TR: 20

Chapter Twenty: Force Within

Three figures emerged out of the thick swathe of evergreens and jumped down the ledge onto the soft sand once more. Kade smiled as he looked around at the shore and the lapping waves and raised his hands up as if to hug the sky. “Man, am I glad to be out of there.”

Brian nodded in agreement but Scrubby–as the boys had taken to calling him, much to his dismay–merely dabbed some sweat from his brow with his cap and scowled at his surroundings, saying nothing. Kade exchanged glances between Brian and the gnome but Brian merely shrugged in response. The two of them watched Scrubby saunter off toward the tideline where he scrounged through some colorful stones and shells that had deposited there.

“I mean, you can’t expect the guy to like a life of servitude, but you think he’d at least be grateful.”

Kade raised an eyebrow at his friend. “Grateful for a life of servitude?”

“Grateful to be alive. Don’t forget, it’s us who cleared his name.”

“Sure, that’s one way to look at it. But we were also the one who gave it to him to begin with.”

As if able to hear the details of their conversation, Scrubby peered over his shoulder at them, casting them an extra-putrid glare.

Brian sighed. “Well, names or no names, we’ve gotta get out of this heat before we become one with the sand, if you catch my meaning.”

Kade peered up at the sun, shielding his eyes with his hand. “I wonder how much time has passed…”

Brian looked down at his chrono to find the device shattered and unresponsive. “Damn, must’ve damaged in the tussle back at the pier. Hmm…well, Tobay and I figured it couldn’t have been more than a couple of days.”

Brian looked out at the ocean. “If I were smarter, maybe I’d be able to tell you what day it was judging by the tide, but I’m pretty useless there, I’m afraid.”

Kade sighed. “It doesn’t matter at this point. Whatever damage has happened back home, it’s all the same. Mom, she…”

Kade paused, staring off at the sand. A slow tear rolled down his cheek. Brian placed a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Hey, look at me.”

Kade wiped his eyes and slowly met Brian’s gaze.

“We will find your mom. I promise. If she’s anything like her son, she’ll know how to get herself out of a jam. You had to have gotten your nine lives from somewhere, right?”

A wan smile formed on Kade’s face. “Thanks Brian.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We’ve still got a ways back to the gym, if I can even find it. I’ve never been out this far, but if we follow the shore, it should take us back. The number one rule of expeditioneering: walk straight long enough and you’re bound to find a sign.”

Kade frowned. “Expeditioneering? I’m pretty sure that isn’t even a word.”

Brian patted his friend on the back and began walking down the beach.

“It is now.”

***

Vylanth hall was crowded in the way jarred pickles were: packed with as many as could properly fit while arranged neatly enough as to leave the impression of room. The hooded figures all knelt in perfectly formed rows before a dais with a massive throne at centre, the insignia of their cult plain on the back of their black robes. All along the one wall and hanging at intervals above were bright red banners bearing the same emblem, as if one needed reminding of where they were, lest they forget amidst the sea of thousands of the very same symbol staring them in the face at every turn. The Interloper couldn’t tell what the throne was made of–black metal or polished wood–but whatever the case, its many facets and sharp corners glistened in the light of the many-candled chandeliers above. The throne and all of the schmaltz surrounding him reminded the Interloper how annoyed he had become with the lot, the pretention in Klath’en Diar running as high as a snufflegore inhaling the fumes of a Volgardd tar pit. There was an air of importance about them that was as thin as veneer, which he had clearly demonstrated was not justified. The four thralls kneeling beside him could all attest. The kinds of powers that these men and women were playing with–they were children with the keys to the car. How they had gotten those keys he did not know, but he imagined that daddy would be angry when he found out. The question was: where was daddy? From what little he had gleaned about them, they had been around for hundreds of generations. No organization survived that long on chance. There had to be something he was missing. There was no question in his mind that all of them would pay for their treachery–for their associations with Mokul, as would anyone else who claimed allegiance to the long-dead master–but, before that happened, he needed to know what was going on. Who were these people, really, and what was their association with a man three-thousand years removed?

A bell tolled and the scant murmuring in the hall quieted down until all that could be heard was the rain outside and the distant churning of the ocean. A wave of bodies lowered their faces to the floor until every man and woman was prostrate. The Interloper followed suit along with his thralls. Keeping them ‘alive’ took considerable mental energy but there was no backing out now, lest he risk a thousand angry zealots throwing themselves at him. And while a handful of them could be swiftly dealt with, the lot of them would be far more than even he could handle; to an army of rats, there is only more meat on the bone, as the saying went.

A procession of robed figures entered the room at the fore, about a dozen in total, all with robes more lavishly adorned than the average novice or adept; the jewelled sashes around their waists consisting of material worth more than an average man’s yearly salary. More opulence: more waste. The Interloper grit his teeth as he carefully watched with slightly-tilted head, as to not give away his position among the sea of grovelling servants. As he watched the figures line up along the dais, he scanned their energies to find surprisingly strong signatures. Collectively, they would certainly be a force to reckon with.

So he was getting closer, after all.

The figures turned sharply, standing rank-and-file as they faced the crowd. In unison, they planted the butt of their lances against the floor and the person in the middle stepped forward.

“His holiness, Archbishop Semanus Alturius the Seventh.”

The crowd began chanting, their faces still glued to the floor. It was a low, eerie drone that bore no linguistic effect, to the best that the Interloper could make out. They were literally humming at the floor. He watched as one of the figures on the stage seemed to hone in on him and, biting his lip, he turned his face to the floor, pretending to be a part of the whole charade. A sound came from outside of the room. It was a hollow clacking, like wood tapping against a hard surface. He slowly raised his head–the eyes no longer on him–to watch as a decrepit figure made its way into the hall with the aid of a gnarled wooden staff. The energy was masculine but barely so–whatever life the man once hung onto challenged any notion of species, let alone gender. This person was so old they barely constituted being human. From the vitals that he could pick up, the Interloper deduced the man to be nearly one hundred and fifty years old. How this was possible, he didn’t know, but he could see the Ydra flows working in and out of the man’s respiratory tract: he was using magick to survive. Literally. The Interloper took note of the energy signature; what surely once was something to be admired was now just…leftovers. Had this man had any dignity, he would have allowed himself to choke on his own vomit long ago. This only further proved the Interloper’s theory about the spineless cult. If this was their leader, then there was nothing else here for him to learn. But he could not risk exposing himself here. It would be a death sentence. No, he would listen to what this rotting piece of meat had to say and then he would strategize his exit plan. As well as all of theirs.

One hundred and fifty years was far too long for any mortal to live.

As the rickety old figure struggled to get into his throne, one of the attendants at the front made a move to help him. With surprising deftness, the old man held out his hand and a plume of air pushed the other back, sending him sprawling onto his back several blades away.

“If I wanted help I would ask for it!” the old snake spat.

