The Tessellation Saga. Book Two. 'The One' (37 page)

‘The wall was
created, a magnificent seemingly solid barrier, a wall that would
withstand years of the void trying to wear it down. Within the
spell we added a warning to all those who would try to breech the
barrier, a warning of what would happen if the wall failed, hope
would die along with the freedom to love and laugh, all life would
eventually be extinguished.’ He turned to Varan as he spoke.

‘The source of
your message Varan, I can only assume you breeched the wall at some
point.’ Varan nodded unhappily and said nothing, leaving the
silence to answer for him. Thaddrick smiled and continued.
‘Something happened though, as the spell was completing, not enough
to stop the barrier but well, something came through from the void
as the spell finalised.’

‘What
happened?’ Gideon asked again, his voice low and trembling.

‘To answer your
question Gideon I must ask you to imagine the void,’ Thaddrick
looked up and into the deep blue eyes so like his own. ‘The void is
a timeless, deep dark place, full of evil. The dark, so dense that
even the sun’s brilliance would not penetrate more than a few feet,
so silent that even a stray thought offered by something passing
through would reverberate like the noise from a beaten drum and be
heard for miles. Imagine then, years of life flowing through a
small hole, directly from life and into the void, free life and
light, full of hope and joy, with the sounds and smells of every
living thing pouring like a stream, a river of life flowing into
the realm of darkness, a sunbeam through the winter clouds on a
dark day. Such was the open doorway, a banner held high, floating
through the dark recesses of the void inviting all the lost and
dead souls, teased with what they could not have, though yearned
for so desperately.’

Thaddrick
poured himself another drink, the frothy beer stained his beard and
he wiped it away carefully. The listeners, from each small child
and their parents who remembered the events to the listeners around
the table, all attention held, devoted to every syllable that fell
from Thaddrick’s lips.

‘A being
followed the trail of life in the darkness as it wound its way
across the void; it followed it revelling in the life and promise
it could feel ahead. Eventually it found the doorway still
partially open and being of no substance thicker than the wind that
blows through the clouds on a sunny day, through it crept. Dèvin
was at the site of the gateway and open to the source of magic,
open to the root and as such, vulnerable.’ Thaddrick’s voice had
changed, from the strong voice of the confident orator to the
whispered thoughts of an old man repeating his memories and sins
aloud.

Still the hall
remained silent, every soul in the room quiet and pensive, waiting;
just waiting for the now, sad old man to speak again, when he
finally did speak again, his voice was strong once more, the
teacher instructing his errant pupils.

‘Whenever magic
is undertaken,’ he said, light housing his glance around the room,
‘be it a spell as magnificent as the spell used to create the
barrier or a spell to heal a cut finger, the user must touch the
root, the outskirts of the void. In order for the balance to be
maintained, a… an offering, you could call it,’ he said, musing
over the phrase. ‘Balance you see,’ he explained, ‘you take and you
give,’ he smiled at his explanation and continued. ‘An offering to
the void is necessary. In this case, Dèvin, my nephew was open to
the void and extremely vulnerable, he’d been instructed to do no
more than gather information as to the precise state of the
gateway, but always impulsive, he attempted to close it alone and
by himself, when for years stronger mages than he had tried. I told
him to return with the information… return to the place where we
had decided the flexible quality of the walls structure would
begin. It had to be flexible you understand…’ Thaddrick again began
to look lost, almost pleading as he continued. ‘Flexible because we
knew the void would continue to pull the life from the planet and
the death would expand, if we could not stop it, we needed to slow
it down.’ Thaddrick closed his eyes once more pain evident in their
depths.

‘Go on
Thaddrick,’ encouraged Gideon’s father, as he touched his friend’s
hand, he was distressed at the sight of the old man in such obvious
pain. In Thaddrick’s eyes, Jed could see the wolf Blue and the pain
it had suffered on his behalf after it had pulled him from the
burning building. For the first time Jed really and truly believed
the old man was his beloved wolf, the lip service he had paid to
the old man previously shamed him and he felt the tears of empathy
sting his eyes.

