This is the fourth time I have explained, would you mind paying a little more attention?
“We are trying,” I replied out loud so Kâl could hear, watching left and right and seeing nothing that Samay had been describing for the past half an hour.
We entered what looked like an enormous underground maze. The walls and floor weren’t close to a sewer, but the details and the beauty that the place once had inevitably deteriorated with time. “I’ve wandered that city back and forth for twenty-five years and never have I stepped foot here.”
This was used by certain people only. People with access.
“Did you? Have access?” Kâl wondered, still searching for the white stoned arch Samay told us to find.
Oh, I stayed the farthest away from this planet.
“What’s wrong with it?” I questioned, glancing at Kâl with my brows frowned, reminiscing when he unraveled himself through the Door, and had been surprised by our location. I didn’t hold it much esteem either but my curiosity took over.
Should I stop at ‘everything’?
Kâl chuckled and rushed her hand over her mouth. I liked other places better. My duties were not there.
“Where were they?”
Where I was needed. He let the silence float for a few heartbeats. It was a more private way to navigate, contrary to the Orulis. And there were people, markets, shops, that couldn’t be found on the surface.
“Is it dangerous?” Kâl inquired.
Well, during the last years, the shadows were filled with opportunists. And rebels.
“Rebels?” We ogled each other.
Things weren’t perfect while I was awake, either.
For now, we had not heard any suspicious sounds that could have betrayed an unwanted presence. But our instincts had our hands close to our weapons and our ears and eyes were constantly on alert, as being ready to fight and protect ourselves were carved deep in our veins. Kâl sighed and glanced upward, to the round ceiling. “Shouldn’t these tunnels be more preserved since they are closed to the inhabitants? And the dryness?”
“Since we were not aware of their existence,” I answered, “I guess it’s been years that nobody has used them…”
I still cannot fathom the number of years I have stayed dormant.
“What happened?”
I have no idea. I wish I could remember.
Samay’s voice was troubled and genuinely upset. Kâl faintly smiled and kept advancing, watching around without seeing as much as I was with the Tiara. I hesitated giving it to her for a moment, even for a few seconds, as the strength of the power it held forced onto my shoulders since I had it on. But she seemed determined on using her human eyes to see through the thick veil of darkness. “It’s funny knowing you dislike our planet so much you have become an expression among Zelians.” Kâl taunted.
Humans have always been intriguing. How was I homaged?
We shared a glance. “Hum…”
“The state of our habitat never ceased to deteriorate,” I started explaining. “When both Kâl and I were born, people had already given up on knowledge, history, memories.”
I see.
“Plus,” Kâl added. “Only a handful of Kendarians use the expression.”
No homage, then. Understood.
We couldn’t contain our smiles. “How does one become the Lord of Time?” I said, while walking following the directions.
My recollection has flitted but this, I can answer. I appeared at the very early ages of Time itself. When Time wasn’t even a quantified concept. When there was nothing else but the void and the planets.
“Planets? Plural?” Kâl frowned and finally waited to fall on my pace.
Of course. Although… No, this must be because I still am restrained concerning my powers.
“How many planets are there?” I intervened. My hand grazed my deep scar over my throat as a tinge of electricity traveled through it, reminding me what I had just gone through. Kâl glanced in the corner of her eye.
Nine. I think.
“Really?” Kâl interrupted. “Could you name them?” she added, turning to my side as I shared her stare, her eyes glittering with interest for the universe’s history. I shrugged.
Most of them. Zelian, obviously. Nizuo and Horm, I spent many days traveling on each of them. Morodreon. Silence.
“That’s four,” I noted. Kâl slapped my arm.
It seems I have trouble remembering the rest of them.
“Fryor?” Kâl helped, her fingers playing with her well knitted braid of hair.
Yes, Fryor. Beautiful. Also, Vireaa, where humans were originally living. After we conceptualized and built the Orulis, people and species blended in a considerable amount.
