Donny Quinn
Christian Ahern
Copyright 2011 by Christian Ahern
Smashwords edition
Chapter One
Donny lacked.
So as he sat in Hilltop High School’s junior/senior cafeteria, the result of his deficiencies was obvious- he sat alone. He was a long limbed, slovenly thing with straight, greasy hair parted and combed the same way for as long as he could remember. He wore a t-shirt with an anime design under a faded denim jacket with jeans, all black. But it didn’t matter because no one looked his way
So Donny looked out. Searching. Watching for an opening, a way to get in. If Donny could find someone looking back, anyone, that would be the bridge he’d gladly cross. Just one person.
At the next table, a tall, curly haired boy (Eli, he thought) lifted his eyebrows and spoke. Donny couldn’t hear the words, but it didn’t matter. The silent phrase was a stone tossed into the water. The other table members nodded and shifted as they listened and then Eli sipped his milk and waited for the effect (one second maybe, not even). Petite girl with too much make-up laughed and heavy-set, big sweater girl pushed the laughter wave. It built momentum until they were all chum, chum, chumming along.
Donny smiled and laughed with them. A solitary dot at the edge of round white table, he laughed. Warmth, like a spreading urine stain, moved through him and filled him with a glee that felt both real and hollow. When he could no longer hear his ratchety throat, a change came over the expression on his face. The corners of his mouth dropped and the welcomed warmth from what he saw faded. Quiet, coming from him, growing like a fuzzy mold stopping up his ears, once again reminded him that he was on the outside. He heard nothing. He felt nothing. He was a dry stalk, shriveled and shrunken because others denied him entry into the garden.
Then, a light tap hit the top of Donny’s head. At first, his mind didn’t register the sudden pressure, but then he understood and a sunken ashen color washed over him. Just ignore it and they’ll go away just ignore. Another plunk hit him right behind his ear as a small carrot deflected to the table. Donny dropped his chin to his chest and tightened his jaw.
Plunk, again.
Ignore it, don’t say anything because they’ll just go away and leave me alone, they’ll just go away.
“Hey, Duncy!”
Donny took a sip from his moist carton.
“Hey! Duuuuncceeeee!”
Behind him. Always behind him.
“Hey, Duncy, where’s your boyfriend, huh? Is he in the closet? Faaaaag! Whaddya think, Petutio, is he gay or what?”
A rope, vile and cruel, wrapped around his throat and pulled his mind and throttled heart out of exile. The soft noise around him faded, and Donny felt nothing but a white craven fear close to anger. It pulsed cold waves through his body and boy did he want to just get those bastards, no matter what it took, he just wanted to get them real good.
If only he could.
“Definitely. Isn’t that right, DUNCY!”
Ohh he wished the back of his head could propel his intent and smash them to powder, dead.
Another plunk.
Dead.
Laughter, jeering, grating like glass.
Donny just wanted them to leave him alone, that’s all he wanted was to be left alone, but they push, everyday they push, and what was he supposed to do? Huh? What?
“Just leave me alone!” He shouted over his shoulder as he snapped his head to the side. Donny sucked air in and seem to inflate like a hot bag.
More laughter, this time it spread around.
Plunk, plunk, plunk. Plunk.
Bastards, goddamn bastards.
“Hey Duncy, are ya gonna use your ninja moves, boy? Huh?”
Donny saw nothing because his eyes were dropped down to the ground. He heard though. High spiked giggles mixed with the rabble haw haw, all exposing him, stripping him naked and laughing at his soul’s white, purple flesh under the spotlight of their ridicule. The faces around him no longer held identity but conjoined into one writhing mass of eyes and mouths, glaring and laughing.
“Duncy, the fag!”
Leave me alone.
“Faaag!”
Donny snapped his head around as if it were made out of wood. His hands made fists at his side. “Leave me alone!” he shouted. The mass stopped and went blank. Its immediate reaction stunned Donny. They were all quiet and gaping. Maybe they’ll stop, this one time because they shut up, they weren’t prodding him, maybe they’ll stop. And then it all came at once with that Brandon Evans at the head cackling with his mouth wide open and that sound coming out. All around him was the sneer and chuckle that burned and froze Donny.
Donny held his fists and looked out at nothing. He was a toothless threat, bleeding inside, as the faces shuffled away. He wanted to look into one of their eyes and see a muscle flex around the sockets, anything, as long as it showed some compassion. But he didn’t turn in any particular direction; he stared at the spaces in between and waited for the fuzzy mass of color to move away from him.
When Donny was alone, he moved, mechanically, slinging his pack around his shoulder and carrying his half-eaten tray to the stainless steel slot. They were gone, all of them, he told himself. The threat had been taken away and his mind began to click forward again.
Life began to flow through the hall and Donny thought, maybe if there were no Brandons or Nicks, the rest would just accept him into the fold. He still had time, sure he did. Someone comes from another school and everyone’s a little cautious at first but then they bring him in and fit him into some slot and it didn’t matter if he were high-up or low, at least he was in a slot.
Donny could fit into a slot.
This idea pleased him, and he smiled like a cat.
The moving blood in the hall swept Donny toward his next class. The hall was good. All those people to look at didn’t give anyone a chance to notice Donny so he kind of glided through and around chattering heads and preening dolls. He moved in a rhythm that was a subtle ease like mud oozing through rock. High gloss yellow painted brick slid by one side with regimented lockers and their street gangs clumped in invisible clans.
One more turn and down the 700 wing.
Garraty’s room.
Mr. Garraty was cool. He was always nice and looked Donny in the eye in a way that didn’t make Donny nervous.
There was this infectious vibrancy around and in anything Mr. Garraty said or did. Donny just felt good when he was near him. Plus, no smartass thugs. They were in auto shop, most of them, or cutting. When Garraty’s door closed behind him, the hall chatter was dulled by students’ artwork hanging or fixed on the wall. To Donny, it felt like a thick, wool blanket, a warm one. He didn’t see anyone but he knew Garratty was around. He was always in this closet or that, chirping away, getting things ready.
