Echoes of the Fourth Magic (10 page)

Del opened his eyes. Or perhaps they had been open all along and his mind just now caught up with them. Instinctively he clutched at his midsection. Too late, he knew, the bullets had already ripped through his belly.

He lay on his side, shrouded by a thick gray fog. Strangely, he felt no pain. He raised his hands up before his face.

No blood. Had it been a dream? Trembling, he looked down, his breath coming in short gasps as he moved the tattered strands of his shirt aside. A jagged line of scars crossed his belly, the round scars of bullets.

It took him many minutes to steady his breathing.

As he regained control he realized that he wasn’t on the beach, that the floor beneath him was smooth and cool as marble. Struggling against his disorientation and bordering on panic, he forced himself to his feet, but as his head emerged from the waist-deep fog, his confusion only increased, for he stood in a vast dark hall, illuminated in reflections of wispy gray from the transient fog. A seemingly infinite row of huge pillars, glowing blue-white, ran off into
the distance at his left. Del saw no walls or ceiling, just the massive columns, each rooted beneath the low-riding fog and stretching upward as far as the eye could see, into the blackness and beyond. Unearthly, beautiful, yet hauntingly surreal.

“I must be dead,” he muttered, staring blankly at the supernatural sight.

“Hardly,” came a voice behind him. He spun to face Martin Reinheiser.

“Del? What happened?” another voice called. Del recognized it immediately, and then saw Billy rising from the mist at his right. “The last thing I remember was those goblins on the beach and getting whomped on the head.”

“Thompson,” Del explained.

“Figures,” Billy replied, shaking his head. “That guy’s got a real problem.”

“He took your weapon and opened up on the rest of us,” Del went on.

“But you two got away.”

“No, I got shot. So did Reinheiser, I think.”

“A dozen times at least,” the physicist confirmed.

Billy folded his arms across his chest and shot them an angry glare. “What?” he demanded, his voice louder.

Del understood his friend’s impatience. Holding Billy’s stare with his own firm but compassionate visage, he slowly pulled the tattered shirt away from his abdomen. Even from several feet away the vicious scars were unmistakable.

Billy’s arms fell unfolded and his eyes bulged in disbelief. “Are we dead?” he gasped.

“You two seem preoccupied with that subject,” Reinheiser said. “These are not the bodies of spiritual entities; we remain flesh and blood. We are not dead!”

“But you just said you got shot,” Billy protested. “Don’t tell me that those goblin things know anything about medicine.”

“Apparently—” Reinheiser began, but Del cut him off.

“Ssh!” he hissed, and he went tense. Billy and Reinheiser
also went alert, straining their eyes and ears in search of the danger Del had sensed.

A low growling noise came from somewhere under the fog nearby.

“Bear?” Billy whispered breathlessly. He moved next to Del, half expecting some hideous beast to spring at them from out of the fog.

A second later, though, the growling sounded more like snoring, and Billy and Del looked at each other and smiled. “Mitchell!”

“The captain, too,” Reinheiser said. He stroked his goatee at this new revelation. He knew he had been shot, but since it was the last thing he remembered, he wasn’t sure of the extent of his injuries. Immediate aid might have saved him. The captain was a different story, though. Reinheiser had seen Mitchell blasted apart by a hail of bullets, certainly dead even as he fell to the ground. Nobody could possibly have survived that volley.

Following the thunderous snores, the men had little trouble finding the sleeping giant. Waking him was a bit more difficult, though, for Mitchell was deep into his dreams and didn’t appreciate being disturbed. He flailed and kicked, punched and even tried to bite. Eventually they managed to rouse him, somewhat, for the captain remained groggy and had little recollection of the events at the beach. The others recounted the tale in full, and though Mitchell grumbled about its implausibility, at this juncture, at least, he had no choice but to accept it.

“Let us continue searching,” Reinheiser suggested, “perhaps the doctor is here as well.”

Almost immediately, Billy stumbled over Doc Brady, peacefully asleep under the gray blanket. Before they even woke him, Del pressed on. “That makes five,” he said. “Let’s keep going.” And he started away.

“Do we really want to locate that idiot Thompson?” Reinheiser argued.

