Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms

Kyra sat in a warm comfortable chair, the fire burning nearby, never wanting to move again.  Eadmund sat beside her, just as exhausted.  They were each handed a cup of steaming liquid.  Kyra drank and felt the heat pass throughout her body; it made her feel a little better.
    
He is much stronger this time, stronger than I have ever seen him, Eadmund thought.
    
Kyra could feel the fear in the thought he sent her.
    
He did what was truly impossible.  He . . .

He’s my brother, Kyra thought.  I don’t understand how any of it is possible, but he’s my brother – I can see it, beneath that hideous façade is my blood relation; I can see it in his eyes.  Just as Queen Anita is my mother and Orcus is my father.  I remember everything now.

Doci was sitting in another chair nearby, watching her.  He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
    
I left my world, forgot the faces of my family, the ones I love, only to find them here, as I fight for and against them.  I understand as much now as I did when I first arrived: a big fat “NOTHING!”
    
She shouted the last world aloud.  Tears formed in her eyes and she couldn’t stop them from falling.  She was sick of crying.  What sort of a hero was she?
    
“I’m,” she spoke, clearing her throat.  “I’m starting to wish I’d never come to Aisis Lip.”
    
Doci knew what to say about this, but didn’t.  Whatever he said wouldn’t matter, especially in making her feel any better.  Kyra never had a choice: her family existed in some form in both worlds.  She was the focal part of both worlds.  Even if she hadn’t gone with Marie, she would have ended up in Aisis Lip in some other way.  She was the Chosen One. 

Doci felt that in time she would understand this.  

They left a short while later.  They said their simple goodbyes, and as they turned to Ketu he handed them their swords which had been cleaned and sharpened: they were now weapons of beauty as well as weapons of death. 

Kyra and Doci walked across the drawbridge and were soon on the other side, heading across the high plateau.  Doci wasn’t sure where Kyra was heading and what she intended to do to get them over the mountain range and into the desert; he simply followed her.

Eadmund and Ketu didn’t wait in the doorway of the palace watching them leave.  Ketu remained in the library, saddened, though not knowing what had happened.  He supposed in time he would, but for now there was just an empty feeling.  Eadmund went back to the room where it had happened, staring at the shards of the Seeing Mirror, afraid for Kyra, now seeing the true power and might she was up against.  At the battle of the Bloody War, while Eadmund had been young and courageous, Jolus had been strong and possessed a magical ability that had surprised them all, but they had still been able to stop, capture, and exile him.  They had been wrong to leave Jolus the Malignant in his castle for so long.  He had grown powerful beyond all reckoning, while they had withered and grown old.  Eadmund shivered at the thought of meeting Jolus again and having to fight him.  He cried for the first time in many many years; he cried for Kyra, with doom and no hope in his heart.

Kyra stopped five feet from the edge of the plateau and Doci almost ran into her.  She didn’t notice.  Her eyes stared straight ahead as she was deep in thought, deep in planning. 

Having Jolus smash through the Seeing Mirror had scared her a lot, but at the same time she’d been hardened by the experience and now looked at this King of Evil with a new eye.  His powers were great.  That she knew for a fact.  But her’s were growing and developing.  She understood the potential she possessed within herself, and she knew that when the time came, she would be able to react and fight, just as she’d done with the creature Jolus the Malignant had sent them.  For now, she felt little fear, what she felt welling up inside her with a warm feeling was courage and anger at this creature who was keeping this world in perpetual fear.  He needed to be stopped and his life needed to be ended.  Kyra was the one to do it and she would, with Doci’s help.

She looked at Doci, who stood at her side. 

He looked at her.

“You ready?” she asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.  And so long as you’re by me, I’ll be just fine.”

She smiled.  Doci hadn’t been sure he would see her do that again.  Something bad had happened with Kyra and the Seeing Mirror.  At some point in time he would ask her.  For now, he looked at her and said:

“I trust you.”

“Good,” she said, her smile turning into a laugh.

Kyra took his hand and he had a feeling he knew what was coming, but let her lead him.  She pulled forward and they stepped off the edge of the cliff and fell towards the hard ground below.

But before they began falling, Doci felt Kyra’s hold on him tighten and saw her eyes close as she concentrated.  He felt their descent slow, stop and then they began to fly.  Not just levitating or floating this time, but actually flying!

They ascended and Kyra opened her eyes and let out a whoop of joy as they rose above the plateau.  High they flew up above the palace, circling around it, then turning and heading across the mountain range.  The wide horizon was laid out before them. 

