The Fool 24

Looking around them in wary alertness, there was nothing. Heath's head popped up like a jack-in-the-box with a wide and guileless smile.

"E Shama!" the boy said before taking off at a run to the east.

Cray caught him and wrestled with the struggling kid til Heath tilted his head as if hearing a voice. After that, he was still excited but willing to walk while tugging at Cray's hand trying to get him to hurry.

The voice said, "He was my familiar, one of the last awakened animals of this forest and one of the last of his kind, in truth. Neither what he was nor who I was is of much importance anymore. Granted a form that the world does not permit to be a familiar, he was released from our bond.

"You look for a place to winter? I have little need of mine save for its inner sanctum. If you will respect its border and allow it to remain sealed, you may pass your wait within the shelter of my abode. Long ago have the defilers learned to not trespass into my domain and I have no fondness for the nearly mindless savages of the north despite my occasional allowance of a hunting party to help keep the number of wildlife balanced on my land."

Unknowingly, the crew with little goal in mind but to find a safe shelter near the northern pass, had been lead on an intersection course for Heath's original home. Orison checked the map and found that there was an unlabeled historical site with a red 'X' through it to denote that it wasn't safe. Along with a circle that came very close to overlapping with the burrow where the cabin had been, he noted that tribal haunts made a very wide crescent of sporadic dots around its northern and western circumference.

It was hard to use the map with great accuracy but guessed that they were already quite near the center once he oriented himself. With self loathing, he handed the map to Cray. If he could, he would have skinned the original cartographer. He wanted to slap the original Al for not paying more attention to the creepy scout master of the man's youth as well.

To say that the mysterious voice belonged to a territorial individual would be an understatement. The circle of avoidance was roughly a one and a half day's journey in radius. Considering the relatively up-to-date nature of a map intended to keep track of potential tribal 'food', he had no doubts that if the mysterious voice meant them harm, they were already within its grasp.

The voice said no more and seemed content to let them decide, however. There was no way Heath would tolerate going anywhere else without a fight and Cray expressed doubt of malicious intent. Cole and Orison weren't quite as easygoing but with little better options available and less reason to argue otherwise, the group finished traveling to the destination Heath had subconsciously herded them.

As they neared the center of the circle of avoidance on the map, they looked around to see nothing out of place or of value. Large chunks of rock dotted the landscape like they had splintered and fallen off from a great height but the surrounding land was still a couple or more days' walk from the hazy, glaucous outline of mountains in the distance. There was a deep and wide indentation into the earth that vaguely resembled an open diamond mine pit not far from them but that wasn't where Heath tugged Cray and pointed to the other two to go.

Close to where a couple of trees had grown at an awkward angle, missing some foliage and branches on one side, he had the group stand on a cleared piece stone slab buried into the dirt. A tingling itchy sensation ran over them and the area around them seemed to take on a soft, indistinct edge. There was a sense of some great looming thing. And as they looked up, the late evening sun illuminated a colossal chunk of intricately sculpted stone stuck into the ground.

The general shape of it was similar to a well balanced top. As if some child of terrifyingly large proportion had stepped on and broken their toy, it lay fractured and forgotten, left outside to the ravages of nature and time. Orison would have took more time to admire the view but Heath had a patience befitting his age.

They reached a portion of spiraling walkway that had broken off, leaving a moderately challenging rock climbing puzzle. Heath, having climbed it many times before in another form, had no sense of danger as he attempted and almost lethally failed to traverse it. Seeing the look of sad confusion on the boy's face, the young mage noted it wasn't until that moment the boy realized there were some unpleasant trade-offs for becoming a 'people'.

It took a few minutes and all the magic the world would let him siphon without globs of sticky inert essence to deal with but Orison managed to repair the spiral path enough to safely traverse the first obstacle. Next came a rubble blocked alcove with a child sized space close to the top. With some manual effort, the group managed to move enough for them to squeeze through at the cost of arm weariness joining the legs from a day's long walk.

As they walked in, the material of the short tunnel made a slow transition from rough, impact fractured rock to smooth, undamaged surface. The young mage couldn't get his spirit sense past more than a superficial layer of it but realized that there was some process of essence cycling involved in a slow and continuous mending process. Refined a multitude of times over by magic, the outer stone shell had taken on some resistance to it.

Such a feature didn't seem unintentional at all. Fluctuations and the attraction of inert essence both within and without would slow and be trapped within, creating an even greater layer of protection. The dark 'marrow' that ran through the stone would be forcefully reintegrated with life, spirit and magic essence to act as a mending agent to counteract exposed weak parts of the structure in a perpetual loop.

