Chapter 37
A cauldron of clouds and lightning swirled over Shasta like an old smokestack. Dylan clutched Rocco against him, trudging toward the cherry only a hundred yards away. The final ascent. The Om, ready to bloom. His waterlogged body hurt from head to toe, but he hardly noticed the cold against his bare feet. Despite the numbness, the contact between his skin and the mountain recharged him. Fighting gravity and hurricane level gusts, he lurched higher, lunging upward toward the peak. With one last steep incline, he set Rocco down. The pup plodded alongside him with a noticeable limp.
The snow underfoot turned to solid ice, each step more treacherous than the last. One missed step and he could be following the avalanche.
The humming sensation of the chakra intensified, pulsing with his heartbeat. It tingled from the base of his spine through the crown of his skull, the relentless pull beckoning. The rise leveled off a bit below the summit. A surge of warmth flowed within him, coursing through his entire being.
“This is it,” he said, absorbing the mountain’s pristine perfection. “We made it.” A sheet of glacial ice blended into a rock wall, angling upward, a ramp to the top of the world.
Dylan breathed in, invigorated by the thin, damp air. “We did it.” Rocco yapped, taking cover between the young Scion’s legs.
They stood for a moment, enjoying the culmination of a quest he never dreamed he would survive to see.
Dylan gazed up to the summit, “You were here, Max. You knew this place, this feeling. Your journey was years ago, but now that I’m here, it seems like you were just here, too.” In the moment of revelation, Dylan shared a kinship with Max, beyond what anyone else could. A presence. “I can feel you. Everywhere.” For the first time since his grandfather died, Dylan thought of him without any sadness, the only drops rolling down his cheeks falling from the sky. “Thank you.” Lightning cracked and thunder rumbled in response. And Dylan smiled.
“Yes, thank you so much, Max, for this wonderful moment.” Bane’s voice sliced the serenity like a straight-blade razor. Dylan whipped around, his enemy alone only twenty feet away. “I assume, based on your slack-jawed expression, you’re wondering how I got here. That same face Max used to make,” Bane sneered.
“What the hell do you want from me, Bane?”
“Your head or your soul, dear boy,” Bane said, laughing. “Whichever comes first.”
“I guess I’ll just hand it over and be done with it, huh?” Dylan stalled, remembering he still needed to find Skell, the mountain lord, and get the key.
“I don’t think it is in your nature to take the easy way. Max, the weak-minded fool, always trying to help. He could never make anything easy on himself. Or me.”
“He didn’t make it difficult. You betrayed him. You poisoned him. You were his friend.”
“He betrayed me. She was mine, and he took her, just like he took everything. They left me with nothing but a void, an empty hole.” Bane glanced down at his chest. “Ironic.”
“Who did he take from you? Max was married, but she left him right after my father was born.”
“How little you know. In a way, you are proof that it lasted. I can smell your foul Lemurian blood from here.”
“I really wish I could help you,” Dylan channeled his power, ramping up slowly. “But I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Ra’Nelle!” Bane wailed. “Ra’Nelle was his wife! I swore I would never speak her name again.” Dylan didn’t even have time to process the thought when Bane sprang into the air, a spinning blur blending into the storm. His foot hit like a steel pipe, driving Dylan to the icy ground. He struggled to his feet, fists aglow. Bane, nowhere to be seen.
Dazed, Dylan stumbled in a circle, the maelstrom raging. “Skell!” He cupped his hand to his mouth, hoping to draw the attention of the mountain lord.
“No one can hear you, Scion. Except, my void.” Bane’s black scepter, a tornado of shadow, sliced the air, just missing Dylan. “So similar to when I killed Max.” He stabbed at Dylan, the tip aimed at his heart.
Dylan parried and deflected the blow before Bane disappeared into the darkness.
“Skell!” he called again, snapping his head around. A flash of shade, deflected. Another blow, another. Bane flashed in and out of the storm, striking Dylan from every angle until- sharp pain, rolling like an egg cracked over his head. The blow to the top of Dylan’s skull. His eyes flickered before crashing flat on his face. Bane drew a metallic-black blade from his robes and affixed it to his staff, creating an executioner’s axe. He flipped the weapon nonchalantly, gloating over Dylan’s helpless body. “I don’t have another forty years for my poison to kill you.” Bane raised the blade overhead. With one swing, he would have revenge and become the favorite of the Hate Bringer. “Enjoy your oblivion.” Desperate, Dylan rolled, the axe wedged deep into the ice. Dylan thrust his blue-white blade, plunging it through Bane’s chest. The evil one dropped his weapon and fell to a knee. Dylan climbed to his feet, driving the energy sword further into Bane’s chest.
