Bound to the Abyss (34 page)

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By the end of the eighth day, or at least what Ean thought was the eighth day, they reached a breaking point. Jaslen and Bran looked as tired as Ean felt. The stench of sweat, dirt and other nasties wafted from all three of them. A dip in a cool creek might have raised their spirits, but since there wasn’t one in the area, Ean took it upon himself to come up with another way to raise their spirits. Being accustomed to pain and depression in Rottwealth, he had been able to shield off any depressing thoughts, but by the looks on his friends’ faces they had not been as lucky. If they were going to continue on, it seemed that it was up to Ean to do something to raise their spirits.

“It can’t be that much further until we find something,” he said, trying to make his voice sound as believable as possible. “We’ve been walking for so long, we have to be near an edge of the forest.”

“Unless we’re walking in circles,” Bran snapped back at him. “And unless you know some way to make sure we walk straight that you’ve been keeping to yourself, we’ll continue to walk around in circles and never leave this cursed forest.”

Bran’s words stung, not because of anything he said but more because of the tone in which they were spoken. For Ean’s entire life, Bran had always supported him against the other townsfolk, even when Ean had done his best to push the other boy away. Ean couldn’t remember a single harsh word being said directly to him by Bran before. Besides Jaslen, Bran had been a constant pillar of support.

Jaslen’s silence didn’t help matters either. She was usually the first to jump to his defense, faster than Bran even, in most situations. Now she stared into the fire, either lost in her own thoughts or unwilling to get involved.

“No, I’m sorry, Bran. I don’t know a way to make sure we’re always moving in the same direction. I don’t think a spell even exists that —”

“Well, then what good is all of this power you claim to have?” Bran’s voice was growing louder with every word, and the young man clenched his fists. “Why don’t you summon something that can lead us out of here, or better yet, why don’t you ask your best friend, Ze’an, to deliver us from these woods. The Gods know I’ve been asking every other Deity for help and have received none. Maybe your buddy in the Abyss can help us out.”

Ean frowned and took a deep breath. He could feel the guilt inside of him being replaced with anger, but getting into a screaming match with Bran wouldn’t make things any better. So instead of yelling back, he raised both hands defensively and tried his best to keep his voice level and calm.

“I have no control whether Ze’an talks to me or not.” That at least was true, the fact that the god had never spoken to him didn’t much matter at this point. “And I have no idea what kind of creature I could call that would lead us from the woods. We just need to stay calm and keep our heads, and we’ll figure something out.”

“Don’t tell me to keep calm!” Rising to his feet, Bran began to pace back and forth in front of the fire. “You’re probably loving this, aren’t you? You hate people so much that getting lost in the woods is probably a dream come true, especially since you get to stare at my girl the entire day.”

That finally got Jaslen’s attention. Raising her head, she shot Bran a frown before speaking. “Bran, stop it. This isn’t helping anything. We need to stick together, not fight.”

“Of course you would say that.” Bran spat on the ground in disgust. “You want to believe he can help you get close to Ze’an so badly that you listen to everything he says. Well, he can’t, Jaslen. He clearly knows next to nothing. That imp that follows him around knows ten times more than Ean does, and where has he been?”

Jaslen turned towards Ean, giving him a perfect view of the doubt in her eyes. “Is that true, Ean? We know you can perform some amazing feats of magic, but have you been making up things about your connection to the Abyss just to try and impress me?”

“I haven’t done it to try to impress you —”
 

Jaslen’s eyes watered up and she turned away from him. That action might as well have been a physical blow the way it caused his stomach to tie up in knots. Things were spiraling out of control.

“Listen,” Ean pleaded, trying to get a handle on things. “Maybe I don’t know as much as I implied about the Abyss, and maybe Ze’an hasn’t spoken directly to me, but that doesn’t matter. As far as I know, I’m still the most connected person to the Abyss. That has to mean something, right?”

Jaslen ignored him, looking away from both him and Bran. Bran, on the other hand, had other ideas. He marched right up to Ean and got directly in his face.