The archbishop managed to right himself into the throne and by the time he was settled, facing his audience of sycophants, the attendant had repositioned himself back in his rank.

“All rise!” boomed the announcer, and took a step back into file.

In unison, as before, every head in the audience rose back to seated position. In his surveillance of the situation, the Interloper almost missed the cue but managed to get himself and his thralls synced in believably enough, joining the others.

The archbishop cleared his throat, or at least that was the intention until it turned into a coughing fit. The attendant who had once rushed to his aid showed no sign of doing so this time. Once the fit passed, the archbishop signalled a guard near the door with a jerky hand motion. The guard, staring forward and unaware of his master’s plea, received a hard nudge from his partner standing beside him. The guard jumped, nodding as he quickly retrieved a glass from a nearby stand and began filling it with lemon water from a pitcher. He ran over to the archbishop who was in the throes of another coughing spat. The guard handed the archbishop the glass but the archbishop growled at the man, smacking the glass out of his hand and spilling water into the man’s face.

“No, you fool! Bring me the p…” More coughing. “The pitch…” Phlegm and gurgling. “Bring me the damned pic…”

“The pitcher, sir?” The guard finished.

The archbishop nodded, unable to speak. Several initiates in the back rows exchanged worried glances but their superiors in front of them, sensing the potential for discord, cast them a perilous look which set them straight.

“The…entire pitcher, sir?”

“Yes, the entire bloody picture! Why would I want a half a picture you bloody buffoon?”

The guard swallowed and nodded his assent, running back to the water stand, his face still dripping. He retrieved the pitcher and turned back to the archbishop. Before he could get two steps, the archbishop rose up stiff in his chair and his eyes filled with the glowing heat of flame.

“No, you fool! I said, bring…me…the PICTURE!”

The archbishop raised his hands and two bolts of lightning arced out of his fingertips, sailing across the room and into the pitcher of water, which shattered immediately upon impact. The man, now doused from head to toe with water, dazzled before them in a swirling array of electric surges, and then in a matter of seconds, he was gone, leaving only shards of glass and the slowly sifting smoke of regret dissipating into the air. The old man jerked his head toward the hall and shouted.

“Jarra-Fayel, bring me the fa’eling package then. And tell that good-for-nothing Chordis that he’s fired; if he can’t even teach his guards bloody grammar, how can we expect them to defend our keep?”

The Interloper watched the archbishop with a newfound shrewdness. Daddy, you surprise me.

Moments later, a figure in a white robe, with long white hair as straight as a board, entered the room. He carried something in front of him that the Interloper couldn’t quite make out. He handed the item to the archbishop who placed it gently on his lap. It appeared to be a parcel wrapped in canvas cloth.

“Thank you, augur. It is good to see someone here still knows how to do their job.”

As the archbishop slowly unwrapped the item, the man in white bowed slightly then turned and walked away. The Interloper examined him as he left. Calling on the slightest flows, he magnified his vision to get a better look at that man. Except…he was no man at all. He was an elf! But what were the yan doing helping the cren? Surely, he hadn’t been gone so long that the two had reconciled their millenniums-old blood feud. No, it would take time on an evolutionary scale for something like that to occur. He began to feel like the puzzle pieces he had collected were  just a jumbled-up mess, as if he held pieces that formed multiple pictures. There was no question in his mind now: whatever was occurring under the roof of Klath’en Diar had many moving parts.

Suddenly, the man in white stopped and slowly turned his gaze towards the Interloper. Their eyes locked and the Interloper felt his heart racing. A thought occurred to him just then: he couldn’t feel the man’s energy signature. It was as if…the man were blank. An empty page, or perhaps an empty book. But there was no denying he had great power. Like a shark waiting just below the surface, he cast a shadow upwards which was barely detectable, but there just the same. And it was a massive shadow, indeed. The Interloper felt his fist tightening, slowly drawing on that familiar well of nearly unlimited power, should he have to use it on this man. Had he been discovered, or was it coincidence that this elf happened to look out upon the vast crowd and single him out? Or was he looking at someone, something else? No, there could be no mistake: the man was dressing him down; the Interloper could feel his eyes as they pried at him. He would know; after all, he had done it himself many times.

And then the man averted his gaze. He seemed to look off into nowhere, as if making a hard decision. He stayed that way for an amount of time that bordered on awkward but not long enough to be suspicious, and then he left the room without issue. The Interloper swallowed, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.

“Ugh, what are you doing?” a voice came from his right.

The Interloper looked over to find one of this thralls slumped over, leaning its face against the back of a woman in front of it. Drool and snot were caked onto its face and its eyes were glazed-over and glassy like a dead fish. In his little tryst with the yan, the Interloper had accidentally relinquished control over one of his thralls–the moa cren. Of course it had to be the largest, most attention-grabbing one of them all. The Interloper quickly reigned in the thrall and jerked it back. It wiped its face and apologized to the woman.

“Sorry.” It said, in a hushed tone, as to not draw attention. “I dozed off for a moment there. It’s all so horribly exciting, but I’m afraid I was up all night…studying. Anatomy, mainly. Didn’t get much sleep.”

The woman scoffed and turned away. The Interloper sighed in relief.

“My friends.” The archbishop began. “As you are all well aware, the sixth prophecy has come to pass, as the augurs have predicted. Insuprulatus has begun, and now is the time of preparation. Soon, the final prophecy will also come to pass and we will be ready to usher our master back into this world.”

The Interloper leered at the old man. Who was he talking about? He watched as the archbishop reached into the bundle of cloth across his legs and pulled out a square piece of paper. He turned it over and showed it to his audience. The Interloper didn’t need to augment his sight to see what was depicted: it was a pen-and-ink drawing of a fragment of a weapon, a sword or a dagger.

“If the visions are to be believed, the missing fragment will soon be in our grasp. And with this…” The archbishop reached down with his free hand and pulled out a long, shattered fragment of a blade. “Our master’s prison will be whole once more, only to be broken soon thereafter.”

A sword then. The Interloper froze. He recognized that sword.

No. It couldn’t be.

Kadomus.

Mokul’s very blade. The same blade that had destroyed the wizard three thousand years prior.

Images flashed in the interloper’s vision. The shadow of a man slashing through bodies with incredible, impossible speeds. Dismembered limbs lying about as if they were normal features of the landscape. And so much blood. So, so much blood. The ground would never be dry again. He had known all those people. He had…loved many of them. All of them consumed by that wretched, wretched blade. How many times had he been forced to watch that scene? Over, and over, and over. Punishment for his failure. The Interloper gasped as he flashed back to the present. Luckily, no one noticed. He checked on his thralls. The momentary lapse didn’t seem to affect them.

It didn’t make any sense; Mokul was dead. Why would they want his sword? What would a cult want with such a relic? Certainly not curation in a museum.

