Chapter 10
The Roots
“That’s just not possible.”
“Well, it’s one heck of an uncanny resemblance, Floyd.” Terrill’s eyes remained fixed on the page, confirming a fact he had already long since suspected. The couple in the room continued to argue about the unusual findings on the page. Whatever issues with the weather were going on outside seemed to intensify, and a crash elsewhere on the campus communicated either more damaged buildings or a fallen tree. “How many people do you know that look exactly like that?”
“Oh, come on! There are tons of blonde girls in the world. You’re blonde!”
“My face isn’t in my mother’s documents.”
“How would that even get there, anyway? Out of all the Lifebloods we saw, we only ever interacted with a single soul, and I hardly remember enough to tell you what they looked like.” Floyd had torn himself away from the pages, running over his hair with such agitation, Terrill thought it a wonder that he wasn’t pulling it out. “How would your mother possibly guess at something so specific? And even if it was the case, that’s labeled as a ‘soul form’, but Krysta was definitely physical.”
“No, she was in Adversa. We were all souls, and this can explain everything.” Torry slapped the papers on her hand to make her case, but Floyd wasn’t buying it. He shook his head with vigor as his arms were folded across his chest.
“No way. No. Way. Krysta wasn’t just a soul. We spent time with her and she…she…”
“You’re both right,” Terrill said, finally injecting himself into the conversation. He strode over to the window to check outside. The storm was calming, but Terrill had a feeling this was far from over. His fingers touched to the jagged glass and their coolness, searching for a way to articulate what he meant, the stares burning into the back of his head. “Floyd’s right. Krysta wasn’t a soul. She had a body. I could feel it… Touch it… When I dove for her in the Shadow, that wasn’t just a soul. And the crystallization…”
“That’s right…” Torry said with a hum at the end. Her fingers flicked through her papers with absentminded preoccupation, flashing through different lines and diagrams but not putting anything together. “Before we clashed, her body was breaking down, and she promised to tell us stuff. But wait, Terrill, you knew?”
“I guessed,” was the simple answer. He turned back around, removing himself from the window that became still. The Academy was quieting, and it made Terrill feel worse. “Not at first. Not for a while. I thought she was just like you guys. But after she fought with Atrum… No, with Golbrucht, there was something different there. Plus, the Lifeblood of Light was the only one we never found.”
“It seems like a giant leap to presume that was Krysta, then.”
“Maybe it was, but the way she talked, and her memories in the Shadow… No, I think I knew from the second she helped exorcise that piece of Golbrucht’s soul from mine.” Terrill kicked at one of the books, his demeanor growing sourer the longer he thought about things. “The only real question is why she’s been avoiding us and just leading us from place to place.”
“I think we have a lot more questions than that, but mom’s notes…they’re all over the place.” Torry was going through the notes all over again, trying to soak in every last detail, but gleaning nothing regarding the Lifebloods or the way they worked. “Some mention the Lifebloods, and a whole bunch of other things, but I’m still not sure mom ever stumbled on the topic of integration and Blessings and Fiends.”
“Those two are bound to be connected,” Terrill said, now kneeling down to Torry’s level and looking over the papers with his own eyes. Floyd did the same, frowning as he picked up a piece of paper and turned it over. “If we can figure out the purposes of the Blessings, then we can figure out the other part. You called it an integration of sorts?”
“That’s the theory. Like, our memories from there, got integrated to here. The piece of our soul that generates magic was split and made to Adversa.”
“But Golbrucht wants to destroy Adversa to destroy the cycle? What would happen when he does?” That question stumped Torry, finding no answers in the sheafs of papers before her.
Instead, it was Floyd who gave a sharp “Huh?” that attracted both of them to him. He held two pieces in front of them. “Look here, how these lines connect? It seems like your mom drew them all over the pages.”
“In between all that garbled text?” Not that it was completely garbled, regardless of how little it meant to Terrill, but he was able to see the phenomenon that Floyd was mentioning, each page containing a curved line or diagram, the thickness of each line matching up with another page.
“This is more than research…” Terrill agreed, grabbing papers of his own. The floor was clear before them, and putting together a puzzle, both of the boys placed papers down, matching them up. Torry was more concerned by the words on the page, which held some small nuggets of wisdom. None of it coalesced for her, though; not until the puzzle was put together, and its form revealed. “It’s a map.”
