Book of Darkness
Chapter Thirteen: Dire Consequences
Score and Thunder emerged into the Void, and immediately wished that they hadn’t.
“Damn,” breathed Score as he looked around the dark nightmare that stretched out around them. “It looks normal enough, but…”
*But there’s an aura of wrongness,* Thunder finished, nodding his head. *And it’s dangerous, as well. I think it would be a fine idea for you to use that locator spell Oracle showed you.*
Score nodded and closed his eyes, focusing. Sej e il. He repeated the words over and over again in his mind, the entire time keeping an image of Pixel in his mind.
Nothing.
“It’s not working,” growled Score. “I can’t pick up Pixel.”
*What about Destiny?* Thunder asked. *Can you find her?*
Score sighed. “I’ll try.” Sej e il. Once again, he spoke the words in his mind, this time conjuring up the image of the psychotic sorceress who had tried to kill him and Pixel both. This time he felt the sensation of the magic taking effect, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a bright white line shooting off to the left. “Great,” he said with relief. “And I should be able to use the same spell to get us back to the entrance.”
*Which way?* Thunder asked. *I can’t see the effects of the spell.*
“Left,” Score said. “Straight left.”
The unicorn turned to the left and began walking sedately. “Could you pick up the pace a little?” Score demanded. “We don’t have forever. Oracle said time ran differently in the Void.”
Thunder sighed. *If this weren’t to find Pixel, I’d make you get off and walk,* he grumbled. *Then we’d see how much faster you’d want me to go.* Shaking his head - and smacking Score in the face with his mane - Thunder took off at a fast-paced gallop.
It became obvious very quickly that while the line pointing to Destiny and Pixel was straight, it did not follow a conceivable path. They ended up having to take some very winding paths, and it was a strain at times for Score to keep an eye on the line. At the speed Thunder was going (and unicorn’s gallop was about twice as fast as a normal horse’s), Score had to shout directions almost before he had time to think about them. He kept his hands tangled in Thunder’s mane and his legs gripped the unicorn’s sides as best as they could to keep his balance, and then, suddenly, the line stopped in the middle of a clearing.
Thunder pulled up sharply, and Score almost tumbled over his head. “I didn’t expect you to stop that fast!” Score snapped as he slid off Thunder’s back. He looked around the seemingly deserted clearing. “Hello?”
“Score?”
Score drew in a sharp breath at the familiar voice, and looked around again. “Destiny?”
Off to the side of the clearing, the air wavered, and whatever masking spell Destiny had put up vanished. It revealed a make-shift shelter that the sorceress was sitting in front of, and inside the shelter lay the sleeping form of Pixel.
“Pixel!” Score shouted, dashing forward. He was only a few feet away from him when Destiny suddenly grabbed his arms and hauled him back several paces. “What the hell are you doing?!” he demanded angrily.
“Don’t touch him!” Destiny snapped. “I put a stasis barrier around him, to stop him from losing too much power. There’s still an imbalance, and I can’t risk you breaking the barrier just because you’re happy to see him!”
“You have some nerve telling me what to do!” Score retorted, yanking his arms out of Destiny’s grasp. “After what you did to us!”
“That was four years ago!” Destiny shot back. “Being dead puts some perspectives on things. But there’s no time to go into that - we need to get out, and we need to get out now! Before they show up.”
“They?” The urgency in Destiny’s voice made Score’s anger almost completely vanish. “They who?”
“The Omnipotent,” Destiny replied, dropping her voice. “They’re royally pissed because I dragged Oracle here. They know that I know the secret of the Void now - how there is no end, and the pilgrimages are useless. I don’t know exactly what they want, but it has to do with Pixel, and if we don’t get out of here soon they’ll come for him. Why do you think I made it impossible to track him?”
“You’ve…you’ve been protecting him?” Score frowned. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Like I said, being dead give you a knew outlook on things,” Destiny replied. “Now enough yapping - get your unicorn over here so I can get Pixel onto his back.”
Thunder snorted indignantly as he trotted over. *I’m not his unicorn,* he said with a toss of his head.
“Thunder, now is not the time,” Score said, putting a hand on the unicorn’s satin neck.
Destiny crouched down next to Pixel and murmured to herself softly, a spell that Score couldn’t quite make out. As she approached them again, this time with Pixel floating behind her, she looked at him ruefully. “I’m not supposed to use magic in the Void,” she said to Score, “but I think the rules have pretty much flown out the window now. I’ll do anything I need to do to get this guy out of here.”
