The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3) (31 page)

‘I will,’ returned the captain, perplexed at Leopold’s questions. ‘Good evening to you, too.’

Before Leopold had started away he could see Jessicah fleeing, hands hiding her tears.

‘What—?’ Orrell exclaimed as he discovered her hurrying away.

Leopold strode away, back towards his deck, a smug smile on his face.

He climbed halfway up to the aftcastle and entered the passage to his room, thinking how clever he was. Ahead in the hall, a flash of dark cloth broke him from thought, and he hurried, passing his room and continuing around the corner. There was no sign of anyone in the passage, and those soldiers still awake spied him curiously from their rooms as he passed. Leopold rushed ahead; the passage branched and he was unsure which way to go, or if he had seen anything at all beyond rum-inspired illusions.

He stood at the intersection and ‘Samuel?’ he called at a whisper. ‘Lomar?’ he persisted. No reply came and no one met him. Leopold returned to his cabin, hoping it had been his imagination.

Toby was asleep, one arm draped over the side and mouth hanging open. Salu was awake, sitting in place with his hands clasped. He cocked his head as Leopold returned, listening intently, returning straight again once Leopold had clasped the door behind him.

‘Ah, Salu,’ Leopold said, struggling to get off his boots. ‘Why is life so complicated?’ Salu grunted and nodded his head. At least it was a sign that he could hear him. ‘It was much simpler before all this happened.’

‘Mm,’ Salu grunted.

‘Have you wondered if we could turn back time? Wouldn’t that be wonderful.’

‘Mm.’

‘Would you do it if you could?’

‘Mm.’

‘I thought so.’ Leopold washed his face in the washbowl and stripped to his underclothes, slipping into bed. ‘Good night.’

The cabin was rolling more than usual, fuelled by his consumption of liquor.

‘Good night,’ Salu returned.

Leopold opened his eyes, startled by the reply. He should not be surprised, for the man took pleasure in returning to sanity unexpectedly.

‘Oh. You’re with us now. Why no answer to my questions?’

‘Because you talk enough for the both of us. Go to sleep. I’m thinking.’

Leopold chuckled, heavy minded, and it did not take him long to forget being awake altogether.

****

The following weeks passed slowly, excruciatingly. According to the maps, they had crossed half the world, and soon they would reach their destination. Leopold could not wait. The feeling on the ship was stagnant and the air grew hotter and heavier with each day.

The only notable event was when another unsightly beast appeared in the distance. This time, the enormous sea creature coursed towards them, causing a surge of mountainous waves in its wake. As expected, Samuel flew out to meet it and he threw down a handful of blinding light, bringing a mighty crack of thunder. He returned flying upon the wind, leaving the unseen creature behind him to vanish beneath the waves, sending up jets of spray. The sailors cheered, for a number of them had lost their nervousness of magic, given that Samuel now defended them regularly. Though none spoke to him directly, he had lost much of his terrible air.

The magician continued setting Leopold to his tasks, each time asking him if he had had enough, each time Leopold declaring, ‘Yes!’ and each time the man guffawed and gave him more work to do.

Leopold had tried to determine what the man wanted with him; in the end he decided it was simply to meet his own sadistic desires to see him break.

‘Yes! Yes! I’ve had enough! I give up! You win! You’ve beaten me!’ Leopold declared on one occasion, feeling on the point of lunacy after mucking out the steamy pig pens until they were too clean even for the pigs. ‘I give up!’ he said, throwing his broom aside. ‘You’re stronger than me! You’re better than me! I can’t do it. I can’t go on! Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that sufficient? Are you happy to have driven me to this?’

‘No,’ the magician replied, shaking his head. ‘Keep going. One more time,’ he said, and returned to the Emperor his mop.

Leopold did not know how long he could endure the mistreatment. Amazingly, he did not go mad, surviving by imagining new kinds of torture for the magician.

In addition, he was at odds with most on board, except for the witless Salu, the only one to whom he could unburden his woes, mostly without reply.

They would soon reach their destination, and Leopold hoped with landfall would come a much needed change.

AFTER TWELVE DAYS and nights the battle ended. The last and greatest of the demons fell to earth, vanquished, a fiery comet trailing ruin in its wake.

