Seize the Gates

Balangor came in fast, leaving flames behind him as the canopy erupted. Smoke pillared up into the green sky, and the forest rang with hooting screams as the grach on the perimeter ran for their lives.

“Daddy-o! RUN!” Roz screeched, and the noise shocked Rusty out of his momentary freeze, got his feet moving. Carmina was already moving, and he heard Alice and Ken to her sides, already doing the same.

Rusty racked his brain as he ran, but couldn’t spare much thought for a solution, because he had to focus on fleeing. The trail down the slope, to the ring of lower ground around the mountain was steep, and he knew that if he lost his balance he’d lose time, or worse, the others would come back for him and then they’d all lose time. He knew how fast Balangor could go. He knew that they couldn’t afford even a second lost.

Somehow they made it down the slope. Somehow they made it to the lower part of the earthen “moat” surrounding the hill. And as his lungs worked like bellows, and his legs ached, as the blood thundered in his ears and pain screamed up his spine, he wondered one thing.

Why?

Why were they still alive?

His memory, his spell-enhanced flawless memory told him that he shouldn’t be. The carpet could fly faster than it was going, had flown faster to scoot past the perimeter. The range on the falling fire was enough that it could have easily enveloped them by now.

They should be dead… if dead “chosen ones,” were Balangor’s goal, here.

“So it’s not!” Roz said, popping into existence on his shoulder. “What is he doing?”

Motion ahead, and Rusty looked up to the wall that surrounded the hill, the wall a few hundred yards distant. A section he’d taken for fallen stone was opening, revealing the darkness of a tunnel… and then something was charging out, toward them. A large figure, larger than a man, wearing gold and black armor, its face a snarling mask, wrought in the shape of no animal he’d ever seen before… but vaguely feline.

The Dark Lord.

The Lion.

Ringaldr.

Whatever his name, whatever they called that figure, that had to be him. The reason Rusty had been brought here, the object of his quest, was right in front of him. Ahead, he saw Ken and Alice slow down, saw Carmina keep running, heard her yell to keep moving.

But he stopped, and stared up. And remembered Balangor’s annoyed look, as they pestered him at the midway point. Remembered the prophecy. Had he been lying about that? No. No, he didn’t think that the wizard had been lying about that. He’d given it up so grudgingly that it had the ring of truth, given the wizard’s air of an exhausted middle-aged man having to deal with persistent children.

“...Those of you who survive must enter Ringaldr’s redoubt. When you confront the Dark Lord and he tempts you, the Chosen One shall resist temptation. The Chosen One will reveal their power and single-minded determination and end the Dark Lord, heralding his fall with a sound greater than thunder. That death shall be the beginning of the end of the Lion…”

“SCATTER!” he yelled, and took his own advice, and charged back toward the slope, just as the shadow of the carpet fell across him.

He didn’t have time to look back. But he couldn’t help looking up as it tilted and dodged to the side.

In that slowed moment, in that flicker of time that he had to page back through in his mind to confirm, he saw that Balangor had passengers on the carpet.

Terathon was standing on the edge of it, bracing himself with one of the straps, his hand ablaze with fire as he glared down at Rusty.

And bound in one of the passenger cocoons, with only a blonde frazzle of hair peeking out, was Gunther.

Thunder rolled behind him, and he staggered, turned to look, shocked. They weren’t in the redoubt! How had the prophecy been triggered? What had done that?

And across the way, he saw a streak of black and gold, after-images as the Dark Lord popped in and out of sight, and first Carmina, then Alice, then Ken vanished.

He had just enough time to refocus, see them on all fours just past the perimeter of the walls, before a solid-wall of Black and Gold metal appeared before him, and the Dark Lord scooped him up, held a gauntlet cupped loosely around his head, and ran.

The wind screamed and so did Rusty, as his head felt like it was exploding from the sudden pressure and motion. The world swerved as he felt himself being set gently down, and it was all he could do to keep from hurling everything in his guts onto the packed earth.

“No!” he said. “It’s… a, a trap! Prophe…”

“Prophecy,” the creature that he’d been told was the doom of the world agreed, in a surprisingly mild and weary voice. “Yes, I know. I hope you’re worth the risk.”