“Not so tough now?” Dylan growled.
“G-Scion, there is one th-thing you should know before I d-die.” Bane’s jaw quivered.
“What’s that?”
“The p-pain I have right now,” Bane’s chattering teeth morphed to a sinister grin, “is like being struck by a child.” Bane snatched Dylan up by the throat and thrust him headfirst into an outcropping. “I am Necromanos’ chosen. And you are still weak.” Bane retrieved his axe. “I’ll be quick about it. But Vorgan will most likely take his time with your useless friend.”
“What?” Dylan snapped, his face bloodied and bruised.
“We have your fat friend. I tried to turn him against you. I offered him power and anything, really, but he chose you.” Bane spewed, too brash to notice the eagle overhead drop a pouch behind him. “He even lied for you, told me you were dead, trying to buy you some time, I suppose. A weakness.”
Dylan’s mind raced with questions from Ra’Nelle being married to Max, making her his grandmother, to why Norm was near the Terovians, and how an eagle was flying this high in a storm as bad as this. One answer within reach. When Bane had circled far enough, Dylan leapt on top of the pouch.
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“You can’t run.” Bane stalked Dylan, poking, taunting him. Confident he was in control, he returned to his selfish rants. “She was supposed to be mine. She wanted him. It never should have been. You shouldn’t be here!” Bane glared, standing directly over Dylan. “I’ll exterminate your entire family. Even Nan… perhaps a blood-gutter’s snack or a plaything for that twisted creature, Shmire.”
Dylan processed Bane’s words, surprised at how weak he sounded. This creature so full of power sounded so petty, angered by an old crush, and threatening an elderly woman in his grand plans of revenge. Dylan thought about his own rants. How he didn’t ask to be chosen to be Scion. How he just wanted to live a normal life. What a selfish jerk I must sound like. Bane continued his tirade, a diatribe of whiny complaints echoing from the top of the world.
Su’So. Ka’ana… they died so I could save everyone. Norm didn’t ask to lose his mom or to have to protect me, and Z’Keni didn’t want to lose his friend. Max lived in pain, and Alaris got captured for me. Chevro never asked to be trapped in limbo, and I’m sure Weird didn’t want to be… weird. None of them have to be here, but they are all trying to help me. They all made sacrifices. The world doesn’t owe me anything. I owe it everything. How selfish I have been. Sacrifice. The word rang through Dylan’s mind as he waited for his plan to come together.
“You know what, Bane?” Dylan rolled to his back, blood rolling down the side of his face faster than the rain could wash it away. “You’re a whiny loser.”
“What?” Bane stopped in his tracks.
“I said you’re a loser. A colossal freakin’ wuss!” Dylan stared fearlessly into his black eyes. “Here I am expecting to have a showdown with some all-powerful warlord, and I have to listen to you whine about your sorry-ass life.”
“Dylan, I wouldn’t-”
“I didn’t have a mother, or a father, and you killed Max! And I’m not standing here crying!” Dylan buzzed with adrenaline, a confidence from finally believing in himself, from knowing what he was doing, was right. Dylan’s hands erupted up to his shoulders as he stood. “And you’re going to go after my great grandmother? What kind of miserable loser says that? Besides… she would kick your ass.”
“Stop your weak-” The clouds and thunder rolled above him.
“The truth is what hurts you, isn’t it?” Dylan said, smugly. “And by the way, you were never good enough for Ra’Nelle. Not in this or any lifetime.”
“Dylan.” Bane strangled his scepter, imagining it were Dylan’s throat.
“She was Max’s girl. Because he was good… and kind. Like me.” Dylan’s eyes crackled, burning through the maelstrom. Bane lunged, the axe coming down like a guillotine. Dylan held up the chime. “And never mistake kindness for weakness!”
The light roared through the rift. Shards of pure light exploded from Dylan’s hand like a thousand roman candles, shredding Bane as the purple bus plowed him and skidded into the glacier wall. Pinned between the VW’s grill and the ice, Bane’s body crackled with black shards as if he were hollow. His features aged, skin shriveling, turning gray, and finally black like a charred corpse.
Chevro Buffer leaned out the window, his hair and beard blowing wildly. “That was for makin’ me miss Woodstock!” The engine puttered and stalled. The door swung open. A stunned Chevro fell to the ground for the first time in decades. Dylan rushed over to help, surprised to find how tall Chevro really was.
“You did it!” Dylan cheered.
“I waited a long time to do that, but you made it happen.” Chevro said, struggling to stand up. “My soul’s gonna be gone if I can’t get back into the rift, but it was worth it!” They noticed Bane’s legs extending from under the bus. “Reminds me of this movie about a tornado and witch or something.”
