Chapter 22: Into the Fray

  “Are you sure this will work?” Han asked, prematurely wincing as the apostle hovered his glowing hands over his friend’s broken arm.

  “I don’t know. Only one way to find out though, right?”

  “Can’t we wait for Taenith? He can just use that mace or whatever.”

  “You saw what it did to him.”

  Han rolled the thought around in his head for a moment. “Ehh. Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  Grizzel shrugged. “It’ll be fiiiine. Trust me!”

  Han took a deep breath, then blew a heavy, “Go.”

  With a nod, the apostle laid his cold palms on Han’s battered flesh. Rivers of shimmering yellow magic snaked up his broken arm. It hummed and danced over blood and bone - forcing them back together.

  “FFFF,” Han bit his tongue.

  “Almost done!” Grizzel reassured him.

  The magic slowly expanded and spread, stinging and tightening for a brief final moment before disappearing.

  Han slowly opened an eye, peaking through to see what horror must have become of his limb. But instead of a gasp of horror, a heavy sigh of relief left him. His flesh was anew; soft and blemishless.

  Han poked his mended skin. No sharp pain. No protruding bones. No weird magical mutations. “Huh… It… actually worked.” He flexed his fingers.

  Grizzel stood up with a cocky grin, patting his hands. “Yeuup. No big deal. All in a day’s work.”

  Han rolled his eyes.

  “Looks like you do know what you’re doing after all,” Tex said, approaching the two.

  Grizzel’s eyes darted either which way. “Oh, hey.” He rubbed the back of his head, and chuckled, almost nervously as he expected some sort of quip. “Thanks, Tex.”

  Han unslung his bow, testing his rejuvenated grip. “Was beginning to think you two left already.”

  Tex exchanged glances with Taenith. Blush was on their faces. Then again… Taenith was literally red. So, maybe not.

  “Not quite,” Tex said, clearing her throat.

  Grizzel snickered.

  Tex glared at the apostle, then spoke, “We talked on the way over. Sounds like Icarus and Jakob are working together. To what extent, I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, Taenith told us,” Han said.

  Grizzel asked, “What’s that mean for us?”

  “Well, for one, It means our element of surprise is gone,” Tex replied.

  Grizzel pursed his lips together and rubbed his chin as the three spoke together, thinking.

  “We could continue,” Taenith offered. “Use the mace to kill Jakob, and Icarus, for good.”

  “Yeah. Just kill a god. Like ripping off a bandage…” Han gulped, his words turning to a mumbled. “A god’s bandage…”

  Tex shook her head. “He can’t do much from Sheol, even if they are working together.” She watched Taenith’s eyes dart to her side. It was an unsettling moment; it made her heart race and her tongue sweat. But more than that, it saddened her. She saw the turmoil that crushed him in that moment against Uzdo. It was like watching a star implode. Though she didn’t know the limits of the mace’s effects on a mortal, she did recognize he was treading a dangerous line. She could practically hear Ohen screaming at her to stop him from using it again. She folded her arms. “And no mace. I killed him once. I’ll do it again.”

  Taenith’s eyes flared. His voice raised. “But his soul will escape. The mace would-” he continued, before…

  “I got it!” Grizzel blurted.

  The three turned to the still-sitting Grizzel. His legs were crossed like a nomad meditating.

  “What?” Tex asked.

  “I think I know why they’re working together.”

  Tex raised a brow. “And?”

  Grizzel leaned back and jumped into the air. After a few seconds of recollecting himself, he began.

  “Sham is the only one who can travel to the Rift other than the gods, right?”

  Tex nodded. “Mm. Jakob knew the basics, but Sham is the only one I know of who’s mastered it.”

  “Well, a god like Icarus can’t squeeze through the cracks like the others. So what if he wants the ring so he can break out?”

  “He’d still need the power word. And only Sham knows th…” Tex’s words trailed off as realization settled in.

  “Tex?” Taenith said, turning his attention to the knight.

  But her attention was already gone, whisked away to her thoughts. Ohen said he’d let her know when he landed in the North. That call should have come hours ago, even if the path was unfamiliar to him. “How could I forget?” she rushed to withdraw a palm-sized sphere from one of her small bags. It was pear-like, with soft blues and pinks swimming around the white core of the object. Holding it up to her mouth, she spoke into it. “Ohen? Are you there?” Her voice sucked into the object, causing it to sparkle. If he was on the planet, he would hear her message instantly.

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  No response.

  “Dammit!” she snapped, accidentally squeezing and crushing the sphere in her palm, releasing a puff of white smoke.

  “What’s- what’s wrong?” Taenith asked, taken aback by her sudden change in tone.

  Tex looked over the burnt ground. If Jakob was working with the demons, he would have been able to help them arrive. Sham always left a mark behind to note where he had been and where he was going. The same would be around here too if the sheoldrites had somehow managed interplanar travel. She looked to see where the tent’s remnants were. It was a pile of ash and sticks, but a subtle red line was still visible beneath it.

  “There,” she hurried over to the pile and kicked through the singed wood and prayer stones - revealing a faint circle encrypted in draconic runes.

  “What the- isn’t that?” Grizzel began.

  “Shit!” Tex spat as she quickly looked over the runes. They were verbatim what Sham had used in the past. Only one other person could have replicated it.

  “Does this mean…?” Grizzel asked.

  Tex’s throat began to swell.

  Taenith interjected. “It's not over. This circle gives us a path right to him, right? We could use the mace to activate it.”

  “We can?” Han asked.