“Not a very accurate one, though. What are these squiggles all over? I mean, the pictures of the Lifebloods make sense, but those…” Floyd suddenly snapped his fingers with some kind of realization. “Are those the pathways we took?”
“Of course! It’s so obvious!” Torry searched on her person for something, unable to find it. This made her lunge to the desk in the room, throwing open drawers and tossing out photos until she found some ink stowed away. Foregoing the use of a writing utensil, Torry dipped her finger in the ink and began to trace over them. “The Lifebloods are obvious: they’re souls placed in containers that support the world. But six different points can’t possibly support an entire world, let alone a split dimension of them. That’d be insane. But what if, like trees, they have roots that spread throughout?”
“You’re saying those lines we’ve been feeling…the pathways we would use to travel about in Adversa…they’re a support system of some kind?” Terrill was absolutely baffled by the explanation, but Floyd was nodding, understanding more of it. He didn’t dare to interrupt his girlfriend at her wild discovery.
“Of course, they are. You’re Blessed, Terrill, but you had never been to the Luster Mines. How could the Lifeblood of Earth have given you that Blessing?” She slapped her hands on the map, tracing a line from the bottom-right diagram upwards. “I mean, I can’t say what would have triggered that, maybe your closeness with Atrum, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. These roots, or veins, or whatever you wish to call them, are corridors of souls that must snake through the entirety of the world, and when the time was to come, they’d merge body and soul.”
“But they’re breaking down.” Floyd ran for the window when he said that, looking outside and paying witness to the devastation that had been wreaked. Some students were back out, looking at the sun with trepidation, as if it would be the first thing to go. “They’re strained, and it’s causing those lines to crack. The support system set in place is failing. But is it the roots or the Lifebloods themselves?”
“Maybe it’s like Terrill said: a bit of both. And if it’s a bit of both, maybe the Fiends are a bit of both!” Terrill really didn’t want to dive into that rattlesnake of a theorizing session, but Torry would likely plow on regardless. Knowing this, Terrill returned his attention to the map, finding the diagrams that represented the Lifebloods, though it did little to identify any other location with the twisting, knotting lines. “The Lifebloods give power to the lines throughout the world, and the more energy they use, the less they can do, causing these roots to start breaking.”
“What happens then, if they break?” Terrill asked. His hairs were standing on end, his arms rippling with goosebumps and a new wave of panic. The chaos of the uncontrollable Lifebloods had diminished, but something else was coming. He could feel it in the earth, but could not explain it.
“My first guess would be a forcible merging of the two worlds.”
“That can’t be all bad, can it?” Floyd put forth. Torry mused on it, while Terrill’s eyes darted around the map, his mind pulled in so many different directions, he wasn’t sure which was the right pathway to pursue. “I mean, we’re integrated, or Blessed or whatever, and we’re fine.”
“Not everyone would be. Walter had problems,” Terrill said. His eyes were drawn up the map of lines, towards the two diagrams on the leftmost side of the map. “And besides, I thought we were establishing that only the Blessings of the Lifeblood can do that, and they’re failing.”
“Probably because of everything that happened in Adversa. It was supposed to be a mirror image, but everything with the Shadow broke it down, and they’re struggling to keep up.” Torry’s fingers started to drum on the paper, and footsteps were heard in the hall, likely some faculty member coming to see what the ruckus was about in the headmistress’s office. Terrill tapped his foot, but neither student got the message. “That still would leave Krysta, if she is a Lifeblood. Why would she take on a human vessel?”
“Nah, just a vessel, Torry.” The blonde looked at her boyfriend as he pointed to words on a page. “Not every word is useless. These notes mention a vessel taking on the form of the soul, right?”
“A compatible vessel…” Terrill folded his arms, his foot tapping with increased intensity. “The Fiends mentioned wanting Lumen to serve as a compatible vessel for when Adversa breaks down. Does that mean, without a proper vessel, their souls would cease to exist? Would…would Atrum?”
The thought caused his foot to stop. He had kept going, diving through that shadow to promise Atrum that he would save him, and even now, Atrum planned to keep fighting. For the first time, he wondered if it had all been a great lie, and there was no way to save him at all…not without giving Golbrucht what he wanted.
