31. Chapter 30
31
Chapter 30
Julen
Julen gasped when he awoke again. He had forgotten why he had passed out for a moment, but his breath hitched as he recalled the beast. Did I dream that? He tried to sit up but felt the tug of the straps that locked him in place. He broke out in a cold sweat as he looked up at the stalactites above. What had he just witnessed? What was that creature?
Julen could feel himself on the verge of hyperventilating, but he had to keep his wits about him if he was going to get out of there.
Cajoling hadn’t worked with Carnufor. There had to be another way to escape. Manifest! He could try and use his power to free himself. Perhaps he could lift himself and the table off the ground? His power had been so strong at the castle. Could he do it? Or could he shoot windshards to pierce the manacles? His mind raced with the possibilities.
Julen closed his eyes and envisioned Dacias, his blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. He could feel it. Crisp air washed over him, and the rest of the world faded away.
The air grew louder in his ears. He closed his eyes and tried to move his fingers to manipulate the wind with the little movement his shackles would allow. Nothing. He closed his eyes again, this time thinking of his bastard father, the rage, the desire to finish what he had started in the castle. The gurney he lay on trembled slightly, but that was it. Then there was nothing.
“You’ll find that manifesting is out of the question.” Carnufor slithered back into view. “Naturally, we couldn’t let someone with powers like yours just throw about your wind and do unforeseen damage. This is a laboratory for Vexora’s sake. We must take precautions.” Carnufor strode back to a metal table where a tray of glowing serums sat. “A healthy dose of malachite mixed with a bit of tourmaline does wonders for ensuring bad little boys can’t wield anything against Dr. Carnufor.”
Fucker! Julen looked at the tray of vials containing luminescent liquids. “Is that why I am here? Are you going to test those minerals on me? My father wants to know which ones kill, I imagine. Why not experiment on the son he detests, huh?”
Carnufor crooked a smile. “You’re correct that you will be part of a test. But I have no intention of killing you. Far from it, actually. I hope someone with your ability will withstand what I am about to do to you. Or at least, better than the other humans we tested.”
Other humans? What was that thing? “There are beings here that are…that are not human. That thing that approached me, what was it?”
The revolting grin that Carnufor released sent bile to the back of Julen’s throat. “Beautiful, wasn’t it? Can you imagine? Such a creature existed for who knows how many years, perhaps thousands, right under our noses.” Carnufor dipped closer and whispered, “Those petty children’s stories have a bit more truth than we originally thought.”
Julen squinted his eyes at the man. Children’s stories? Could he truly be referring to creatures from Caligon? Like those ridiculous stories described? Monsters roaming about the forest? This man is insane.
“I don’t believe you. You made that thing. It’s some kind of demented experiment. You’re using minerals to turn humans into monsters, and that’s what you will do to me! I won’t let you! Do you hear me, you sick bastard?” Julen wanted to shout, but his voice was hoarse, and his throat burned.
Carnufor shot an amused smirk at Julen. “You don’t believe me? Even after witnessing it with your own eyes? Even after hearing your father’s voice come through the creature?”
Rivulets of sweat dripped down Julen’s face, and his limbs went numb. He wanted it to be a trick of the mind.
“Why? Tell me why I could hear him.”
“I’ll do something better. Let me show you.”
Carnufor unlocked the wheels and pushed the gurney through a hallway. They arrived in a dark room. Julen sensed Carnufor moving about and unlatching something near his feet. Soon, the doctor cranked the cot upright. He heard Carnufor step to the far corner of the room and winced as a curtain opened, revealing white glowing stones. Julen blinked at the brightness, and his stomach dropped at what stood before him.
Five creatures stood upright beneath the lights, manacled to gurneys just like Julen’s. The original, the translucent beast with horns, was directly before him. To its left were two creatures. The first had skin that looked like dry sand. It had long, grotesque limbs, black eyes, and a gaping mouth. The next creature appeared to be female. From the waist up, she appeared humanoid, but her bottom half was that of a snake with black and white scales. Its eyes were large, the size of fists, and black as night. All of the creatures had black eyes. Are they dead?