It cost many lives and almost his own, but Darrig Lin, Elder of the Council of the Wise, ripped the hellish living armour from around the fiend and cast it aside. That mountainous corpse now dominated the horizon, turning to stone as it cooled.

Darrig stood over the demon’s smaller, host body where it had come to ground, and drew in a deep breath to stay his courage. He was blackened from the battle. Hot blood streamed down his wrists and over his fists as he contemplated the most difficult task of his life.

The three disciples waited not far away, successfully stripped of their demons, bound in chains and denied of their powers. This one—the strongest—had proven stubborn. Deeply rooted within its host, it would see him dead before relinquishing him. It had been weakened, but given time it would soon return to strength.

So be it, thought Darrig, steeling himself. The portal must be sealed!

He raised his staff and poured out the last of its power. The foolish youth, the one to blame for opening the rift to the demon’s world, screamed in pain. Screaming jets of energy covered his smoking body, spewed over him in ragged forks of lightning so he was lost amongst the bright fury.

The howls of demons had been bearable, but hearing these human cries skewered Darrig’s heart. This was not simply anyone he was torturing; it was Marrag—his only son.

The young man writhed in agony upon the scorched soil, little more than a shimmering shadow at the core of a blinding inferno. There was very little life left in him, but Darrig continued, intent to drive the demon out or see Marrag dead, unable to offer his son even one speck of leniency.

Evil could not be allowed to persist, no matter the cost. It would multiply and return with renewed strength. As it was, the ending of the world had been narrowly averted. There was no reason—not even to save his son—that chances could be taken.

‘Wait,’ came a pained voice, raised above the noise of the spell, and Darrig hesitated. He sensed some change and, carefully, he allowed his power to calm.

In the bottom of the crater was the naked, balled up form of Marrag, quivering with pain and with one pleading hand outstretched towards his father.

‘The demons have gone, Father,’ called the voice of the son. ‘They have escaped.’

Darrig wanted to cry out with joy at hearing the sound of reason emanating from his child, but outwardly he showed nothing. This was not a time for compassion or capitulation, for demons could be cunning in so many ways. He had learned that awful lesson already. Devils could not be underestimated. Assumptions could not be dared.

Marrag struggled to his feet, his legs trembling beneath him. His father regarded him gravely, ready to strike, but the boy’s mother came running in and with a gesture from the ring on her finger, wove a cloth and threw it about his shoulders to cover his naked form, hugging him tightly.

‘Take care!’ Darrig hissed, but his wife flashed blazing eyes towards him.

‘He is our son, Darrig! Can you not see the evil has left him. Our son is returned to us!’

‘You have saved me, Father ... saved us all.’ Marrag laboured to speak. He struggled to rise, and with the help of his mother, clambered from the hole. ‘But the damage has been done. The rift cannot be sealed now it has been opened—it can only be guarded. This war is far from over. It is only beginning.’

Darrig regarded the youth closely. It seemed true that the essence of evil had fled.

The city and the council and every living thing within sight had been turned to dust in the battle. Much of the world suffered during the demons’ short reign of terror: seas boiled and rivers turned to dust, forests turned to sand. Countless souls had been lost, devoured and used as fodder.

‘We cannot rest,’ Marrag said, stumbling towards his father with his mother at his side, supporting him. ‘Evil has found us and it will never relent until we have been consumed. They hunger for every one of us, and everything living. They would draw the last beads of precious essence from the spirit of our world.’

‘But what can we do?’ Thann, one of the minions, asked. Bound together, the three staggered closer. ‘We cannot give up. We cannot do nothing!’

The weary youth, held on two legs by his mother’s assistance, harboured no doubt. ‘I will stand guard and keep the demons at bay, until such time as we can find a way to vanquish them forever.’

‘But how can you do that, my son?’ Darrig asked.

‘It can be done. I will shed my mortal form and protect this world. I can keep them at bay, while my strength remains.’

‘But that is nonsense,’ Rei, the female servant, declared. Beneath the layers of grime she was a beautiful woman, but the battle and shame had broken her, drained her of dignity and stooped her over. ‘You are in no state to do anything.’