“I want to say it’s a bit more complicated.” Torry’s pens tapped upon all of the colored lines, circling the Lifebloods with a respective color. “Light and Dark are said to be primordial elements. Rather, Light was born first, and Dark birthed from that. From the two, the other four elements came into being. That’s magical theory. These lines prove it, look.”
It didn’t take much to discern what each color meant: black as Dark, a bright yellow for light. That was the easy part, but the more Terrill looked, he couldn’t figure out just what Torry was getting at. Floyd appeared to, his eyebrows shooting up, but all Terrill could see was the mess of lines. Not wishing to seem stupid, Terrill scrunched his eyes with focus, and the lines began to shift for him, his mind creating a multi-dimensional overlay of their present state.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“The lines of Light and Dark run through all the others. They’re a secondary defense.”
“What if Krysta put herself in a vessel, a different vessel, to protect her powers? That way, at least one Lifeblood could exist outside of those breaking down.”
“Yeah, but it also means that those lines of that Lifeblood have no power to them, which could explain why this is failing so fast. But how this connects to the Fiends…”
How they did connect remained unknown as the footsteps caught up, stopping outside the door. Both Terrill and Floyd looked up to find a robed faculty member, face flush with sweat and breathing heavy, looking in the door. Someone else was outside, checking on Specs as the boy started to stir, his glasses askew on his face. Terrill placed a hand on his sword, but Floyd was quick to intervene, shooting a wink.
“Hey, there, professors. Everything shaping up okay on the outside?”
“Floyd Margrove, did you attack this fellow student?!”
“I don’t know, did I?” Floyd’s innocent act wasn’t fooling anyone, and he bumped against Terrill on the way over. The meaning was clear, and Terrill turned to collect the papers while Torry remained in her thoughtful stupor. “I’m pretty sure it must’ve been a book. Things were going crazy out there, right? Lots of new things to study.”
“You’ve broken into the headmistress’s office! Mayor Rainert will not be pleased,” the same faculty member screeched, his robes becoming disheveled with every syllable. Floyd folded his arms and Terrill picked up his speed before the distraction could be wasted. His fingers hovered a quarter way through his collection of the papers, partially because of what he saw, and partially because Torry tamped his hand and the reports down, a new thought bubbling from her head out into speech.
“The lines…they’re disparate. Clashing with each other to create a balance…if only one side were to exist, the laws of nature would break down. But I still can’t figure it out.”
“Figure it out later. We need to go, Torry.” Terrill resumed picking up the papers once more, trying to memorize each of the diagrams until he reached the last side, with those that represented the Lifeblood of Light and the Lifeblood of Darkness. “Priscus…”
“The library?” Torry asked.
“It should be here. The northwest edge of the world…” Terrill pointed to the diagram and soul drawing of Krysta. It was a faint answer, but one that could help nonetheless. “That’s where we’ll get answers.”
“Answers. Did my mother find answers there? Is that how she knew these things?” Torry’s hands trembled, clawing at the few papers she was holding on to. “What madness did she find there?”
“Think about it later. Right now, we’ve got bigger things, like the Fiends.”
“Right, the Fiends. I’ll have to think out a-”
Something in the air was changing again. Deep inside the earth, the Lifeblood’s lines were reacting, but on a far deeper level, like a single consciousness stretching throughout. It was just as that moment in Wicked Forest, and for a second, the world went dark. The only difference was that he had reached down to grab Torry’s wrist, both of them existing in that space and visible to one another. They didn’t dare to let go.
Terrill let the papers fall to the floor, his hand definitively heading for the sword on his back, and his voice rising. “Golbrucht, are you there?”
No… The chilling voice was raspy, and Torry shook at its timbre. Terrill scowled, knowing its vestigial voice anywhere. Play with me.
“Go play with yourself!” Terrill let go of Torry, his sword drawing itself high. The darkness dropped away, and his companion saw the glint of his sword. She dove out of the way, carrying the papers in her arms and Terrill swung down, just in time. From outside the window came a hurtling black shape, a bat with wings that expanded large enough to crash through the stone. It was this creature that Terrill plunged his blade into, kicking it off.
“M-monsters!” the faculty screeched, running off without paying the slightest attention to Specs. The younger boy was backed against the wall, quivering, and Floyd stepped in front of him, drawing his daggers from his side, lighting them aflame.
“F-Floyd…what is going on here?” The higher pitched voice showed the fear, but Floyd refused to leave his defensive stance.