The archbishop pulled his hood back, revealing a balding, liver-spotted head that only a toad could find attractive. On shaky legs he stood, holding the broken blade before him.

“Little did the forge-masters of yore know, no one bite can contain the greatness that is our master. For you see, the blade’s edge that divides life and death only applies to those who are bound by the laws of mortals.”

The archbishop carefully stroked the edge of the blade between his thumb and forefinger.

“So great is our master, in fact, that he subsists within this very blade that I now hold. Think heavily on those words, for they are at the very heart of our creed: yesh menithel dos traben chinwe. He subsists such that we may persist. Lifetimes of work and achievements from our predecessors, culminating in one moment. And yet, the paradox of it all is that our master is. Right. Here. In my hands. So close, yet so, so far away. And now, finally…finally, the Oblitari will fulfill their birthright.”

The Oblitari. So that is their name.

“Soon, my friends, we will be reveling and rejoicing under a new rule, and oh how glorious it will be! What treasure trove of arcane knowledge and incredible secrets lost to the ages lie within this blade? Soon, we will know that and so much more. Our ancestors are looking down on us this day, and all days forward, knowingly, vehemently proud. And together, we will all laugh at that fool spirit, the tainted name, the destroyer…”

“Mazlat.”

There was a wave of hushed hissing and venomous words exchanged among many in the audience at the mention of the name.

Semanus continued: “For in his final desperation, he overlooked the greatest irony of all: a dragon’s tooth doth not endeth a life but verily contain it, until its fruit to bear may be sown. Why then, I ask you my fellow initiates, would a blade made of that very same substance be any different?”

The archbishop’s words resonated in the Interloper’s mind. A dragon’s tooth. The blade–Kadomus–was forged of a dragon’s tooth. How he knew that, he did not know–like many things residing in the mysterious vault of his mind. And then the images began again. The Interloper keeled over, gasping as he clutched his head. At the same moment, the crowd stood to their feet, applauding and cheering as the archbishop held up his two artifacts, shaking them above his head triumphantly.

First there were ships.

Thousands upon thousands of ships. Maybe millions, he couldn’t tell. Oceans filled with ships as far as the eye could see. Soldiers and mages or both–paladins–storming the shores and plundering villages indiscriminately.

Then there were cries. Cries of agony, cries of pain. Cries of loss.

And then of course the blood. But somewhere, somehow, in every scene, there was always a source of light. Like a ray of hope shining through the sheen of madness all around.

Next, there was a face. Her face. He remembered her now. Had she survived? Not quite, but also not… entirely gone. More scenes of battle and gore. Most are won, but some are lost. There are…powerful figures on both sides. He doesn’t know what it all means, but he can feel them; feel how much raw power is there. They survive, and then…she is born.

A beautiful blossom. A guiding light in the darkness that is–was his life. And then…no. No!

No no no no no no no no no no no!!

Not them. Anyone but them! Take me, take me! But they don’t take him. Not in physical form, anyway. They wish to torture his spirit. One may still survive that way, but only half-so. He can’t bear to watch, but he is forced. They take her, first. But not slowly. And they do horrible things before that. Unspeakable things. He is broken. There is nothing left. His voice is raw, expunged, his soul excoriated. But there is more, and oh do they remind him of that. He watches as the flower drops, falling gracefully, even in its final moments, down into a pond which is not a pond, a splash of rose petals and a distant cry. It calls to him, even after it is gone; calls so desperately for help. But there is nothing he can do but fail it.

He failed them all.

And then all is still. Stillness, disturbed only by that sense of throbbing pain dulled by the analgesic effects of death. And in that moment, he knows what it means to be a ghost.

In that moment, he knows why he has come back.

He knows everything.

The Interloper stood up, garnering little but a few fleeting sideways glances from those around him who were still too busy exulting to notice him. He grit his teeth, his heart aflame as the tremor of his memories shook him, his mind an age-old scar now reopened, bleeding out.

Mokul cannot be brought back. It cannot happen. It CANNOT! I will kill every one of these feckless fools if that is what it takes. 

The Interloper honed in on the archbishop Semanus Alturius the Seventh and balled his fists, summoning the initial threads of the flows that would be the old man’s undoing. As he summoned the spell, the Interloper noted how alike spellcasting was to painting; all of the base flows had distinct colours, in his mind. Combining them into higher-order spells was like mixing the colours, and the final product was the artwork. He would paint all of them in red, mainly across the walls and floors, but the archbishop–he would be the magnum opus.

I am sorry Elenya. Forgive me.

As the flows funneled into his being, the archbishop was the first to notice. The Interloper watched in blazing joy as the old bat’s eyes squinted as he attempted to make out the scene accumulating at the back of the hall. And then–oh how lovely!–as those eyes widened into jaundiced pancakes as the realization of terror set in. The archbishop opened his mouth to scream and…

“M’lord! M’lord!” A man screamed, running into the hall from one of the many side doors, interrupting the sermon.

The guards stood at bay, apparently having allowed the man in. Judging from his attire, he appeared to be a naval officer, perhaps a boatswain. The archbishop cranked his head to the side, his mouth still half-agape in masklike facies.

“It is here! Just as the prophecy wills it–the talisman has arrived. Look now, m’lord! Down at the dock-houses. You will see!”

Every body in the room ran over to the far wall, yelling and pushing to be the first to have a look out the set of manifold floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the length of the one wall. Distracted by the sudden shift of attention, the archbishop averted his gaze to the rushing crowd and, before he could even ask for help, two attendants ushered him safely along the dais, making sure that no one bumped into the frail old clergyman. The Interloper released his hold on the flows and, as curious as the rest, melded into the crowd and made his way towards the windows. The archbishop cast a furious glance over his shoulder to the place where the interloper had been standing but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Move aside! Move aside for his holiness!” The attendants called.

The archbishop was not so polite and used the flows to clear a path through the sea of devotees, abruptly shuffling people out of the way and causing several chains of human dominoes. When Semanus arrived at a window, he leaned forward until his long, deformed nose was nearly pressed against the pane. He leered down at the shadows and silhouettes looming far below, jagged cliff peaks and vague shapes of man-made structures the only things discernible. Several blades away, the interloper managed to work his way towards the front of the line and peered out to the scene below. Like the archbishop and all the rest, he could not make out much, save for a vibrant green glow far below that seemed to emanate out of some semi-porous structure. And then a blast of lightning struck, illuminating the sky, the cliffs, the ocean and the village below, which sat at the base of the mountain upon which Diar’s perch sat. And then he saw it…

A giant fish.

A giant dead fish, about as massive as Scorssian Zhevyelev war frigate, slumped and mostly decayed atop of what once was surely a prominent boathouse. The glow came from within the creature, the ominous emerald rays emanating out between the slats of its exposed ribs and battered torso.

