, vines, insects, and a rushing river. Why would she be in Tulkaria...unless...she’d been heading towards the Tulkarian's open mouth...she was going to be soul-sucked...could it be…but it wasn’t possible…was it? Could she be inside Rif’s mind? She looked down. Her feet had reappeared. She had hands again. A coldness filled her.
"None of this is real," she thought.
She half expected her mother's voice would answer her, or Asgaroth's, but her thoughts were greeted by cold silence. How did normal people without voices in their heads stand it? It was so lonely.
Figures approached from the distance. As they drew closer, she realized that she knew a few of them: Rif's mother, Royal Companion Jereth Thunderstone, and Rif himself. How could Rif be inside his own mind?
Rif’s cheeks were tear-streaked. "I'm s-s-sorry. I let him take control. It's my fault. It’s Belok. A murderer that Arth soul stole. He was inside me. Now I’m inside him. I’m sorry!"
Jazlyn didn't know what to make of anything. She had no breath anymore yet she still felt breathless. "Rif, can you put me back? In my body? No offense, yours is lovely and all."
"I-I-I can't."
“You can at least stop Belok from killing anymore," said a dazzlingly beautiful woman with a cat-like face and eyes and long, flowing red hair. She was by far the most attractive female Jazlyn had ever seen. "You can defeat Belok. Don't let him kill anymore."
"B-B-Belok has control. You know that, Genika," Rif sobbed.
"Only if you let him,” Genika answered. “This is your body, Rif. You have to face your fears."
Genika gestured at a dark cave. Vines grew around the rock-like mouth and stalactites hung from its roof like the bloody monster’s maw. The sky turned black and a rumble of thunder pealed across the landscape. Monkeys chanted in the nearby jungle.
Rif sank into the mud as the lightning lit up the sky. "I c-c-can't."
Jazlyn squeezed Rif's hand. "I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. I’ve never even been to Tulkaria, much less someone’s mind. You have to stop this man.”
“He’s too strong. He’s a m-m-monster.”
“He’s part of you. You can stop him. You can control him. Please. You have to try."
--
Wayden helped mage after mage onto Harth's back, with the aid of several Flickers. For many of the magi, it was too late. For every one they saved, two more lay stone dead already. One more failure to add to his list.
Wayden turned to see Rif standing over Jazlyn’s body. Rif's eyes seemed different, cruel, like another person was wearing Rif's body....could it be? Was this still Rif…or Belok wearing him?
Wayden stared horrified at Jazlyn's body. Wayden shouted, "Rif- if you are in there. Don't let Belok control you. Put Jazlyn back! Put her soul back!"
A smile played across the lips that once belonged to Rif. "Ah, the Tulkarian's friend, Wayden isn't it?"
"You’re right. That's not Rif. Order Harth to blast him."
Wayden hesitated. “Rif, you can do this. Put Belok back in his cage.”
Rif tensed his fingers and chanted, "You who are my enemy's friend, let your life outside me end."
Wayden felt Kolram and his own soul being pulled towards the Tulkarian.
"Too late," Kolram said, his voice growing distant. "Now we are his."
“This really hasn’t been a very good day.”
--
Rif neared the castle where the beast, Belok, now resided. The castle was made of ice. The portcullis, the walls, all solid ice. At Rif’s side were the Daughter Draconi, Genika, Arth, Thunderstone who looked red-faced and furious, Rif's mother
, and a dozen other magi he’d sucked from the Dracon. Some of the women he’d murdered were there as well. Lauranna, the little girl, was there. He’d killed so many.
I’m a monster, Rif thought.
Thunderstone tried to enter the castle, hacking at the portcullis’s icicle bars to no avail.
"Rif, you must go in there alone," Genika said. “This is your mind. Belok can’t keep you out.”
Rif touched the portcullis. His hand passed right through it.
"You must be brave, Sweet Possum," his mother said.
“You can do this, Rif,” Jazlyn said. The daughter Draconi was so beautiful. How could he have killed her? It was all his fault. He had to put this right. “We believe in you. Now, you have to believe in yourself.” She kissed his cheek. It tingled. He screwed up his resolve.
He entered a long dark tunnel. A dripping sound resonated off the cold stone. Shadows danced all around him. Rif's heart beat as loud as the Heart Stone.
"Belok," Rif said. "I want c-c-control back."
A huge wind blew at Rif from somewhere deep inside the castle kicking up a spray of ice. He could barely inch forward against it. He saw up ahead a throne room. The throne seemed to be made of flame and on it sat a monster, black shadows with red glaring eyes.
“Why would you want to sit on this throne?” The figure asked. “All it will give you is misery. Let me give you the gift. You can rest now. I will do this for you."
Rif’s limbs felt heavy. It was so hard to push against the wind.
“It’s all in my mind. It’s my mind,” he told himself. He took a step forward.
Rif saw Genike frozen in a block of ice.
He knew it wasn’t real. He’d just left her outside. He pushed forward against the wind. In front of the throne was a pool of swirling energy. Somehow Rif recognized it as the Source energy that they accessed for the Soul-stealing.
