“What you’re talking about is suicide.”
“If there was any other way, I assure you, we’d be doing things differently. Why do you think I didn’t tell you?… I was trying to avoid this,” said the man known as the Vagabond Master to his cloaked apprentice.
“I can’t…I can’t let you go through with this,” replied the young man, his eyes already starting to show signs of mourning.
“The choice is not yours to make. This is a bed I alone must lie in,” the Master said. “The only thing that should concern you now, is getting him to safety. He is the only thing that matters. We can’t risk letting her have him.”
The apprentice opened his mouth in an attempt to lodge another protest. What the Master was asking him to do may have looked like the lesser sacrifice but on the scales they were using, it could be debated.
The Vagabond was quick to cut him off, “You have the map, correct?”
The apprentice looked at him, seeing a face set and unwavering, “Yes. I know where I must go…and what I must do.”
“Good, that just leaves one last thing,” the Master said as he walked up to his pupil. “I’m sorry, but this has to be done. Much too dangerous for you to have where you’re going.” He rested his hand upon his student’s head. A violet light pulsed in waves through the apprentice’s veins. The apprentice’s once purple blood vessels morphed to a dark blue as his power was pulled into the Master’s hands. A vital piece of his essence had been extracted. The apprentice could feel the modifications being made in his brain…something being locked away. It felt like a violation. He would have objected had the circumstances not been so dire. In a matter of moments, the feeling faded. The apprentice was left with no recollection of the Master’s intrusion.
“What do I do if he wakes?” the apprentice asked.
“With what he’s been through this night, he won’t,” The Vagabond replied. “…Now we have one shot at this. You must get him to that door before the Lonely Sister hits her apex. He cannot know that this world exists.”
The apprentice stared at the Vagabond in silence, waiting for further instruction.
“Go!” the Master shouted, casting his hand toward the darkened path and the pale green horse behind them. The leaves that bordered the path sprung to luminescent life.
***
The Vagabond Master watched as his apprentice galloped away on his mount. He waited until he could no longer detect the movement of the beast’s glowing tail. He didn’t detect any pursuers, deducing that any interlopers would rightfully be watching him instead. The power he had siphoned for his plan was more than enough to draw the forest’s attention. “If you only knew where the true power now lay,” the Master whispered as he turned his gaze toward the path ahead.
He took up a mount on his own steed as he dropped his last remaining orb into its fuel tank. The hollowed eyes in the machine’s oaken figurehead sprung to life, casting two high-intensity beams onto the trail before him. A suspicion that had been growing in his spine was now confirmed, shooting a cold shiver from the bottom of its base up to the back of his neck.
Silent hopelessness tried gripping his heart but hope was something he no longer gave much quarter. It was a luxury he was unsure he’d recognize at full strength; the last decade of despair had seen to this. The hopelessness that tried to attack him felt like home as a mass of disembodied wings and crimson eyes began to circle. Their numbers seemed to multiply as each passing wave grew in intensity. The Slaugh had arrived.
The Master did still possess the capacity for fear, which the creatures stoked as their circle grew tighter and tighter. The chill in his spine seemed to get colder, ever-growing toward a crescendo of panic. It was at the peak of his terror that the Master closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He slowly exhaled out his nostrils before opening his eyes. His body ejected a sudden blinding flash of white light, forcing the encroaching swarm to disband. The Vagabond Master saw his opening and cranked the throttle with an unwavering intention. A cascade of dust and stone spit out from behind as the cycle lunged violently forward through the cloud of wings flocking in front of him.
He waited a few breaths before turning his head to see how much distance he had gained. The swarm was regrouping quicker than he had planned, forming itself into a singular dark mass. He could no longer pick out the individual eyes that formed the black and crimson crescent that pursued him at canopy level behind. It was waiting for him to make one misstep, one mistake that would undo the last year of careful planning. With the throttle cranked as tight as it would go, the Vagabond Master drew his braking hand to the fuel tank and channeled the smallest amount of his siphoned energy into it. The bike tore hell for leather up the path, turning the bordering trees into a glowing blur. Warmth returned to the Vagabond Master’s heart with each meter gained on the destroying horde.
The Master was barely able to navigate the forest’s twists and turns, trying to stay well enough ahead of the Slaugh to avoid its grasp. He did, however, want to stay close enough to keep its interest, lest it reset its sight on the apprentice. He knew where he must go, focusing his intention on the old Citadel, not quite allowing himself to hope that the Masters Coimín had already broken what remained of the Geddes line, knowing that if they had been lost it would have all been for nothing.
He could see the forest’s border in the distance as the amber light of a glow-wheat field started to peek through the trees ahead. Fear once more began to creep up his spine. The absence of the forest’s canopy was sure to leave him exposed. For the sake of the mission, the Vagabond Master shoved the feeling down, focusing on the what next instead of the what if.