To the right stood a monster Julen recalled from his childhood stories—the Multarmirus. It looked like a bear with a goat’s head. It had ten arms in all, and its hands had massive claws. To the far right was a child. Its skin was light blue, green hair flowed down its back, and pointy ears peaked from the strands. A fae! This can’t be real. These are stories.
“What are you showing me? What are they?”
Carnufor walked in front of the menagerie of creatures, brushing his hands along them like they were treasures. “They’re your fellow soldiers, dear boy! Creatures from Caligon. Caught by your father’s men. They strayed beyond the protection of the wards created by the fae. Or at least that’s what we assume.”
Wards? This is preposterous!
Carnufor continued, “We’ve captured five, but special forces are training to catch more. They will be the new Lapistrean army.”
Julen’s mouth opened and closed. He shook his head and whispered, “I don’t understand.”
Carnufor approached Julen like a spider about to pounce on its prey, stopping just a few inches from his face.
“Years of research. Years! And that bastard, Morab, tossed me into this torturous crag. I wept as they sentenced me. I pleaded for mercy—promised to share everything I knew.” Carnufor’s saliva sprayed Julen’s cheek as he spoke with frenzy; his breath smelled like decay.
“It made no difference. Morab considered my actions immoral. Tampering with the Black Arts was an offense in the eyes of such a saccharine milksop.”
Carnufor backed away from Julen and drifted to the beasts on display. “I was so close to fully understanding its full potential.” He inched towards the creatures, cupping his hands over the legs of the translucent one. “Your father knew better. They dragged me from the mines, half dead, and tossed me to his feet. He opened a book, one from the ancients, describing the blackness. He wanted to know everything I had learned. Everything Morab was too soft to take advantage of.”
Julen felt the blood drain from his face—the Black Arts. The syrup! From the book. Julen looked at the creatures. They all had black eyes as if clouded by oil. “He wants to use that black mineral? This can’t be real. You created those creatures to look like our childhood fables. You and my father are insane!”
Carnufor’s wheezing laugh bounced off the cavernous walls around them. “Do you hear that, Your Majesty? The prince thinks you’re insane.”
The echo of footsteps filled the room. Julen turned to see his father walking down a flight of stairs flanked by two guardians.
Nausea gripped Julen as his father approached. Haligran’s face twisted with rage. He had an arm in a sling. Bruises decorated his face, and a deep cut stretched over his eyebrow. Julen couldn’t help but revel in knowing he had caused these injuries.
Despite Julen’s fear, he sneered at his father. No matter what you do to me, you will never make me afraid again.
Haligran spoke to Carnufor, never taking his eyes off Julen. “Carnufor, bring me the serum. Let’s show my son who holds the power in this territory.”
Carnufor approached Haligran, holding a vial of black liquid, and the guardians moved to either side of Julen.
Haligran took the vial and drank its contents. His face twisted and trembled. The veins in his neck and arms briefly turned black before fading. He heaved as the serum settled, then placed his fingers on his temples as if concentrating.
Haligran took another deep breath and then smirked. An inhuman groan filled the space, and Julen turned to see the creature made of sand come to life.
Julen’s stomach coiled as the creature shuffled toward him.
“Now, do you believe us?”
The creature’s wheezing voice mixed with Haligran’s. His father didn’t move, but the beast continued to approach Julen. Haligran kept his eyes closed the entire time.
The creature’s dreadful voice, a mix of its inhuman cry and Haligran’s, spoke. “Dr. Carnufor is as brilliant as he is repulsive. The Black Arts, you see. Carnufor has developed a chemistry that allows me to channel into anything that survives an injection of the black substance. All I need is a sip to inhabit a creature injected with Carnufor’s chemistry. As will all of my guardians. We no longer need to fight our battles. We’ll have monsters fight for us. And you’ll be one of them.”