As was his custom, Donny pulled his portfolio from the bin and brought it over to the nicked and pocked table. He unslung his pack, laid the portfolio in front of him and settled into his stool to get ready for his work. That was another reason Donny liked art, those stools. They were slate gray, tall and hard. They stood at attention and demanded work. They demanded purpose. Donny liked that.
Right now his only concern was the image in his mind taking shape on the canvas. Donny unwound the string from the circular latch on the front of his portfolio sitting like a big brown envelope. Kids were coming, sitting, and working. Donny didn’t notice; he didn’t see. His excited fingers pressed and pulled the canvas from the portfolio. Charcoal and paper mixed in the air and filled his head. He cradled the edges while extending his arms to get a fresh perspective on his work, looking wise and studious as he examined the canvas like a master shaping genius in his mind. In a very real sense, that’s what he was doing. Shaping.
The figure of a man in light and dark shades of gray was part of a world Donny saw and made and longed for every day. He took a long look. The canvas just didn’t match what was really there, in his mind. But that look on his face did. Confident, cocky, in a sure-footed, sober way. Asladon. The one that fears nothing, grapples with wrong and evil, a staunch enemy to their emissaries. That was Asladon or at least the beginning of him. Donny believed he captured him just the way he had looked on the Book I’s cover. He could do that because he really knew Asladon, he really knew what he was up against. There were a lot of mean, evil people out there.
Donny knew.
“Hey, Don, how’s it goin’ there?”
Donny’s trance broke and his body jolted only to be smoothed over by Mr. Garraty’s round, bearded red face. He always called Donny ‘Don’. That made him feel like a man instead of some dufus kid, some awkward dufus who’ll never get it right.
“H-h-hello, Mr. Garraty,” Donny answered. Six other kids were scattered throughout the room doing their own thing.
“Whataya got there?” Mr. Garraty asked again.
“Oh, this is Asladon. From Dragonblade. Have you ever heard of Dragonblade, Mr. Garraty?” Donny asked.
“Is that like those role playing games or something?”
Donny snorted at the faux pas and corrected, “no, no, it’s a book. Ya know, fantasy. There is a game though, on-line.”
Mr. Garraty surveyed the piece. “Well, you know I like your style, Don, but watch your proportions on his legs. They seem too short.”
Donny followed his glance and shook his head in assent. He knew the legs needed work. That’s what he was going to do today, maybe.
“That’s what I’m gonna do today,” he responded. Garraty smiled and said, “Good, good, I think it looks great. If you need anything, you let me know.”
Donny’s spine straightened a little.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Mr. Garraty’s head moved away. Donny turned back and saw again what was growing on his canvas. His concentration became fixed on the eyes. In each pupil there was a reflection, a shine coming from light and dispelling darkness. Or maybe it was from his sword. In his head, Donny heard Asladon grip the hilt, he heard the leather squeak and move under his knuckles. His swing, swift and lethal, a blade meant to strike dumb the vicious hordes. Asladon.
Donny’s fingers began to move. His passes over and around the canvas became rapid and sweeping. All the while his gaze remained fixed on the eyes. The picture emerged more and more into Donny’s image of Asladon. His fingertips pressed white against the charcoal’s soft, firm edges as if Donny were gripping the actual sword hilt. Slash, circle, and slide (the charcoal moves), uncover what’s there, truth and honor. Evil pressed by strength and might, by goodness. The eyes, the sureness and conviction. With each wrist turn, a shimmering blade arc cut through the day’s despair like a wavy blur of light. He saw. Even though the picture was a static snap-shot, Donny’s hand and eye gave him life. Asladon moved and swung, slicing through gray skin, all of them bled blood that stank. Asladon’s (Donny’s) face wrinkled in disgust as he slew and slew without fear or fatigue. A battle fury was on him and he swung with more strength and speed. A war cry rang through Donny’s head, and his mouth mimed what he heard. Nothing was going to stop him. Nothing.
The bell rang.
The light blinked out and all that was left were the flat, unforgiving fluorescents that milked everything dry and dead like morgue lamps. Most of the other kids had packed-up and were see-sawing the door open and shut as they left. Donny just sat, deflating, his arms falling to his side. He went to the shelf lining the back wall and picked-up a gray aerosol can and shook it as he turned back to his canvas. Donny depressed the nozzle and waved a white cloud over and around. The alcohol smell coupled with the hazy smoke gave the moment a mystic finality that sort of awed and depressed him at the same time because he had to leave, he had to break away from a time and place that was truly his own. When the can clinked down on the black-painted wooden shelf, a change came over him. Or rather, it was a resumption of his usual, invisible self. He adopted an opaque stare at nothing and went about the business of leaving, mechanical and stiff. He looked at the clock.
12:57.
2
The hall swept him through, back toward the cafeteria. He had to weave among talking and laughing faces all the while looking under them or between them or down, down at the floor. People cowed him into a wary, slinking thing so his steps were short and rapid when the smell of urinal mint and something sour like old pickles lifted his head and reminded him that he had to use the bathroom.
Donny cut right into the dung-tiled lav and was swallowed-up. He ticked rapid, micro-glances around the room as he pushed a relieved breath through his teeth. It was empty. He looked at the urinals, grimaced, and then scurried into the stall walled-in the corner. Just the idea of leaning against a bone white bowl fixed to a tiled wall all the while staring at some spot so the guy next to him won’t think he’s checking out the size of his neighbor’s penis made Donny’s bladder clamp tight as a knot. The stall was private and comforting. He could relax and do what he had to do.
He clicked the stall door shut, hung-up his backpack, and unzipped his fly before the yellow-sprayed toilet. Donny closed his eyes and thought of water flowing so his body could open the dam and just put his business behind him because he had to get to study hall on time. He felt the alleyway open and his muscles relax as the pressure drained away.