“It arrived in the night, all of a sudden m’lord.” the messenger explained to the archbishop.

“Came from ‘bove, out of the very sky i’self. Was already rotten like that, reckon. But within…within, m’lord–tha’s where the true gift lies. It carries the talisman inside. My men think it may be some kind of…curse, m’lord. As if the talisman i’self caused the rottin’ of the very beast’.”

“Don’t be a fool, man. No one object could cause such effects.” The archbishop rebuked.

The man withdrew his hat and held it against his chest, earnestly. He nodded. “I would agree with ye, m’lord. Under normal circumstances. But these be strange times. And me mates–Gerreld and Fayn–they put it to the test. You see, m’lord…they’re…gone.”

The archbishop rounded on the man.

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

“Dead, m’lord. The talisman, it…once they touched it, it was nary minutes before they began to…waste away. It was like watching time play forward but on an accelerated scale. They be naught but dust.”

The man shook from the recollection of seeing his crew perish so grimly. The archbishop made to speak but another coughing fit overtook him. The interloper leered out the window at the hulking silhouette of the fish, at the slowly ebbing glow which he now knew to be the other half of Kadomus. Untouchable.

Untouchable.

The interloper suddenly had an idea. But first, he would need to visit an old friend. Silently, nonchalantly, he slipped through the crowd and made his way out of the hall while everyone’s attention was averted.

“This is nonsense!” The archbishop shouted.

“We will not be delayed further by…by, mortal coils! Guards!”

“Reporting for duty, m’lord!”

“Summon as many men as you can find and order them to the piers, immediately!”

“Yes, m’lord. Consider it done, m’lord.” The guard left promptly, along with the others stationed in the room.

The archbishop turned to his attendants and stroked his wrinkly chin.

“This presents a unique problem, my friends.” he said under his voice, as to not draw attention from the crowd.

“If this item is indeed what we are told it is, and it cannot be apprehended, we will need countermeasures. We may need to consult with the Trilane Council to see…”

A woman’s scream cut the archbishop off. The old man and his attendants made their way towards the source of the sound and the crowd parted to let them in. In the center of the circle lie four lifeless bodies, rapidly decaying and writhing in the throes of accelerated rigor mortis. An initiate was on her knees an arm’s length away, trembling.

“What happened here?” the archbishop demanded.

“They…they just dropped dead, m’lord.” the woman sputtered.

The archbishop frowned as he looked down on the bizarre scene.

“Did anyone see what happened? Was there any sign of distress prior to…to this?” He pointed at the bodies which had ceased moving but had begun to slowly bloat.

He searched the crowd but an unanimous shaking of heads seemed to confirm that it was indeed a mystery. The archbishop studied them a moment longer then stomped his foot. He snatched a lance from one of his attendants and limped over to the corpse of Basel.

“Bah! All a charade, I say. Ate something off while supping, is the most probable explanation. You, boy! Get to your feet. This is no time for lollygagging!”

The archbishop prodded the corpse’s arm with the point of the lance.

The attendant whose lance had been procured raised an entreating hand at the archbishop. “Your holiness, I would strongly advise against…”

Semanus planted the lance in the corpse’s midsection and a sickly popping sound resounded, followed by an explosion of innards and offal which doused the archbishop and everyone within a three-blade radius from head-to-toe. The archbishop stood stunned, covered in guts which reeked far more than they should have for a freshly-laid corpse. The attendants, realizing their place, made a move to help the archbishop but stopped themselves, remembering the fate of their colleague who had tried to do the same.

“M’lord?” One of them questioned.

The archbishop blew a piece of intestine off of his lip.

“Promise me, Wynn, when I finally leave this wretched world, I will be cremated.” 

Wynn wiped off a smear of blood and bile from his face. “Yes, m’lord.”

***

“Shhhh!” Scrubby hissed as he dove behind the overturned waterlogged remains of a massive root structure wedged into the sand, missing most of the tree which it once held up.

The boys hunkered over and hurried to the gnome, crouching down beside him.

“What is it?” Brian asked.

Scrubby motioned with his head. “Over there, down the beach.”

Brian and Kade poked their heads out and panned the beach with their eyes. The tide slowly ebbed in and the seagulls swooped above but nothing unusual seemed to be taking place.

“What? I don’t see anything.” Brian said.

The gnome shook his head. “How can you not see it? It’s by the water, down the beach!”

Brian strained his eyes as he searched the slowly-curving shoreline, but couldn’t make out anything distinct.

“Oh yeah! I see something!” Kade yelled.

“Shhh!” The gnome admonished.

“What? Where?” Brian asked, irritated that he was the last to see it.

Scrubby groaned impatiently. “Just beyond the stream that runs off from the mountain into the ocean there. Do you see it?”

Brian squinted. Brian could make out a small slice of water very far down the beach, which could be a tributary, but that was a long way to see anything. He scanned the area and, finally, motion drew his attention to a white object moving about near the boundary where the forest met the beach. It was barely visible as the glaring sun and white-washed sand provided ample camouflage for the creature.

“What is it?” Kade asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s a horse. A stallion, looks like.”

Kade looked over at the gnome and furrowed his brow. “What? How could you possibly know…”

His eyes widened as he realized the answer to his own question before he could finish.

“Ooooh…. Wait. You could see that from all the way back here?”

Brian elbowed Kade in the ribs.

“Hey!” The younger exclaimed, rubbing his side.

Scrubby rolled his eyes and made his way carefully around the root, making sure to keep low.

“Are you two coming or are you going to stay here making crude jokes all day?”

“What are you doing?” Brian asked.

Scrubby stopped and looked over his head. “What do you think I’m doing? There is only one way back up to the human dwelling–the place you call Falkner’s–and that thing is smack in the middle of it. There’s no way I’m going anywhere near it so we’ll have to sneak as close as we can and cut back into the woods until we can join up with the path again.”

Brian raised an eyebrow at the gnome and crossed his arms as he looked out at the distant white speck.

“Wait…You knew the way back all along and you didn’t say anything?”

Scrubby shrugged and gave Brian an insincere grin. “You never asked.”

Brian grunted in frustration. “You’d think the last hour-long conversation we were having would have clued you in. I…you know what, whatever. It’s not worth it at this point. Let’s just take the shortest way back and be outta this place. I’ve had enough sun. Anymore and Mik is going to think I took a vacation without scheduling one, and then I’m in for real heat, if you know what I’m saying.”

It was Scrubby’s turn to look indignant. “We are not taking that path back up. Not until it’s safe to do so, and that’s why I suggested we cut through and connect further in.”

“What’s the big deal? It’s just a horse. There’s plenty of wild horses around these parts. He’s probably just come down to get a drink out of the brook. We probably won’t even get thirty blades before the thing spooks. They’re super skittish, that lot. I would know. I grew up here.”