As the surrounding forest faded into grass, the Master was able to hear the sound of the Slaugh behind him. The trees had muted its wailing but now it echoed across the rolling hills of the fields ahead. The sound was eerie. Its shrieks seemed to dampen the light emanating from the ears of the nearby grain stalks.
The Vagabond didn’t let the attempts to stoke despair creep in, keeping the throttle pegged as he could see the top of the Citadel creeping over the city wall. He looked back once more to confirm the swarm was still in pursuit, that the cries weren’t of a herd of beasts losing whatever hope was left to be extracted. The Slaugh’s course hadn’t diverted. This would be the last time the Master looked back as he once more charged the cycle, setting his eyes back on the fortress in the distance.
***
The apprentice had made his way to the designated forest clearing with his unconscious traveling companion. He peered around at the edges. The forest was dark these days and had only become darker with the Vagabond drawing out the essences needed for his plan. Still, the moons in the sky shined enough light to allow for reflection in the eyes of the creatures that came to observe, the ones that could smell the unconscious boy, this boy who had become the focus of his mission.
The apprentice climbed down off his horse and lowered the boy to the ground. He removed the supplies he had packed and unburdened the animal of its tack. The remaining light in the horse was pulsing, sensing the beings in the shadows. The apprentice patted his companion to calm it. He then faced it to look it in the eyes. The horse was in a state of anticipation, already nodding its head to offer a goodbye. The apprentice rested his hand on the creature’s snout as a final gesture before uttering a low, “Go.”
The horse turned toward the trail and sprinted away, thankful it wouldn’t also have to hold watch until the witching hours.
The apprentice looked on as the beast galloped away, glancing around at the shadows to see if any of the watching eyes had given chase. He almost allowed himself to be disappointed that none had, catching himself halfway through the thought, instead thinking back to how loyal his steed had been. He then walked over to his gear and picked up a scabbard from which he unsheathed a sword smithed from cold iron. He took a stance with it before spinning around, brandishing it to his observers as a warning. He then rotated it around the outside of his wrist before raising it up and firmly planting it in the ground.
The apprentice went over to the boy to pick him up and carried him to a monolithic stone that had been toppled and now served as an altar. He looked at the carvings on the stone as he set the boy’s sleeping body on top of it. They were recent, lacking the patina of the upright menhirs he had seen in other clearings. The etchings showed no sign of weathering, still allowing an observer to make out the chisel marks that had been visited upon it by the sculptor.
The apprentice picked up and placed all of his gear on the slab before grabbing his sword and climbing up to accompany the boy’s unconscious body. He began to recite and repeat the instruction the Master had given him as his fear continued to grow. The watching eyes had begun to advance.
***
The Master slowed slightly as he approached the western gate, noticing that the guard posts had been emptied. “The line has been broken,” he thought, crossing under an open portcullis.
As he entered the city, he spotted multiple pockets of orange glow. The glow wasn’t from the fruit of the trees that normally lined the western road but was one of burning embers. The Master took a deep breath, his nostrils were invaded by the smell of black smoke. He could barely make out the sound of iron hitting iron over the howl of rushing wind. The Vagabond had brought the Geddes war home to roost.
The Master covered the distance between the gate and the Citadel swiftly and observed the destruction as he prayed that it had all been worth it. As he approached the ivy-coated building, he veered to the right, circling it to the rear.
The Master had an accomplice waiting for him, someone on the inside who was able to get him where he needed to go. “Are you sure you weren’t spotted?’ he asked.
“Who exactly do you think you’re talking to?” the young woman responded.
“Oh…right,” the Master said.
“I unlocked the doors. The path should be clear to the Wellspring,” the woman replied. “It’s a real shitshow out there, everything’s a mess. Don’t expect you’ll be running into much resistance…You remember how to get there?”
“Think I’ll manage,” the Master stated as he glanced over her shoulder and through the doorway, already following his mental map, “…Hey, before I go, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for…”
“Don’t…” the woman cut him off, “They were evil…needed to be stopped. I won’t be mourning them and neither should you.”
The Vagabond considered her words, almost wishing that his own children thought of him in the same light, hoping to spare them the grief they would have to endure. Looking to the woman as an almost surrogate for his children, he said, “Don’t ‘spect we’ll have another occasion to meet after this.”
“‘Spectin’ not,” the young woman responded as she looked somberly at the Master, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and talk you out of it.”
The Master looked at her, hoping he hadn’t condemned her to a fate worse than his. He offered, “I know you have your gifts but if you need a place to lie low for a bit, the Cloister’s doors will be open to you.”
“Thanks. Think I might have to take you up on that,” she said as her heart warmed to the thought of being welcomed in by someone after the events of the last decade. “Guess this is goodbye.”
The Vagabond Master nodded and headed into the darkness beyond the Citadel’s doorway, his image dissipated into the blackness.
The woman turned to make her way into the city when she heard the Master’s voice add, “Hey.”