Then the creaking door announced a visitor. Donny’s eyes snapped open as his urethra clamped shut. He held his breath and listened for any usual sounds- relieved sighs, water running, the shhht shhht shhht of the paper towel dispenser.
But there was nothing but silence. The quiet was unsettling because people make noises, don’t they? Coughing, feet shuffling, grunting, anything. Donny tilted his head up, hoping to hear a sound to calm his prickling, mushrooming stomach. There was still nothing. Maybe some kid just opened and shut the door or a teacher. They do that, check for kids smoking pot or writing on walls. Donny hoped.
Two sneakered feet stepped into view under the stall door. Someone was standing right in front of it, waiting, not speaking or moving, just standing there. Donny zipped his fly and turned to the gap between in the stall door. It was a line of light that revealed very little about what was on the other side. He peered through anyway and all he could see was a break in that line, a shadow about the length of a person.
The bell rang.
Damn, he was late.
The shadow seemed to think that was his queue.
“Droppin’ a deuce, Duncy?” the voice said followed by chuckle. Donny couldn’t figure out who it was because the words were a hoarse whisper. A cold dread washed over him as his head sunk down and his lips pulled back and trembled. Why can’t they just leave me alone, he thought, God (he drew-in a chirping, sobbing breath) I just. . . want to be left alone . . .why can’t you make them go away?
The predator outside the door answered him.
“Oh, I see. You’re dreamin’ about ya boyfriend in there, huh? I thought you were puuuushin’, Ahhhhhh.” Again, that chuckle. The feet stepped away and Donny heard a low mumbling outside the door. So the son of bitch wasn’t alone. Donny propped his back against the tiled wall. It felt cool under his skin, firm and comforting. Maybe if he waited long enough, they’d go away. He held his breath and hoped he wouldn’t be dragged down lower.
“Come on out Duncy. We wanna talk to ya,” another voice said and this time Donny did recognize it. Brandon. Of course. He and his goons were out there messing with him, just trying to scare him. He wasn’t scared, though. He was just going to stay in the stall because he still had to go, that’s all. He wasn’t scared.
“C’mon guys, cut it out,” he said to the door trying to make his voice sound like everything was big joke, ha ha ha, no big deal. Underneath the words, permeating his tone like a sickness, was a fear he knew the others would feed on. As much as he tried, he couldn’t frost it over with a lie.
“Cut what out? We just came in here to take a sheeeiiiit.” The mumble again and then three loud bangs on the stall door that made Donny’s whole body flinch. His mind and blood were suspended like the seconds before a roller coaster plunged down, down. Something was coming and Donny was trapped. All he could do was wait.
“Come out, Duncy,” Brandon said through the crack. “We just want to talk to ya,” he said in a soothing voice, a coaxing voice. “So come on out.”
Cold jelly inflated in his stomach. God, what could he do? He was trapped, but he had to do something, he had to say something because just standing there, waiting, was apt to drive him insane. “Why don’t you just leave so I can get back to class,” he said, a high pitch whine squeezing his voice. No response.
“Why doncha just leave so I can go back to class,” Brandon mocked. “Why doncha just shut the hell up and open goddamn door, Duncy, huh?” Brandon issued another loud bang on the stall door, and Donny could see the door shake with the impact. His whole body recoiled.
What are they going to do now, what are they going to do, I just wanna get outta here, he thought. But he wasn’t getting out, no, not until they’ve had their fun, not until they’ve twisted and wrangled him until he was nothing, nothing.
Another loud bang, a voice coming up to the crack, a clenched-teeth whisper said, “Open the door, Quinn. Open it now.” This time Donny heard violence behind the tone.
“Leave me alone, Brandon, leave me alone or I swear I’ll tell, I mean it now,” Donny said, trying to sound brave, trying to sound threatening. It came out like a petulant whine.
They laughed.
“If you don’t open the door we’re comin’ in, and you don’t want that, ya hear me? Open the door,” Brandon commanded.
Donny met his words with silence. He just stood with his back against the wall while the room became very quiet, muffled even, as if the air were thick and heavy with fume.
“Kick it in. No one’s gonna hear it in here,” the first voice said.
“Yea,” Brandon answered. The feet stepped away from the door. They’re gonna break-it down, and I can’t get away, I can never get away, help me, help me help me, he mind pleaded to the dull humming fan above.
Quiet and then, BANG! The chrome slide-lock shot across the stall and clanged against the toilet seat as the door slammed back. Donny’s body shirked again, his eyes wide above his o-gaped mouth. They were in and the stall held no sanctuary. If only he could shrink, if only he could slide between the narrow lines of grout shafting down the wall tile. But he couldn’t.
They were coming, and Donny was trapped.
Brandon and Mark, the alpha and beta, stood in front of the opened stall and stared at Donny. Disgust-filled glee glazed their eyes. Donny didn’t want to see but he had to, he had to get out of this before it got bad, real bad.
“C’mon, guys. Just let me get to class will ya?”
He asked hoping they would be just kidding, just messin’ with him.
Brandon smiled. “Suuure we’ll let ya go, Duncy. But first ya hafta drink that piss water. I wanna see you get a nice big slurp and then we’ll think about it, right Mark?”
“Riggghhht, we’ll let ya go,” Mark responded.
Brandon stepped-up to him and grabbed him by his collar. He brought his face inches from Donny’s. Rank, mildewy breath invaded his nose and, for one moment, Donny thought he was going to throw-up all over Brandon. He didn’t, though. Thank-God for small favors.
“If you would have listened, Duncy, we would’ve let ya go see. But ya didn’t, so now ya have ta pay the price.” Brandon turned to Mark and said, “Grab’em, dude. Let’s give him a drink, huh?”