As Samay was talking, we entered a round room that could have been a shop, as the large pathways and the stalls were still visible, all in dark materials, only for the countertops shining with white marble; Kendara’s decorations and general aspect were completely different, and I imagined this shop to be of another civilian, from another planet, that would have come all the way to Zelian and sell foreign furniture. The ambiance liberated a thrive divergent from the market at Halei’s fountain. The latter emanated a need to exchange, a need to sell, to make money, whatever it would take just for a couple of coins, a desperate cry for surviving. These tunnels, this place, that was passion. Everything from a time before us exuded the feeling of living and enjoying the pleasure of what life was offering.
The walls were dark, in a way light couldn’t really reflect, and I wondered if that choice remained to avoid the heat of the planet. “Was Zelian always this hot?” I questioned the Lord of Time.
As I said, I was practically never there. But it has always been industrial, with fewer gardens and green areas. So, I assume it was hotter than elsewhere, yes.
I frowned and reminisced. “But you talked about Mayra’s Garden? Close to Halei’s?” His laugh resonated in the back of my mind.
It was not really a garden. People went there to… tangle.
We locked eyes and I swore Kâl’s cheek colored under the dimmed and barely inexistent light around us. I never visited myself but I had wind of its popularity and… efficiency.
“The place must have closed after the Great Suppression. Maybe before.” She said, avoiding my stare.
The what?
“A terrible event that happened multiple decades ago. Women were slaughtered. Until almost no one would take the risk of conceiving naturally. I’m one of the few who slipped through the cracks, although the massacre had not lasted very long.”
Samay stayed silent for wide seconds before he responded in a shaky voice. This is absolutely despicable to hear. No wonder this planet is devoted to the worst.
“It worsened with the years,” Kâl explained.
We countered the room and crossed another tunnel to an entrance on the right that displayed fewer dark metals and more clean, pure and light stones. While we traversed that other room, I remembered something Samay said and had reacted to. “When we were in Maorat, we talked to the Voice, until you took over yourself.” Kâl watched me with her brows slightly frowned, as she was remembering the moments.
Yes?
A small laugh escaped my mouth. “Why do you think that happened? You were very angry at us once you appeared.”
How could I explain this with words… It felt like I was pushed under water, incapable of breathing, during all this time, arms and legs shackled. Until I was yanked at the surface with the light, the air, the feeling of it all rushing back at terrible speed. Only I was still restrained. So, you could say I was afraid.
Kâl and I halted slightly, wincing at the tone of Samay, full of emotions. She grimaced and made a sign for me not to ask further questions over that subject. But I couldn’t help my mind jumping over interrogations. Kâl forced me into walking first and stayed aside, she talked before I could open my mouth again.
“An entity appearing at the beginning of time… Are you capable of feelings?”
Well, yes. I think.
“Have you ever been in love?”
I twisted so fast, I almost knocked her out of the way. My hands opened and faced the sky, I shook my head, mouthed the words without talking; ‘what are you doing?’ She just shrugged.
Mmh. Love is many things. I had friends. Does that answer your question?
“Not really…” she insisted, a childish smile over her face, chuckling while I clenched my fingers and kept walking in front of her.
Oh?
“Can you be… intimate?” she asked. I sighed but my lips thinned into a smirk. I focused on the path toward me and finally recognized the arch, the white stone arch Samay had been describing when we decided we were strong enough to commence the journey through that labyrinth. It resembled two pillars that were attached to a crooked half circle, like an opening for a temple. But farther from it, only the tunnel made of dark tiles expanded endlessly, though the slight breeze of air caressing our cheeks proved there were apertures somewhere.
We heard the laugh and smile as he talked. Curious little thing. When I have recovered my carnal appearance, you will have your answer. We both laughed under our breaths.
“Do you need the Orb for that?” I demanded.
Among other things.
I warned Samay we had found his first stop under the galleries. He explained the rest of the way, supposedly following that very long corridor, which was the main path to every other section, and that we would be able to find mosaic stairs to our right in a few miles. I continued walking first since I had the Maor device still on my head.
Kâl stayed behind and nourished the conversation. “You said you had duties? Did it involve getting your hands dirty?”
I am far more sophisticated for handy work. No, we were using our powers.
I frowned. “Sophisticated…”
I am not fond of dust and dirt under my nails. I am fond of being immaculately perfect.