"Ingenious," Orison muttered.

Cole looked at him oddly and said, "Out of some self hating need to torture myself with details I'd be better off not knowing, are you possibly one of Hunter's family members?"

The young mage chuckled. "No. Well, by marriage eventually, maybe. Our souls might be cut from the same kind of cloth, though. Give him some time and survivable learning experiences. He'll be alright."

The feline young man muttered, "Releasing an idiot into the wild is hardly a 'survivable' learning experience."

Spinning sharply, the young mage pinned Cole under blazing soul augmented eyes. "This is far from an amusement park world. If a three month taste of the darker shades of gray leaves him wanting more, I'm going to cut him loose. If he's had enough, I pull the ripcord on his parachute. I neither have the patience nor ability to save him from himself unless he WANTS to be saved.

"We are all treading water here. Trying to keep a flailing person from drowning will do us all in. You know it and I know it. It's harsh and maybe even a touch cruel but considering how eager you were to remove his soul mark from you, spare me the judgment."

With a tortured face, Cole replied just over an audible whisper, "I don't get it either, okay? I'm all for sink or swim learning. I just feel, I don't know, made to care. I don't want to.

"The force that brought me to him is gone. I can't feel his thoughts beating against me but... Still, he's not hard enough. He'll get hard but THOSE hands will have a say in what he's like after he gets there. I can feel it sinking into him... and me. It's disgusting."

Orison decided to take look. Ignoring Cole's flinch, he inspected the lock between soul connections to see a small spot of dark stain on it. A tug from the other side was building in strength. In another few hours, it would be possible for them to break his lock and the other side's main goal seemed far from just reestablishing a spy camera.

Taking a peek past the lock to get an idea of what was going on from the other end, a force latched onto his intent and yanked hard. To keep from becoming what he had threatened 'Silent Beauty' with, he instinctively reached for his key. With the added aid, his body went with the soul that was being reeled through to the other side.

Orison landed in a summoning circle right next to a fiendish entity. The young mage had no time to respond except his costly defensive maneuver. He went 2D cut-out as a hand reached towards where his heart would have been. With little option to preserve what essence he had available, Orison cut off the enormous flow of reserves to his 'void walking' ability, taking the fiend's hand with it.

With brain racing at lightning speed, he went for bluff. With pain and surprise painted on the fiendish face, Orison's eyes blazed with spiritual potency. He locked eyes with the entity's glowing red ones and pushed intent for all he was worth.

"Go home," The young mage growled with false bravado.

Fortunately for him, he was dealing with a mid ranking devil and not a demon. Any stronger and it would have called the bluff. If it had been a demon or some other Abyssal Denizen, it would have attacked as an instinct. Instead, an inborn cautiousness catalyzed by pain and the minor amount of influence Orison's will was able to leverage against it, had the devil scurrying back to its hellish abode with hateful eyes promising vengeance.

The young mage didn't even have a chance to assess the situation before horridly powerful intent slammed into him with nearly physical force. Supernaturally compelled to turn and face his aggressor, Orison was taking in the sight of a grotesque bat-like thing that somewhat made him think of Portia when she was in the mood to fight. No sooner had the thought finished registering, the billowing portion of his over robe wrapped around him as a magic that smelled of dry desert sand hit it, reducing it to dust.

Orison reached out to call on the impressions of his astral friends but was interrupted by a force seizing onto his heart. The devilish bat person in front of him was making a grasping gesture at the open air. His inner space tried to draw the curse-like energy in but it was stronger and the enemy faster. With a physical yank of its clawed hand, the young mage hurtled uncontrollably towards it, barely keeping his sluggishly beating and dangerously tight squeezed heart in his chest from the counter pull of his space.

Once again relying on his innate ability, Orison went 'void man' for a split second to land on the thing's hand and a portion of its head. A chunk bitten out of both as the young mage cut the flow, little more than fumes left, he knelt at the falling thing's side. Trying all he could to fight off the sudden weakness, he cycled what remained of the stored essence in his flesh.

Reaching for the storage pin fixed to the remaining tatters of his robe near the throat area, he pulled out a standard pencil, breaking it in half as he dug out the creature's heart. A stinging heat spread across his back but didn't penetrate the suit as he slid the splintered pencil home into the black heart in his hands. Turning around, he saw Hunter looking at him in a pure, anguished hatred.

"You killed my teacher!" the young black man said.

Orison sighed as he batted a second Fire Bolt from hitting his helmet, taking some minor burns to his hand beneath the suit. "He's alive and well in front of you. It just seems you're too thick to learn the lesson I'm teaching."

