Scroll 11

Into the Tunnel;

Tahsh’s Courage

&

Shari’s Power

Tahsh stared at the object of his fears, the Ring of Worlds. Some unspoken time ago, the worlds had been one, and these Rings had been given, one to each world, to connect them in a tunnel through the stars. Somewhere, among those worlds, was a Keeper of Rings, and it was this person who Tahsh called now.

Shaking, he dialed in the appropriate sequence to summon the Keeper, terrified that his fear of the magic that had killed his parents would betray him. Picking up the dagger and letting the Portal take his blood was the hardest thing he had ever done.

I do not give a damn what happens to me, but save them, damn it! They have to live!

The door above exploded. Rashpition stormed down the stairs, intent on the last of the Emperor’s bloodline. Serpentine eyes scanned their faces, and the mage froze on the stairs, eyes on Anyia.

“You! You were the Princess all along?” he laughed, but there was nothing of humor in it. “I shall enjoy making thee my bride. I cannot allow thee to have children to challenge my rule, but as a trophy and legitimacy of the throne, you are worth more to me than just a breeder.”

“Just try it!” Rasha challenged, stepping in front of the terrified girl and wielding both sabers.

Light from the Ring startled all of them, and from the formerly empty wall stepped a young man like no one Tahsh had ever seen. His hair was the color of the Sands, and his eyes the color of the Falls. He wore strange, enameled armor and held a long, strait blade in his hand that glowed from within with runes.

Rashpition froze.

“And who are you?” the young man asked him.

The Serpent drew himself up, “I do not see how any of this is thy concern, stranger.”

The young man smiled slightly, a smile that sent a chill down Tahsh’s spine. He was dangerous, very dangerous. “I just made it my concern.”

Evidently Rashpition had also come to this conclusion, for he summoned up several demons and sent them at the man, who sliced through them with no difficulty. In the few seconds it took the Keeper to strike down the demons, Rashpition appeared before Rasha and, without even really looking at him, knocked him away with a sweep of his magic.

“Rasha!” Anyia cried as the sorcerer reached for her. He reached one hand to her cheek—only to have it shorn off by the Keeper. Rashpition shrieked, clutching his bloody stump to him as smoke rose from the shorn flesh, for the blazing mage blade had cauterized the wound even as it made it.

“Let us see thee grow that back now!” Rasha called impudently, sheathing his sabers. The sorcerer’s eyes filled with recognition at last, and he stared at Rasha with hatred.

“YOU,” he spat, “The Hawk! I will kill thee, boy, and it shall not be quick.” He glanced at the Keeper, who raised his eyebrows and his blade, as if in invitation to just go ahead and impale himself upon it. “But another day,” Rashpition growled, and vanished.

“Why did thee not kill him?” Rasha demanded of the Keeper, who looked down at him in surprise at the question.

Tahsh answered for him “Because the Keeper cannot kill those of other worlds except to defend those who call upon him for protection.”

“I think I may be sick,” Anyia said weakly, gazing at the bloody hand that still twitched at her feet, then fainted.

The Keeper gazed at her thoughtfully, “She is the last of the royal family?” At Tahsh’s nod, he seemed to decide something, and sheathed his weapon. “Then this, I think, is not a very safe place for her to be.” Stooping, he gently lifted the girl into his arms. “Take him,” he motioned to Rasha and started for the Portal Ring.

“But-” Rasha protested.

The Keeper turned to him. “If you stay, you all will likely be killed. If you come with me now, you can return to fight another day.”

Rasha nodded reluctantly, “But what about the others? What about Shalden, and Shari, and Lunalea?”

The Keeper looked away, “I cannot sense anyone alive free of taint above. Your friends are dead or gone.”

The two boys stared at him in shock, and then followed him wordlessly into the portal.

Shari wandered through the palace. Around her, the bodies of people she had known all her life lay, scattered and broken like so much refuse. She wasn’t physically there, she knew that; her body was with the other children of the palace complex, the acolytes and servants.

