Be Ye Afraid - Junction City
As I mentioned on Monday here’s my Thursday story. A week later but hopefully the work done on it in the interim has made it worth the delay.
This is another peek into the history of Junction City. A century before the setting’s main time frame … well the story will give you a peek at one of the formative moments of this setting and one of the most important figures in it. I present to you …
BE YE AFRAID
The torches fluttered as the Gothic stone chamber quaked, their orange glow sending shadows dancing across the walls and fleeing into the corners. His eyes were pulled to the ceiling as another series of reverberations sent scant traces of dust drifting to the floor. How long before even this enchanted dome crumbles?
“This is a bad idea Nagus.”
Nagus pulled his eyes from the ceiling to the man chained to the floor in the middle of a complex arrangement of circles and divine symbols. Not a man. “You would say that.”
John’s mouth opened into a wide smile as his hands lifted as though to say ‘can you blame me’. “I would be right.”
Nagus jabbed the iron black dagger in his right hand at John, “you’re lying.”
“I would never,” replied John feigning affront.
“Only because I won’t let you,” Nagus punctuated the remark with a swipe of his free hand. The chains about John’s throat, wrists and ankles writhed as the runes carved into them blazed with emerald fire.
“Which means I’m telling the truth,” countered John.
“It means you’re being honest. Not telling the truth, those aren’t the same—”
He was cut off by another explosion, this one closer, and followed by the sound of breaking brick and snapping steel. His own tower would not last long if the attackers saw only his home standing and directed their ire to it. He was out of time.
John seemed to realize it too. A sardonic smile twisted his lips as he exposed his throat.
Nagus swung before he could let hesitation stay his hand.
Blood so vibrant it seemed to glow flew into the air, stopped and fell straight down as though seized by invisible hands. It poured, no, was pulled from the body to filter into the symbols etched into the floor. When the last drop of blood had been drained from the body the corpse ignited, a white-blue flame spreading from John to alight on the blood itself.
Nagus closed his eyes and covered them and it still wasn’t enough to completely blot out the blinding light that followed.
“WHY HAVE I BEEN SUMMONED?” boomed a voice larger than the world.
Nagus took a moment to let his eyes adjust, blinking away the after images of eternity to gaze upon the celestial being before him. It had chosen to manifest as a figure of luminescent flesh, adorned with knight like armor. The helmet it wore was the black of an eclipsed sun and the shimmering light that flowed from its back had a vague similarity to wings. “I summoned you, because we need your help. Invaders—”
“We will not intervene,” the figure hissed as though restraining the power of it’s voice to mortal levels was a herculean task.
Nagus felt as though he had been stabbed in the chest. “What?” he stammered.
“We,” began the celestial enunciating each syllable slowly and carefully as though admonishing a child. “Will. Not. Intervene.”
Some part of Nagus knew he should have stopped at that, accepted the answer and concluded their negotiations but he had sacrificed too much, and the world was at stake. “Why?”
The roar of a building collapsing into another rolled through the chamber.
“It is beyond our mandate. We do not intervene.”
“Bull! You have intervened plenty over the years. This is not the first time I have summoned one of the Host!”
The air seemed to curl with restrained anger. “Those were alien beings, corrupters of this realm and their disciples. We maintain The Order. This is beyond our mandate.”
“These are alien beings!” raged Nagus. “They rein death from the sky! They are bombing our cities, burning our fields, this is a crisis for the whole world! Their will be no order if lasers turn us to ash!”
“We can not. WE MUST NOT!”
“You are protectors of the world.”
“We are protectors of the REALM!” admonished the celestial. “Are you so naïve as to think yours is the only race protected by The Order? Do you not think that the pilots of your alien attackers pray for salvation and victory even as your own swat them from the sky?”
“We will die without your support!”
“Then you die,” said the celestial flatly. “You will weather this conflict or you will not. To the Host it will be the same.”
Nagus’ mind reeled, their must be something he could do, some ploy he could pull or angle he could argue. “What if … we could give you—”
“DO NOT MISTAKE ME FOR SOME COLLECTOR OF SOULS!” roared the celestial with such fury that for a moment Nagus glimpsed an idea of what the being truly looked like. Of the burning sphere of eyes and wings and malevolence. The echo of the celestial’s fury burned fault lines into the walls and shuddered the air. “We will not intervene. And you will not ask us to again.”
Nagus answered with silence.
With the sound of a thousand wings flapping the celestial was gone and the world somehow felt emptier by its absence.
Nagus exhaled as the blue-white fire rippling across the floor faded away and the near invisible pillar of energy that had circumscribed the ritual circle dissolved.
“I told you it was a bad idea,” the voice of John hissed through the air.
“Why are you still here?” snapped Nagus. “I killed you.”
“Body and blood,” admitted the voice. “But not soul. I wanted to see them abandon you.”
“So you could gloat?” asked Nagus, eyes bleeding with sorcerous energy as he looked around the room to find the disembodied spirit.