Something exploded, and the Dark Lord whirled, moving impossibly fast for something so large. But Rusty knew the sound of that explosion. That was the sound of displaced air, whenever Terathon used his rune of displacement. He expected to see the wizard, but Rusty looked over in time to see Gunther lying on the ground, shivering, clad in only his robes and with his arms and hands bound… and a familiar looking bundle of wires strapped onto a collar around his neck.

A bundle that was unwinding by itself.

Rusty saw the truth of the scheme instantly. He knew, inside of a sliver of a second, that Terathon had lied. This thing would not take any of them home. It was a trap. Like the wizard-equivalent of an A-bomb. And they were all way too close to it.

There was no time to talk. No time to communicate. He had to do something, or everyone here would die, or worse.

Rusty closed his eyes, and focused on what he wanted. He wanted the spell that was coming to not hurt them.

It was activating now, booming like thunder, and he knew, he knew that they’d added that in just to try and give the prophecy a little extra help. But Rusty focused, and found the words he needed. The words that he hoped would suffice.

“Hole in middle of spell!”

Reshape spell in progress!

Committed chakra: 15/39

Cost: 20 chakra.

Remaining free chakra: 02/44

WARNING! Do you wish to continue?

Do it! Rusty thought, and screamed, as it felt like his entire body was hit by a massive cramp, like he was being squeezed and broken inside of a giant’s fist.

Rusty’s eyes were shut, and he didn’t see his right arm curl inwards, and the muscles swell, bursting the skin of his forearm open like a bloody sausage pulled too tight. He didn’t see the color leach from a streak in his hair that cracked from scalp to bangs like a lightning bolt. He couldn’t tell what was happening in his back, didn’t know what was causing the horrible pain near the right side of his lower back, an internal sort of pain that told him there would be problems later.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw that it had been worth it.

They stood, the five of them, in a clear, bubble-shaped sphere in the center of something like a swirling haze of black mist. The Dark Lord crouched down, barely fitting inside the bubble. Alice and Ken clutched each other, a few feet away. Carmina stood knife out but shaking in her hand, as her eyes stared out from the wooden mask— a mask that was a crude copy of the Dark Lord’s own, Rusty thought.

But then he realized, that someone was missing. He turned his head to look at Gunther… and stared, in horror.

His friend stared back, lifeless, flesh falling from a yellowed skull. He was a rotted corpse… no, a rotting corpse. As Rusty watched, his eyes sunk in and burst, goo running down like tears, as the last of the boy’s skin cracked, split, and slid from his bones. He shivered and twitched, a high, thin, gurgling keening escaping from his lungs as Gunther’s white teeth turned yellow, then gray, then fell from his spasming jaws like hail.

Rusty’s spellwork hadn’t saved him.

And while it only took Gunther seconds to die, he suffered for every bit of it.

“I’m sorry,” Rusty whispered, croaking the words. “I’m sorry.”

“Ah…” the Dark Lord breathed. “These were made with Reevian’s help. He holds the runes of Restoration… and corruption. Clever. It might have worked.”

“What do we do?” Alice asked, looking around them. The mist extended out a good distance. And they weren’t the only ones in it. Rusty held his suddenly-aching and bleeding right arm with his left, ignored the throbbing pain in his side, and looked from his rotting friend’s remains to the lumps of shuddering, shell-backed grach who had been guarding the walls nearby. Only a dozen had been caught, but it had served them in a similar fashion.

It was hard to think, now. Rusty blinked, looked for Roz, couldn’t find him. Where had he gone? He tried to remember… and couldn’t. Oh. That’s right. My enchantments are all down.

“Give us a moment,” The Dark Lord said. “We’ll speed this spell to its end… there.”

The mist shrunk around them, and dissipated. “You saved one of our best warriors. Why?”

Rusty blinked at him, tears oozing from his eyes. He tried to speak, couldn’t. Gunther was dead.

Fortunately, Ken had some presence of mind left to him, even if his voice was ragged, too. “They lied to us. They just… that’s our friend over there. We ah, we’re hoping you’re less of a dick.”

“Ken!” Alice whispered, but her eyes were fixed on Gunther, too. She wasn’t crying, but her face was long with a solemn resignation.

“Less of a… dick?” The dark lord said. “Perhaps. At the very least, we can send you home. This is not your battle. It shouldn’t be anyone’s battle but ours, but here we are.”