“I thought you killed the Shadow!” Torry cried out, and Terrill saw she had finished collecting her papers and sprung to a stand. “How are we still hearing its voice?”
“I’m pretty sure its presence remained. Golbrucht formed it in Adversa through the manifestation of a soul’s despair. Something like that, with the state we left Adversa in, wouldn’t be so easily dispelled. It would linger, be drawn to the one thing just like it.” Terrill didn’t need to tell them which Lifeblood that was. “Incoming!”
His words predicted what came next.
More creatures, these like a murder of crows, came shooting through the glass and open bricks, hurtling with such force they were breaking stone. Seeing no point in bringing up his shield, Terrill dragged his hand forward and his sword with it. From the walls emerged spikes that impaled some of the creatures, dissolving them into ash. Others reached Floyd and he swung around with a kick that protected Specs from the worst of the damage.
“Aqua Lock.” Torry’s command was the simplest, bubbles of impenetrable water encasing the crows and crushing them under pressure before the water fell like rain. “If these monsters are from Golbrucht, then they’re reaching here because of the Lifeblood. Because of that amplification.”
“Because of his Soul String.” Terrill noticed now that he had dropped the report Lumen had handed to him, and though it was soaked in places, their discussion sparked a need to grab it. He did, just as a new monster joined the fray, charging through the exterior wall in seconds, its massive horn aimed for all three of them. “Specs, get out of here!”
“M-me?” Even if it wasn’t his name, Specs took the advice and spun out of there, desperate to get away. That gave the trio more than enough space to work with the rampaging rhinoceros.
“Torry, lock its feet! Floyd, let’s cut it down!” Terrill slammed his sword down, the fangs of the earth eating away. Ice crystals coalesced on the rhino’s feet, slowing it down, enough for Terrill’s spell to take effect and cut into the beast’s underbelly. As it roared in pain, Floyd zipped past, his blades cutting along the creature’s side, leaving a burning slash that erupted into an explosion, sending ash around the room. Each of them coughed. “Let’s get moving.”
“Yeah, where are we going, and how do we get there exactly?” Floyd asked. There was no stopping to give either an answer, expecting both of them to follow him. Terrill took the short way out, climbing over the wreckage of the headmistress’s room to the smoking grass and the devastation outside. Those monsters were not the only ones, and the students were in a panic.
The sight of them was enough to make Terrill look at his soggy report, the ink of the words barely legible, but Terrill knew it could hold some vital information on Golbrucht and the new situation. With the people in danger, however, Terrill knew it would have to wait, and he ran straight for the nearest courtyard of students running from a dark-spewing wyvern that was coating the fountain and walls in corrosive material, melting away the stone and water.
Terrill’s first step inside the courtyard drew its attention, the will of its master zeroing in on his greatest threat. It opened its maw to screech, and then expanded its wings wide to dive for him. Terrill dodged to the side, slapping to the stone wall left and creating a pillar that crashed into its head. Floyd and Torry picked up the slack, an orb of flame and a globe of wind striking its wings to send it crashing into the stone benches that snapped in two. Terrill swung around on his own pillar, and with a stab downward, pierced the creature’s breast.
“Tell your master, we’re coming for him.”
The creature vanished into smoke.
All went silent.
“Wait…where are the monsters?” Floyd asked, his foot crackling over the burnt grass and hail that was left behind. Terrill remained suspect at that, too, his message having an unintended effect, but buying him the time needed to lead the other two to the main entrance of the school. Many students were gathered there, as well as faculty and soldiers, each just as confused as Floyd was. “Terrill, you never answered my question, you know?”
“Priscus. We’re finding Priscus. But before then, we’re taking the fight to the Fiends.”
“Well, that’s about damn time!”
“How do we get there?” Torry asked, attempting to put her mother’s papers in order but soon filing it as a futile effort. Terrill smirked at that, pointing up to the sunny sky that now darkened with unnatural shadow, eliciting gasps of fear, and some of wonder.
“I told you. We can fly.”
“Ahoy, Terrill!” The shadow of the skyship moved aside from the sun, revealing its majesty to all those gathered. Some fled in fear, but a great many more gawked as it descended, the ramp opening to reveal Lumen waving for them. Floyd gave off a peal of laughter, and Torry’s mouth dropped open.