“Yea, buddy,” Mark answered with a giggle as he stepped forward and grabbed Donny’s arm like a vice. Brandon manacled the other arm and both tried to force him down toward the bowl. Donny instinctively pulled back. He tried to plant his feet and push his shoulders back toward the wall. “Cut it out, guys, cut it out,” he shouted as his eyes widened and the corners of his mouth pulled down.
They just laughed.
And pushed.
“Hold’em, Mark,” Donny heard from behind him.
“I am, dude.”
Donny just saw the hole and its yellow, bubbly contents. He recoiled with everything in him, pushing, pushing, pushing against the aggression forcing him down. He grabbed the bowl to try and stop his descent, but his right hand slid on the piss splatter, sending his sternum crashing down on the porcelain lip of the bowl. Then a hand (Brandon’s he thought) splayed on the back of his head and started shoving his face into the bowl. Donny uttered struggling grunts and heaves as his face came closer and closer to the inside of the bowl. Now the smell of his own urine flooded his mind in abject horror. The soury liquid was just inches away, but he still struggled, he still fought.
The two above him must have known how close he was. They shoved down in one overwhelming thrust. His entire head submerged in piss-ridden water. The smell, the taste, slurped up his nose and in his mouth and he started to gag and gag and gag as they shoved and shoved. All the while they laughed. He could hear them through his struggle, giggling like sadistic children. That sound was like a needle jabbing any vestige of self-worth left in him. He was dying; he was dying now.
“That’s enough, dude,” Brandon said and then cackled. Donny rolled off the toilet and slammed down on the tiled floor. His entire head was soaked; the waste water dripped and rolled down into his shirt making it look as if he dunked his head into a pool. Donny panted prostrate on the ground, heaving in air, choking and gagging and sobbing. He was just a thing, devoid of all rational feeling and thought save shame.
“Whaddya think of that, Duncy, huh? When I tell ya to do somethin, ya do it. Ya hear me, Quinn?” Brandon said. Donny heard, yes indeed, he heard all right.
Now Mark chimed in. “You tell anybody, Quinn, and we’ll be back, ya hear?” A pause. “Ya pussy.” A hawk then spit sound followed by a wet plop on his forearm. “C’mon, Brandon, let's get the fuck outta here.”
“Yea”, Brandon answered. The door opened. He was alone.
Donny’s body curled into a fetal ball as hurt and humiliation flooded through him. His face contorted, and a silent weeping stare shook his body before his spirit collapsed in heaving sobs and moans. Hot tears ran runnels down his face, and he shook. Once the fit passed, Donny laid motionless like a dead thing. Hard, hard was the world with no justice, no fair or just hand sweeping away those snarling, bitter monsters.
No, he had to endure because they were strong, and he was different. But how long? How long could he endure? Donny didn’t know.
His limbs moved slowly as he slunk out the corner of the stall. He felt pathetic, a coward, and the mixed odor of urine and disinfectant drummed worthlessness into his head and heart, twisting his gut until his face flung forward and sprayed the stall door with reddish brown vomit (coward you’re nothing but a coward that’s why they twist and squeeze you until you bleed). Bent like a question mark, Donny shambled out of the stall.
He moved to the mirror to try and clean himself up so he could at least appear normal on the outside or at least as close to normal as he could. After all, isn’t that what they wanted, all of them, to appear normal? He tried, every morning he tried, but he has never figured out what that was and now the face peering back at him was a testament to his failure. Donny drew in a skipping breath still wet with sobs. The corners of his mouth sank lower looking like a pantomime of sadness rather the real thing. It was real, though. There was no doubt about that.
Donny began to move through the motions. He pressed on the sink faucet and washed off the yellowy glob of spit on his forearm. He then filled his cupped hand with water and plunged his face into it. The water made him feel alive in a vacuous sort of way as if a suffocating blanket were stripped off his body on a frigid night. He then stepped over to the paper towel dispenser and rolled out a length. He stuffed the sink drain and filled the sink with water. Then Donny eased his head into the sink.
When he lifted his head out, he felt washed clean. His face became a mask as he saw himself in the warped, plastic mirror. Water beads dripped down his bedraggled hair and ran like tears on his cheeks. But he didn’t care about that because Donny wanted to see what else was there other than what was on the surface. There had to be something else; this, all of this, couldn’t be all there was, all there ever could be.
Look.
Search.
A reflection inside his pupil, small, concave, glinted from each eye. He studied its minute detail; in, in he went as his face came closer to the mirror and the world around him became an indiscriminate shell. Deeper, deeper, deeper and then Donny saw. Donny’s mind pierced through the black vortex only to see what was always there, what was inside him. It was a light, a pinprick growing in the depth of his eyes.
Asladon.
Donny curled his lip at the corner.
Soon, oh very soon.
When Donny left the bathroom, his stride was even and calm. He was erect with chin lifted and eyes forward as if he held some new and secret power. It was a light inside him that lifted him out of the filth and muck. He did not name it. He did not analyze and dissect it to see if the light was true or false. It was there and that was enough and no evil bastards could extinguish that light; he understood now. The worst they could do was distract him, cause him to turn away from its warmth. When Donny looked outside himself, he saw darkness and viciousness. Their laughter and sneering pulled him away from what was real and he would forget who and what he was even in the midst of battle and he would cower, curl-in and whither because his eyes were turned without, not within.
That was the source, he was the source.
“Do you have a pass?” Asked Mrs. Bowen, a short squat woman with purple pie wedges under her eyes.
“No. . I . . had to go to the bathroom pretty bad,” Donny said. Disgust pinched Mrs. Bowen’s face as she wrinkled her nose at Donny. A dank smell emanated from him like an aura. She looked him over, he guessed, to sense whether he was lying or not.
“What’s your name again?”
“Donny Quinn.”