Scrubby crossed his arms and was all glares. “Well, if you actually grew up in the woods, you’d know that many things are not what they seem. And that,” Scrubby thrust a finger in the direction of the horse, “could be anything. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve already dodged being dinner for one monster today and that’s plenty enough for me.”

“Monster?” Kade looked up at Brian with a worried look. “Maybe he’s got a point. I mean, Chester, Axe, and that fish thing…our track record is kind of trending negative at the moment…”

Brian sighed. “Well gnomey, it looks like you have the majority. Superstition wins. Let’s do it your way then.”

Scrubby stomped his foot in the sand. “My name is not… Oh, thyzhmvln, why do I even bother with this lot?” And the gnome stormed off.

Kade watched the disgruntled gnome plod off down the beach, a personal miniaturized storm cloud floating just above him threatening to be more than metaphor.

“I don’t get it. Why is he so…so…”

“Temperamental?” Brian added.

“Probably has something to do with the degnomeination, but I suspect there’s also a history there.”

“What do you mean?” Kade asked.

“Come on, you don’t just become like that over night. Slave or no slave, the guy’s an outright miser.”

Kade thought on it.

“You know, I think you’re right. We may have just sided with the grumpiest gnome in all of Zale.”

***

A stick snapped underfoot and Kade cringed as the gnome jerked his gaze back at him.

“Sorry!”

“Will you two keep it down?” Scrubby hissed back at them.

“Drossk! You’re like a pack of rutting wildebears blundering around in a house of mirrors. How do you expect to sneak by that thing if you announce yourself with every step?”

Brian leaned in, whispering to his friend. “I didn’t know that gnomes had circuses. Suddenly, his get-up makes so much sense.”

The two shared a private laughter and the gnome eyed them furiously, muttering to himself as they made their way through the roughage.

“Honestly, I don’t even know why I bother. It’s not like I’m technically a gnome anymore. That’s what degnomeination is, after all. I mean, technically, I don’t have to follow rules if they’re meant to apply to someone that I used to be but am not anymore. Right? Yes, yes, that’s got to be right! The logic is there. I’m technically not a gnome anymore…well, I wouldn’t go that far; of course I’m still a gnome. In body at least. But in spirit…well that’s another matter. And if the spirit of the law says…”

“What is he going on about?” Kade whispered to Brian.

Brian shook his head. “I have no idea. But I do have another one that is much more fun. What do you say we take a little shortcut?”

Kade frowned. “I thought that’s what we were doing?”

“His shortcut, maybe. But do you really trust his judgement right now? We aren’t exactly in his good books. Little turd could be leading us over the edge of a cliff for all we know.”

Kade shot Brian a wry look. “I thought you said you knew these parts of the woods.”

“No, I said I know these woods. It’s a figure of speech. Like how you say ‘I know myself.’ But we don’t really know everything about ourselves, do we? It’s kind of like that. Right? Come on, let’s go while scuttlebutt is distracted.”

“I don’t know. What about the monsters?”

Brian laughed. “Third time’s the charm, right?”

“Wait. Doesn’t that mean that we get eaten the third time? ‘Cause we survived the first two…”

“I really think you’re overthinking this. Besides, do you really want to be stuck behind him for another hour while he rambles on about mushrooms and dirt and all things entirely uninteresting?”

Kade rubbed his chin. “You raise a good point. Maybe death by monster isn’t so bad…”

“Exactly! Let’s go.”

“Uh…sure.”

“…and whether or not they could prove the matter would be a whole other case. Layer all that upon the fact that there is absolutely no record of my transgressions and you have a case that doesn’t hold up in any court. Haha! You know what that means? It means that this whole degnomeination thing is a big pile of nothing. And that means I’m not beholden to anyone. And that means that I owe you…”

Scrubby turned back to the boys to find that they had disappeared from sight.

“…nothing.”

His eyes widened neurotically as he took in the empty forest around him. There was no sight or sound of the two of them, only the steady ebbing of the nearby ocean and the intermittent twitting of random forest birds. Scrubby considered the implications of being left alone. A smile slowly crept onto his face.

“I owe nothing, to no one. Especially, not those who aren’t there to argue otherwise. Oh Drossk, preserve you! You have handed me this good fortune oh so plainly on this day! May the sun always shine in your favour and your days be bright. And now…”

Scrubby placed his hands akimbo and smiled brazenly around him. “…Where do I go from here? The world is my oyster. Time to make lemonade from lemons. Let’s swing for the fence. Shoot for the moons! Go where the grass is greener.”

As the last platitude died from his lips, he felt his smile slowly sinking away to the same, pervasive and all too-familiar pout that stole the attention of his facial muscles the majority of his life. He stared off into empty, solitary woods and felt his eye twitch. Anger settled upon him like a heavy blanket and suddenly the whole forest–the whole world was his enemy once more.

“Those…two little shits! They left me! Me–their charge! How dare they! I’m no…no…no banana peel that one just drops off in the woods to let decay and become insect food and mushroom fodder. Who do they think they are? Drossk, they will get a piece of my mind, oh they will!”

Scrubby charged after the two of them, following all of the sloppy tells that they had left behind. Without even realizing where he was heading, he plowed out through a wall of dense salal and ferns, emerging out into the open. Kade was kneeling against the trunk of a massive windswept spruce as he watched out onto the beach from behind its cover. Hearing the sounds from behind, Kade swiveled his head to see an enraged gnome huffing and puffing, shoulders heaving up and down.

“Now listen here, both of you! Who do you think you are leaving me like…wait. There’s one of you. Where are both of you…er, where is the other one? The louder, oafier one?”

“Keep it down, will you? You’re gonna spook it!” Kade admonished in a hushed tone.

“Spook it? Spook what…”

Scrubby leaned over, peering around the tree to find the stream not ten blades away, a large white horse now clear in view, lapping at the gently flowing water as it cut its way through the sand, rejoining the vast ocean expanse off to their immediate right.

“…what, what, what are you doing?!” Scrubby choked, struggling to keep his voice to a minimum. “I thought I told you we were going to go around that thing, not to it! Does discretion mean nothing to you humans?”

Kade sighed. “We were bored. Wanted to try something new. Thought it couldn’t hurt to take a look.”

“Take a…take a look? Is that what you call this? Boy, your nose is practically up that animal’s horse hole! Were you to get any closer, I may just mistake you for one of its preliminary droppings. Though, I must admit, the resemblance there is already quite striking, proximity notwithstanding.”

Kade frowned at the gnome. “I feel like that was meant to be an insult. But I’ll forgive you for now. Just keep it down, will you? You’re going to give him away.”

“Give who away? Where is your friend? What has that lummox gotten up to? He couldn’t have gotten any closer. This is the extreme of human-horse interaction, after all.”

“Uh…you’re not gonna like it.”