We could hear his smile while talking and Kâl glanced my way thinking the same. He was playful.
Kâl spoke again. “You were not alone?”
No, I had help. Elah was her name. A tinge of sadness engulfed his tone.
“So, you can play with time and Elah…”
Can heal anything.
She shivered. The way she had cried when I finally emerged from my fantasies, after spending three hours healing my wounds and everything wrong inside had perturbed me in a horrible way. Although I had wanted to ask, the expression on her face had worked as a silent order to remain quiet. And as before, now didn’t seem the time to talk about it.
“What does your power imply, really?” I interrupted, redirecting the subject to avoid any more uneasy feeling.
The person’s wants need to be awfully specific so the course of the natural things can’t be disturbed. But less important materials, I can alter. For example, Elah and I would make sure the trees grew faster and healthier than if we had waited years for them to expand. That way, civilizations would develop in the best way possible.
Kâl approached and grabbed the back of my destroyed jacket, as I looked behind and realized she wasn’t seeing anything in the dark. “Isn’t it… cheating?” she wondered.
We would only interfere when necessary. Horm needed our help due to a terrible tsunami that ravaged their cultures.
Kâl continued, “So nothing bad would ever happen then?”
If you’d ask Elah, she would have done all she could to avoid any terrible catastrophes.
“And you?”
Our powers are grand. Unstoppable. But life is not a game. There were rules we couldn’t bend. It would have disrupted too much. Elah is the sentimental kind. She suffers witnessing unsavable fates.
As I advanced and was about to ask other questions, we found the stairs and awed facing the beautiful mosaic in front of us. All the colors we had never seen and could imagine had been recomposed over the stairs, small little squares glued next to one another, forming a rainbow of shades, so many shades, up and up and up. Only when I felt the wind again over my face, did I understand we were about to exit the tunnels and come back to the surface. The breeze startled me. It was fresh, and different. Were we so far from Kendara?
At the end of the stairs, we were welcomed by a soft and gentle cold wind that had millions of scents but mostly earthy and old touches. The bright and clear sky of Zelian had not changed and the heat when standing under the sun was unbearable. Kâl sighed loudly as a proof of our exhaustion, knowing we had raced for our lives, almost faced death and walked again for dozens of miles. She rearranged her long braid into a ponytail and gawked at the beautiful scenery in front of us.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Although Zelian had lost most of its cities and wonders, what I suspected to be the Iris Chasm was a charm to the sight. We descended farther than I thought while reaching for this monument, because its layers and rows were stacked and kept going upwards so much, we had to break our necks to watch the top. All around were see-through tunnels, surrounding the whole place, with magnificent pillars made of glass and the same colors as the stairs before. They were all leading to, I assumed, a particular place within the inside of Zelian, maybe opening a path to the surface, joining famous places in each city.
Dust and sand had fallen from the hole at the very summit but the chasm had been preserved through the little contact it had with the exterior of the planet, the dryness and the hot temperature. Completely different from Steretta. Kâl seemed wowed. “Is this the Iris Chasm?” Was she talking to me or Samay, I didn’t know.
“Probably,” I answered. The shades had been displayed intelligently, every nuance melting into one another as the extreme joined, forming a perfect rainbow of all the colors existing. As an iris in each and every species provided with eyes. I could see Kâl’s light green, so in accordance with her darker, honey-like skin, I could see my own, in between the brown, the green and the gold. I could see my father's profound brown, nearly merging with the void of his pupils. I could see… I could see Nina’s. Their unique blue and gray, so powerful and striking, they would almost act like one of these panels of glass and reflect every shade around. For a split second, her stare emerged between my closed lids and the shiver that followed my spine made my whole body tremble. Fantasizing over an imaginary woman I saw a couple of times in my dream was promising nothing glorious for my future mental health. “This is…” Kâl whispered, her head turning round and round as to devour the wonderfulness of it all.
I imagine you have arrived. I have to admit, the Iris Chasm is a piece of art. In addition to the sides, there were also paths at the center, in order to reach for the opposite faster than it would have needed walking all around. You would have to continue descending, the Orulis must be at the very bottom.