She examined her clipboard. “Donald Walter Quinn?” She asked in the same suspicious tone she used whenever she spoke to students. Even the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ were twisted with mistrust. Wasn’t personal, that was just Mrs. Bowen. She still didn’t know his name, though, and it was May for God’s sake.
“Yes.”
“Well, next time make sure you have a pass or I’ll have to write you up.”
“Ok,” Donny answered, “sorry, Mrs. Bowen”.
For study hall, the cafeteria was a different place altogether. Twenty students were dispersed throughout, cut off from the social organism that manipulated them like fingers on an immense hand. Some slept, some studied, some gazed into the blank space before them. They were all ineffectual and benign and that’s how Donny liked it.
A cautious excitement fluttered through his limbs because this was the time, now, when he was able to open the closet door in his mind and step through into a world of light and honor. His heart pumped elation through his body because there was another place, away from here, alive with wonder and danger and all Donny had to do was hover over it all and see, see, see.
He sat and began his accustomed ritual. Already, today’s daymare (everyday, everyday, every goddamn day) was clouding over like objects very far away and out of focus. Donny looked-up at the clock (1:06). He unzipped his pack propped against the table leg and sifted through student refuse: broken pencils, used hall passes, discarded homework. Down at the bottom like a treasure chest sat a book that stood-out because of its high gloss cover. Donny dug through, pulled it from its hole, and set it before him.
The overhead fluorescents painted a dazzling sheen over the cover’s title and illustration. Donny tilted away the glare to see what he was about to embrace. The cover told it all without saying a word. The end. For good of ill, Asladon’s labors would soon be over. The third and final episode in the trilogy, and his stomach quivered with excitement. The cover displayed the task before his hero: sword in hand raised against a vast figure shrouded in darkness.
Donny opened the book and went home.
Dragonblade: The Final Quest
I
Now is the time. Malkar's armies have been destroyed and the five kingdoms have been united even though their lords had been slain. Anarican. Gladen. Belrian. Detririan. All kings in their own right. But one lord rises above them all because he survived. Not by parley. Not by concession. Not by servitude. But by sheer force of his will. Asladon, the youngest of the five. He alone rallies the five armies to form a spear head that bleeds black blood upon the ground. And they are glad as they slay. Light shines in the eyes of men and there is a battle fury in their faces. Driven all the way back to the hard stone fields of Hellkarak, the remnants of Malkar's slag slaves bolt in fear and panic. Every last one is hunted until a shaft or blade brings each to its ruin. When the sun dips to a blazon line on the horizon, the day is won and the free men of Terra shout in their victory. Asladon is the only silent one among them. Sitting high in his saddle, his gaze searches northward for the cause, the bloody cause. Asladon sees how it all began.
Many months earlier, slag raiders came into the outer settlements of the five kingdoms, murdering, burning, hacking, testing their defenses. Asladon remembers riding out when word came. Homes were burned. Crops torched. Children slashed beyond recognition as they fled their homes in the dead of night. The headless bodies of their fathers and mothers. To Asladon, that was a warning of something much worse. No one listened. He remembers. Pacing the floor in the Council Chamber while all those old fools had sat in their high backed chairs shaking their heads solemnly as if they held dominion on sense.
"Don't you see? We must muster every man that can bear a spear or sword. This is just the beginning."
"Lord Asladon, Malkar knows our strength and dare not confront us in the open field."
"With all due respect, Anarican, You are wrong."
"I remember a young man many years ago with the same impetuousness. It was he who had brought us all under this roof united as one people. We are united still. This is why we are strong."
"United but ill prepared. My father had more than just vision, sir. He knew the enemy. He understood that each of our peoples would have been choked from the other until they died like islands in the desert. You listened to him then. Listen to me now. This is not a desperate slag band slaughtering cows in the field. These raids have been planned, skillfully. We must muster. NOW."
Detrian, always the cynical wolf, spoke. "Let me understand you, young man. You wish to take sons and fathers from the fields just when the fall harvest is ready to begin because of a few raids in the outer settlements? You want to leave the crops rotting on the vine because you have a feeling this time is different?"
"Lord Detrian, this is much more than fearful warmongering. Every man and woman, every child, had been slaughtered. EVERY ONE. Don't you understand? These slag bands have also carefully selected where they were going to attack. There was no rash hack and run. No. There was an intelligence behind where and when. That tells me this is only the beginning of what may be something terrible."
"What such things tell me is that you have failed in your responsibility as Defense Chancellor. If the outer settlements had proper defenses, if they had fair warning of the danger, lives would have been saved. So, rather than rectify your wrongs, you raise this fear to hide your own incompetence."
"You are wrong."
"Lord Asladon, I understand why you have brought this to our attention. It is your duty. But, surely, there is some middle ground here. Part of what Detrian said is right. The fall harvest is just about to begin. To muster a force without stronger proof would be madness." Belrian raised his voice and turned his eyes to the other council members. "I propose we further strengthen the outer defenses against these raids. In addition, more scouts need to be sent to the border of Hellkarak so we have fair warning of any pending danger. Will this satisfy you, Lord Asladon?"
"I suppose it must."
"All those in the Council that agree, say, aye."
Four 'ayes'.
"Disagree?" Belrian's face fell on Asladon.
He turned his back in silence and left the chamber hall.
When word came from those very scouts weeks later that a large slag force was forming in the north, even those old fools clapped on armor and strapped on a sword. They had to. Every hand was needed. And, just like his father, in their most desperate time, the Lords of the four kingdoms turned to him for help. He did what he could, and, in the end, they were saved. But at a high cost. Too high. Malkar indeed unleashed the beast. Its arms and legs would have flailed about blindly without a devious malice leading every move. That malice had a name, hateful in his ears.
Pharon, Malkar's chief lieutenant, with his black sword, Anglar. During the height of the battle, Asladon searched for him in vein. He longed to sink his sword into his hated belly, but the serpent always avoided him. When the tide had turned their way, he knew that Pharon would flee, find safety behind the gates of the Black Land.
