33. Chapter 32
33
Chapter 32
Julen
Julen gazed at the creatures before him, dumbfounded by what he saw. Characters from childhood stories were standing right in front of him. The smallest one, a young fae, approached him, tilting her head with a peculiar gaze. She came closer until she was mere inches apart from him.
“A human?” she asked.
Blinking twice, Julen noticed her eyes were a dazzling, otherworldly azure with silver outlines. She stared into Julen’s eyes, and he fell into a trance.
After a moment, she spoke to the beasts behind her, “He is the king’s son. But we can trust him. He’s here because he did the king wrong.” Then, she lifted her head slightly and said, “Good for you, Julen.”
Julen realized he had been in a trance, and the sound of his name snapped him out of it. She knew his name and knew what he had done to Haligran.
“You can see into my mind.” It wasn’t a question. Julen spoke with wonder.
“Yes, one of my gifts.” She said it without a trace of arrogance. It was a matter of fact. “I can see you possess extraordinary gifts yourself. Naturally, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Julen spoke in a whisper; there wasn’t a reason for it, but her closeness and cryptic way of speaking seemed to call for some kind of affectation to the question, “Who are you? ”
“I am Anjular—the Fae Princess of Caligon. And you are Julen, Prince of Lapistra. Or so you were.”
“So, I was…”
“You are not the first human they attempted to submerge into the blackness. You are, however, the first who survived the process. Tell me, Julen, how did you become inordinately powerful?”
Julen was taken aback by this statement. He wasn’t inordinately powerful. Julen had only just begun to manifest. “I am not…why do you think that?”
She furrowed her brow. “I do not think so. It is a fact. Do you see others in your territory manifesting in ways similar to yourself?”
Julen was speechless. Can she see everything in my head? Her statement made his mind race. He thought it odd that he could levitate but didn’t think he was powerful. No. It had taken so long for him to manifest in the first place.
“I only just started manifesting. It took so long, I didn’t know if I was weak or…”
The snake-woman slithering to the back of Anjular halted that thought. Julen’s breath hitched. “How…what…I’m so confused. You’re just stories for children. I must be unconscious. I have to be dreaming this.”
The snake-woman spoke, “Humans. Such small brains.”
Anjular tsked as she spoke. “Humans are not as familiar with how deep the magic of Vexora goes. This must be quite a shock to his fragile mind.”
“Precisely! Fragile. Delicate, tiny little brains.”
Julen had enough of being spoken about as if he wasn’t in the same place. “Who are you?”
The snake-woman pinched the bridge of her nose. “I am Iacuora of the Ophiris, special envoy to the Fae.”
Julen shook his head. If he hadn’t seen all of these creatures before the injection, he would have thought he had simply gone insane from the black mineral inside him. But he had seen them in the laboratory. He’d heard the beast speaking, his father’s voice laced with the creature’s. My father. What has he done?
“My father. He can control you. Your bodies are out there.” He motioned to the window. “I watched it. How does he do it?”
Iacuora sneered as she spoke. “He tampers with the Black Arts. He and that disgusting little human with the revolting teeth.”
Julen thought that was quite a statement from a creature with fangs, but he thought better than to say something. “So, he can…possess us?” Julen asked.
Anjular nodded. “Whatever chemistry of minerals Carnufor mixed with the blackness has allowed Haligran to channel himself into beings injected with it.”
Iacuora spoke through clenched teeth, her canines flashing under the glow of the crystal. “The coward invades our bodies and will force us to fight his battles. We’ve heard bits and pieces of his plan.” She motioned to the strange window floating in the ooze that surrounded them. “He wants to capture more of us—creatures with powers far beyond most humans. He intends to make an army of creatures. He will capture more if someone doesn’t stop him.”
Julen looked at the creatures behind them. The Multarmirus looked sad. It wasn’t the ten-armed monster with a menacing face and sharp claws ready to kill from Julen’s childhood stories. Yes, it was huge and terrifying, but its eyes betrayed the anguish it felt. Its ears swiveled as it observed Julen. The movement was almost adorable. Julen rubbed his eyes, wondering if they would all disappear once reopened.
They didn’t. The sand creature approached. Its sinewy limbs scraped the floor as it paced about. The translucent creature, who Julen now recognized as a Viscura, sat with its back against the wall. It poked its stomach, and Julen saw the creature’s innards move about. The action wasn’t menacing or vicious. It looked like some sort of nervous tick. Nevertheless, it still made Julen queasy.
All of the creatures looked sad and nervous.
Julen looked at Anjular as he asked, “Can they speak as well?”
She shook her head. “They understand us but cannot speak our language. We communicate through emotions and gestures.”
Julen nodded and looked around the cavernous room surrounding them. His eyes fell on the window built into the sludge. It had an oblong shape and clear panes caked with soot obstructing the view. A light shined in, and, through the dirt, the faint image of something behind the glass, though Julen couldn’t tell what.
The massive lavender crystal was the only thing that interrupted the blackness surrounding them. It looked like a gigantic amethyst wedged into the muck and glowed, illuminating the room in a purple hue. Streaks of purple and magenta lightning whipped across the stone.
Julen rose to his feet. “Where are we? What is this place?”
Anjular walked to the sludge and pressed her fingers into it. The gel gave a little, then pushed against her touch. “It’s a prison. Some sort of place induced by the black mineral. We know our bodies are still in Vinculux, but our essences seem to be in this fortress enclosed by the mineral.”