Kâl and I did the same, and bent over one of the railings. The O shaped portal wasn’t too far down but it seemed damaged, and most of all, surrounded with carcasses. The bones were too old to even recognize who they belonged to, and at our height we couldn’t assure anything. They could be monster’s, human’s, or something else we had never encountered. One glance at each other sufficed for our minds to be set. In a swift motion, we unsheathed our daggers and knives, keeping them close.
The stairs led all the way to the bottom, they were numerous around the entire place and longed for the rest of the corridors. Dry earth and dust welcomed us surrounding the Orulis, something we were too familiar with now. Kâl ogled our every corner and I glanced at each spot of darkness the Tiara was lightening for me. “Anything?” Kâl asked and I shook my head negatively, although a part of me felt strange and alert.
“Stay focused.” I still added to her, afraid we were not alone in the Iris Chasm. “What is the plan now, Samay?”
Keep close to the gate and hold the Orb inside. Within a few minutes, I would be able to channel my powers into the sphere and bring you back to Maorat.
“So, I’d have to hold the Orb for minutes?” I repeated.
That is what I have said, yes.
“And if something happens?” Kâl laughed but was cut short as a loud and deep gurgle resonated along the glassy walls of the chasm. I swore.
Let’s hope it will not.
“That might be a little too late,” I insisted, but the longer we would wait, the harder it would be to come back. So, I advanced as silently as possible to the center, where the Orulis stood, and I handed the Orb inside. “Let’s talk in our heads, now.” Kâl nodded and bent her knees, her fighting stance in position, her stare harsh and concentrated as she surveyed the area.
My inner voice resurrected from the silence. How come there’s an Orulis here, in the undergrounds?
For most people, walking for several miles could be a challenge. This one was highly protected, and only the inhabitants with the right access could use it. That is what I remember, there might be another reason. Again, I wasn’t spending much time here. Is everything alright?
Yes. The Orb is in place.
Good. I can feel it. Stay still.
My back resting over the round fabric the Orulis was made of — between a friable gray stone and the brown bark of a tree — I kept my senses on edge and Kâl in my peripheral vision while holding the Orb into place. The minutes felt so long, and my arm was already hurting when we heard a second growl. Something so guttural, we knew we had never encountered that kind of monster before. A sound that made the ground tremble and our blood freeze. Even our controlled breaths seemed deafening and obvious in the large spherical vessel.
Only when we also heard the specific sound of huge paws scratching the ground, we exchanged a glance and Kâl’s round eyes were more valuable than any words. By the noise, the beast was enormous, probably reaching the first or the second floor while being at his full height. How it was hiding between the few cracks of the Chasm, that was a mystery. There were arches at our level, all around and in symmetrical places, but they were not higher than a usual door, and this monster was way bigger than that. A question rose into my head. Do you know about an animal or monster that can become invisible?
Samay's response was noticeably long to arrive and I concluded why before I even heard it. I recall only one type, why?
We might be facing it.
That’s surely impossible.
What do you mean? It took him another set of seconds before his fainted voice emerged back inside my mind.
If you are sure, you both have to leave immediately.
The heavy quietness dropped on both of our shoulders instantly and Kâl looked at me with her brows frowned, only having heard Samay answer and not my interrogation. My heart started pounding as I was gauging our options. If we leave, we are stuck in Kendara forever.
I might know other places where Orulis had been registered. I’ll search with the Maors here. This is not negotiable. If the Chasm is invested by the Arzallis…
Arzallis? Kâl and I were perfectly still now, and were too petrified to move one millimeter away from our positions.
They are ancient. They appeared at the same time as me and my comrades. Or maybe a bit after. They are death. If only you had Lesrel… Please, you have to leave, if the Arzallis sees you, your sentence is irrevocable…
One more shuffle of scrapes on the floor and we both shifted our heads to where it left a mark; a few meters away from us. I think we’re seen.
Samay cursed and I felt the despair in his words. Kâl and I had lived tough situations, had fought monsters and Jalyons, had lived in the shadows, among the thinnest of streets, constantly watching our backs in case we were chased, followed. We had our fair share of frights, of wonders if our lives would end this day, or that one, if we would witness the next sunrise. But never, we had experienced such horror.