The daemon’s spirit looked like a writhing mass of green smoke that burbled with teeth and echoed with the screams of tortured souls. When it noticed Nagus gaze two pits of darkness opened to stare back and a crescent flame burned into place beneath those impossibly empty pits in the approximation of a smile. “No, Nagus. To make you an offer.”
“No,” announced Nagus, spitting the words past his lips before the demon could tempt him.
“We are not bound by their order,” continued the creature unabated. “Be ye king or pauper, sage or fool we will grant whatever you desire, for a price.”
“I know your price,” growled Nagus. “What is victory if one looses their soul in having it?”
“Victory still.”
“No!” shouted Nagus as he lifted his arms. Swiftly he started clawing arcane sigils into the air and a great iron door began to materialize behind the demon. “Return thee to Hell monster!”
The writhing mass of smoke turned its dark pits on the door then back to Nagus, if the thought of being sent home troubled it their was no indication. “I wonder,” it began. “How sweet your moral superiority will feel when your cities have been ground to ash and the bones of your loved ones bleach in the sun?”
Hesitation slowed his hands as Nagus thought of his friends, his family, his lover, and then of all the friends the family the lovers of the world over. If he could save them all at the cost of himself, even the greatest cost wouldn’t that be worth it? No.
The door finished pouring into existence and swung open. Chains made of smoke, ichor and suffering ejected from the impossible darkness beyond and lashed about the demon spirit. Slowly they dragged the creature back.
“The offer remains Nagus,” called John as it was pulled toward the doorway. “But be warned! The price will go up the longer you hold out.”
Nagus was trying to ignore it, focusing on keeping the portal to Hell open long enough to banish the monster. Even now the wispy form was beginning to pass the doorway’s threshold. Slowly the door began to swing shut but the demon reached out. Parts of its vaporous form became ethereal hands halting the closing.
Nagus reeled, the shock of the sudden resistance sending the pain of a hundred teeth sinking into his bones. His knees quaked and each breath felt like daggers in his lungs but he would not relent. Redoubling his efforts he poured greater power into the banishment spell.
“But be quick Nagus!” warned the creature as the door inched closer and closer to being shut. “Take up our offer, before the other side does!”
The door boomed closed leaving behind nothing but the smell of sulfur and the echo of laughter.
Nagus’ shoulders slumped as though the chains he had used to bind ‘John’ were trying to pull his arms to the ground. Slowly he lifted one hand and stabbed another arcane sigil into existence. “Magnus …?”
The sound of distant gunfire drifted about the room. “Nagus? Yes. What is it?”
“I failed. The Host will not—”
“No you didn’t” interjected Magnus. “Focus on the left flank! Get those demo charges in and for god’s sake keep your mask on!”
Through the shouted orders Nagus could hear explosions, the crack of rifles and the unnerving electric zap of their alien aggressors. Their was an explosion and he could tell Magnus attention had returned to him.
“Sorry about that, bit busy on the front.”
“I said—”
“I know. And no you didn’t. Summoning the Host was always a long shot. If they wouldn’t stop the sacking of Jerusalem it wasn’t likely they’d step in here.”
“I can join you out there,” offered Nagus. “I am the most powerful spell caster on the world.”
“That’s why we need you back there. You’re to valuable to loose to some stray ray-gun. Magic is a force multiplier. Near as we can tell these alien bastards don’t know how to handle it, but they will. So we need something big Nagus, we need the magic equivalent of a nuclear bomb and you’re the only one on the planet that has a chance of figuring that out. No. Our job is to buy you the time to save the world.”
A deep bone weary sigh pulled from his lips. Nagus crossed the chamber to a long stone table adorned with armor, weapons an even the body parts of the invaders. He picked up one of the rifles and let it fall back to the table. “I don’t know that I can.”
“I do. I have faith in you, I always have and you’ve never failed. It’s time for you to do what you do best.
A tired smile tugged at his lips, “and what’s that?”
“Find answers, where no one knew to look. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll do what I do best, stab evil bastards.”
A chuckle pulled from Nagus’ throat. “OK Magnus will do. Take some heads for me.”
“I will, Magnus out.”
Silence smothered the room and Nagus realized now the attack outside had stopped, he did not know how but somehow humanity had gained a victory against the encroaching darkness. He turned to look at the shadowed walls of the chamber and the impossibly large collection of arcane tomes that were both his treasure and responsibility. What I do best? I break the fundamental forces of the universe and put them back together to create answers. So what question am I answering? Where is no one looking?
He remembered Magnus voice barking orders.
Masks! The aliens are using some sort of viral weapon to kill everything. Nagus swept his gaze through the litter of alien equipment to at last fall on the bright yellow bio-hazard container.
Lifting the container from the table Nagus allowed a smirk to tug at his lips. Let’s start small.
-END-
I hope you found that as enjoyable to read as I found it to write. Find out next year (2022 as of this blog posting) what answers Nagus found and how it transformed the world.
Until next time my dear readers take care;
~S. Wallace
P.S. ?: Merry Christmas