“We’ve got to keep looking,” Del pleaded. He wasn’t
looking for Thompson at all, secretly hoping that Ray Corbin was there, somehow recovered.

“Del’s right,” Billy agreed. “If Thompson’s out there and he’s got that gun, we’ve got to get him before he wakes up.”

“Then let’s get going,” Mitchell growled, nodding his huge head as he began to remember the pain and shock of the bullets. “I want Thompson found, and then his ass is mine.” The captain grinned wickedly at the notion. It wasn’t often that a dead man had a chance to pay back his killer, and he found the thought of twisting Thompson’s neck quite satisfying.

They searched the immediate area, but the fog remained impenetrable and Thompson didn’t seem to be close by. Frustrated and more than a little fearful of the possibilities—perhaps Thompson watched from a distance even as they searched, a crazed smile on his face and a ready M-16 at his side—Mitchell needed a showdown and began calling out, “Thompson!” The others, except Reinheiser, joined in.

“Wonderful,” Reinheiser muttered, and he crouched low into the safety of the opaque veil. “That lunatic is probably training his rifle on their voices this very minute.”

A tickling breeze, a gentle puff of wind, blew across them, swirling the fog into swaying minarets. And the breeze carried words in its wake, words in the purest tone and timbre that any of them had ever heard, clear as an unblemished bell and, like the great hall about them, supernatural in beauty. “Your Mr. Thompson is not here.”

As one, eyes wide, mouths open, they turned to the voice.

Halfway between the five men and the columns, limned in ghostly evanescence, stood a tall man in a flowing white robe of fine silk. A golden crown adorned his head, and in his delicate hand he held a many-jeweled, golden scepter. Hair of the starkest white, yet thick and rich with vitality, hung loosely about his shoulders, and though his skin was incredibly pale, almost translucent, his presence was undeniably solid and powerful.

Even from a distance the being’s calm demeanor soothed
Del’s apprehension, for the creature’s eyes held a flickering blue flame that radiated unbounded knowledge and serenity.

Mitchell stood firm before the wondrous specter, his anger sufficient proof against any feelings of awe. “Then where is he?” he demanded. “And who are you?”

The being made no motion, yet a breeze emanated from him. He did not move his lips, yet the breeze carried words. More than words, actually. Within that gentle wind came emotions and sensations beyond the spectrum of hearing, emanations that the five men felt throughout their bodies and souls. “It is best to say only that Michael Thompson’s destiny followed a different path from yours. As to your second question, I am Calae, Prince of the Colonnae.” The specter then turned from Mitchell to Del, and an even more gentle puff blew by. “Truly I am sorry, Jeffrey DelGiudice, but your friend, Ray Corbin, has indeed passed from this world.”

Del’s eyes widened. The being had just read his mind and answered his unspoken question.

“You still think we’re not dead?” Billy whispered to Reinheiser. The scientist, completely at a loss for an explanation, wasn’t so quick to dismiss the possibility this time, but before he could seriously consider that theory, the breeze came again.

“Take comfort, Billy Shank. I assure you that you are not dead. By the power of the Colonnae, you have passed through the dark realm and are healed. We could not permit your deaths, for this is a time long-awaited, and a great adventure lies before you. Your actions may well determine the destiny of a new world.”

They knew a moment later that their understandable doubts had been foreseen. Calae raised his scepter and permitted the men a glimpse of their recent past, an image that had been mercifully erased from their memories. Each alone in a form not quite corporeal, yet somewhat substantial and inescapable, they walked among black mounds,
barrows of broken shale, under unknown stars, and looked upon the shadows of Death’s domain. A lonely journey, an endless trek, for not another being stirred in the never-ending plain, and every horizon promised nothing but continued blackness. Even Martin Reinheiser was stricken dumb, this episode being too far beyond any mortal experience to be believable. Sympathetic to their confused distress, Calae released them from recollections they could not comprehend. “Come,” he said, opening his arms as a father to his children. “Sit by me and I will tell you a marvelous tale that shall answer many of your questions and instill in you many more.”

Compelled by this superior will, the mortals could only comply. Barely conscious that they were moving, they approached and sat before Calae on the cool floor, and the fog in that area wafted away.