Julen looked at the creatures surrounding him. “You…all of you…we know about you. We’ve read stories about you all as youths. But they’re fables, tales to motivate good behavior in children. How can you all exist? Why haven’t we known about you all along?”
Iacuora slithered closer. “Humans are always so stunned when they realize there is so much more to the universe than they could have imagined.”
Anjular scolded her. “Iacuora, enough!” She turned back to Julen. “Before the great shake, humans co-existed with Caligoneans, worshiping us for our powers. Once humans began manifesting, they became aggressive in their quest for domination. The ancients of Caligon described humans as perniciously ambitious and jealous of our ability to wield powers naturally. We’re born with our abilities, whereas you must rely on the location of the planet’s vibrations to manifest. There are texts describing humans attempting to take control of Caligon, trying to capture and enslave our creatures.”
Iacuora interjected, “This is not the first time you humans have attempted to wield the Black Arts. Long ago, you used it for similar purposes—control over the continent. It nearly wiped out the entire population of Terratan.”
Anjular added, “After that, our ancients built wards to shield us from humans, and your kind vowed never to tamper with the Black Arts again. Over time, it all became a myth. Stories for you all to heed to ensure the natural order of things.”
Of course, Julen’s fucker of a father was the one to disrupt the natural order of things. “How did he find you all? If the wards were supposed to protect you?”
There was venom in Iacuora’s voice. “The Black Arts helped him. Carnufor’s experiments helped him see the full extent of our continent’s power. He sips just enough to allow him to use a minimal amount of its power. More than that, and he could die. Carnufor must have experimented on many humans before he found the correct dose.”
Anjular stepped closer as she said, “Imbibing the mineral enhances your senses. It heightens intuition and the awareness of magic on this planet. Haligran must have sensed our existence and sent his men to wait until we ventured beyond the wards.”
Julen shook his head. His stomach coiled at the thought of his father being so powerful. He looked about the dungeon and at the sad faces of the creatures surrounding him. Then, the glowing crystal came into view across the way. Something rumbled inside of him. It was as if the stone was beckoning Julen to approach. He pointed to it. “What is that?”
Anjular looked toward the crystal, and her face twisted in terror. “We have all tried to get close. It’s…”
Iacuora interrupted, “It’s horrifying. It pulls at you. You can feel it in the pit of your gut, can’t you? Like a rope reeling you closer.” Julen nodded. “But the closer you get, the more you feel the horror. It’s painful. Sheer agony that consumes you as you approach. I am the only one who was able to make contact. The screams I heard. The visions I saw…” She trailed off as she spoke.
Julen had to know more. It was calling to him. The compulsion to get closer to the stone was too strong to ignore. He didn’t know if he could stop himself from approaching. “What do you see?”
Iacuora’s gaze penetrated Julen. Every word she uttered pierced him like an arrow. “An indescribable dread envelops you. You see everything you never wanted to see. You see things you didn’t even know you were afraid of. The sensation grips your mind like a vise.”
Julen looked at the stone. It looked like a barrier, like a glowing rock that blocked some sort of tunnel or portal to another side. Nothing else in the place seemed like a way out, only endless blackness.
Julen thought of Dacias. What if I never see him again? The thought of living without Dacias was worse than any pain, any prison, anything he could imagine. The crystal may be blocking the way out.
He thought of his father. Would he be able to inhabit Julen? He clenched his fists and imagined bashing his father’s face with a piece of that glowing stone. He couldn’t allow his father to do that. A sick feeling squeezed his stomach just thinking about it.
Julen began to step closer to the crystal. Anjular gripped his wrist. “You mustn’t.”
He looked at her intently. “It feels like a way out.”
“Yes, but it’s horrible. It could kill you. It almost killed Iacuora.”
Julen looked at Iacuora, who averted his gaze and looked at the floor.
Julen looked back at the crystal. He had to try. Julen gently released Anjular’s grip from his wrist and closed the space between him and the gem. As he approached, the streaks of lightning ripped through it, illuminating the space around him and hurting his eyes.
When he finally reached it, he saw his reflection. For a moment, he thought perhaps it wouldn’t show him what Iacuora had described. Maybe he was truly as powerful as Anjular said.
Julen gazed at his reflection in the stone; he raised his hand and inched it towards the crystal. He pushed his finger against the crystal, and, to his surprise, it penetrated the outer layer. The inside of the crystal was filled with a thick liquid similar to the sludge but purple. He pushed further, his entire hand breaching the crystal. Suddenly, a throbbing pain took hold of his head, like a python wrapping around his brain, squeezing with the intent to pulverize it. A thousand screams rang out at once in various pitches, like one endless shriek coming from every being in existence.
The wailings from the stone intensified. Julen looked at his reflection, which slowly morphed into a monstrous version of himself. The green eyes narrowed and looked at Julen with disdain. Its skin turned clammy, and its size became enormous. The dark curls morphed into black tendrils slithering about his head. All at once, there was silence. Then the stone released a bolt of lightning and an inhuman snarl that rattled through Julen’s bones.
There was a presence that enveloped him. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there, looming over him and filling him with despair, pain, fear—every awful feeling Julen had ever experienced in his life. Then came a scream, something human. Just one this time. He felt several hands gripping his body. The Multarmirus clung to Julen and pulled him back away from the stone, and Julen realized the scream was his own.