Kade motioned upwards and Scrubby’s eyes followed Kade’s signal up the slanting spruce, along its trunk and across an arching bow which seemed to be the product of many generations of oppressive winds. There, at the end of a branch, amidst the dense collections of needles, was Brian, not five blades above the stream proper. Nearly in line with the back of the horse.

The colour drained out of Scrubby’s face and Kade feared the gnome was about to have a panic attack. He quickly wrapped a hand around the wee man’s mouth, and bundled him up against him. Sure enough, Scrubby shouted through Kade’s hand but, luckily, little sound escaped. The gnome thrashed against Kade but Kade was able to keep a handle on him.

“Just calm down already! Stop thrashing! The horse is going to see you! Don’t you get it? If we can catch the horse, we can get back to Falkner’s way quicker on horseback. It’s foolproof!”

Scrubby ripped Kade’s hand from his face and pushed the boy away furiously, glaring brickbats. “Foolproof? More like fool-approved! Look at that thing! How do you even know that’s a horse?”

Kade looked over his shoulder at the horse, still calmly drinking as Brian slowly, ever-so-carefully edged his way along the branch. “Looks pretty horse-ish to me.”

“And even if that is a horse–which it certainly is not–what makes you think it doesn’t see your ridiculous friend up there? Do you honestly think it can’t hear him being that close? It’s a horse!”

“Wait. I thought you said it wasn’t a horse.”

“Ahhhh! Stop twisting my words. Listen. Even if that thing is a horse, and even if you’re bumbling, loud-as-a-harpy friend managed to dupe it, he’d break both the horse’s back and his balls trying to plant that landing. Didn’t think that through too well, after all, did you? Let alone the fact that you can’t just tame a wild horse at the snap of your fingers.”

Scrubby crossed his arms and stared down Kade like a teacher admonishing his worst student.

“Hmm. Good point on the ball-back observation. I don’t think we had hashed out that scenario. Uh-oh. What do we do?”

“We? We? You got us into this mess. And if history is any indication, your friend probably convinced you–the follower–into this little scheme.”

Kade leered at the slight on his character.

“That means he is on his own. Now, let’s go before we all get in over our heads.”

“No, I’m not going to just leave him. Let’s wait and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll do it your way.”

“If it doesn’t work out, you’ll be dead at best, so I will certainly be doing it my way, regardless. The point is, I’m offering you an out to save your demonstrably worthless life. That chap up there hugging the tree branch, he’s on his own. Let’s go.”

“No. You don’t leave friends behind.” The tone in Kade’s voice was final.

Scrubby’s face flushed red. “You left me behind!”

“Exactly.”

Kade turned back to the tree as the weight of Kade’s response settled in on the gnome. Surprisingly to Scrubby, Kade’s words hurt him. He couldn’t have expected to befriend humans; no, of course that would be silly. But the idea of being so utterly unimportant to someone–to matter so little on any level that they should abandon you to your own miserable devices–there was something painfully existential about that. A lonely heart stabbed by an invisible dagger.

Scrubby took a deep breath and attempted to collect his swirling emotions. “Fine. If that is the way you would like to do this, so be it. It’s your life to throw away. I just thought, perhaps we had…an understanding. I see now that I was mistaken. Goodbye, Kade.”

Scrubby turned to leave but before he could reenter the forest, there was a scream followed by the startled whinny of a horse. Kade bolted to his feet, jumping up and down.

“He did it, he did it!”

Scrubby ran up to his side and gawked incredulously at the sight before him. Like a scene from a B-list Western movie, Brian sat atop a fiercely-bucking bronco, kicking up swathes of sand as it tried desperately to upend the intruder on its back.

“Yeehaw!” Brian shouted, as he gripped tightly to the thick white mane.

Despite having no saddle, stirrups or anything else to anchor him down, he was doing a surprisingly good job at staying on. Kade couldn’t remember how long the professional barrelbull riders had to stay on to get mention, but Kade was confident his friend would be cashing in on some hefty bets had this been arranged.

“Keep holding on, Brian! You’ve almost got him!”

Scrubby’s eyes couldn’t have been wider. He gaped back and forth between the two boys.

“I…don’t…believe this. Do you have any idea what you are doing?!”  He screamed, pulling on his hair manically.

“Nope! But doesn’t it look fun? Look how great he’s doing? Who knew he was such a natural?” Kade chimed.

“Fun? Natural? Aaaaah!”

The horse danced violently in circles, its attempts at bucking Brian off not working. It shook its head back and forth, huffing and grunting, whinnying and whining as it did its best at intimidating the potential predator that had suddenly mounted it. Brian leaned and wrapped an arm around its neck, doing his best to pat it while bracing against the jerkiness of its motions.

“Whoa, boy! Slow down, slow! Whoa!”

The horse reared back on two legs, nearly dumping Brian off, but he managed to hold on with one hand. The ivory stallion kicked its front hooves in the air in protest, letting out one final rebellious call, before it planted its hooves back in the sand and stood steady. Brian froze in place, either stunned by the sudden change in demeanor or bracing for another breakout. The horse’s ears merely twitched in the breeze at it stared vacantly out at the sea. Slowly, Brian reached down and patted the horse’s haunch.

“There you go, boy! See, I knew you had it in you! Not your first time around humans, huh? Now, how about we go for a walk? Stretch those legs.”

Brian squeezed the horse’s side gently with his feet and, responding to the cue and the shift in the weight of his hips, the horse began slowly walking forward. He shifted his weight to the side and, guiding the stallion with a tug on its mane, he turned the horse in a gentle arc, guiding the walk into a wide circle.

“Whoa! Look at that. He’s actually riding it. Yay, Brian!” Kade shouted to his friend as he jumped up and down in victory.

Scrubby stood frozen, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

After several slow laps, Brian moved the horse into a canter, followed by a brisk trot. Laughing with joy as the sun shone down on them, the horse’s coat glistening in the morning light, a pastoral sense settled down on the three of them.

“Maybe…maybe the kid was right. Huh. Go figure.” The gnome intoned under his breath, more to himself than anyone else.

“See Scrubby, you just have to learn to trust other people. We’re not all bad, you know.” Kade encouraged.

The gnome frowned at the youth and, just as he was about to comment, a white muzzle appeared just behind Kade as Brian came up to them on horseback, reigning in the brilliant horse. Up close, the horse was one of the most beautiful creatures Kade had ever seen. There wasn’t a speck of any other colour in its coat and its mane was long and immaculately kept, surprising for a creature which likely spent so much time untethered in sea air and the unruly brambles and burrs of the forest.

“Kade, Scrubby, meet Snowball. Snowball: Kade, Scrubby.”

Kade laughed as he patted the horse’s head, stroking its muzzle, which it seemed to respond to collegiately enough.

“Snowball?” Scrubby sneered at the word. “You find a horse on the beach–in summer nonetheless–and you decided to call it Snowball?”