Screams erupted from the castle entrance. He could hear his mother screaming, “Help me! Help me! Rif come back and help me.”
An obvious trick. Belok was getting sloppy. Rif took another step forward. He was at the throne now. Belok leapt at him, pushing him against the pool of swirling energy. In the pool, Rif saw the faces of all the women he’d murdered.
"You just made your first mistake, Belok. You just reminded me of why I’m doing this.”
With a surge of power, Rif twisted and threw Belok into the pool of swirling energy.
--
The last of the Guardian energy around the Dragonking dissolved washed by the blood of magi. The blade smoked and a mist arose from the metal and flew towards the body of the Dragonking. For a moment, the mist slithered through the bristled beard and then crawled up the Immortal’s chin and into his mouth.
Darius's blue eyes flickered open and the red-bearded Immortal whispered something.
Flickers shouted, "The Dragonking! The King is alive!"
Dragonking mumbled something.
The Flickers shouted, "He Speaks! He speaks! What did he say?"
"I said for the love of the Silver Lady someone get me a drink! I have the worst bleeding headache. You there, little girl. Give me my sword back."
Verica threw the sword to Dragonking. He caught it in mid-air, while leaping, surprisingly nimble for a man of his girth. Darius's blade descending on Asgaroth, who parried the Blade of Luminescence with the Sword of Night. Sparks flew and the vibrations intensified. The floor rocked like a ship in a tempest.
The Tulkarian stood over Wayden, the boy she’d met in the orphanage. The Tulkarian was chanting and a mist swirled on his lips, his eyes bulging. The Dracon’s body lay by the Tulkarian’s feet, his throat slit...and... Source no.... Jazlyn! The abyss between the rings widened and deepened, almost as large as the one inside Verica's heart.
Verica channeled her emotions into a compact ball of pure rage and avenging justice. “You killed Jazlyn, you wraithin’ bastard.”
The Tulkarian’s eyes flickered. "W-w-wait, that-” Verica hurled herself at the purple-haired boy.
The Tulkarian’s eyes bulged and he gagged for air, his hands slapping against the vibrating stone floor.
--
Alaina untied Laeko's bonds, feeling frightfully exposed. She had lost sight of Wayden. Madness was all around her- the floor shaking, the Immortals parrying each other’s blows, magi bleeding, purple smoke billowing… she forced herself to focus on saving Laeko. The Woven ones had told her to do this. She was playing right into their hands. But what was the alternative? To let the woman who was in all but blood her true mother die? She ripped a strip of linen from Laeko’s robe and bandaged her wound. Alaina knew little about medicine but the cuts didn’t appear overly serious.
“Darius! The Red King has arisen! It is the end of days!” Nadra said.
“And that’s a good thing?”
The Dragonking didn’t look like much to Alaina. He was just a big man who waggled a big sword. Alaina knew a hundred Sky Raiders of his sort, and not one that she liked.
She helped Laeko to the outer ring and a Flicker tended to her wounds. Where was Wayden?
The Dragonking shouted at the Flickers, "Stand back! This is a war between Gods."
A group of Flickers stepped to the outer ring, and Alaina caught sight of Wayden laying on the vibrating ground groaning. Alaina leapt towards him.
“I’m alright,” Wayden said, as Alaina checked him for wounds.
The edge of the inner ring was beginning to crumble away. The high pitched whine grew even louder. How long till it exploded?
Alaina helped the still dazed Wayden onto the dragon. Wayden was muttering, "Mavik. His pull. He’s near."
Alaina felt it too. There were other Soul Hosts nearby- three or four she estimated.
“Harth fly us off of here. It’s going to explode,” Alaina said, while fastening her leg straps. Then the world erupted.
--
The dragon rode the shock waves of the explosion. Below, Wayden watched with horror as Verica, Rif, Dragonking, Asgaroth, Jazlyn's corpse, dozens of wounded magi, all fell into the abyss that had been the floor of the inner ring. Miraculously, before they hit the ground, their descent slowed. An amber field of woven energy snakes formed a blanket beneath them, slowing their fall.
He felt several Pulls from down below. Mavik was down there. He was sure of it now.
“And Solita!” Kolram said. Kolram was right. There were other pulls there as well. One was likely Solita’s host, the blonde girl Laeko had described.
His eyes scanned desperately, searching through the chaos for Mavik and the girl. Through the haze of the energy field, he saw two dozen scagazi, men who dressed as Anaz used to, in wrapped black and gold linens, a Heart Stone, and...there they were! Mavik- thin, bruised, and filthy, but- amazingly alive. Mavik was less than a hundred paces away!
Wayden just needed to wait for the debris and wounded to be lowered down, and then he’d fly Harth and scoop his brother up. They would rebuild their lives together, perhaps claim the old plot of land where there manor had once stood in Templeton. Surely, the Draconess would reward Wayden for his role in helping stop Asgaroth. Everything would end happily after all.