The young mage pointed down at the spot where Hunter stood. With spirit sight already at full capacity, it took less than a second to see that the control glyph and the sacrifice circle were masked to look like the other. With a minor pull, Orison raised the false layer so that Hunter could physically see the one underneath.

"If it hadn't been me, that devil would have ripped Cole's soul right out of his body through you and you would have been the second course," he informed the budding wizard.

Backing away from the circle he was standing in with reflexive fear and slowly dawning horror, Hunter said, "It was supposed to be a familiar contract circle. My teach- that man was going to pay the 'small price' to finish the proceedings. I was supposed to finally get a loyal companion who wouldn't abandon me or shut me out. It was always going to be on... my side."

Doing his best to keep his rage in check, Orison said, "Well, now you know. You and Cole were going to be offered as a set package for something that thing wanted."

Orison turned around when spirit sight showed him that the enemy he had been dueling, almost completely regenerated. Moving like the gates of hell itself had cracked open nearby, he closed it... with several blows of a machete and every option he had available to mince the corpse and feed the remains into a brazier stoked with a generous dash of cooking fuel.

When a billow of noxious fumes rose from the crisping corpse pieces, he whipped out the lich's soul storing orb and pulled a snotty glob of corrupted spirit essence from it. "F***er, why won't you die already!"

The young mage cast a held healing that he spread over himself and Hunter, using the spirit essence in a wasteful over-application until the tough, coreless essence finally unraveled and began dissipating. With a shake he dumped the filthy remaining essence back over the brazier which turned a cold, bale-fire blue before returning to normal.

The young mage sneered. "After all that, our princess is still in another castle."

Pointing the power of his phantom key at the flames within the brazier, he tried to call the soul's main part into it unsuccessfully. Under Hunter's numb gaze, Orison dragged the wide and heavy brazier over to the sacrifice portion of the circle and predesignated himself as the 'summoned creature', trying again to exercise the power of the key. With a loud pop, a severed pinky finger appeared and sizzled in the flames before another billow of nasty tried to rise from it.

"You have got to be sh*tting me!" the young mage cursed in frustration. Latching onto that spiritual force as belonging to him, he drew one last time as the key wobbled in dangerous instability alongside the orb's collecting power. A delirious and fog eyed 'Snow White' staggered into the ritual space with a wand raised high only to collapse as a chuck of gen studded metal ripped from her head and hurtled over, smashing the soul collecting orb.

Orison grabbed the phylactery and dragged it into his space where it was instinctively pulled into the chaotic part he couldn't view. For a moment, nothing happened but then he started struggling for control of his own body as a will locked onto his nearby soul, fighting against the corroding essence spitting from it. He blanked.

It couldn't have been for long considering how little he'd recovered but 'Snow White' was at the control sigil, demanding him to obey. "What do you want, then?"

An arrogant smirk spread across her face as she ordered him to praise her, call her mistress and say quite a few other embarrassing things. All the while, Hunter looked on in shock and humor. Then, she demanded another bottle of Doc Agave and the secret of how Hunter had been turned into a dhampir.

Feeling that enough of some kind of supernatural debt had accumulated, he resisted the impulse to obey and walked over to the portion of the circle where he'd stamped his true name thoughtlessly, careful not to look at it. With relish, he erased it and was released from the binding geas. With the backlash, he made her strip and do ballet while singing "I'm A Little Tea Pot'. With the last bit of debt, he made her forget his true name as he was compelled to at least hand over one of the precious few bottles of the supernatural tequila he had left.

Snapping back to, mortal offense tattooed across her face, she redressed and went to rush away when he said, "You might want to stay and explain before I decide that all this is a breach of our agreement and truly go apocalyptic on this place. I'm already struggling to give you the benefit of doubt that you were trying to help me and was just having a little bit of extortion fun at the end there."

While she stammered, a flicker of movement caught his eye. A black gem that had dislodged from the large spellbook sitting on the pedestal was in the process of trying to covertly warp itself back into its setting. His key, letting out subtle whines of weakened distress, noticed it through him and set on it like a starving person on a basket of potato wedges. It spit the weak soul remnants and core out as it cracked the gem open like an egg and slurped up the traces of whatever it was after.

Seeing where his eye was drawn, she forgot decorum and dove after the large grimoire. Key nearby, he had it rise to the book and flash it to his hands. Flicking away the core drawing near with the last scraps of its stubborn soul's intent like an annoying but slow mosquito, he flipped through the fat book. After ripping out several pages about phylactery making and improperly labeled 'demonology', tossing them into the brazier, he handed the remaining book to Hunter.

Looking positively predatory, the woman said, "What have you done!?"