There, said the voice that had been leading her, the one who had wrenched her soul out of her body, insisting that she needed to do one last thing before her mysterious fate.

She looked. A man with the eyes of a snake stood over a body, seething.

“Grandmother!” she cried, recognizing the shattered body of the mage Castla, who had raised her since her parents died of snakebite. “N-nooo.” She whimpered, sinking to her knees. Souls supposedly couldn’t cry, but Shari sobbed uncontrollably, watching as the sorcerer started to pull something black and ugly from her grandmother’s former shell.

Look closely, young one.

“What is that?” she asked, revolted.

That is the energy of mage Castla’s death. It is trapped within her body, and the bodies of every person here. With it he grows stronger.

Shari fell back into her body. She was being carried to another mage.

Takard had been a servant of Rashpition for years, and had gladly volunteered to be the one to wipe the memories of the Palace children, replacing them with only the knowledge that they must be loyal, good servants of the Avatar. This child, a girl who had run into the desert, was his last.

She faintly unnerved him. She didn’t scream or cry like the other children had, she seemed dazed. Shock, he supposed. He looked into her eyes, and she seemed to come back to herself.

“Your master, he is taking the Death Magic of those fallen?” she asked calmly.

Takard was so startled he actually answered, “Yes.”

The girl began to glow with a hot, golden light, and fire blazed from her eyes. Takard recoiled from her. What was she?

“I won’t let him,” she stated, her voice many at once, and Takard screamed as heat engulfed him.

Wiping blood from his eyes, Shalden braced himself to be torn apart as the general had been. It wouldn’t be hard; he was pretty butchered as it was. Dimly, he saw that he was the last of his people to fall. Well, that was an honor, at least. The roc moved slightly, and with astonishment the man realized it bore a rider. The figure launched itself from the roc’s back, rushing towards him.

“Shalden!” cried a voice he had never dared hope to hear again. He looked up into his wife’s tear-streaked face as she pulled his head into her lap, summoning just her horn and beginning to heal his wounds.

“Lunalea?” he asked, cupping her cheek in his palm. “You fool. I told thee to run.”

“She was running,” stated a female voice. Shalden looked up into the amber eyes of the most magnificent roc he had ever seen. Her glistening golden feathers were streaked with a tawny light brown, and her large eyes were as expressive as an entire human face. “Hello, Chosen,” then her head jerked upward. “We must leave. Now!”

Rashpition began gathering the death energy of the female mage who had challenged him. One handed, it was difficult, but the hand would grow back, given time. Who was that young man? Rashpition shuddered at the raw power that had seeped from the man’s very pores. That man was a Power, just as he was, and a stronger Power at that.

“Worry not, Castla,” he said to the corpse, running a finger down her cool cheek. “I shall take excellent care of the children. With the children in my control, and your death energy in my possession, nothing short of the Gods themselves can challenge me.”

He smiled, then frowned again as the flesh began to warm, his eyes widening.

“It cannot be!” he cried as he flung his strongest shields about himself.

Shalden and Lunalea grasped the feathers of Nigia, gazing down at the Palace complex. Suddenly, the entire plateau was bathed in light, as a firestorm of untold intensity engulfed the living and dead alike. Screams echoed hollowly across the Sea of Sand once more, following two of the last free survivors of what would shortly be known as the Night of a Thousand and More Screams flew toward the Plains to seek refuge among the Uness tribes. Blow them, the few other survivors, frozen at the sight of the inferno, caught sight of them on the large golden eagle and began to follow as best they could on foot. Later they would be rescued by the belated reinforcements of the Uness.

“What was that?” Nigia asked, shaken.

Shalden looked over his shoulder at the hundreds of pillars of flame rising from the bodies of the Palace fallen and Rashpition’s soldiers, touching neither building, plant, nor animal.