A lump formed in my throat and the fear that crippled my members unleashed every ounce of assurance in my body. If the Lord of Time was so sure we were doomed…
But what other solution did we have? Try to run away only to get caught just a few steps further, ripped open by whatever that monstrosity was? Or dying while fighting? I sense your reflection, Nolis.
We have no choice. Tell us everything you know about them. We’ll need every bit of information if we want to destroy it.
That’s not even a possibility! I’m sorry to laugh at your bluntness but you have no idea what you two are up against.
I rolled my shoulders slowly and took a deep but silent breath before answering. Just start talking. I could imagine him rolling his eyes up at the sky and shaking his head, thinking how stubborn the humans could be. But I had fought all my life, and even if the Arzallis were a no match, I would at least disappear trying. One look at Kâl confirmed she and I were on the same page. We nodded and she listened careful as she understood the missing parts of the conversation.
Samay explained. They are very tall. They have fangs and claws and their bodies aren’t touchable. They come from the infinite void around us, the darkness in ourselves. Their eyes glow white and their horns, red. They walk on four legs and are insanely fast.
Do they have flaws? I asked, half expecting him to just laugh at my face.
They have a poor scent but they really do not require it. They feed on nothing but death. Arzallis are unstoppable once they target a victim.
A horrendous shiver longed my spine up to the top of my head. Anything else we should know?
The Arzallis fancy the fear and the pheromones one liberates through the chase. It will play with you. Exhaust you until you give up. Until you’ll be no more than a ball of pure despair and terror. Until you’ll accept your fate and willingly abandon yourselves to it. Only time could save you.
Well, I think that is your expertise. How much more do you need?
Samay’s voice echoed in my head but the beast roared and ripped apart the silence, like a claw slicing a cloth from one end to the other. The Arzallis appeared from nothingness, its talon creating a hole in front of us, where it crawled out and stood tall, reaching the third floor, its dreadful white eyes locked on mine. I couldn’t do anything but stare at it, so thoroughly that I felt drawn, advancing toward it without so much as moving a finger, and I realized there were two black holes at the center, swirling endlessly inside itself for eternity.
As Samay had depicted the monster, its body was a tangle of shadows, nights and voids, impossible to aim, to touch. Its general shape stayed visible but an arrow or a dagger would just go through without severing nothing. The head was close to a panther but with a longer muzzle, huge red horns framed the eyes and when it smiled, the fangs appeared on each side, as sharp as one of our own steels. Kâl had straightened her body, her mouth wide open, her arms along her waist, like she had already abandoned.
Whispering, I tried stealing Kâl’s attention back. “Take the Orb.”
“No,” she answered, her stare no longer startled but amazed. “I know the shadows. I’ll handle it.”
Samay choked. These are not the shadows you are familiar with, lady. It will annihilate you.
“Activate the portal.” Was all she said before she started running.
I ducked and made myself as small as I could, still holding the Orb in place, watching Kâl play cat and mouse with a monster that existed before our planets were even conceived. The Arzallis was fast, jumped, disappeared one moment and shredded another hole from the darkness the next. Kâl dodged, used every corner, toyed with the shadows, threw her daggers and grabbed them from the air, tried hurting the beast in any way she could think of. She was the one running away and the Arzallis purred and growled in each thrust forward, each miss of his huge paws and fangs, each frustration the little mouse was giving him, hiding in plain sight where she knew nobody was watching. Even an ancestral beast was submitted to the laws of the universe.
The Orb vibrated in my hand once, twice and glowed but I couldn’t lift off my gaze from Kâl, noticeably losing the distance she had put with the monster. And the next second, one claw reached its target. Kâl’s right flank reddened. “Kâl!” I screamed. The Arzallis switched his focus onto me and I swore between my teeth for not thinking about my actions fully. How much longer? I yelled in my head, pulling myself up as the giant started walking toward me.
Just… a little bit.