Together, without Score actually managing to touch his friend, the two of them managed to get Pixel secure on Thunder’s back. Destiny pulled herself up so that she was sitting against Pixel, and Score mounted behind her. “Can you handle us, Thunder?” he asked.
*A little late to ask, don’t you think?* Thunder grumbled. *Is he okay?*
“He’s fine,” Destiny said, wrapping an arm around Pixel to keep him from sliding off. “He’ll probably be really angry with me for knocking him out later, but hey, if we survive this he can be as angry as he wants.”
“Here, here,” Score muttered. He quickly cast the locator spell for the exit. “Let’s go, Thunder.”
Thunder shot straight into a canter, the fastest that he could go while carrying three people, which was more than fast enough. Score shouted out the directions, and Destiny continued to recast the stasis barrier around Pixel whenever the old one began to wear down.
Then they were there. The open exit to the Void was directly in front of them, and they could see the unicorn fields on the other side. Thunder roared into a gallop, racing towards it at lightning speed.
Score didn’t know how it had happened. One minute she was there, the next she wasn’t.
Destiny disappeared into thin air, and Thunder sailed through the exit with two sorcerers instead of three.
Shanara put a comforting arm around Helaine’s shoulders. “But you’re all right?” she asked, making absolutely certain that Helaine was telling her the truth. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” Helaine said, shaking her head. “He didn’t hurt me. But I’ll tell you - I really hope I get a chance to go after this guy, because when I do, I’m going to make sure he feels the pain for a long, long time.” She narrowed her blue eyes into small slits. “No one talks to me like that.”
Oracle looked grim. “You did the right thing, coming here instead of staying at the castle. But going after Score was risky.”
Helaine tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and looked at him indignantly. “I had to warn him,” she said. “As it turns out, I didn’t even see him. With luck, Flame and Nova will tell him to come here once they get back. And then we can go after Chronos.”
Shanara shook her head. “Um…no. That’s not the first thing we have to do.”
Helaine glanced at her.
“Pixel?” Shanara reminded her. “He needs to be stabilized before we can do anything.”
She bit her lip. “Oh, yeah,” Helaine said softly.
At that moment, a huge rip appeared in space, and two figures fell out of it. One immediately started cursing the bumpy landing, the other didn’t say anything at all since he was still unconscious.
“Score!” Helaine exclaimed, rising out of her seat. “Pixel!”
Score hauled himself to his feet and gave her a brisk nod, then looked at Shanara. “Do something for him. Now. Destiny put him in some sort of stasis to protect him, but she’s gone and I don’t know the spell. She was casting it a lot on our way to the exit, so it’s not a long-lasting treatment.”
Shanara knelt next to the prone boy and touched his forehead softly. “Okay. I know what she did, and I can manage a quick-fix - but it won’t be final.” She looked up at Score. “Where’s Destiny?”
“She disappeared just before we escaped,” Score said grimly. “She said something about the Omnipotent being after them, so we had to move quickly - she was there, and then she wasn’t, and there wasn’t anytime to do anything about it.”
Oracle let out a string of curses that caused Score and Helaine both to looked at him in amazement. Shanara didn’t because she was already weaving a spell over Pixel, an expression of concentration, worry, and fear on her face.
“You know something?” Helaine asked.
“The Omnipotent,” Oracle growled. “Somehow I forgot all about them in this mess. They were the ones who devised the journey through the Void in the first place. They kept the real way to escape to themselves, and sent countless magic-users on death quests. The few who made it, the magic-user and their guide both escaped from the Void. Yet the Omnipotent have taken Destiny.” He clenched his fists. “Shanara, take care of things here. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” Helaine asked, but her words fell on no ears as Oracle vanished. She sighed and looked back at Shanara.
“Almost there,” Shanara muttered. A few minutes later, she sighed and stepped back. “Now it’s only a matter of time to see if it works.”
Oracle looked around the spacious Inter-Realm. “I know you’re there!” he shouted, clenching his fists so hard, he nearly drew blood. “Come out!”
The air seemed to open up in front of him, and the golden image of the Omnipotent stepped out from nothingness. “Ah. Oracle, is it?”
“You know perfectly well it is,” Oracle snapped. “What the hell is your game? Where’s Destiny?”
“The guide has been returned to the afterlife.”
“Why?!” Oracle demanded. “She succeeded in guiding Pixel to the exit. She deserves her reward!”
The Omnipotent frowned. “She did not succeed,” he said. “The rules state that the guide must lead the magic-user to the exit on her own. She had help.”