“Shari,” he replied, as Lunalea burst into tears.

Passing through the Portal was indescribable. All light and sound seemed stretched, somehow, as if this tunnel reached through infinite space. Rasha held tight to Tahsh’s hand, as his friend held tight to the Keeper.

It is time; you are ready, said a voice in his mind.

“What?” he managed, before a pain shot through his back, so intense he doubled up.

“Rasha!” Tahsh cried as the boy spiraled away from him. He turned as a groan escaped Anyia. “Keeper, we have to go back! Rasha--”

“We’ll have to return for him! If we stop in the middle of the Tunnel, we’ll die!” the man yelled back over his shoulder.

“Rashaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Anyia screamed raggedly, struggling in the Keeper’s grasp and reaching back toward the way they had come.

“I’ll find him,” the Keeper said. She looked up into his cold blue eyes and was startled to see pain there. “I promise, I will find him and return him to you.”

Rasha screamed in agony. Something was happening to him. The skin on his back itched painfully, and his muscles spasmed and cramped. His blood felt like it was boiling. He collided with several of the Rings that composed the tunnel, an endless series of circles surrounding him, stretching from either side into infinity.

Something burst through his skin, and he blacked out for a moment.

It will be all right. I am sorry you must bare this, the voice spoke again. Strong arms steadied him, and the pain eased somewhat. Rasha writhed as muscle and tendon grew to cover the strange new bones sprouting from his back, and briefly he looked through the other’s eyes. Two strange, long limbs rose from his back, covered with red, raw skin and blood. He could see inside himself, to where his own bones and flesh were changing, becoming somehow both stronger and lighter. The boy gasped as sharp shafts sprouted through the new skin, bursting open to become golden-brown feathers, hundreds of them.

“Wings?” he asked, incredulous.

The other smiled down at him, stretching his own wings. Rasha gaped, this couldn’t be…

Here we are, He said, and Rasha barreled right into a glowing Ring, landing in a heap on the other side as it closed behind him. He shook his head and looked up into the astonished faces of roughly fourteen men, all with pale skin and light hair, who barked at him in strange syllables and trained their weapons on him.

Tahsh followed the Keeper, who still carried Anyia, who had gone into shock, through a strange place filled with people. Humans with strange coloring and people who didn’t look human in the least parted before them, whispering. He glanced at his guide.

“All refugees, like you two,” the Keeper said, responding to his unspoken question. “They are all under my protection, as well as their own. They come from many different worlds and backgrounds.”

“Are we ever going to be able to return?” the Worker asked, uncomfortable beneath the weight of so many curious gazes.

“That is up to you. However, I suggest you wait until I find the boy; you two are all she has left now.” The Keeper looked down at the young girl in his arms, who lay unnervingly quietly, staring upward into the millions of bright stars in the clear black sky.

Rashpition stared down at his servant and sighed. Takard had been such a good servant, eager and loyal and utterly terrified of him. Now he was a babbling wreck. Evidently wiping the minds of so many children had been too much for him.

“Fire…Fire!” the mage whimpered, curling up into a ball, drool seeping from his mouth. Well, couldn’t have an insane mage around.

Rashpition turned to his other followers, the ones not in the Palace when that firestorm came out of nowhere. Luckily he wouldn’t have to worry about that mage again; that kind of magic only came with a death-strike. Whoever had done that had died doing so; the amount of power was too great for anyone, even him, to live after something like that.

“Burn him,” he said, then strolled out of the room as the agonized screams echoed down the hallways of his fortress. Reaching backward with a strand of magic, he captured what energy from the mage’s pain and death that wasn’t ruined by the man’s insanity and re-grew his hand.

Flexing the new fingers, he strode into his throne room and looked down with satisfaction on his seven hundred or so new acquisitions. The children of Letaf’s household, court, and temples cowered before him in the Posture of Subservience, a practice not used since ancient times.

He smiled. His new empire had begun.

To Be Continued…