I could sense him channeling all the power he could, the faster he could, so we would leave the place. The Arzallis kept advancing and I steadied my mind while I withdrew one dagger from my side and readied my fighting stance, although altered by my other hand having to hold the Orb inside the Orulis. From the blade of my weapon, that slightly glowed blue, Samay had almost activated the portal. And just a little higher from my blade, was the terrible eyes of the beast, smiling. It bent its head to the side, admiring its prey. My strength, my persuasion, my lies, they were nothing against that kind of threat. Besides the stare I returned, my knees were wobbling dangerously and my sweaty palm was about to drop the dagger on the floor before the Arzallis would even have opened its mouth. Or would it eat me? Maybe the two black holes would be the last thing I would see until they would make me disappear into the abyss, absorbing my whole soul, my entire being.
But the beast howled into the sky, whimpered and receded as I noticed Kâl next to one of its members, a claw detached from a nice and clean cut she did with her knife. How she managed to slither the thick piece, I couldn’t know but she had again saved me from a terrible fate. And I only watched as she breathed steadily, her mind clear and determined. “Come at me,” she gestured at the Arzallis and continued running around. Samay swore.
The Iris Chasm shook. The ground trembled, the fury in the monster’s eyes enough to make any human fall on their knees and pray for the end to be short and painless. Small cuts in the air appeared and stretched the scenery. The arches bent, the floor moved, the stairs crooked. Kâl approached and stayed close to the Orulis while we watched, with horror, the Arzallis summoning others. Any closer now? I insisted over Samay and gazed uncontrollably at the unfolding of smaller Arzallis inside the Chasm.
Yes! Be ready. Samay said.
“We are,” Kâl responded. She was touching the round frame of the portal and closed her eyes quickly, as gathering her force, mental as much as physical. We had seconds before they would all jump on our throats and this time, with five others, running would not save us. Our only luck resided in their thirst for games, chases and fears. But we could sense their patience growing thinner and thinner and the way they were glancing at us made no doubt they wouldn’t play games anymore. They would end us.
When the Orb will hold itself inside, it will be your moment.
“Please make it fast,” I begged. Kâl reached for my hand and squeezed it, but I couldn’t get my eyes off our enemies. I only squeezed back and started taking off my hand slowly, feeling the Orb inhaling the last string of the power Samay was bursting into it. And three seconds later, the Arzallis jumped.
My body was pulled behind at the same time and we entered the portal, my eyes forced to close as the blue and cold fire menaced to burn my retina, and I fell endlessly into the void, my hand still clutching my dagger, my knuckles whitening from the grasp, breathing nervously through the relief of leaving the place safe and sound. But Kâl had to tend to her wounds immediately, for the dangerousness of the Arzallis’ cuts were unknown to us.
Once the ride ended, I crashed on the dark stoned floor of where the Door was, stayed on my knees for a few seconds, catching my breath from the sheer panic I felt, the dagger in one hand and the Orb in the other. But it wasn’t finished. And the fear crippled back inside my veins, lodging itself behind the corners of my mind, as the growl of an Arzallis echoed and bounced against the weird shaped black stones. I lifted my head up so fast, my eyes widened and my vision blurred for a quick moment. Kâl was clenching at her cut, on her back, and swore when she realized we had been followed.
Get the Orb close to the dais! Samay yelled but I couldn’t move anything. I was terrified from head to toe and I knew that there was nothing to do this time. Nothing to try.
The Maors entered with Min and Geia and instantly held their palms in front of them, creating a golden aura around themselves, a shield to protect us from the beast. But the latter was ravenous, and we had used every bit of patience it had. So, it moved, fast, winnowing in their backs and launched one of its paws, the tip of its slicing claw perforating the bust of one Maor and threw it at the far end of the room with the strength of the blow. Only when they landed, I recognized Hei-Tria.
One terrible shot of adrenaline brought me back to my feet and I ran, as fast as I could to the dais, where Samay asked for the Orb. My glances swapped between the Maor, terribly still on the left, and Kâl on the other side, lying on her back, crawling backwards toward the wall but mostly away from the Arzallis that purred and playfully walked her way. I had my hand up in the air, the Orb so close to the gray stoned table next to the Orulis, and I couldn’t tear my gaze and focus on something else than my partner, probably going to be left in shreds in about two seconds. And I had a choice.