“Where in the rules does it say that?” Oracle shouted. Then he shook his head. “Never mind. I can’t expect you to actually have those so-called rules written down. Okay. Fine. Let’s leave the subject of Destiny for now. What about the fact that you’ve been lying to the magic-users you pull into the Inter-Realm? You never told them the real way of getting out of the Void!”
“Real way?” The Omnipotent looked surprised. “What real way? There is only one way. Travel through the Void on a journey, defeat the tests, and find the exit. Of course, the exit is different for each magic-user.”
Oracle was beginning to see red. “So that’s it, then? You tell the truth - but not the whole truth? What about the fact that to find the exit, all the magic-user has to do is gain enough power through the specialized trials? You don’t tell them that there are two types of trials, do you? Do you?!”
“The specialized trials are dangerous,” the Omnipotent said flatly. “Many magic-users who take part in them die. They are to be stayed away from.”
“You’re impossible!” Oracle shouted, wishing he could throw something at them. But unlike him, who was a flesh and blood in the Inter-Realm, they weren’t. No one was sure what the Omnipotent were.
Oracle took several deep breaths to try and calm himself down. “Just one more thing,” he said stiffly. “Why Pixel? Why did you want Pixel?”
“The Wizard of Sight can not be allowed to fall into his hands,” the Omnipotent replied. “His ties to the Diadem are too great. The only safety for the Diadem is to seal him away, where he can never be touched.”
Oracle’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “You…then…you bastards!” he shouted. “He’s a human being!”
“He is a means to an end,” was the reply.
“Perhaps,” Oracle said, his voice dropping several notches in volume and taking on a dangerous edge. “But you’ll never get him. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Have you forgotten who you work for?” the Omnipotent demanded sharply.
“No,” Oracle replied. “The minute the spell was uttered, I worked for the Triad and the Triad only. I hold their best interests in my heart. And their best interests, might I add, are not for you to use them like some sort of toy.” He glared at the Omnipotent. “This conversation is finished for now - but I’ll be back. There’s still the subject of Destiny.”
Oracle vanished, leaving the Inter-Realm behind and the Omnipotent staring after him.
Several hours later…
Shanara’s castle was dead quiet, with only the sounds of soft breathing filtering through the stone corridors. At the table in Shanara’s scrying chamber, all three magic-users were fast asleep, their heads resting on their folded arms. Nearby, Blink was also sleeping (although this wasn’t unusual for him).
For some reason he wasn’t quite sure of, Score opened his eyes and straightened up, massaging his neck where he was stiff from the position he’d been in. He stifled a yawn, and then heard something move behind him. He spun around, ready to defend himself if necessary.
Instead, his eyes widened as he took in the sight of Pixel sitting up on the couch he’d been lying on, looking around in confusion. “How did I get here?” he asked.
“Pixel!” Score practically threw himself at his friend, squeezing him tightly.
“Score, Score, I can’t breathe!” Pixel managed to gasp out. Score immediately released his hold, and Pixel drew in a couple of deep breaths. “You’re stronger than you know.”
“How long have you been awake?” Score asked eagerly. “How do you feel? Are you okay?”
Pixel blinked at him. “Um…five minutes, fine, and I guess so. Those are the answers to your questions in order. What happened?”
“Thunder and I pulled you out of the Void,” Score replied. “You weren’t in very good shape, but Shanara can explain it better.” Score glanced back at the table, and saw that both Shanara and Helaine were beginning to wake up from their naps. “We’ve been so worried about you, Pixel!”
“Nice to know I’ve been missed,” Pixel joked as both sorceresses hurried over to him. Helaine gave him her own hug in greeting, and Shanara placed her hand against his forehead to make sure that he wasn’t running a fever or anything.
“Good,” she said with relief. “You seem to be back to one-hundred-percent.”
“What did you do?” Pixel asked in wonderment. “It felt like I was being torn apart from the inside before, but now I’m fine.”
Shanara looked slightly pained. “First of all, it’s only a temporary fix. What I did was form a connection with you - I’m sharing some of my power with you, and you’re doing the same thing. Right now it’s not that much - just enough to make it so you don’t feel like someone’s ripping you apart. Your powers are going to be extremely limited, however - and you can’t return to Dondar right now.”
The three looked at her in surprise. “Why not?” Helaine demanded.
“Because I can’t go to Dondar,” Shanara replied. “The magic level there is too high. And Pixel needs to remain on the same Circuit as me to keep the power level steady. You see…if your powers were to fluctuate beyond their normal levels, you could end up disrupting the entire Diadem again. It all has to do with the bits of power you left behind on Jewel when you sealed away the Triad.”