She turned around to see a set of keys gliding out of the dark. The young woman snatched them from the air with an Adept’s instinct and glanced over to the Master’s magnificent steed.
“Take the bike…Not going to need it where I’m going.”
***
The apprentice continued to watch the eyes, not daring to leave his perch. Their stirrings appeared to be coordinated. Shadowy figures had started to exit the forest into the clearing. He couldn’t identify what kind of creature the glowing orbs belonged to. This left him unsettled, unsure how to prepare. He clenched tighter at the hilt in his hands, hard enough to feel pain from the leather-wrapped iron digging into his palms. The pain became a focus, a place to hide his fear.
The figures were moving forward deliberately, ploddingly, closing off his exits. The only thing the apprentice could do now was hope; hope that the Vagabond would go through with what he had proposed. He shuddered to think that his chances for survival rested on the Master’s self-destruction.
The apprentice glanced up to the sky, seeing the face of the red moon closing in on its zenith. He then glanced at the figures with their red eyes, planting himself into a defensive stance.
***
The Vagabond Master navigated the rear corridors of the Citadel. His mind was working on instinct. This wasn’t the first time he had had occasion to sneak through the passageways of the fortress. This wasn’t even the first time in the last week. The extraction of the Master Wordsmith from the dungeons was the purpose of his previous visit. Her essence was one of the last that required collection. He didn’t want to risk her death in the siege or his plan would have met its premature end.
The Master found his way to the black wellspring pool at the center of a cylindrical atrium prison. He glanced around the room at the near countless number of cell grates that encircled him. He could hear the unlocking and slamming of grates all around him from the liberation taking place. He then drew his gaze to the two-meter tall wall that circled the wellspring in front of him and made his way to the steps of a wooden catwalk that surrounded it.
He walked up the steps and around the walkway to the platform that propped up the room’s focal piece. A six-meter tall slab of black onyx was perched at the edge of the thirty-meter-wide pool. He studied the visage that had been carved out of it with appreciation. He didn’t detect so much as a misplaced chisel mark in the intricate layers of leaves and vines that formed the face etched upon it. His thoughts then drifted to the door’s dark purpose, snapping him back to reality. The Master looked up to the ceiling port hole that let the moonlight in. The red glow of the Lonely Sister moon was shining through the round compluvium above. He could make out the moon’s face and prayed that his apprentice had reached his destination, that his sacrifice wouldn’t be for naught. He could hear the Slaugh approaching. It had picked up his scent. The red glow of the Lonely Sister moon was being eclipsed as shrieks started to echo down the atrium.
The Vagabond Master turned his thoughts to the loved ones he was leaving behind, his wife and two children, wishing he possessed the ability to make them forget; to spare them the pain his absence would inflict. He shut his eyes and tried to carve their faces in the blackness before him, to get one last look, finally allowing himself to embrace hope; hope that they could forgive him; hope that they find a way to move on. He said his final goodbyes to the lifeless facsimiles.
A familiar feeling crept up his spine, exploding through the synapses in his brain, easing his pain as he opened himself, pulling in the last remnants of light the world possessed before releasing it all in a singular, blinding ejection.
***
The shadowed figures drew ever closer. The apprentice, through his terror, could see why he wasn’t able to detect the nature of their being. They possessed no discernible features. They were shrouded apparitions with red glowing eyes. He looked at where their feet should be, seeing only ground. He then drew his gaze to their hands, seeing only clouds of black smoke pooling out from the ends of tattered wraith-like robes. Their numbers were uncountable as they continued their plodding advance to within swords reach.
The beings stopped suddenly. The apprentice couldn’t see the ground in any direction as he snapped his head around, desperately trying to search for a possible exit. There was no escape to be had. He turned to face the direction of the Citadel, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Vagabond’s plan coming to fruition.
The shadowed abominations started to reach out. Clawing with their incorporeal hands toward the boy at his feet. The apprentice slashed at the limbs and watched them dissipate into nothingness before reassembling to reach out once more. The apprentice looked to the sky, finally seeing the Lonely Sister reach her peak. He drew his eye back to the direction of the Citadel, ready to give up hope and resign himself to an unknown fate.
There was an explosion of white light. The apprentice watched as more than a thousand sets of eyes turned their attention to the city behind them. As the blast wave approached, a nervousness grew within him. He desperately hoped he wasn’t trading one demise for another.
The apprentice continued to watch. Time seemed to slow as the wave approached. One by one the wraith-like creatures were lifted and consumed by the light as it passed over the clearing. The surrounding forests and grasses became illuminated with a glow his eyes hadn’t seen since he was a small child. As he took in the view, relieved he was still alive, the boy at his feet began to stir. The apprentice glanced down seeing the cracks in the menhir altar radiating with light as it traced its way from the child’s small body and down the sides of the stone.
Then as suddenly as the wave had passed through him, he found himself pulled down into a silent blackness. The apprentice knew at that moment that the Vagabond Master was no more.