Calae closed his eyes and contemplated his tale. He didn’t want to overwhelm the fragile mortals any more than was necessary. The breeze came again. “Let me begin,” it whispered to them, “at what you may perceive to be the end, though it was in fact the beginning. You have been quite perceptive and have already guessed much.” Calae’s eyes softened in sympathy and sadness. “The war long feared by your race came, swift and terrible, a mere fifty years after you departed the sunlit world. Tiny enemies long thought eradicated were awakened once more as weapons and, in the escalation that soon followed, mankind’s terrible machines of destruction wreaked devastation across this beautiful world. Nothing could stand against the fury, the very stones screamed in agony! Nation after nation loosed their weapons in full knowledge that the poisonous wake would leave naught but a barren, unlivable earth.

“Yet they loosed their weapons!” howled a mighty wind. The men cringed as Calae grew suddenly tall and terrible before them.

But then Calae calmed again, a hint of tears rimming his
eyes, and he continued, “For in the end it was the folly of man to put country before conscience, pride before pity, might before mercy. Your race was doomed by its own hands, and that was the tragedy.

“Yet know this, mortals, know it as I am the proof: There are powers in this universe far greater than man and far beyond man’s creations. And the beings that looked upon the ravaged earth were saddened, for, though evil dwells in man’s domain, it is not an inherent trait of the race. Even He who is supreme was moved to pity. Thus it was decreed that man be given another chance to survive, to evolve above this fatal flaw of pride. Amidst the devastation, Ynis Aielle, isle of hope, rose from the sea, shielded from the fires by a golden barrier that was His blessing. And He summoned the Colonnae.

“At the time of doom, great ships sailed these waters. Of the hundreds aboard them, only the children and four of the adults were spared. The others had been touched by the killing fire and, more importantly, had tasted of the mighty magic, technology, that had wrought the fire. This knowledge demanded their deaths if the world was truly to begin anew.

“Thus the Colonnae became the guardians of an orphaned people. We guided the ships to this land and set them upon a southern beach. And the four chosen adults came away with us to learn higher levels of consciousness, that they might one day return and help guide the new race of man down a truer path. Under our protection and with our blessings, the children flourished. Soon a large settlement, a city named Pallendara, had grown on Calva, the southern plains of Aielle. A beautiful city she was, a place of art and poetry and true brotherhood, a community untainted by greed and governed by philosophers who followed unerringly the will of the people. Learning stood as the common goal, knowledge gained only to be shared, and the Earth knew its greatest peace since before the Jericho of your history many thousands of years ago.

“The mercy of the One is without bounds, yet it is bestowed upon those who prove themselves worthy. Thus, in the seventh generation of Pallendara, a test was unveiled. Mutated children of irradiated and diseased heritage, the lingering curse of technology, were born unto the innocents.

“Yes,” answered Calae to the question in all of the men’s minds, “these were indeed the forefathers of the creatures you encountered on the beach.

“As the first cursed child breathed Aielle’s clear air into its tainted lungs, our time as guardians was ended. Thus, the Colonnae departed the shining halls of Pallendara. The trials of the One had begun, the time for your race to prove itself capable and worthy.” Calae looked into the fog beyond his audience and smiled fondly at the distant memories of the early days. Again the tears came to his eyes. “It was difficult to leave,” he explained to the men. “We had grown fond of your race, had come to love them as parents do children. Yet we knew they had grown beyond our care; it was time for them to stand on their own. The four we had instructed returned to their people, but we, ever curious, remained close by to observe.

“The curse lasted ten years. Every woman with child prayed to us for the health of her coming baby, but we could only watch helplessly. Cries of dismay in the night oft told neighbors that a new mutant had come among them. One hundred times during that decade of horror a new mother looked upon her child and despaired.

“Yet the Calvans loved and cared for the misshapen babes, for they knew naught but love. In their innocence, they could not perceive that these creatures were the perfect incarnation of all that is evil in your race, an embodied mirror of the darkest errors of man’s past.

“At first the mutants caused only minor problems, but as the years passed, they grew strong. They found each other and forged a brotherhood of evil, bonded together by a common purpose of destruction. They met in shadows, carefully plotting every attack. They were indeed devious,
keeping their crimes within the borders of Calvan mercy. The people, ever trusting and forgiving, fell easy prey.