The weight of sorrow in that voice quieted them. Ken looked away, twisting his head, staring at everything and anything that wasn’t a rotting corpse. Alice licked her lips, and spun, staring out at the cliff beyond the walls. Rusty sniffed back his tears, tried to sit up. It was hard with only one arm. The right one still worked, sort of. The distended, swollen muscles of his forearm were going down, but it was still crampy. At least the bleeding was more like oozing, from the crevasses that split his skin.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Oh no,” Carmina whispered, as she moved closer to him, pulled out long cloth bandages from a pouch at her waist. “You drew too much, didn’t you?”

“I… yes. They told us not to do that.” Rusty felt empty and hollow, and he wasn’t sure how much of it was what he’d done, and how much was from the accusing stare from Gunther’s hollow eye sockets.

“The platform’s gone,” Ken said, peering over the wall. “They must have gotten clear quickly once they dropped G— dropped the ick bomb.”

“They know better than to get too close. But they erred,” said the Dark Lord. His mask turned, and he looked down into Rusty’s eyes, as Carmina bound Rusty’s arm. “They are vulnerable now, if you are willing to help me.”

Rusty stared back, fascinated… and more than a little worried. The man’s eyes were golden, and glowing, but mismatched. Dried blood caked the socket of one of the mask’s eyeholes, and Rusty could see a bit of withered flesh where the faceplate of the mask joined the helmet. This close up, the proportions of the Dark Lord’s body were off, too. The armored form was listing to one side, one of its legs longer than the other, distended. Rusty looked from it to his arm, and back to those glowing, unhealthy eyes… and only then did he realize that the Dark Lord had spoken in English.

“You don’t need the translator to speak with us?” He said over the pounding of a truly impressive headache.

“No. We know of your world. A part of us has visited it. It will return, in due time. Your world is not yet the battleground that the Unicorn would make of it, not until Elythia is opened to the Road.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Alice said. “I’m sorry.”

The Dark Lord shook his head, rattling a mane of metal and bone charms suspended on twine. “I wish we had more time to explain. But we must go. The wizards spent much of their chakra on this attempt. They will go to one of the world doors they opened to your realm. Time is faster there; they will rest and regain their power. If we can catch them before they arrive and capture them, we will win a victory and preserve your world for at least a decade or two more. Or if we capture the door, and wait for them to emerge, we can wait for them to emerge, then achieve the same. Either way we must take the world door to send you home. We must go now, and if you wish to come, your help will be welcomed. But you must choose, now.”

With every word, with every comparison to how the wizards had treated them, Rusty knew more and more that they had been on the wrong side of this fight.

But he also knew that right now he’d be nothing but a burden. “I’m sorry. I have nothing left. Ken? Alice?”

“I’m untapped, and I’ll do it,” Ken nodded.

“I’m sorry Rusty. I… I need to go home,” Alice said. “We’ll hold the door for you.”

“We would not have asked you if your chakra was an issue. For we have the rune of share.” The Dark Lord bent down, and put a single gauntleted finger on Rusty’s forehead. The metal was cool, and Rusty gasped as every cell in his body shook for a second. Just like how Cyrus described touching a live wire.

But it did the job.

GUARDIAN: LION’S spell refreshes your chakra + 8

Remaining free chakra: 9/44

“I had Chakra left?” Rusty whispered, confused.

“When you drain it out, your body will cannibalize itself to refill the very smallest amount you need to live. Now, are you coming, child?”

“Yes.”

“Then do not resist this gift next gift, and follow me the second the spell lands…”

GUARDIAN: LION IS ATTEMPTING

GRANT SPEED INCREASE

A pressure built against his aching mind, and though it went against his instincts to let it through, Rusty tried to do as the Lion said.

The pressure broke, warmth filled him, and the world slowed around him. The distant sounds of the Grach moving away their dead elongated and deepened, and the smoke billowing up out of the jungle slowed, moving like molasses defying gravity.

The lion turned, and waved a hand to the southwest. “Come now. Follow us, and buy your world’s freedom with vengeance!” And with that, he turned and ran. He wasn’t a streak this time, just an armored man, running.

Rusty ran after him. He ached, and that pain in his side wouldn’t go away, but he had energy again, and amazingly, his aches didn’t get worse as he went. He expected to be out of breath and panting by the time they were halfway across the valley, but he felt about the same.