I’ll be one of them? Julen shook with fury and tried to rip his limbs from the shackles. The creature chuckled at Julen’s futile attempts to free himself, then said, “Carnufor. Let’s begin.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Carnufor held a syringe filled with the oily liquid. Julen thrashed in the manacles with a force that nearly broke his wrists.
“NO! NO!” Julen screamed.
A guardian took hold of Julen’s arm, keeping it still, and the doctor injected the black oil into Julen’s vein.
Julen wailed as the substance entered his bloodstream. He could feel it traveling through his veins like a physical force swallowing his blood and trapping it within the sludge. He began convulsing. The oil burned his insides. He cried out in agony as the substance permeated his body.
The monster spoke again, “My son. You will be my most prized guardian. With your powers, I will conquer all of Terratan. Perhaps all of Vexora.”
Julen’s body writhed as the substance took hold. The bile crawled up his throat. He became sick, black ooze pouring from his mouth as despair washed over him.
His eyes began to darken, and with each shallow gasp, he felt the grip of fear tighten around him. He coughed violently, desperate to expel the sludge from his lungs. The power of the darkness surged within, taking over and drowning him.
The blackness enveloped his vision like creeping tar, and at that moment, a chilling realization washed over him: he was losing himself, fading into the abyss.
Once the blackness befell him, Julen could feel himself, his essence, retreat into his body as if the sludge had snagged onto his soul, pulling it deeper and deeper.
Julen lost all sense of his physical surroundings, and suddenly, he was swimming in a sea of sludge. Julen thrashed about, seeking air, but the ooze had no end. He floundered, searching for a surface to breach, but the sludge pulled him down further. His body sank until he hit a barricade like a sea floor. Could he push through? His instincts told him to dig.
He pushed his arm through with all his might, maneuvering his fingers to a point where he could spear his hand through the wall of muck. Finally, the floor gave way to an opening. A cool breeze chilled his hands. Air. There’s air on the other side.
The hope for freedom compelled him to push harder. He forced an entire arm through and pulled himself through the thick, muddy floor. He thrashed about, trying to make his way out of the black mass to the other side. A leg broke through, then another. Julen’s limbs were free; he needed to get through the rest.
He managed to maneuver his waist out. Only his head clung to the sludge now. His limbs moved wildly in the open space beyond the muck. He whipped about, hoping the movement would dislodge his head.
Finally, as if sucked in by a vacuum, he shot out the other side and fell from the ceiling of a cavernous space before slamming into the soft, gelatinous floor. He coughed up the muck he had swallowed, gasping for air. Pressing his fingers into the ground, he felt that the sludge had congealed around this immense room. Julen tried to scratch at it, but the gelatinous floor wouldn’t break.
He looked around the space. He was surrounded by the black ooze, except for a gigantic, glowing amethyst larger than Julen himself and a mysterious window seemingly built into the dark walls around him. Where was he? Was he still in Vinculux?
His father’s voice mixed with the creature’s bellowed throughout the dungeon, reverberating against the undulating black walls. “Is he stable?”
The next voice to echo through the chamber was Carnufor’s. “I feel a pulse. This is excellent, Your Majesty. We’ll need to monitor him for a bit to ensure his heart doesn’t fail before you can channel into him, but this is already more promising than the others.”
Julen could hear them, his father and the doctor talking about him. They were outside, but where was he?
He screamed, “You bastards! Where am I? What have you done to me?”
“They can’t hear you.”
He jumped at the noise, scrambling away. He turned about, looking for whatever had just spoken.
From the darkness emerged the small fae. Its voice was soft and sad. Soon, the other creatures Julen saw in Carnufor’s lab emerged from the darkness, illuminated by the glowing purple stone. They stood behind the fae. Their eyes weren’t black. They looked present. Here. With Julen. “You’re trapped in the abyss. We all are.”