“One of my favorites, but you gotta get back in the bus, now!” Dylan pushed him toward the driver door.
Chevro slid into the van and tried to start the engine. Its lights flashed on, the starter clicked, then went silent. “It’s dead, kid, and so am I. I been out there alone for too long, anyway.”
“Well, I’m not gonna sit-” Dylan’s words were cut short by the familiar vacuum. A horde of void crawled from behind the bus. Dylan strained to catch a breath, blackness tightening like a noose. The bus rumbled and shook. A void, far larger than any they had seen, tore its way out of Bane’s depleted corpse.
“Come, feed.” The massive void abandoned his host, smaller shadow demons emerging from his new form. “Drink their souls. My ship, Diobal, is almost upon you, Scion. One way or another, Necromanos will have his victory, and I will watch you die.” The newly born super-void hissed like a thousand snakes, absorbing any life force it could. Rocco’s bark echoed from above. The horde of void turned to locate the source of the sound. Lightning crashed, illuminating the silhouette of the tiny coyote near the summit. The demons leapt toward him and his young life force. The lightning crashed again. A larger silhouette emerged, climbing over the mountain pinnacle.
The super-void that was Bane shrieked and disappeared in a swirl of blackness. A barrage of lightning struck each void precisely where they stood, disintegrating them instantly.
Rocco hobbled over, followed by the hulking figure, its footsteps shaking the entire mountain, the storm parting around the thirty-foot-tall shadow.
Dylan regained his breath. “I’ve come too far too-” He raised his blade as the creature stepped into the glow of the headlights. “Holy- you’re a giant!” The stone titan, his limbs grinding like rubbing bricks, towered over Dylan. Made entirely of rock, with a warrior’s physique, he wore a seven-pronged stone crown and carried a massive, gnarled club made from a single tree.
“I bid you Greetings, Scion, I am Skell.” His voice boomed like a volcanic eruption. “Giant, Troll…I have other names. I am an Elemental, and above all, Mountain Lord.”
“Skell?” Dylan asked, pointing. “Can you help me get my friend and his bus back into the rift?”
Skell studied the shrinking vortex. “It must be done now.”
Metal creaked as he pulled the bus out of the snow and ice. The immense being wedged himself behind the bus and the mountain, pushing it up an incline toward the dimensional portal. Dylan jumped behind the bus to lend as much strength as he could.
“Just steer toward the rift, Chevro.” Dylan said, his voice straining with the effort.
Skell and Dylan pushed the bus, rolling faster, generating momentum.
“Almost there, kid! A little more and I can-” The clutch popped, the engine cranked over, grinding like tool kit hitting the floor. The familiar engine coughed and puttered, moving upward. The rift grew smaller, barely large enough to fit when the VW passed into its radius and the cosmic turbos kicked in, metal crunching as the dents pulled themselves back to normal. “Good luck, Dylan. I enjoyed the company, but you got work to do. See ya ‘round kid!” From a ridge above, Rocco took a running leap into Chevro’s window.
“Rocco!” Dylan called as the pup landed in Chevro’s lap. Rocco popped up and gave Dylan a final yap as the engine revved before rocketing off into the rift. Dylan watched the bus shrink and the rift blink into the night sky.
“You have done well, Scion.” Skell said, seeing Dylan’s mixed emotions. “One of your tasks was to bring one of Shasta’s children to find a new life. Alone and without his mother, who sacrificed herself for you, the young one would not have survived on the mountain. You have done well to find him a surrogate parent and a safe place to live, albeit of a different sort.”
“I guess,” Dylan said, his knees trembling still from the effort. “At least they have each other.”
“As did you and Max. As it was meant to be.” Skell extended his gigantic four-fingered fist, a rainbow glow emanating from within.
“What’s this?” Dylan asked.
“The key.” He unrolled his fingers, a cross shaped stone with seven glowing chakra-colored crystals embedded along its length.
Dylan examined the key pulsing in his hand. “It’s humming.”
“It was made for you. It has followed you for your entire life and sings your song. The key will bind itself to you, such that you have a link to this world and ultimately the galaxy. We are kindred spirits with tasks set before us that preside over all other decisions in our life. Go now, Scion. Arise.”
This was the moment, the red glow of the cherry burned like a sun behind the glacier wall, pulsing until the ice cracked like a crystal jigsaw puzzle and revealed a passage. The crimson energy of Shasta’s life force billowed out, cast its glow through the entire glacier. Dylan stepped into the entryway, consumed by the glow. The glacier closed behind him. Skell sat on a large boulder and hummed his song, enjoying Mother Nature’s fury, as she celebrated the birth of the new Scion.