‘Go on Blue
boy,’ Jed said again, love flowing along his words and Blue smiled
sadly back at him.

‘Somehow, the
evil soul crept over my nephew and entered him, vulnerable and
alone it became him. We did not realise it had taken him over at
first; using Dèvin’s memories it came after us, we, who were trying
to build the barrier. Our plans were mostly complete, the
inhabitants divided, half left to maintain the barrier and the
others already sent here to await the one; the spell had already
begun when what we took to be Dèvin joined us and entered the spell
making process alongside us. I felt the change in him but in my
arrogance, I thought it was because I would not allow him to die in
my place. I watched him unbelievingly as I realised the magic he
was using was wrong, I called to him across the ether and told him
the spell was wrong that he had mixed his words badly, I shouted
that what he was doing would open the gateway directly into the
void. The spell was too complicated for me to overturn but in vain
I tried to stop him, we battled in the ether, each trying to stop
the other, I had thought my nephew was just angry but I saw he was
now no longer my nephew and I finally realised what must have
happened. I believed he was dead and in his place was a creature,
an evil soul direct from the void. In its fury as I tried to stop
it from reversing our spell and opening the gateway fully it tried
to kill me using magic. I could feel the heart inside my body
stutter and slow and my throat close as I fought for breath, I
could feel my blood slow and still, it was winning and I was dying.
For a moment its power faltered, I believe now it was my nephew
trying to stop the evil from within. As I fell to my knees, my
peers noticed our battle and joined with me, slowly turning the
tide in my favour, suddenly I heard my nephew loudly exclaim across
the ether.

‘
I am sorry
uncle Thad,’
he called and he died, trapping himself, his own
soul, deep within his body, possibly for all time, he had willed
his own death, stopped his own heart, unable to expel the evil from
his body and mind, he used his inherent magic to will his own
death. He knew you see that only the sudden death of the host could
hold the evil inside his body, he had sacrificed himself after
all.’

Thaddrick’s
face was now wet with tears as he remembered the man he had
promised to care for, he looked up and saw Gideon sitting across
the table, so like the nephew he had lost so many years ago.

‘I think I knew
from the moment I watched your father bring you into the world that
you would be the one Gideon,’ he said.

‘What did yer
do with yer nephew’s body Blue?’ Jed asked, his hand resting once
more comfortingly on his friend’s arm. Thaddrick tore his eyes from
Gideon’s silent form and looked around at the assembled company
once more.

‘With the half
completed barrier spell stable for the moment and still surrounding
the valley, we took Dèvin’s body to the site of our first home. We
still had a crystal, one of a few remaining, still powerful spell
crystals brought from our home world and with much care and
preparation, we placed the body of my nephew along with the crystal
on an alter in the stone chamber on the mountain. We conducted a
spell of summoning using the crystal and a little living blood, the
spell called the soul of my nephew and the soul of the being that
had entered him into the stone itself. As the spell took hold, my
nephew’s body began to dry and whither, eventually crumbling to a
pile of ash and dust leaving nothing of the man my brother’s son
had once been. The evil soul that had taken a hold of Dèvin had
separated from his body and fused securely into the crystal that
had rested on his chest. Long ago, our people had banned this type
of magic, blood magic but we had had no other choice, my nephew had
done the only thing he could have done; he had used magic against
himself, something that is also forbidden, he had willed himself to
die holding the evil inside him. Trusting that we, the remainder of
his family would battle to save his soul and allow him to begin his
own journey… Could we have done less?’

With tears of
pain and remembrance, Thaddrick saw the spell happening again
before his eyes and he watched once more as the beautiful Dakar
crystal turned from the powerful, dazzlingly bright, clean and
translucent stone that shone with life, to a dull matt black, with
purple’s and blues swirling here and there as the evil within
fought to escape.