‘The demons will take time to regather their strength,’ Marrag stated. ‘We must use that time to our advantage. We must nurture our world back to health, guard her while she is healing, try to undo all this madness we have sown. It will be no easy task. All our strength will be required.’ He looked to his three friends. ‘I will need you three to stand guard while I prepare. Restore what was lost. Will you do it?’

They nodded solemnly, understanding the implications of their choices.

‘Consider it your penance for what we have done,’ he added. ‘You are each spent, but I will consume what remains, and in doing so I will seal the spell—a covenant of rebirth and obligation. I ask you again to be sure ... will you help me? Will you undo this evil that we alone are responsible for unleashing?’

‘We will,’ Thann said.

Poltamir, the third disciple, ever anxious, nodded rapidly.

Rei kept her head low. Between her sniffles, she made a solemn nod. ‘I will.’

The young man looked to Darrig. ‘Father, with you permission I will begin.’

The man nodded soberly, knowing what it implied, stifling the mother’s attempts to object with a firm glance.

Marrag took a steadying breath and stepped clear of his mother, his strength returning by the moment. ‘Then let it be. Surrender yourselves to me, as you did when we first commenced our folly. I will separate your threads from the weave of the world, everlasting, distinct; bastions to those that still survive. Tend all life and nurture the spirit of mankind as best you can. Strengthen yourselves; I may need to return and revitalise myself if my endurance wanes.’

‘But how long will this take?’ Rei asked, searching for a glimmer of hope amongst the ruin.

‘I do not know,’ Marrag admitted. ‘It could be a hundred years or more for all I know. I will continue for as long as it takes. If we can persevere, we may just prevent the hordes from returning.’

‘And what after that?’ Poltamir asked. ‘Just persevere? Surely we can do better than that? How can we rid the world of this plague of evil that we have brought upon ourselves?’

Marrag shook his head. ‘I know of no way to close the doorway we have opened. A tear is a tear, and cannot be restitched. Life, in every form, must continue to exist. That is our hope, that somehow, before too long, we discover our salvation—or someone finds it for us.’

The three accepted the matter and put their hands to Marrag’s shoulders as he gathered his spell. His mother and father stepped back, holding each other, the stout Staff of Elders firm in Darrig’s hand.

Thann and Rei clasped their fingers together as the spell fluttered through them and the bond was made and the spell was sealed. When it was done, all three were gone, vanished from the face of the earth.

Marrag drew back his shoulders, standing taller, his muscles filling out the slack in his clothes once more, infused with the remnants of his minions.

‘I am sorry for all this, my son,’ Darrig said, shaking his head. ‘I feel responsible for everything.’

Marrag looked to his father with bright, hopeful eyes. ‘Not at all, Father. You were not to blame.’

‘We on the Council of the Wise had become blinded by our pride. We never thought something like this could happen, let alone under our very noses. We used our machines and devices to harness the power of life, yet we stole it from the heart of our world, weakened her and through that allowed this to occur. Never did we think our acts could attract the attention of such wickedness.’

‘No, Father. It was only a matter of time before they found us. This malevolence is consuming the cosmos world by world, attracted to any life that may flourish within the void between stars. We have been fortunate until now, but it was inevitable. Our recent mistakes only accelerated the process, shone a light towards them and gathered their attention.’

‘We thought we had formed the perfect society,’ his mother stated. ‘How foolish we had become.’

‘Speak no more of it, Mother. When I return, everything will be well.’

‘But how will you return, son?’ Darrig asked. ‘Once you abandon your body you know it will not be possible to walk upon the earth.’

‘I will need you for that, Father, and you, Mother, with your assent, but it will also mean a great sacrifice on the part of you both.’

‘No sacrifice is too much, my son,’ his mother told him. ‘The fate of the world is at stake.’

‘You will need to prepare a body for me to return—an empty vessel capable of containing my spirit.’

‘How can we accomplish such a feat?’ the father asked, perplexed.

‘The same way we did the first time, my love,’ his wife told him. ‘We will bear him into this world again.’ She turned to her child. ‘Remember, my son, that once in spiritual form, your mind will wander. Without the leash of mortality, it may be difficult to remember your path. You must focus upon it with all your might or you risk becoming lost. You may become a danger, perhaps even to yourself.’