“How’re you doing this?” Doci shouted.  When there was no reply from Kyra, he thought: How are you doing this?

They passed over the peaks, and swooped downwards, heading for the ground below like riding a giant invisible slide.  When they were twenty feet off the ground, they straightened out and headed straight, speeding up, the ground shooting by below them.

I don’t know, Kyra thought as they flew across the desert.

They quickly discovered that desert was no longer an accurate name for these lands that surrounded Jolus the Malignant’s castle.  The very outer fringes, essentially what was visible from Eadmund’s palace, were desert, but as they flew across the land, they saw that it soon changed.

The ochre sands with light hills turned into a ripped and torn land that looked as if it had seen many years of war, destruction, and death, as it fought against the existence of Jolus the Malignant and his spreading pestilence.  The oranges, browns and yellows turned to greens, darker browns, and blacks.  Cesspools became evident and then abundant, thick with a black viscous liquid.  Occasionally they saw animals that had fallen into these pools, some with body parts protruding from the fluid, all dead.  Kyra slowed when they saw that they were wrong in thinking that all the animals had fallen in the pools.

They settled onto the moldy green ground, which had a springy feel underfoot.  What they saw before them was a spectacle to behold. 

One of the cesspools, larger than most, was a stage for a battle of beasts being waged.  There was a creature with so many legs Kyra didn’t want to try to count them, along with two heads and four arms, a vaguely humanoid shape, though much larger.  Perhaps it had been drinking from the pool, or trying to find food near it.  Perhaps these pools attracted creatures to drink and congregate.  Whatever this creature had been doing near the pond, it clearly hadn’t intended to meet the roiling mass of claws and tentacles that were reaching out from the thick liquid.  Four of the clawed limbs were wrapped around the creature.  It let off tortured scream, as the claws sank deeper into its brown flesh.  Its many arms were tearing at the tentacles, trying to pull them from its body, but the claws gripped hard and deep.  Its many legs were fervently backpedaling, trying to wrench its body loose so it could flee.

Doci watched, not believing what he saw.  He took a breath and then drew his sword.  Kyra saw and drew her own blade.  Then with little thought they charged at the fighting beasts.

But before they could get involved in the mêlée, the body of the many-tentacled beast rose above the water, as its chest area burst open, lips of flesh spreading apart.  A hidden dart shot forth from the insides and struck the humanoid in the head.  It let out a wail then dropped, stunned but not dead, for it was still twitching.  Two more tentacles reached out and wrapped around the insensible humanoid and dragged it into the glutinous liquid.  It sank below and soon there was no little evidence of what had just happened.

Kyra and Doci just stood there, their swords resting on the ground.  She felt that anger welling up in her again.

“We have to stop this,” she said.

Doci nodded.

“We need to stop all this, get rid of it, destroy it, and stop it from ever happening again.”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“We have to kill him this time.  Not just stop him and lock him up or exile him somewhere else.  We have to actually kill him.  It’s his evil.  It’s poisoning the land, even though he hasn’t really done anything yet.  Just by living where he is, he’s destroyed this desert where nothing grows.  He’s managed to create rot and death and great beasts that kill each other daily.  Without even lifting a finger.  We have to kill him.”

Let’s go, she thought.

Kyra sheathed her sword, let Doci sheath his, and then took his hand.  They flew up into the air and headed in a specific direction, Doci sending a telepathic bearing, guiding Kyra towards Jolus the Malignant.

The King of the Castle sat upon his throne of skulls and death.  Something was bothering Jolus the Malignant, only he didn’t know what it was.  He’d already killed two slaves today for asking him to repeat something.  He’d been ranting and raving at the time, mumbling and grumbling, but he still expected his slaves to understand him.  If they didn’t, that was their problem and execution.

He’d not eaten anything for over a day.  At dawn the day before he’d felt nauseous and spent it angry with his body for being so weak.  Today the nausea was still there, and now he felt a continuous tingling wriggling up from the tail of his spine, up his back and neck, into his brain, and back down again.  It was a horrible feeling.  Normally he relished feeling horrible, but this just unnerved him; there was no explanation for it.
    
At noon he began ranting, only the rants were different from his usual outbreaks.  These were a lot angrier and visceral, like something was working through him, using him.
    
“She’s coming,” he bellowed, over and over.  “I can feel her, coming closer, I can feel her, like she’s a part of me.  I can feel her every movement.  She’s so close now . . . AHHHHHHHHHH!” he screamed and fell to the floor, covering himself in his heavy black cloak, wrapping his arms around his head.
    
