Tag: fantasy

Randell could barely raise his head. His back was hot sticky and red. But it wasn’t over yet. He was still alive. They would deal the final blow, and it would be over. Randell would be gone, dead to everyone who had known him. He pulled his arms into his chest and painfully struggled to a kneeling position.

He would face his exile with dignity. The punisher opened his arms to the audience,
giving in to the stony, cavernous silence. Everyone stared at the punisher. Nobody looked at Randell. Nobody would ever look at him again.

He would never be useful, because they couldn’t use him, and if he wasn’t useful, he might as well be dead. There was no pain in the thought processes. It was all cold hard logic.

But Randell felt the pain. He felt it pressing its gritty fingers into his open back. He felt its pernicious anger creep into his heart. The punisher opened his mouth for the creed.

Jaumet met Randell’s eyes.

Jaumet clenched his fingernails into his palm and tried not to track the pain spell as it fell again and again on his best friend’s back. Every time it struck, Randell clenched his teeth and tried not to scream.

And every time, Jaumet had to mirror his reaction.

He wanted it to be over, but the girl’s words had gotten to him. What kind of friend was he if he didn’t stay? How could he live with himself?

The stony eyes around him echoed with an undoubtable sense of he deserves it of I
never really liked him anyway of he doesn’t deserve to be here. His fists were clenched and his fingertips numb.

Did Randell really deserve this? He didn’t mean to hurt anyone, did he? In the air was the unmistakable scent of blood.

Jaumet snapped his head to where Randell was being tortured. The spells had broken skin. He bit his lip as if somehow that would make things better.

Stop, he screamed with his teeth, with his nails and with every fiber of his being.
But they wouldn’t stop until Randell was bleeding from three separate locations.

They wouldn’t stop until they had ridded him of dignity and acceptance and of most of his friends.

Well Jaumet wouldn’t be like that. Jaumet would stay.

Jaumet had walked into the room like everybody else, like to an execution. And that’s what it was, in the general sense of the word. Being outcast and death were basically the same thing.

As he found a spot near the wall, he caught sight of a small, brown-haired girl glaring at everybody as they came in.

Her glare shifted to Jaumet. As he noticed, he glared back.

“Are you judging me?” he demanded. Her gaze did not shift.

“I’m judging everyone who comes in here.” Jaumet paused as he thought this over

“Why?”

“You all come into these sessions like you’re the victim’s friend, like you need to support them, but when the punishment ends, nobody stays.”

“They’ll stay,” Jaumet asserted. The girl shook her head.

“Look around, how many people here will risk staying. His girlfriend?” She motioned to Calista.

“She loves him.”

“Not enough. What about his teacher?

“She said he was promising.”

“Not promising enough. And you, will you really stay?”

“I’m not like that,” Jaumet demanded, “I’m his friend.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“This isn’t just talk, I’m going to stay. That’s what friends do.”

“Are you willing to give up everything else? What about your other friendships? What about your life?”

“It’ll be one sorry-ass excuse for a life if I let down my best friend.” The girl cocked her head.

“You really mean it, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, good luck Jaumet.”

“To you as well…”

“Elia, it’s Elia.”

It was late and Elia was alone. Alone in her room. Alone in her bed. Her ears heard only silence, and silence, and-

A door clicked shut in the room next to her. Her eyes shot open. That room had
always been empty. For as long as she had known. This was the first time she had heard a noise. Her senses pulsed with electric charge. She pricked up the ear that she placed against the cold cement wall, seeing everything through sound. The cement floor on the other side echoed with sonar footprints.

Elia’s mind formed around lanky legs and a skinny torso, and a bump in between that told her he was male. His head was 9 inches from the celling, reaching about 6’3.”

Tall, lanky, new. It was Lois, and he was back late, really late. The hands of her
bronze watch glowed 340 hours. Elia turned her attention away as he reached for his zipper.

Who just gets up at this time in the morning? Where could he have been? As Elia turned this over in her head, she came upon the only satisfactory answer.
Where she would least expect him to be.

The rebel leader wondered how many lies he could live at once. He was supposed to be sleeping in another room, another building, but he had business to attend to. He looked out at his handful of followers.

“It can’t be that hard to find Hades Poseidon. How do you hide the most important and powerful wizard since Phobos Dike? You don’t, that’s how. I’ve gotten a tip that he’s somewhere at the palace, but he could be anywhere. We need to find him and get him on our side. Get yourselves in the palace, gain their trust. Position yourself as maids, valets,
servants, whatever opening you can find.”

“Where will you be?” a rebel asked.

“Where you least expect me to be.”

Lies. Maritza formed the word with her lips. Lies. It was such an easy word to say, but it had the sharp edge of a disobedient sword. What did morals matter when the truth was buried in a vault of suggestions and assumptions? The past wasn’t real, just a story we told ourselves, over, and over, and over again.

Maritza never told lies, just stories. All day people came to her and she gave them the script written for a better day. And sometime the day would come and it would be real.

Some people thought she was lying, but they didn’t realize, self-fulfilling prophecies are prophecies all the same.

In the quiet days like this one Maritza played through her most interesting visits. All kinds of strange people came to see the Magi, some evil, some good, some curious, some just strange.

On this day she remembered one particular visit, one it would be hard to forget. A tall hooded figure had burst into her tent and spoke to her in a voice so raspy that it had to be fake.

“Why did you put a calendar on his back?” Maritza was taken aback. She had had no idea what the strange man was talking about. She had never put a calendar on anyone’s back.

“You count down his seconds and he doesn’t know the end.” Maritza had gasped.

“One of the chosen ones.” And the man had grabbed her by the collar.

“Don’t expect me to believe the lies you Magi cook up to sweeten up your curses.
There are no chosen ones. What is at the end?” Maritza had closed her eyes.

“And the two will live and breathe as one.” The man had shaken her and tightened his grip.

“I know the prophecies. I don’t need that crap from you. I need answers. Who is the other one? How will they become one? What does it mean?” Maritza had given him the typical magi answer.

“The prophecy will find its own end.”

That’s what needles felt like. They made him show them. They told him what needles felt like and they asked him again and again. What do needles feel like? That’s what needles feel like. He saw bad things, things that were red: needles. He learned what needles felt like, then he taught them and they screamed.

The man was dishonest. His black clothes hid himself. He was dishonest. Did he know what needles felt like? No. The dishonest man, angry, screamed anger, screamed black. The girl behind him was honest. Her eyes knew what needles felt like. The needles had pierced them wide, like they had pierced his shut. He didn’t hear the dishonest man, angry. He stopped
hearing because he only heard angry things, and those things were alone, dishonest.

He followed the dishonest man’s hands, angry. The girl with honest eyes looked at him.

“He couldn’t put the sky back together,” she whispered, and they left.

The sky broke open. Elia hadn’t asked it to. But it broke. She liked the rain. It smelled like good things, but then she stopped smelling because it smelt like bad things. They had done bad things. She knew they were bad things because they hurt. She learned what a scream sounded like, but she didn’t cry. The sky did that for her.

The man was wearing all black, but he didn’t have any eyes. He told her that he could fix things, make them right. She told him to put the sky back together. He told her he couldn’t do that. She turned away from the man who could not put the sky back together. He took her
anyway.

She hadn’t meant to hurt them, but the sky broke anyway.