“Yeah, that’s because your body’s getting tired slowly, and you’re moving quickly,” Roz said, popping onto his shoulder. “If you weren’t ramping up to a real skull knocker of a migraine, you might have noticed you’ve been drawing the same breath for the last few hundred yards. But I’ve got a bigger question… Do you buy what this guy’s selling?”

“Selling?” Rusty thought.

“He’s doing the same damn thing the wizards did. He’s just being nicer about it. He’s taking a bunch of kids, and using them as soldiers! You’re literally running to go help him fight! WHY?”

Rusty struggled, as he ran. He had time to think, moving at impossible speeds, as the jungle flashed past them. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked himself something like this question, on the verge of sleep all alone at night, in the first room he’d ever had to himself. Why had he gone with Terathon? Why had he followed the stranger? Why was he doing this now? The two were essentially the same question. But he’d never found an answer to the first.

Now, with Roz sitting forlornly on his shoulder, and staring right at him with those big, empty, oval eyes, he felt he owed the little familiar an answer. And after a moment, he found one. It wasn’t perfect, but it felt the closest to the right answer that he’d figured out so far.

“This is what heroes are supposed to do,” he said. “You try to stop the bad guys, and help the good guys. You try to make the world… any world, I guess, a little better. And maybe I’m not a Chosen One, and I don’t know if I’m any kind of hero, but there’s nobody else and if Ken or Alice die like G—” he shut off that line of thought. “If anyone else dies, and I ran away and hid, I’d be a coward. I’d wonder if I had been there maybe I could have saved them. And I DID save them, a few minutes ago.”

Roz nodded. “Yeah. Yeah I guess you did.” The little creature pulled in a breath so large that he almost doubled in size, then let it all out in a long sigh. “I’m not sure this Lion fella is a good guy, but at least he’s been up front about what he wants from us. So there’s that. And at least if it all goes wrong we’ll be closer to the way home, so we can try to escape. Yeah, okay. I’ll do what I can. When you overextended I learned stuff. The runes really didn’t like that, but I think I know a few things we didn’t before. Oh, uh, by the way, I think kidneys are overrated. I mean, who really needs two of’em, am I right?”

“Wait, what?”

The world started to speed up around them, and ahead, the Lion stopped in a clearing. A familiar-looking clearing, now that Rusty got a look at it. This was the shattered camp they’d flown over on Balangor’s platform. Gunther had been wounded here, when the arrows chased them out.

He used the last of the fading speed effect to catch up with the Lion, and as it ebbed away, the low, rumbling, stretched voices he was hearing snapped into focus. The Lion was speaking with two satyrs, two adult satyrs, one man and one woman, who alternated between nodding at the Lion and glancing at the children he’d brought to them. This close up, Rusty could see that their eyes had pupils like goat’s eyes, and if he hadn’t been full of pain and nursing a throbbing, damaged arm, he was sure he’d find it quite off-putting.

He didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, so he moved up to put his hand on Ken’s shoulder. Ken was hugging Alice, and she was crying, unashamed. Ken used his free arm to draw Rusty into the hug, and they just stood like that. Rusty knew it was a combination of things. It was acknowledging that Gunther was gone, and that was hard. It was also a farewell, in case one of them went out during what was to come. And in a weird way it was relief. Relief that there were at least two others here, to face this mess. Two other people who knew just how messed up all this was, and were willing to see it through.

“So part of your hair’s white,” Ken said into his air. “Don’t get too upset, yeah? Looks good.”

“Uh. Thanks.” The more he leaned on them the more things hurt. But except for that pain in his lower back that wouldn’t go away, none of it seemed serious. That hit of chakra from the Lion had done him some good. Even the headache was settling into a grudging grind, rather than a baseball bat to the back of his brain.

A noise like a sob caught his attention, and he turned away from the huddle in time to see Carmina staring at them, and the raw longing in her eyes made him look away. How long has she been here? How long has she been alone?

“Weapons,” the girl said, turning away, her voice muffled behind the wooden mask. “You need weapons. Grab what you can from the piles by the tents.”

They didn’t have any axes, so Rusty searched through the piles one-handed, while Ken and Alice grabbed spears. He came up with a simple knife, studied it. Remembered how Terathon had held one to Reevian, back in what seemed so long ago, but was only a week past.