‘We took the
crystal containing the evil to the centre of the then vast dead and
stagnant lake,’ Thaddrick continued as if talking to himself. ‘It
was carefully wrapped it in clean white linen and placed it in an
iron box to protect it from the fall through the dirty thick waters
and we dropped it in and watched as it fell through the murk never
to be seen again. When we returned to the site of the wall we
rejoiced, the wall had held despite the break in the casting and we
finished the barrier spell turning the flimsy and transparent
temporary shield we had created into a barrier of love and
strength. We hoped the wall was strong enough to hold back the void
and any other beings or creatures that, should we fail to find a
way to close the gateway, would surely try to make their way into
our world following the bright banner of life, just as the evil
that had caused my brother’s son to die had done.’ Thaddrick
stopped speaking and stared into nothing.

During
Thaddrick’s story Varan had remained silent, keenly interested in
the tale of his homelands origins but as Thaddrick had continued to
speak, he began to feel decidedly sick.

‘That crystal,
Thaddrick,’ he said as the old man stared blankly, lost in thought.
‘Was it six sided with an elongated point at the bottom and tipped
with silver at the top?’ Without waiting for an answer he stood,
turned his back on the old man and raised his shirt revealing the
once more perfect tattoo, ‘and did it look like this…?’ He
asked.

Rhoàld, along
with Thaddrick gasped aloud, the last time Rhoàld had seen the
tattoo was the day his beloved Bastian had died, then it had been
hanging in its gilt frame in Gath’s bedchamber in Devilly.
Thaddrick stared, unable to believe his eyes.

The magic had
worked on Varan’s badly scarred back just as it had on Lemba’s
tongue. As soon as he stepped through the gateway onto the hilltop,
he had felt the itching and then as he walked to the edge of the
knoll the intense pain had brought him to his knees. His back had
burned as if tongues of flame were licking his skin, as if his
tattoo was being stripped from his back once more, peeled slowly
piece by piece, only this time in reverse. He could almost feel the
knife as it sliced at his body, replacing the skin it had
harvested.

Thaddrick paled
as he stared, he looked at the representation of the stone chamber
drawn into Varan’s back; the two-dimensional tattoo became
three-dimensional in Thaddrick’s mind. Twelve pale columns with a
stone altar drawn in the centre and on the altar stone itself stood
a depiction of a hexagonal elongated crystal, the top of the
crystal was dark, indicating a cover or a tip. Varan heard rather
than saw the old man gasp, he lowered his shirt and turned once
more to face him.

‘It was seen
again my friend and it is still sentient, it is worshipped by the
creatures of the Bleak. Slaves are offered to it for sacrifice,
blood sacrifice...’ he said, adding, ‘and it is very powerful.’
Quietly he returned to his chair not noticing how Rhoàld flushed
red as his gaze passed over him.

‘By the
Journey’ this changes things,’ whispered Thaddrick, as he wiped his
brow and emptied the beer glass before him. ‘How long has the
crystal been… um, above the water line?’ Thaddrick asked Varan
quietly.

‘There is no
longer a water line as there is no longer a lake.’ Varan answered,
looking stoically at the old man, ‘there is just a vast dried up
reed bed and the crystal was found many, many years ago, I know not
what happened to the box but the crystal is in the temple carved
into the mountain where the Bleaks’ inhabitants worship it. As a
boy, I and a few other prisoners were taken in a raid to be a blood
sacrifice to it.’

Varan gazed at
his brother who was sitting pale and still across the table from
him; Sonal quietly stroked an old scar that ran down his jaw line,
a living reminder of how Varan disappeared through the torn veil of
the barrier.

‘That’s the
reason why there are raids upon people living near the Bleak,’ he
said as if he was trying to ease his brother’s guilt. Looking back
toward Thaddrick, he said, ‘as part of the sacrifice ceremony, each
of those destined to die are given the crystal to kiss, offering
their very souls to it before they are bled. The priests tell them
that if they comply and offer their souls freely, their families
will be kept safe during future raids and by the time
I
was
offered the crystal I thought I could proudly die alongside so
many, knowing that I kept my family free.’