Not if he could help it.
So, as the men lifted their blades and voices in victory, Asladon turns his steed northward as red vengeance surges in his veins.
Out of the victor's throng, there is only one who sees him depart. Young Seldir, nephew to Lord Belrian. Before honor reared its ugly head, before expectation crept its claws into the skin, they knew each other. No clump of trees or bough hanging over a rushing stream escaped the two. In their youth, both ran with a glee that left them breathless and glad without words for words fell flat and were unsatisfying at best. What they remembered most was that all those snatches of youth were shared and that made the experience more dear. Seldrir, after all that had befallen the two, asks, "why does he go that way?" He knows, though, before the words leave his mouth. Boshkur, Malkar's fortress at the heart of Hellkarak's wastes. That way lays ash and smoke and death and there is only one reason for Asladon to go there.
"Asladon!" he yells as he mounts his own horse and spurs him to the chase. Many lower their swords and check their joy as they see him pass. There is an urgency in his face that spoke danger like a friend trying to save another from a tragic fall.
Seldir pursues Asladon for many leagues over paths that are broken and littered with pits that belch noxious fumes as if the very ground is rotting with a sickness none could heal. Sometimes, the rocky terrain will rise up a buckling fold in the earth and Seldir loses sight of him. Then he tries to scramble as fast as he can to the top for fear of losing his lord. Only once does he not find his mark. There is an incline that proved too steep for his horse so he is forced to dismount and lead the animal up. It’s slow going. At the top, rising like a finger against the light of the fading horizon, is a dark figure of a man and it sends joy into his heart.
"Asladon!" He screams. Asladon checks his horse and turns to face him. From this distance, He cannot see his face but he knows his form. He will wait, Seldir knows. When he reached him, he looks into Asladon's face. It is stern and flat, expressionless like the rock itself. Breathless, Seldir asks, "Lord, you are needed among your men. Now's the time to drink deep and celebrate our victory."
"You should not have come."
"Why, Lord."
"There is no victory. You know that. We have only achieved a respite." Asladon turns his eyes to the north and it seems as if he had grown very tall. "He will wait until we are asleep once again and then he will grow like a fungus in the dark." Images of the littered dead, mangled faces of ones he knew, people his mind and draw his face down in a hateful grimace. "And then the beast will rear its ugly head once again."
"So what is your plan?"
There is a pause.
"To challenge the dark power."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Then your ways have turned to folly, and I will not allow that to happen."
Asladon turns and casts his eyes down at Seldir resting against the flank of his horse. "Allow?" he asks as the corner of his mouth turns up in a wry smile.
"No." Seldir mounts his horse. "I understand, my friend, that you need to do this. But to do it alone is madness. Anyway, it does not matter what you say or think. I'm going with you unless you intend to tie me in a sack and throw me in the river."
"Tie you in a sack, huh?" He chuckles. "Well, since I have neither sack nor river, I guess you'll be coming along."
"You guessed rightly, Lord."
"In truth, I'm glad. The road will be short but hard. Let us go."
Both pick their way across the stone fields ever going north, climbing steadily to their goal. When full night was upon them, Asladon halts. They are on top of a ridge that slopes down into a bowl-like hollow where the air is warm and stiff. At the bottom, there is a rock ledge that looks like it has no business being there. It pokes out of the ground like the rib of some stone giant. Even though the ledge gives no shelter from the sky, it shields them from an icy north wind that is steadily picking up.
Asladon checks his horse. "We'll stop here. I'm very weary and we are both going to need all our strength."
Seldir does not respond but simply comes down from his horse to settle his back against the rock wall. There is no pause in his movement because his love for his friend is great. The only thing he doubts is their next move. Challenge the Dark Power. What does that mean? Are they going to knock on the gate and call Pharon out to a fight? That, to him, seems like madness. Not because Pharon is invulnerable. He isn't. But what if Malkar himself comes? The Black Immortal whose strength no man has ever matched. According to legend, only once had he come out to confront the light, and he was beat back but not by Man.
Seldir sneaks a glance at his friend, his lord. No, not even Asladon can overcome the ancient power that has been from the very beginning. Malkar had been a servant to the Blessed One, creator of all. And, like everything in the beginning, there had been no evil. Only when Malkar wished to create his own existence, his own truth separate from the One had his ways turned to malice. For birth and death and the seasons of all things is province of the Blessed One only. All else is mockery. So, When Man came to be, Malkar had been there, hating the light in the faces of the New Born. When he sought to rival his former master with his own race, it had resulted in perversion. Everything Malkar touches was so. Seldir tries to see in his mind his evil will. Beyond the tall gates of the Black Land he sits in his throne gnawing on his own hatred, plotting the destruction of everything that is not under his power.
Even theirs, he is sure.
"Asladon, should we set a watch?"
"You feel it, don't you?"
He sucks in a deep breath. "Yes, I do."
"I know. The air is thick with some hidden power. I don't think we need fear any open slag attack. Pharon let loose every company this cursed land could hold. But, alas, there are many servants of the enemy and not all bear swords in the open field. You rest. I'll wake you in a few hours."
"When do you hope to reach our goal?"
"It is about five leagues as the crow flies to the Black Gate. We'll rest for a few hours and then we must make haste. If all goes well, we will be there just before sunrise."
"Then what?"
Asladon lifts his eyes and holds his gaze. "We shall see."
The weariness of the field coupled with his own struggle with the unknown saps Seldir's strength in a way he had never felt before. All about him the wastes are still and the only sound in the air is his own breathing. Yet, he wants to fight sleep because such quiet, such uncanny fatigue does not seem to him to be something natural. But, the body often tells the mind what to do, and he soon finds he is unable to resist. Before sliding into sleep, though, he turns his eyes to Asladon. He is nodding too and seems to suffer from the same fatigue.