After a while he slowly stood and looked around; many of his servants surrounded him, at a safe distance, but still wondering what had happened to him.  There were a few of his creations too; they were worried if he died there would be no one to feed them fresh, dripping food.  They all jumped back when Jolus the Malignant reared his hideous head, screaming.  There was a smile stretched tight across his face from cheek to cheek, showing his black fangs.
    
“She’s here now and . . . and she wants me.  She knows what I’m doing, what I want.  And now she’s coming to stop me.  Hah!  So she thinks.  I will crush her easily; soon she will be little more than a tasty digested meal in my memory.  She may be this . . . this Chosen One, borne out of legend, but I will make quick work of her.  And then Aisis Lip will be all mine.”

Jolus the Malignant began laughing as loud and hard as he could; he kept breaking into coughing fits, but once he regained his breath, he would laugh louder and hard.  His slaves and creatures nervously laughed along, waiting for his next order, with terror in their hearts.

*

The land got more torn and ugly.  The closer they got to Jolus the Malignant’s castle, the more death they saw.  More creatures fighting to kill each other; more carcasses lying not just in the viscous pools, but dead on the ground, rotting in the heat.  The sand was gone, but the sun had not.

It started to set, telling Kyra that the day was coming to a close.  She’d believed Doci fully when he told her they would reach Jolus the Malignant on this day, and since its end was near, they must now be close.

Kyra tore her eyes from the carnage and death below and looked ahead in the direction they were flying and saw something that slowed her. 

Doci noticed the change, looked at her and then looked ahead.

Before them was no clear sky of blue with a glow of the setting sun.  Before them were black pendulous clouds, though no rain fell.  It was a gigantic storm sending great jagged bolts of lightning to the ground below.  The thunder was quiet at the moment, but would become louder the closer they got.  And the storm didn’t seem to be building or waning, it just stayed ferocious and constant, waiting.  Kyra didn’t understand how this could be, and then she looked below the storm and stopped in mid air, hovering.

Below the heavy clouds stood a mutation of rock that reached up into the sky, like a clawed hand, seeming to reach for the thunderstorm above.  The rock was black, blacker than the storm above.  This was Jolus the Malignant’s Castle of Pain.  The very place in all of Aisis Lip that no one ever dared to tread or see.  This was the haunt that nightmares were made of.  This was the place you were threatened to be taken, if you weren’t a good boy or girl.  Jolus the Malignant would swoop out of the night like a giant bat and pick you up in his dirty claws and carry you back to his lair, and there you would stay for eternity in terror.  Children feared this place more than anyone else did and they’d never even seen it.

Looking upon it now for the first time, Kyra considered them very lucky for this.  She felt Doci shiver and turned to him.

It’s okay to be scared, be as scared as you want.  All the people of Aisis Lip fear this place.  I’m terrified.  So be scared, but let the fear empower you, for we are going to need every ounce of energy we have to stop him.

Okay, Doci thought, shivering now as if he were freezing.

Kyra looked at him, smiled, and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him towards her.  Then she kissed his cold lips as they floated above the ground.

They both felt a warmness envelope them at this connection.  After the kiss, their fear was weakened.

Let’s end the evil, Doci thought in a stronger voice, out of breath.

Kyra nodded, squeezed his hand, and they flew toward the dark shadow with the dark clouds above it.

Death was not just a possibility but a way of life for anything that tried to live in this destroyed land.  What they’d already seen made this clearly evident, but what was laid out before them made it seem harsher and more real.

Doci heard the screaming first, the sound of people in peril.  He looked around, trying to see where they were.
    
Do you hear that? he thought.
    
Yes, where is it coming from? Kyra thought.
    
I don’t know, but they’re in trouble, we’ve got to find them.
    
Kyra slowed them down and they searched and searched, turning completely around.  The screams were louder now, and more terrified, if that were possible.  They were able to hone in and follow the sound and soon discovered two Ewlaps: one was in one of the black pools up to his waist, trying not to get sucked down further.  The other was holding his hands, tugging, trying to pull him out, but something was beneath the surface, dragging him down.  It gave a terrific yank and the Ewlap went up to his neck, while the other was pulled forward and fell in.
    
Kyra and Doci quickly touched down and ran to help them.  With their longer arms and height, they were able to reach out and grab the Ewlaps’ hands.  Doci was pulling at the one up to his neck, his beard black floating in the pool.  But whatever was pulling them down – it now had hold of the other Ewlap – was stronger and they slowly lost ground, coming close to the edge.
    