The milk-white woman waved her hands and whirlpools of shadow spun from them. The dark energy crackled and hardened, moving like a trickling tide of tar across the abyss that had moments ago been the inner ring, sealing Mavik and the others underground. He let out a howl of despair that echoed off the walls louder than a dragon’s roar.
Alaina whispered fire at the dark shield, Harth clawed at it, sending black sparks flying, but none of it to any avail. Wayden closed his eyes. "They were right there. I saw him. He’s still there. Down there in the dark!"
--
"Wayden!" Mavik shouted, his heart crumpling in his breast. “No! Source no! He was so close!”
He’d seen Wayden, flying on dragon back no less! He had just been right overhead. Now he might as well have been on the other side of the green mo
on.
The Source- cursed be its name- had betrayed Mavik again. The black field sealed him from his brother, from the surface, from escape from this nightmarish labyrinth they found themselves ensnared in, from long-awaited freedom. Eight years in a slave camp just to fall into an even darker prison.
Mavik howled louder than a skywolf in blood lust.
Emerelda plugged her ears. “All right, Mav! Enough! I need to be focusing to bring these fallin’ magi down.”
Emerelda must have been as upset as he was to be trapped underground. He admired how she could focus on the wounded magi without a thought to her own imprisonment.
Mavik recognized several wounded wizards from the Slave camps. Some looked dead, or close to death. There were other magi he didn’t know and…. could it be...Asgaroth and Dragonking...was he dreaming? Had they been freed from their imprisonment somehow? Had Mavik done that as well when he’d pull the metal tendrils loose? How much damage had he unleashed upon the world? Perhaps he deserved his fate. But Emerelda didn’t. And he would see her free if it was the last thing he did.
Emerelda finished lowering the magi. Mavik and Emerelda ran towards two of the wounded they knew from the slave camps: Opel the Glower and Kura Rockbody. Emerelda cast her magic shield around them and Mavik bound their wounds with strips of linen, torn from the magi’s own clothes.
The Weaver raised her staff and webs spun around the Dragonking and Asgaroth, who were still stunned from the fall. They might have been Immortal, but they weren't strong enough to break these bonds, even though they were clearly struggling against them. A vein throbbed in the Dragonking’s flushed forehead. “Weaver, you wraithin’ traitor.”
The Weaver chuckled. “Traitor? I didn’t know we were ever on the same side.” She walked over to the wrapped up Dragonking and ran a finger across his face. Linen followed her finger, gagging the Dragonking. His curses turned to muffled sounds of protest. “I’ve been ever faithful to my friend, the Shadow Queen.”
The Weaver walked over to Lila, Queen of Shadows. They placed their palms against each other. Their joined hands seemed to glow for a moment.
Asgaroth bellowed, “I’ll tear your wraithing bones-”
The Weaver gestured and linens bonds wrapped covered his mouth. The Weaver picked up the Sword of Luminescence from the ground and the Shadow Queen lifted the Sword of Night. They hoisted the blades into the air.
“It was almost worth the wait,” the Shadow Queen said with a smile.
A Tulkarian boy held his leg and groaned. The Connection spell bound Mavik to the boy. A woman with a cross-hatch of scars across her face and hair as white as the Shadow Queen's stood up. The scarred woman said, "Grandmother, it is me. I knew you would return. I saw it in the water-"
Lila, the Queen of Shadows, held up her hand, silencing the old woman. The old woman’s face formed a hurt expression. Lila looked at the Tulkarian boy and said, "Come forward, soul thief. You have swallowed many souls today. They weigh heavy upon you. You shall be relieved"
The Tulkarian stepped forward warily. His eyes were watering and his face pale. The seashell beads braided in his hair bobbed as he stepped forward. She ran her pale hand across the boy's temples.
The Shadow Queen smiled. "You hold the seedlings in your mouth. Now, it is time for the hatching."
Mavik's breath caught in his throat, as mist after mist poured from the Tulkarian's mouth. The tiny clouds entered the various sculptures in the room.
“She has a way of controlling the sculptures,” Jijari's thoughts were groans of despair. “She has the two God Swords. She has an army of magi and wraiths.”
All that faith in the Source, all those years of hardship, had lead Mavik to this? Helping the Shadow Queen acquire freedom and an army? What would the queen do next? Invade the surface? Start a fourth Dark War?
And Mavik had helped her. He’d dreamed the Source was using him for some high and noble purpose. Instead, he played the harbinger of doom.
Emerelda threw up a shield around herself, Mavik, Opel and Kura Rockbody.
The wall slid open. An Ozac with red eyes and long silver hair stood in the doorway.
“Anaz,” the Weaver said, her voice raspy and quiet. “What news my child?”
“Centuron is coming,” Anaz said. “We couldn’t hold her off any longer.”
"You’ve held her off long enough,” the Weaver said. “I do not wish to face the Guardian now, on Three Moons Night with the blood of magi still dripping. It is time for us to go.” The Tulkarian boy, the scarred woman, the sculptures, the wraith possessed magi, and the other woven ones stood in a line. She gestured at a wall. The rock groaned and slid open, a moist breeze blowing in through the aperture. The wraiths and possessed bodies plodded behind her, an army of shadows.