She clenched her wound, the blood still dripping from the interstices between her fingers and I frowned. What was she waiting for?
Nolis! Samay screamed.
But I was incapable of doing anything else. I was paralyzed. I was seeing the end of her, right in front of my eyes, and I didn’t want it to happen. This beast… I had no powers against it.
Kâl bumped into the wall and used it to get back up. She held her palm facing the Arzallis and was murmuring something I was too far away to pick up. Samay’s voice resonated in my mind, so quietly, so distant from where I was. Like I had been dissociating again. As if my fears had taken control and I was nothing else than a little boy, watching himself die through the eyes of another, seeing death, seeing the tunnel, the light and the void, seeing the life swallowed inside the two black pearls of the Arzallis.
She looked at me. Her burgeon-like irises firmly steadying in mine, the same convinced conclusion I had seconds ago glaring behind them and I wondered if my dreadful thoughts had not reached her as well. She couldn’t give up. She was so much stronger than me, better than me, she had the darkness, she was the Shadow. She had to fight.
I yelled. Hard. So the Arzallis would change its focus even for one millisecond, just enough for Kâl to switch position, to evade. She grabbed the opportunity with one hand, the other still gripping her side and she dodged the monster, mingling with the shadows of the room, Samay’s blue light reverberating against convenient places for her. But the creature had made the darkness its home. And wherever she went, the Arzallis knew. Although a glint of amusement snapped in its features, his smile tearing all the way to its horns, his claws scraping the ground, savoring each shudder it would provoke on our bodies. Kâl jumped and ran, and when I lost track of her, I only had to watch the ancestral beast following her every move, like she was not hidden at all.
When it finally drifted, turned back around, at the same time, Kâl arrived, face to face, her dagger lifted into the air, I knew we had no other chances than Samay. So, I put myself back together, dropped the Orb into the cold stoned table, and watched the blue fire engulf the dais and the Orulis.
A wonderful and enormous pillar of flames erupted, and almost blinded myself, my elbow reaching for my face to protect it, having my lids closed not enough for the force of the light. I wanted to check for Kâl, see if she was alright, I wanted to run to Hei-Tria and check if there was anything to be done, but instead I just fell onto my knees and realized how useless I was.
My weak, magicless useless body was nothing against that kind of evil.
I was nothing.
My face still buried between my hands, I couldn’t bring myself to watch, to see, to realize the defeat, to witness the death of Hei-Tria, of Kâl and probably everyone in Maorat because of that ancestral following us into the portal.
The blue and blinding light lasted an eternity, or I thought with my hands covering my vision, but as the coward I was, I didn’t step one inch.
Between my fingers, I could vaguely see Samay’s shape, joining the fight with Kâl. Somehow, the beast managed to change positions, to disappear between the cracks of the void and without the Lord of Time’s full potential, there were no chances of fighting it. My breath was ragged, heavy and I was forced to blink, my brain having too many images to process at a time. Sometimes Samay was close to me, sometimes Kâl and him were at the far end of the room and I could still feel the chill of the Arzallis’ presence, like I was plunged into ice water and buried down inside.
My being was lost, my soul was somewhere else, my instincts were nowhere in sight and as the word useless kept turning around and around in my head, I understood how unpowerful I was. The fear, the tension, the unbearable feeling of having nothing, of failing everyone, the shame seeing myself so still and unhelpful, the seconds that passed and sealed our future, our lives, they all creeped underneath my skin, created a lump in my throat and brought the tears behind my eyes. The only redemption I hoped for would be a swift and clear death before I could spectate the one of the others.
The sounds of the struggles faded and I thought I was fainting. I was sent away somewhere else, where I would be protected. But with my eyes very closed, my disrupted breath, my heartbeat pounding inside my ear, I still heard the beast’s voice emerge, echo around the dark walls of the place, filling each and every single space of air between every person, as if it was directly talking inside my ear, as much as yelling at the top of its lungs from feet apart. “You shall need an ally in the darkness, seek for the shadows around, as they are, for you and I, our most cherished companions.”
And then, silence.