A haze, fuzzy red and suspect, weigh his eyelids until they shut out all conscious thought.
Whispering, whispering, coaxing.
He opens his eyes. Where there was barren rock, there is a fragrant garden fed by a yellow light with no sun.
I'm dreaming.
He smells the earth's rich loam and it lifts him up to survey a garden unlike he had ever seen. Trees with wide, broad leaves people the hillside and leaves a fragrance only found in his fancy. His eyes scan the horizon and they see a richness they had never seen. He thinks he has died and entered a good place because what he has done in life was good, and such action deserves a reward. This is his reward.
Laughter, coming from the shaded trees. Seldir turns his eyes toward that happy burst. Upon a glade outside the shadow of the trees a maiden appears, running, toward him. He does not move for fear he would lose her if his glance shifts to anything or nothing. When she approaches, she laughs like the running of a stream that catches the sun. He waits. She comes. When they meet, it is a comingling where words are rendered impotent and only the motions of their two bodies unfold perfection in unison. Seldir moves his mouth to meet hers. When they meet, his lips burn as if they were pressed against hot iron.
And then that iron pushes into his side, burning like pain that threatens to sip at pleasure's cup. He looks into her eyes and there is no color, only a cold absence that sends fear shocking into his spine, cold and hard."Awake, Seldir, Awake!"
His lord, calling him.
Wake.
The pain, so close to something good.
Wake.
All he has to do is lie back and feel her send herself into him, find that which made him push on, and lance it like a wounded animal that just jerks and jibbers against his own fate, everyone's fate.
His own death.
He wants it so he can join her in her dance.
Seldir reaches up to feel her body. Everything about her is beautiful and dark and dreadful in a way that spoke of secrets that would bring about a pleasure unlike any he had ever felt before. Groping in the half light, he feels her hand grow sharp and dig and push and pierce until he screams in agony and delight. Then, just as he was about to fold into the pain, she pulls back and shrieks a wail that transforms her face into a hideous mask.
"Awake, Seldir, Awake!"
His lord. Calling him. He looks down at the woman in his arms. Her back arcs as her skins seems to char until she crumbles to ash. Horror and regret mix in a way that he just wants to drop to his knees and weep.
"Seldir!" he hears again and he knows he must heed that call.
That's when Seldir's eyes open to Asladon standing over him in the pale cast of the pre-dawn sky. His sword is drawn, and, for an instant, Seldir thinks it will come crashing down on his head. As he raises his hands to stop the blow, he sees something his imagination could have never conjured up on his own. It looks like a slag, a woman slag, even though he has never heard of such a thing. He has always thought they multiplied like flies, devoid of anything sexual. But now he knows better. He feels like he is covered in some sort of disgusting slime even though there is nothing on him but a noxious fume that hit his senses like a skunk. When the smell assails his senses, his fear opens-up like a flood.
They are in danger. Now.
Seldir scrambles to his feet and draws his sword as a fanged hag leaps from the half light with claws outstretched. Asladon slashes his blade, across her torso as he ducks the venomed leap. Her battle shrieks die with her.
"Back to back! Now!" Asladon brandishes Angrist, Slagbane. "Come, Hell Hags! Come!" he shouts.
Seldir knows the call.
The onslaught begins before the sun rises above the world.
Moans mingles with hatful screams as they come and come like foul jackals rushing-in to crush bones and gnash flesh. Writhing claws clutch at feet and legs as the enemy leaps like fleas with claws outstretch.
Angrist is there to meet them with Seldir's blade whispering light from the glow worm casting its pale hope in death. Black flesh splits, spilling black blood. With each thrust, they remember their kin hewn down by a hate that knew no parley, no respite. And they are glad because these "women" are the rotten soil where Malkar sows his seed. As Seldir slays and slays, his eyes keep shifting to the ash heap before him. That increases his fury and his hack and slash move farther and farther out into the stone wastes.
"Seldir! Hold! Seldir!"
He turns.
The Hell Bitches bay.
"Look to the East. We must make haste!"
He turns his eyes to the coming morn.
"Yes."
"Mount. Follow me! Ride, my friend, ride!"
He leaps into his seat and both gallop as if they are pursuing Malkar himself. Wind rushes across his face. That deep-throated shrieking comingles and mixes with the air, making a battle cry sound in his head. Indeed, Seldir feels as if they are actually going to challenge the Dark Power himself. He sees his lord ahead, always ahead and wonders if his quest for revenge is one that could ever be achieved. As his steed brings him up and down the stone field's undulating waves, he questions whether their goal is folly. After all, if Pharon is destroyed, wouldn't another grow in his place like some sort of sick fungus? He suspects the answer to that question is yes. So, what is the use?
That's when he sees it, to his right. They are at the bottom of what seems like the deepest trough yet, and, as they climb the proclivity, they see the lip of the world catch fire and grow, a thick white-orange magma spreading slowly across the horizon. At the pinnacle, they look down into a wide expanse open to them like an enormous bowl. There, at the bottom, spread a plain that met the fang-like jagged-peaks. Where there ought to be a gap stood the sheer gate of Hellkarack. Impregnable, made in the very bowls of the earth, the gate speaks a voiceless echo of foreboding.
Seldir brings his horse alongside his lord. He looks to the east. As the sun lifts its face above the horizon, it gives him hope. Turning to Asladon, he sees that same faith. That is when Asladon acts.
He reaches down to the long horn clasped to his saddle, an ancient heirloom of his fathers.
Then he blows.
The blast echoes and bounces off of stone, and it sounds as if a great host of men had come out of the ages to challenge all evil creatures of the world. He blows again and Seldir sees a look in his lord's face that teeters on madness.