  Taenith shrugged.

  Tex ran her hands through her sooty hair. “Yeah. With the right phrase, any mage should be able to use it. But…” “fuck me,” she thought, “I can’t remember the words… We’d be walking into a trap,” she mumbled. “What were the words…?” She racked her brain for something, anything. “Into the… False abyss. No, there was something else. I don’t know,” she stammered.

  “May I?” Taenith extended a hand.

  Tex’s heart squeezed at the question. Maybe they had no choice after all. That is, to use it. But what would happen? Would he be okay? Her gloved hand fell on the petrified handle. Its rough texture always made the hairs on her neck stand up. Doubts poked and prodded at her for a maddening few moments. She lifted the artifact from her waist. Her throat tasted of bile just watching the sickly, phlegmy wisps in its bulbed top congeal and list over each other. It was a disgusting, evil weapon she wished she could destroy. And yet… “Ohen…” her heart beckoned. She had no choice. Everything was at stake. So, against her better judgement, and against what she had just said minutes before, she handed it over to Taenith.

  “Careful.”

  “Thank you,” Taenith said as he laid his clawed hands on the artifact, gently, carefully - like a serpent stalking its prey.

  But to Tex, the act almost felt… damning. Indeed, for a moment, she held onto it. Something inside her yearned to take it away from him. And for a brief moment, an air of speechless silence emerged between them. The mace floated betwixt both their grips. It was limbo of possession.

  Until…

  “Tex?” Taenith murmured.

  Tex looked into Taenith’s roiling, yet paradoxically calm and kind eyes. They were like calm streams, waveless, yet flowing. It almost made her confident in her choice. Of any mortal, she thought, maybe he would be okay. And yet… her chest pounded, and her chest swelled with stress. The thought that she was damning her friend floated in her mind. But finally, in the name of desperation, she relinquished the weapon. But what came next, she never expected: a naked hand; Taenith’s, extended. She raised an uneasy brow at the gesture. She spoke, as light heartedly as she could muster. “Easy. We’re not that close,” she chuckled.

  Grizzel giggled through his sleeve.

  Taenith blushed. “That’s not-” he stammered. “We’re not used to teleporting yet… We could get separated, or worse. Best to stay together.”

  “Yeah, makes sense.” Grizzel wagged a finger at Tex. “You know what they say? It’s always a good idea to have a sober horse rider with you.”

  “Gods you’re so lame…” Han pinched his forehead.

  Taenith digested the joke in his mind for a moment. They weren’t drunk, nor horse riding… But. Sure. Why not? Humans were just weird like that. “Yes, Griz, thank you.”

  Grizzel gasped, leaning into Han’s ear with a whisper, “I think that means we’re friends now.”

  Han pushed Grizzel away. “Yes, the dragon likes you.”

  Tex took Taenith’s hand. “Guys. Time to go.”

  Griz grabbed Tex’s free hand.

  “Okay. Yeah.” Han paused. “Uh, where should I grab?”

  Taenith looked down. His hands were, indeed, full. “Oh.” He unfurled his right wing claw. “Here.” His bones shivered when Han took a hold. He’d never really thought about it, but no one had ever touched him there before. It felt… No. The words were gone. He was just… numb. It was almost too much for him to process; he nearly forgot what they were doing in the first place-

  Han raised his voice. “Dude, your hand is sweaty.”

  Taenith nervously snapped his attention down to the bowman, but fortunately his attention was on Grizzel.

  “It is not!” Grizzel blurted back.

  The corners of Taenith’s maw lifted into a meek smile. He was happy with the little family they’d made together, even if it was amidst constant fighting for life against hordes of monsters and apostles. Moving his attention to the matter at hand, however, he thought back to the first time they entered Sheol. Sham had summoned a sphere of some kind to protect them. Closing his eyes, he imagined its effects and the mace seemed to spark to life to match them, as if acting on its own knowledge. In mere moments, without any input from himself - aside from his will, they were blanked in a thin, maroon aura - a sort of magical bubble; cruder and more electric than Sham’s otherwise elegant design, but probably still effective… Probably.

  Grizzel’s mouth dropped, “Woah.”

  “Your turn,” Taenith gestured to Tex.

  Tex breathed, “Into the shadow… Gate. Or false abyss.” She remembered back to all the times she had gone through Sheol with Ohen, and cursed herself for not taking his advice to memorize the words on her own time. She could practically hear him taunting her from wherever he was. “Told you so,” he would say, with a sly smirk on his face. Tex pursed her eyes shut and took a few deep breaths. “Into the cage - no, prison. Into the prison...” She paused, massaging her temple. “That false abyss. We become…” her eyes shot open, “the shadow. Yeah, that’s the one. That’s it.”

  Taenith nodded. He did his best to match the words in his native tongue. He assumed that mattered to the weapon. It seemed to, because the orb released a deep, violet luminescence, and the teleportation runes beneath them whirred to life, spraying up blood-like fragments of magic into the air, where it exploded into shadow.

  “Heh, wow, it actually worked,” Tex said - throat sore.

  Taenith’s eyes widened at the effect. It was intoxicating really - the thought that he did that. So much potential. So much-

  “Time to kick some wizard ass.” Grizzel cracked his knuckles.

  The runic whirs turned to screams. Their crimson magics smoked and stormed over the four adventurers with such force that it shook the ground beneath their feet. Then, a sound screeched through the air - like lightning - and the curtains of magic covering them subsided, leaving nothing behind but still-air and a steaming circle of sigils.