“That’s awesome! A flying ship!”
“And our own ticket to taking on the Fiends,” Terrill confirmed. He crouched down, a grin splitting his face. “We’re heading towards a battle for the future of Dimidia and Adversa, both. You two coming along?”
“Like you even need to ask. You good, Torry? Or do you need your bow?”
“I have magic. Don’t ask stupid questions, Floyd.” The couple came close to Terrill, gathering around his figure while some put their eyes on the trio, away from this mechanical wonder that defied imagination. “Besides, you need a resident researcher, and I fit the bill.”
“Then hold on. I’m about to do something very foolhardy,” Terrill said, feeling the earth. It reacted, and began to rise underneath their feet, towards the waiting skyship.
“I never thought I’d see the day, Terrill. You’ve grown up so much.”
“Yeah, now we just need you to be responsible.”
“I can be responsible!”
Neither were in that moment, the pillar of earth rising up from the ground. Between the skyship and the display of magic, no one on the ground was sure where to turn to, and some even passed out from the mere sight. Terrill paid them no mind. It was imperative they got away from here as soon as possible, and he conveyed that to Walter the second the three landed on the ship and emerged in the cabin.
“You sure we want to head out there. Nature’s going crazy. We could be flying into a hailstorm, and this ship isn’t the sturdiest,” Walter voiced at that command. His words were held together just as the ship was: barely. The panel looked to have undergone some hasty revisions, but with the skyship working as intended, Terrill didn’t care.
“What other choice do we have, old man? Good to see you.”
“Can’t say the same, Floyd.” Said redhead didn’t care, throwing caution to the winds by wrapping an arm around Walter like an old friend. As the two started to bicker, Lumen approached, eyes flitting to the soggy book in Terrill’s hand.
“Did you get any information?” he asked, and it was Torry who answered.
“We think so, though it’s tentative at best. A trip to Priscus might solve the issue, but with the breakdown of the lines, that’s not at the top of the priority list.”
“The lines?” Charles asked, rather nonplussed. Between Floyd and Walter’s bickering, and the theorizing taking place, he went ignored. Lumen, himself, commanded the attention, pointing to the book.
“It doesn’t seem like you had a chance to look at it,” he said, receiving a shake of the head in turn. “Well, that’s okay…”
“What was inside it?” Terrill asked. The skyship jerked forward, Walter finally wresting control of his own body away from Floyd and flying north as a random direction. Outside the window, Terrill could see what looked like Devil’s Haven, still intact, and he had to wonder what else hadn’t been altered. Lumen spoke.
“The report theorized that monsters are formed with an unknown element that binds its, er…molecules? Something like that. But it also said that we can’t really know what that element is without finding the source that appears to bind it at a master level. That’s why they burst into ash upon being killed.”
Lumen may as well have spoken gibberish, the topic well out of Terrill’s wheelhouse, and he turned to Torry to see if she managed to make sense of it…or anyone, for that matter. Their resident researcher appeared lost on the matter, her lips twisted with concentration as she tried to make any applicable sense of what Lumen had shared, or why he thought it was important.
Before he could voice that, Charles managed to chime in, just as the ocean came into view. “Remember, we’re in Dimidia. The concepts of magic and souls do not exist to most people. They view it in a different way.”
“Differently. So, replace terms with something we know of but they don’t? Like molecules or whatever with souls?”
“That would make perfect sense!” Torry said, pounding her fist into her hand. “Golbrucht binds the souls together to create monsters. Tiny, little souls we could never know about! But then, if he could bind those, who’s to say he can’t bind larger ones.”
“We know he can. He’s bound mine.”
“But only because of the Lifeblood of Darkness,” Terrill reminded the man, who nodded graciously. It slotted the final piece in place. “Which means…the Fiends themselves must be bound to the Lifebloods, too, and its lines and the cycle of souls must fuel them!”
“So very close, Terrill Jacobs.”
It took only a split second for each member of the ship’s crew to stop what they were doing and draw their weapons, holding them on the figure that appeared within the swirling darkness. This time, he wasn’t his original soul, but in the form of his vessel, the strange black strings flickering around his body. “Golbrucht.”
“You said you were coming for me next, Terrill. I thought I’d get our game started early. Our final game. The one for the souls of humanity.
“Heroes against Fiends. Winner take all. Shall we begin?”