"Ayeeeeeeeee!" Asladon shouts and spurs his horse down, down into the pit. Seldir follows, feeling Asladon's fury flow in his veins, entering the vast field where nothing and everything meet in an ominous coming together of the twain. Then, the sun falls full force upon the world. He doesn't know what awaits them, but, as the Gate rises, he feels their onslaught would wane. Darker and darker it looms as it swallows the light.
Just before its massive edifice, they halt. Asladon lifts his horn once again and gives it a long push until the echo bounds over rock and air.
"Pharon! Come out! Come and face the justice awaiting you! Come!"
There is a terrible silence, and then Seldir hears a ground grumble shake his feet and travel up his legs. When he looks down for fear the ground will rip open and pull him in, he sees nothing. Then he understands. The gate. The gate is shaking the very earth. It moves outward, slow, ponderous, inscrutable.
Coming toward them through the opening is Pharon himself, alone. He is tall, taller than Seldir had ever imagined. In his grip he holds Fang, the blade that drank blood. It is said that it was forged from dark iron that fell from the sky at the beginning of the Age. It does not reflect the sun but rather sucks it in to try and assuage its hunger for blood and light and flesh. Upon Pharon's face is a death head's mask that snarls a mocking grin. His approach is neither fast nor slow only sure.
Asladon dismounts.
Seldir sees upon the highest reaches of the gate, a dark host that wait for the fight like carrion sniffing the end of a dying animal. He sees Pharon. He sees his lord. Doubt thumps in his chest and he feels his heart want to quail. So he grips the hilt of his sword tighter because death is a thing that one must charge into like a blazing light, not a pathetic palsy.
Then he hears his lord's words.
"Prepare, slave. Your master does not know the strength of Men."
Pharon laughs. Then he lunges.
Fang meets cold, white steel.
Fear begins to mushroom in Seldir's stomach. This 'man' is not a man at all, he thinks. He doesn't know what he is, but he hopes beyond hope that his lord will triumph. If he doesn't, then all the free creatures of Terra can do is wait for the second onslaught coming from the North. The next time, though, there isn’t going to be a mistake. Next time, he thinks, Pharon and his armies are going to cover the land in complete darkness.
So he watches just as those above the gate watch.
Pharon continues to hack down with ever increasing speed and ferocity. Asladon parries each blow without returning a thrust. It looks like desperation. Like losing ground. With each clang of metal, the dark hoard at the gate give a snarling cry. When he looks as if he cannot take one more hit, Pharon sheathes his sword and pulls from his belt an iron spiked ball at the end of a chain. He intends to finish Asladon off by crushing his skull into the earth. It looks as if he is going to do it. With a wide arching swing, Pharon hurls the ball to finish the job.
That's when Asladon's eyes snap up, quick and alert. He crouches down and rolls to the side while sweeping his blade across the back of Pharon's calf. A scream like none Seldir has ever heard tears through the air like the very fabric of the world is being ripped asunder. Atop the high cliff wall, Malkar's servants press their claws to the side of their heads and fall to their bellies, quailing and writhing.
He wants to fall with them but his resolve for his lord is great so he stands his ground.
There is no such resolve against Asladon's sword. Pharon is down on one knee, mask dropped to his chin.
Then silence.
Pharon, on one knee, tries to swing the studded ball one last time but he is off-balance. Asladon stands as his enemy’s arm arcs around. If he hesitates, the ball may have crushed limb or life. But he doesn’t. He lets his sword sing and hacks off Pharon’s hand. Blood spews from the stump as Malkar’s lieutenant howls a shriek that shakes the ground. Then, all is quiet. Asladon approaches his fallen enemy.
“Because your lord is too craven to come forth, you, Pharon, shall pay the price. Die now and let your soul fly back to your master, empty and shapeless!” Still on his knees, the mask of Pharon looks-up into the eyes of his nemesis. Asladon turns the hilt and lunges his blade deep down into Pharon’s throat. Gore spews from the mouth of the mask like a hot jet and then he fell, leaving nothing but the raiment clothing his departed spirit.
Now, there is only the sound of the wind. If Malkar’s slaves are still atop the gate, they are silent and unseen.
Both men stand in the open waste and do not move until Seldir goes to his friend and his friend leans into him, grateful for the rest.
Even though a new weariness lines his face, Asladon smiles.
“Let’s go home.”
***
Donny saw hope. The weight was lifted.
The bell rang.
2
Donny loved and hated English class. Laura Insley he loved; Brandon, well, he hated. The good thing was that Brandon’s stinger was dulled a bit because he didn’t have much of an audience. He was the only crass crony of the bunch in ninth period. All of them wanted out early (ha, wanted out period) so they had tried for early work release. In the beginning of the year, every ape had succeeded, and the end of the day had become a benign blessing. Except for Brandon, of course- he had been fired from his job at the Save-a-Lot. Donny had remembered him bragging about telling off the manager when he was ordered to clean-out the trash compacter. “I ain’t cleanin’ out that crap. Not for seven-fifty a friggin’ hour, especially from a loser like that jerk-off. He’s probably pissed because he wanted to tweak my balls but he knew I wouldn’t let’em, the faggot.” He had said. Ever so classy, that one. Donny had just kept his distance and tried to ignore the bastard as much as he could.
Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn’t.
Laura, though, was something different. She lived in the same housing development as Donny; he had known her since they rode the bus together in the fourth grade. Both then and now, his days began with a “good morning, Donny” and ended with a “seeya tomorrow”. Courtesies, really, but she was a cause, a reason to look up from the groveling ground. Her soft brown eyes and chestnut hair complimented her slim figure and pert breasts. There was a melodic grace in her movement and gestures. When Donny heard her laugh, there were no razors embedded in the apple. The sound was sweet and genuine. She looked on everyone (even him) with a kind attentiveness that was rare among adolescents, and she didn’t condescend to a teenage girl’s most effective weapon, sarcasm. No. There was an honesty about her, and Donny had seen it every time she looked at him, without words, even in a passing glance.