This would do. If it came to a fight, and the Lion couldn’t handle it, then he didn’t figure a bigger weapon would be more helpful. And he was too tired to use anything heavier anyway.

“They will have elves,” the Lion boomed, and Rusty jumped, turned to find that the Dark Lord had moved up behind them. So tall, but so quiet… was it magic muffling the noise of that armor? It had to be. “Let the satyrs and duskwights handle the elves. Come with me, and stay behind me. The wizards will be fearful to expend their magic, lest they render themselves vulnerable to spells from you. And if they fear that, and hold back, then I can take them.” He flexed his gauntlets. “And if they do not hold back, I will ask you to do what you can against them. Do you understand? Do you agree?”

The three of them nodded, silently.

“Good. Accept this spell and follow, as you did before.”

The world blurred again, and they ran. As fast as they were now the satyrs were faster still, with the two the Lion had been speaking with tapping charms on a necklace, and about a dozen more falling in to either side as the group traveled.

The trees gave way as they traveled, and many of the largest canopy trees had been rendered into massive stumps, with no sign of what had happened to the rest of the towering plants. Had the wood gone to fortifications, or been burned as fuel? Rusty had no time to ask, and they were past and into the open, and then he was far too busy keeping up with the Lion. He was accelerating now, speeding toward a low structure just visible in the distance.

As they went, Ken pointed wordlessly into the sky. Rusty followed his finger, saw a familiar speck to the west. Balangor’s flying platform! They were in time!

Soon he’d be face to face with Terathon. The thought wasn’t comforting. The wizard had been kind in his way, more relaxed than the others. Almost fatherly, almost like how Dad had been, before he’d decided to spend most of his time drinking. But at the end of it all, he’d sent Rusty off with a magical bomb in his pocket, betrayed him.

Rusty, tired as he was, felt heat rise in his cheeks. The wizard had played him like a trombone. He DID want a little vengeance for that, he decided. Or at least wanted to be there when the wizard got his comeuppance.

“First we have to survive this. Don’t get dumb, Rusty. Remember I’m you too, and I don’t want to die here,” Roz begged from his shoulder.

Rusty crossed his good arm up and reached out two fingers. I won’t get dumb. Promise.

Roz took them in his tiny hands, and they shook on it.

As they drew closer, he saw that they were racing toward a step pyramid. Not a huge one, not like the ones he’d seen on television down in Peru or Chile or wherever… wow, it was weird not having total recall, and the headache wasn’t helping his memory. But regardless, it was about the size of a house, with enclosed walls on top, but no roof. Rainbow light swirled from the many open holes that doubled as windows, flickering as someone moved inside the structure.

The world slowed, as they reached about a thousand feet out from the pyramid. “Caution.” rumbled the Lion. “We have time,” he said, gesturing skyward, at the platform. “They will strike at us from the structure as we approach. Stay behind me, let the satyrs guard the flanks. The Duskwraiths will ensure that we are not blasted from above, not from afar. Now come, and let us see who we can take.”

Rusty looked up. If there were any Duskwraiths he couldn’t see them.

“Yeah, maybe that’s the point of them,” Roz offered. “Oh, but they see US! Balangor’s picking up steam.”

But the Lion didn’t rush. He paced forward, a gauntlet rattling against the charms in his mane, as he sorted and touched a select few of them, sending light flaring as he peered around.

Then froze, pointing straight ahead…

…as a figure in bright yellow robes walked around the corner of the step pyramid, arms folded, teeth white in a sneer.

Reevian.

“You know why we are here, Reevian,” the Lion intoned, so loudly that the water between them rippled. “Surrender and you will live.”

The satyrs spread out, bows raised and strings taut, arrows focused on the wizard.

Reevian shook his head. “Is Ringaldr in there somewhere, still? I suppose you could consider him ‘alive,’ it is true. Don’t worry. I’ll fix that.”

“Oh, I’m here, bastard,” the Lion growled, its voice and accent shifting. “You were never a match for me before,” The Lion’s voice became harsher, as it spoke in the wizard’s language and the magic translated. “What makes you think you can slay me now?”

Reevian spread his arms. “I like my odds.”

And the water around the step pyramid erupted, as two dozen elves surfaced and filled the air with bolts of light.