Pixel bit his lip. “So, if this is just a temporary fix - what’s the permanent solution?”
“To keep all of you level, and yet connected at the same time, we’re going to have to introduce a fourth magic-user into your group,” Shanara replied. “It’ll have to be someone you all trust, and someone with power levels to match your own. He or she will then have to be connected to all three of you, not just Pixel. That way, Score and Helaine’s power levels won’t change dramatically, and Pixel’s, who’s levels will be balanced out, will be able to depend on the fourth magic-user for sustenance in the connection.” She looked at the blank faces on the three in front of you. “Is any of this making any sense?”
Score and Helaine shook their heads, but Pixel nodded hesitantly. “A little,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll understand it eventually - I just need a little time to think about it.” Then he frowned. “Okay, next question. What in the world started all of this? I have a feeling you know better than I do.”
“Do we ever,” Helaine said, shaking her head ruefully. “It all has to do with the man who tried to kidnap you. His name is Chronos.”
“Get this – he’s Destiny’s younger brother,” Score added. “Apparently the guy was so distraught over the fact that the Triad took not one but two of his sisters - the other one was Fate, she was the one that died on Zarathan - that he became obsessed with them. Especially Nantor.”
“Nantor was the one that Destiny and Fate worked for,” Shanara clarified, “so Chronos holds him mostly responsible for taking his sisters away. He also dislikes Traxis and Eremin, but on a smaller scale - and I haven’t quite figured out the reasoning behind that.”
“But I’m not Nantor,” Pixel said in confusion.
“And I’m not Eremin,” Helaine agreed, “nor is Score Traxis. But Chronos doesn’t see who we are - only what we represent. He’s convinced that we are the original Triad, and that we’ve just been playing games with the Diadem by pretending to be someone else. He made that pretty clear when he attacked me on Dondar.”
“What?!” Score exclaimed, gaping at Helaine. “When did that happen?”
“After you left to go pick up Pixel,” Helaine said. “I left the castle immediately to warn you, but you were already gone. I told the unicorns not to go to the castle, and came here to wait for you. Right now he probably thinks I’m dead - I threw myself out a window and cast an illusion on my body on the ground. I don’t think he realized I could use levitation.”
“That’s strange - if he knows you have the sapphire, wouldn’t he figure that out?” Pixel murmured.
The four magic-users looked at each other glumly, none of them sure about what to make of the situation.
“Nothing Chronos has done has been predictable,” Score said, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “And sooner or later you know he’s going to realize Helaine’s still alive.”
“And with Pixel’s power level down,” Helaine added, “it’s going to be that much harder to beat him.”
“What we need is someone who knows Chronos - someone who can give us an inside edge to the situation.” Pixel looked thoughtful. Then, suddenly, he frowned. “Hey.”
“What?” Score, Helaine, and Shanara looked at him.
Pixel looked at them worriedly. “What happened to Destiny?”
“LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
There was a loud CLANG! as something metal struck something else metal, and then all was quiet as the sound reverberated through the empty hall and died a quiet death. Inside the single cell, a very pissed-off Destiny sat fuming, her voice hoarse and her throat dry from yelling for what felt like the last several hours. In reality she had no idea how long she’d been there - but one thing was for certain.
The moment she got out, the Omnipotent were going to pay.
Dearly.
Destiny groaned and flopped back on the single cot in the cell, her black hair falling into her face. She didn’t bother pushing it aside. “This can’t be happening,” she growled. “I’ve got to get out of here!”
She’d heard the Omnipotent talking to Oracle, but no matter how many times and how loud she yelled, Oracle had never seemed to hear her. No doubt it was because the Omnipotent didn’t want him to hear her. She had no idea what they were up to, or why they were keeping her locked up, but she was willing to bet that it had something to do with Pixel.
Pixel.
Destiny rolled over and rested her head on her folded arms. Are you okay, Pixel? she thought. Are you still alive? Did they figure out how to cure you?
Have you even noticed I’m not there?
Somehow she knew he had - and from Oracle’s reactions, she’d gotten the feeling that Pixel was in very good hands. But that didn’t make the worry go away, or the ache in her chest that went along with it.
She knew that the Omnipotent weren’t done with Pixel, and the fact that they were keeping her around - locked up, but around - probably had something to do with it. She didn’t know their reasons, but she knew that whatever happened, she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that he came out of it alive.