“We have to let go,” Doci said.
    
“We can’t!”
    
“If we don’t, we’ll fall in too!”
    
“But we must save them,” Kyra said.
    
“At the risk of killing ourselves?”
    
They were now hanging over the edge.
    
“Kyra,” Doci said, “we must let go.  If we fall in, we’re done for.  And Jolus the Malignant wins.  We can’t let that happen.”
    
He let go of the Ewlap; the little man’s head was already beneath the surface and all that remained were the arms reaching upwards and some of the beard.
    
“Kyra let go!” Doci shouted, seeing her teetering.  Then he grabbed her and pulled her backwards.
    
For a moment the Ewlap actually rose up a little out of the pool, then Kyra lost her grip and the girl sunk back down, quickly disappearing beneath the surface as the creature beneath dragged her down.
    
They both fell back, Kyra falling on top of Doci, but before he could move to get up, she spun around and started hitting him, crying out.
    
“Why did you do that!” she sobbed at him.  “We could’ve at least saved her.  A little more time and I would’ve had her free.  Why did you do that?”
    
She kept hitting him and he just let her.  She wasn’t using much force, not really hurting him.  Eventually she stopped and got off him, walking to the edge of the pool, looking into it for any sign of life.  There was nothing.  She put her head in her hand and then the wracking sobs took over her.
    
Doci waited, not really sure what to do.  Her sobs eased a little, so he got up and put his hands on her shoulders.  She immediately turned around and he readied himself for another beating, but she fell into his arms, crying into his chest.  He held her tight, not letting go, until she stopped and tried to pull away.  She looked up at him, waiting for an answer.  He gave her the only one he had.
    
“If I’d left you any longer, you would’ve fallen in, and that would’ve been the end of everything.  No just the end of you, but the end of Queen Anita, the end of Enchantus, the end of all the people of Aisis Lip.  It would’ve all been over.  Hopeless.”
    
She opened her mouth to say something and stopped herself.  Then she slowly nodded.
    
“There’s more death on his hands now,” she said in a low voice.  She lifted her head and Doci stepped back, seeing the furious anger in her eyes.

“We have to stop him.  Come on,” she said, taking his hand.

Jolus the Malignant stood at the very top of one of the turrets in his castle.  The clouds above seemed to be surrounding him, watching his every move.  Every once in a while a jagged bolt of bright light would shoot down close by, attempting to smash through the black stone of the castle.  But no damage was ever made, and the bolt actually retracted itself back up into the cloud, like a dog that had been beaten, scurrying away in fear.

The next bolt hit just a few feet to the right of Jolus the Malignant, but he wasn’t distracted in the least.  He looked out upon his lands of decay and saw the speck growing in size as it came closer.  He knew it was the Chosen One and her Guide.  They would be here soon and the fight to end all fights would begin.  It would be an easy victory and then Jolus’s takeover of Aisis Lip would truly begin, this time without any retaliation, and soon all the lands would belong to him; all its peoples enslaved and answering only to him. 

Soon it would all be his!

“Massster, all is almost ready,” a gravely voice spoke in a whisper behind him.

Jolus the Malignant turned and looked behind him at a creature that looked a little like a Ewlap, but was taller with a dirty gray skin color and three eyes in its bulbous head.  Jolus smiled at his creation: a perfect union between the Ewlaps and one of his beasts.

“Good,” Jolus said, “now leave me and do not bother me until they arrive.”

“Certainly, massster.”

The creature turned and went into the darkness, down the many stairs of the high turret.

Jolus the Malignant turned back and looked at the speck that had become a noticeable blob.  They were coming fast and would be here soon.  He had plenty in store for them.  He wondered if they realized that once they entered his castle, they would never leave it again . . . at least not alive.

He had decided how he would kill the Guide.  A tearing of limb from limb would be the right way to end his life.  Slow and painful, removing the limbs that were necessary for his role as a guide; leaving the most important for last: his mind.

As for Kyra.  Ah, Kyra.  He didn’t know what he would do with her, but he had ideas.  He had had ideas for a long time, and she would be the perfect victim to try them on.

A bolt of lightning blasted down from the black heavens above and struck Jolus the Malignant’s head, passing through his body, and discharging on the stone below.  Jolus let the power surge through him, absorbing all he could.  The storm above had been brewing for the last five hundred years, and each time it attacked him and tried to take his life, he relished the energy it gave.