“This has all just been one big scheme to steal Jaslen away from me, hasn’t it?” The anger was painted across most of Bran’s face now. His eyes, though, seemed off, not appearing to really focus as he attempted to glare at Ean. “Always saying or doing things to try and impress her, pretending to be this big follower of the God of the Abyss. It’s all a show, isn’t it? Your way of keeping people away at first, but then you jumped right into the role when you realized Jaslen was so fascinated by the god.”

“You mean,” Jaslen cut in, her voice low and wobbly, “when he found that both of us were interested in Ze’an, don’t you, Bran?”

A bit of the anger drained from Bran’s face. “What?”

Rising to her feet, Jaslen walked over, her steps shaky as if she might fall over at any second. “You said that I was the only one interested in Ze’an. But I thought we shared a mutual interest in him.”
 

Her tone had changed from sad to accusatory. When she reached the two young men, she placed her hands on her hips and stared hard at Bran. He just stared at her for a moment, his mouth hanging slightly open, before he tried to speak.

“That’s not what I … you know I’m interested —”

Her raised right hand cut him off, as her voice grew firmer. “Don’t call Ean a liar and then turn around and lie right to my face. Three years, Bran, it’s been three years now since we first started talking about becoming followers of Ze’an. That’s three years that you’ve been lying to me about something I thought made us closer.”

“I didn’t ...” He looked at her for a second and then threw his hands into the air. “Fine, fine, I had no interest in your god, if you want the honest truth. How you can be interested in a god that clearly causes so much pain is beyond me. I didn’t think much of it at home, but now that we’ve been out in the world and have heard how horrible Ze’an truly is, I’m honestly shocked that you still want to follow him.”

Jaslen stumbled backwards as if his words had physically pushed her. She sat down hard on the ground and immediately hid her face in her hands. Even though it was clear she was trying to hide it.

Ean had been growing so used to having people around that enjoyed his company, now that things were falling apart, it was worse than his years of being bullied at home. As Jaslen began to cry, the guilt that Ean had been feeling started to change into something else. How dare Bran treat Jaslen this way? Well, he wasn’t going to let it continue.

“Bran, I think you’ve said enough. We should all just give each other some space and get some sleep. Tomorrow —”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow?! You mean tomorrow while we tramp around in the woods as our supplies dwindle? Oh, I can’t wait for another day of that.” His voice dropped, taking on a dangerous tone. “Or do you think that if me and Jaslen are arguing that maybe she’ll come lie near you tonight?”

“What … I never even considered …”

“That’s right. You never considered it, ’cause it would never happen.” Without warning Bran shoved Ean backwards. Ean tried his best to stay on his feet, but his heel hit a root and he dropped down hard into a sitting position. Wincing at the pain the fall caused, he looked up at the young man he used to consider his friend and sneered.

“Sounds to me like someone is afraid he isn’t man enough to keep his girl.” Ean put as much scorn and contempt into his voice as he could. When both of Bran’s hands balled up into fists, for a moment Ean thought he had gone too far, but a glimpse at the still crying form of Jaslen made him not care if he had.

“You think you’re good enough for her?” The laugh that came out of Bran’s mouth did not contain even the slightest bit of humor. “She wouldn’t be with you if you were the last human in the realm. The only reason she has ever been nice to you is because her heart is too big and she pities you. She’s told me as much countless times in the past.”

“Is that true, Jaslen?” Ean demanded, voice tinged in angry accusation. “Have I just been your little pity project?”

Jaslen pulled her hands down away from her face enough so that her eyes could meet his. It only took a moment of looking into those eyes for Ean to realize what Bran had said was true. Pushing himself to his feet, anger and hurt washed through him.

“I don’t need your pity. I don’t need anyone’s pity!”

Jaslen leapt up just as quickly, raising her hands in a calming fashion. “Ean, it’s not what it sounds like. When I said that to Bran —”

“You don’t have to defend yourself,” Bran cut in. “He’s better off knowing the truth anyway. Now he can stop looking at you like a love-sick puppy.”
 

Turning his attention back to Ean, he raised a finger and pointed it in Ean’s face. “You just stick to being friends with your little creatures and beasts. They at least seem to be able to tolerate you.”