No matter how hard she had tried not to get close to anyone, Destiny knew she had failed. Pixel was definitely a friend.
Admit it, a little voice inside of her said. He’s a little more than that, too, isn’t he?
Before Destiny could think anymore on the subject, the sound of footsteps echoed through the hall. She sat up on the cot and looked out of the cell, waiting to see who was there.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
A figure stopped outside of the cell, looking at her. Then, slowly, the hood covering the person’s face fell, their identity.
Destiny gasped. “You!”
Pixel stood in front of a large window in his new room in Shanara’s castle. Helaine and Score had opted to stay on Rawn with him until they could figure out some way to fix his power level, and he was grateful for that - but oddly enough, if they had wanted to return to Dondar it wouldn’t have bothered him much. During his time in the Void, he’d gotten somewhat used to being without those two.
It was Destiny he was more worried about.
When Score had told him what had happened to her, and when Oracle had shown up to give his two cents, Pixel had felt like someone had socked him in the stomach. He hadn’t once thought that Destiny could end up in trouble because of him.
Suddenly the entire castle began to shake.
“What the hell?” Pixel spun around and froze, not entirely sure about what was going on. When the shaking stopped, he sprinted to the door of the room and dashed out into the hallway. He could hear shouted voices from Shanara’s scrying room. Three voices, to be exact.
Shanara.
Oracle.
And the Omnipotent.
“What’s going?” Helaine demanded breathlessly as she ran out of another room, her hair wet from a recent shower. Score ran up behind them and grabbed their arms.
“I don’t know, but we better find out,” he said, pulling them down the hallway.
The door to the scrying room was closed, and they were met by Blink, who was sitting in front of it with his ear pressed up against it. Catching sight of the three teenagers, the red panda shook his head. “You don’t want to go in there,” he said. “It sounds like they’re about to kill each other.”
“What’s going on?” Pixel demanded. “Why is the Omnipotent here?”
“Listen,” Blink advised, going back to his eavesdropping.
Although listening in on other people’s conversations was not one of their hobbies, Helaine, Score, and Pixel wasted no time in moving to the door and pressing their own ears against it.
Not that it was really necessary - the volume of the voices was high enough to understand almost anything.
“Why the hell would we have anything to do with this?” Shanara was shouting. “You told Oracle that Destiny had been sent back to where she’d come from! We had no idea she was still in the Inter-Realm!”
“No one else could have escaped with her,” the Omnipotent insisted. “We demand that you return her to us at once, or face dire consequences.”
“And we insist that leave here at one,” Oracle said through what sounded like clenched teeth. “Get the hell out of this castle, and don’t return. We have nothing to say to you.”
“Do not forget who you work for,” the Omnipotent sneered.
They heard Oracle laugh bitterly. “I thought we already went through this. I am in the service of Matthew Caruso, Helaine Votrin, and Shalar Domain. Not you.”
“This will not be forgotten,” the Omnipotent hissed. “Destiny will be returned to us.”
There was silence immediately following this statement, and the three magic-users on the other side of the door (and one red panda) glanced at each other uneasily.
Then the door swung open inward, and they all fell to the ground in a heap.
“They’re gone,” Shanara said wearily. “Thank you for not barging in here, though.”
“Who was that?” Score asked, frowning.
“The Omnipotent,” Shanara, Blink, Oracle, and Pixel replied in unison.
Helaine’s jaw dropped. “Here? In here?”
“In a way,” Oracle replied. “Their voices were here - not their semi-physical bodies. And believe me, all they need to yell is their voices.”
“They were talking about Destiny,” Pixel said, cutting to chase. “What happened?”
“Apparently they lied to Oracle when they told him she had been returned to the after-life – which is pretty much what we figured,” Shanara said, stroking Blink’s back after he leaped up onto her lap. “She turned up missing not too long ago. They were accusing us of taking her.”
“Which we didn’t, of course,” Oracle said. “They just wanted a convenient scapegoat.”
“Destiny’s missing?” Pixel asked, paling.
“What do you think happened?” Score asked, reaching over and putting a comforting hand on the Calomiran’s shoulder. “Did she escape? Or what?”
Shanara sighed. “That’s the question of the day, isn’t it?”
“There’s only one thing to do for certain,” Oracle said. “We have to find Destiny - wherever she is. We’re going to need her help against Chronos.”
“But how do we find her?” Helaine asked. “Especially since we don’t know what happened to her.”
Blink cleared his throat and raised his head. “Well…I have an idea.”