“Sure. It’s white like snow. Snowball. Makes sense. What else do you call it?” Brian responded.

“I don’t know. Not Snowball! What about something befitting of its stature; something majestic or proud. Something with integrity. Not a clump of frozen water that humans pee in and then eat.”

Brian raised an eyebrow. “I never ate snow with pee in it. Did you, Kade?”

“Not intentionally.”

“The point is,” Scrubby continued, annoyed, “that he deserves better than that. Clearly you two have imagination–you have managed to wrangle a wild horse, after all. Why not use it to give it a worthy name, then?”

Brain shook his head. “Uh-uh. Cool names are bad ju-ju in falconry. Good way to jinx yourself.”

“This isn’t a falcon, it’s a horse!” Scrubby snapped.

Brian shrugged. “Same diff. If I give him a cool name, then what if he gets a complex from it? Next thing you know, old “Storm-Bringer, son of Cloudstriker Steel-hammer” can’t live up to his name and he sinks into depression, seeing himself as no better than a do-good donkey that bums around homeless on a beach.”

“Are you sure you aren’t projecting on this horse? On second thought, I take it back. Imagination doesn’t look good on you.” Said the gnome.

As the two bantered back and forth, Kade looked into the horse’s–Snowball’s–eye, as he stroked under his chin. The horse cocked its head toward him and, as Kade stared into the creature’s eye, the black rectangle of its pupil quickly fluttered, as if struck by electricity, and for a split-second, changed to rounded pupil–that of a much more sentient creature. Almost as if…it were human itself.

Kade stepped back. “Whoa!”

“What is it?” Brian asked, looking down at his friend.

“I…I don’t know. It’s eye, it…Uh, never mind, it was probably just the light playing tricks.”

Brian laughed as he patted the horse on the neck. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first trick of the day. Did you see this guy move out there? Maybe we can convince him to consider a career in Verdaspeel. Those folks out at Stadia pay the big bucks to watch horses dance like that.”

Scrubby slowly sidled up towards the horse, keeping low as he eyed the animal suspiciously. As he inspected the horse, the boys continued.

“Stadia? Isn’t that the huge outdoor coliseum thing where they race horses over in, uh.. southern Felfar, isn’t it?” Kade asked.

“Northern part of Lemont, actually. Nestled right at the bast of the Western Strays there. And it’s not just horse races; they do pretty much anything you can imagine, my friend. Anything a horse is capable of!”

“Wow! I would definitely like to see that some day. Hey, how do you know so much about horses, anyhow?”

Scrubby leaned over and poked his head underneath the horse’s head, examining around. As he did so, the horse cocked its head, looking down at him. Its eyes narrowed and a flash of light surged over their surfaces, revealing an altered pupil for a split second. Scrubby gasped and the horse huffed brusquely, a strong gust of wind knocking the gnome onto his rear.

The boys looked down at the gnome, now cowering on the ground.

“Well, you sure don’t make friends very easily, do you?” Brian jibed.

“That’s…that’s no friend!” the gnome belted. “That’s not even a horse! You need to dismount that thing now and let it go back to whatever pit it crawled out of!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just being paranoi…Whoa!”

Suddenly, the horse reared back on its hind legs, whinnying defiantly into the air. Kade startled but didn’t mobilize in time to dodge the hard hoof which struck him square in the shoulder, knocking him flat on his back. Scrubby shuffled backwards on his rear as Brian attempted to calm the animal. Kade sat up and watched as the horse’s mane, like snowy snakes come to life, wrapped themselves around Brian’s forearms.

“Brian! You need to get off that thing!” Kade yelled to his friend, wincing as he held his shoulder.

Now firmly in the grasp of the horse’s hair, Brian struggled to free himself.

“Hey! Let me go, will you? This isn’t…”

The horse planted its front hooves on the earth and jerked itself towards the beach, sprinting into a full gallop.

“…funny!”

Brian yelled as the demon horse bolted off down the beach, his arms firmly ensnared.

Scrubby yelped in terror and quickly turned and bolted back into the forest, disappearing into the salal from which he had come. Kade stumbled down the embankment, doing his best to chase after his friend. His shoulder hurt like nothing he had ever felt and his arm hung limply at his side. He was sure that he had broken it, but he forged past the blinding pain as he hobbled after his friend. In his haste, he tripped on a log and took a face full of sand. Lying on his stomach, he slowly looked up, blowing chunks of sand out of his mouth as he watched the horse barrel straight for the surging tide. To his amazement, as the horse broke through the first wall of waves lapping at the shore, it carried onward across the surface of the water, as if the ocean had frozen over and it ran on a solid surface. But sure as he was seeing it, the ocean remained a liquid body of water, so how…

The creature galloped out to sea until it was a good measure from the shore, merely a thumb’s impression from Kade’s vantage point. It turned and faced the beach, staring down Kade. He could see the white of its eyes, glowing as if they were the sun itself. This was no horse–that he was now sure of.

They should have listened to Scrubby all along!

Kade could see his friend struggling against the knotted loops of hair wrapped around his arms. Kade watched as the braids of hair crept around Brian’s torso, engulfing him like a cocoon. His cries echoed across the surface of the ocean, Kade’s heart skipping at each ebbing call. Kade got to his feet and ran toward the tide line. The horse reared back on its hind legs and whickered into the air one final time before it let itself fall over and onto its side, crashing into the surface of the ocean, solid once more. Kade stopped as the first waves rolled over his feet and he watched as Brian and the horse disappeared beneath the surface, a fading white blob that dissipated until all that was left was the uniform and uncaring matte of turquoise expanse before him.

“Brian! Brian! Where are you?” Kade called.

Silence. Even the gulls were nowhere to be seen. It was just Kade and the passive, sighing of the waves as they continued their endless, repetitive cycle as if nothing out of the ordinary had just transpired.

Kade continued to call to his friend, wading out up to his hips, for all the good it would do. He shivered against the frigid cold. Despite the residual autumn heat, the ocean had remained recalcitrant. He couldn’t even imagine how terrified and cold Brian must have been at that moment. What did the horrible thing want with him? What kind of mess had they gotten into this time?”

Kade cupped his hands around his mouth. “Brian! Where are…”

Kade lowered his hands as he witnessed a blurry, translucent figure slowly emerge from the ocean near the spot where the horse had taken Brian under. The thing rose up until it was standing on the surface once more, tail lashing violently and those same glowing white eyes focused in on him. It was the horse but it had changed. It was no longer the brilliant, alabaster white of before but now its body was made entirely of water, as if it was an equine extension of the ocean itself. And inside it…was his friend! Entrapped in the watery wall of the horse’s stomach, Brian floated suspended in the creature as if he were confined to a jar. Kade watched as he batted furiously against the horse’s insides, frantically trying to escape before his air reserves ran out, but he appeared to be trapped.