Ean felt as if he was going to explode with rage. He had let both of these fake people drop his guard, break down walls he had been putting up for years. What a fool he’d been to ever think anyone from his village could actually consider him a friend. Clenching his gloved fists together tightly, he opened himself up to the energies of the Abyss. They would see exactly how adored he could be by creatures from the Abyss.

Dropping to one knee, he ripped off his glove and placed his right hand on the ground. The summoning runes leapt into his mind. He had only glimpsed at the page containing the creature he wanted, but the picture had been one of a beautiful woman with short hair and scantily clothed. Overall she had looked like a normal human woman, except that she had a pair of wings coming out of her back. The few words he had been able to translate from the page were ‘slave’ and ‘weak,’ so she should be rather easy to control.

It took only moments for the circle to flash into existence, the runes flaring out from his hand and across the ground to form a circle. Bran leapt back, almost stumbling into the fire while Jaslen stepped back a bit more carefully. As the runes took hold and flared to life, they moved back even further. Ean simply smiled at them as the circle disappeared and the connection to the Abyss opened in the ground.

And then the pain hit him.

It was worse than anytime he had summoned Zin or the Hound combined. Worse than when he had called the Cruxlum. It was even worse than the “growing pains” he had experienced as his powers increased. Falling over onto his side, Ean curled into a ball and fought to stay conscious, his right hand still on the runes.

Through eyes half closed in pain, he watched as two hands reached out of the hole and grasped the grass. The hands were human, although the skin was a pale blue and the purple fingernails were longer than what you would find on most girls. Those nails dug into the dirt as the creature pulled itself up.

The tops of wings appeared next, small, bony points sticking out of the dark violet membrane of the wings. In the picture they had appeared more like the wings of a bird, but in person, they were leathery like those of a bat. The wings stretched out as they cleared the opening, flapping once and sending a burst of air into Ean’s face. That one flutter of wings completely lifted the rest of the creature out of the hole, propelling it slightly above the ground for a moment before its human feet landed right in front of Ean’s face. Looking up and doing his best to ignore the pain coursing through his body, Ean saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Standing about the same height as Jaslen, the woman, or at least the creature that look like a woman, was scantily clad in what appeared to be some kind of dark leather that barely covered her lithe body. Her skin was a pale blue color, with long purple claws stemming from her toes that matched those on her hands. Short, purple hair that matched her wings fluttered about her head as she looked around with pupil-less eyes that were the darkest red Ean had ever seen. Her ears and nose were petite in size compared to a mouth that was almost too wide. All of her strange features however somehow accented her beauty instead of making her look less human.

Ean watched as she glanced over her shoulder at Jaslen and Bran, whom were both gaping at her, before finally turning around and resting her gaze on Ean. A small smirk touched her lips as she looked at him for a few moments. Then she bent down, bringing her face so close to his that their noses almost touched. The glow of the now returned summoning rune bathed both of their faces in its blue light.

“Thank you for the freedom, little one,” she said, her voice sultry and playful at the same time. “I have never been out of the Abyss before. I will make sure to thank you properly in a moment as soon as I’ve had a little snack. It was awfully nice of you to provide me with two.”

Opening her mouth, she playfully licked the tip of his nose before standing and turning towards Bran and Jaslen. As she walked over towards them, her hips swaying rhythmically, her words began to sink into Ean’s pain-riddled brain. Did she believe Jaslen and Bran were a snack? Fighting through the pain, it took all of Ean’s strength just to sit up.

“Wait, you need to stop,” he was able to say through clenched teeth.

Barely turning her head enough for him to see the corner of a blood-red eye, she raised a hand and waved him off.
 

 
“I said I would be with you in a moment, dear. I have heard so many wonderful things about how a human’s essence tastes. I’ll try not to get too caught up in feeding off of them that I leave you waiting long. You don’t look to be in any condition to enjoy my company at the moment anyway.”

Returning her attention to Jaslen and Bran, she took the few remaining steps to reach them. Ean was able to get a glimpse of Bran’s face and wasn’t surprised to see a bit of fear in his eyes.