“Brian! Hold on!”

The water-horse-demon reared up and howled into the air–but not entirely like a horse. More like a horse, but with its face underwater, combined with the screams of a roomful of terrified people, and the howling wind. The sound shook Kade to the bone. The horse brought its feet down straight into a gallop as it honed in on Kade’s position. Kade gasped and stumbled through the waves, making his way back on to the beach. He shambled and struggled against the mini-dunes under his feet as the creature approached with rapid speed, barreling toward him. He could hear the klip-klop of its hooves against the surface of the water, as if it were concrete. He turned to look over his shoulder and lost his balance, stumbling onto his face once again. The horse crashed through a large wave, sending spirals of water spraying out around it. Its feet hit the sand and it raced at him, having none of the footing issues that Kade did. It lowered its head, its eyes leering luminous fire at him. He could hear the animal’s sinister snorting as it ran now, each breath a hunger pang, a ravenous taunt. Kade span onto his back and held up his hands in defense.

Suddenly, an image of a face flashed before him. So this was it; his life flashing before his eyes.

Except… He had never seen this face before. But he knew it, somehow.

It was his father. He was…alive? That couldn’t be right. But he was about the right age… And then the vision changed to his mother. She was in pain…suffering. Struggling to survive, but holding on. Holding to the hope that she would get to see her one and only son again. To see him. And then there were other faces. Younger faces, teens perhaps, then…a girl with blue hair. And Scrubby. And then…he saw Brian’s face.

But it wasn’t an image this time. It was Brian’s face, gawking at him in terror from behind its oceanic prison inside the waterly beast, watching him in slow-motion as the horse came upon him. Kade could see his mouth moving, but no sound came out…no words could be discerned.

Was this the life he would never have? Were these the people…he would never get to meet?

A tear rolled down Kade’s cheek. He closed his eyes and raised his hands up to his face. He heard a voice yelling the word “no”, though he couldn’t be sure if it was his or not. And then…

There was another voice.

Voices.

Many upon many voices. They were…ancient. Somehow.

A deep, guttural droning. An ohm that filled the air. Permeated all space around them.

He knew this voice. Knew these beings. There were both a part of him and a part of all. He was all, yet there was no “he.”

All was all.

And then all…became…

Light. 

Kade opened his eyes to see the world go white around him, the horse becoming a shadowy silhouette, until its form gave way to the uniformity of pure, radiant energy.

A last, dying whine from the creature, followed by a near-deafening explosion, like a million water balloons popping at the same time. Kade was repelled back from the force, his head slamming against the sand. As the light dissipated and the sky became visible again, Kade could still see streamers of light in his vision, though he couldn’t be sure if he was just seeing stars from hitting his head.

He groaned and rolled over, rubbing his head as he looked over the beach. All around there were chunks of clear, gelatinous blobs, like stranded jellyfish covering a ten blade radius around him.

Horse flesh, of a different kind.

Kade pushed himself up to kneeling, his head spinning and body weary. As his vision cleared he looked around to see that he was alone, his friend nowhere in sight.

“Brian! Brian! Where are you?”

He did a three-sixty check around him but there were no signs of life around him. His vision blurred with tears as the realization of his friend’s passing set in.

“Oh no…what have I done? What have I done?”

Kade collapsed into the sand, sobbing.

“I don’t know, but whatever it was, please don’t do it again. That really wasn’t that fun.”

Kade jumped up, looking over to see a figure emerge from a heap of sand. Brian sat up, sand pouring off him as he wiped the grit out off of his face.

“Brian!”

Kade ran over to his friend and threw himself at him, wrapping his arms around him.

“I thought I lost you. I…I thought I had…”

Brian patted Kade’s back, returning the hug.

“Killed me? I’m pretty sure you saved me! I guess it takes more than a pony and some sunshine to off this guy.” Brian pointed at his chest with his thumb and laughed.

Kade smiled but it soon faded to a look of dejection.

“What’s wrong, Kade?”

“Something…something happened to me. I heard…saw…”

Kade sat in silence for a long moment as he tried to put words to his thoughts. Brian put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter now. Whatever that was, we’ll figure it out together, okay? I don’t know anything about magick, but I know it when I see it. I think you might be…gifted, Kade.”

Kade slowly looked up, meeting his friend’s gaze. Brian’s expression gave nothing away: he was proud of him. There wasn’t a fleck of judgement in it.

“I…I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t me at all. There were others. I saw them. I think they…helped me, somehow.”

Brian stood up, brushing off the sand off of himself and proffering a helping hand to Kade.

“Well, whoever they were, they have my thanks. Magick or not. Much better to be on this side of a water demon’s stomach.”

“Is that what you think that thing was? A demon?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Three days ago, if you had told me I was about to run into ogres, giants, gnomes and shape-shifting horses, I would have told you you were nuts. Three days ago, I would have been confident in telling you that the wildest thing in these woods are a handful of straggling Tyrak in the Deepwoods. But then again…”

Brian eyes met Kade’s. “…three days ago, we weren’t here.”

Kade nodded as he meditated on Brian’s words. They had come along way, that was for sure. And they had seen a lot of crazy things. How and why this was all happening to them, Kade could not be sure, but something deep in side him told him it had to do with what happened on the beach. The light. Somehow, it was all connected.

Kade sighed as he looked over his shoulder at the forest, the makings of a small path visible from where they sat. Likely, the path that Scrubby had been talking about.

Scrubby.

As if sensing the same thought, Brian looked around them.

“Where is the gnome?” He asked.

“He ran away after the horse freaked out. I think he took off into the woods somewhere.”

Brian shook his head. “Ever the hero, that one.”

“Should we go looking for him? What if he ran off?”

“You know, I have a half a mind to just let him wander off into a bear’s den.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on him, you know. He means well, I think.”

Brian nodded as he gave Kade an unreadable look. His face seemed to settle on agreement.

“You’re a good friend, Kade. Loyal, and much more than that gnome deserves. But I imagine you’re right about him; I would know a thing or two about being the underdog. It’s doubly as hard to live a life when both the world and everyone in it are against you. Maybe we can bring him around, you know–you and I? What do you say?”

Kade’s stomach grumbled. He put a hand on his abdomen and gave Brian an awkward smile.

“I say, let’s find something to eat. I’m starving!”

“Great! I know an awesome little hole in the wall. When we get back home, I’ll take you there. They have something for everybody at this place.”

Kade and Brian began walking slowly towards the forest path.

“Even gnomes?”

“Even gnomes. Hey, did you know that in some countries, like in Vos, they eat horse meat? I hear it’s a delicacy in some places.”

“You are the last one that should be making that joke.”

The two laughed joyfully as they made their way back into the woods. Behind them, the light glistened off of a thousand glittering globs of a once terrifying creature, now scattered about the beach, like sapphires in the sun.