Out of the Faold (Whilst Old Legends Fade Synchronicles) (42 page)

Amias nodded. They had spent a night sleeping
on the edge of
his Well at home. Darius was brought to life in
a sacred place, on sacred soil.

“Vunn doesn’t know about his ability to create worlds like this. He just knows he takes you somewhere he can’t see you. He warned me that you would all destroy us but I knew differently. The Well wouldn’t give you skills to do that. He is doing that to us, not you.”

“I’m just a little boy,” Darius laughed. “I can’t even read.”

“You are not just a boy,” Caris told him. “You are very special. Look at the people around you. You have god-
smiter
s and a King and King’s Marshalls and even a priestess and a goddess! Not many little boys can say they are born of great stuff like that.”

Darius nodded, looking around at the people who loved him. He saw the fear in their faces, the blood on Glory, the horrible stained wrap in his mother’s hand. He looked at the arch. Vunn was pulling himself together. Black scars marked his limbs. He lay naked
on the ground, fusing together.

“Mama, you did a good job. You must have been very angry.”

She smiled at her son and nodded. “I just thought about you and how I didn’t want him to hurt you.”

“He can’t hurt me,” Darius laughed. “That’s why he’s scared.”

“What
do you mean?” Amias asked him.

“My Well told me how. I know a lot of things.”

Caris looked at him curiously. “Darius,” she asked softly.

“Yes,” he smiled.

“When you created this beautiful world did you learn how to close a world too? To make it go away forever?”

He nodded. “I’ll do that after we get rid of him,” he told her. “Pearl, I need you to come with me.”

Coral and Amias rushed forward to stop Darius from going. But they were too late. They slid off among a grey lurching. Coral fought to go after
them but Caris lifted her hand.

“You do not want Darius to know what Vunn wants to do to you!” she told Coral
with conviction
. “And he will tell him,
he will do it in front of him,
you can be sure. Stay. Pearl will do what she can, but it is up to Darius.”

“He’s just a bo
y,” Coral cried in Amias’ arms.

“He’s a god-
smiter
as much as any of you,” Caris told her. “He grew up with the stories of his brave family, witnessing the love and strength of you all. Let him earn his title.”

And they waited.

“They sent a child!” Vunn laughed, limping forward on legs that had not yet healed fully. Pearl held Vunn away with a hand extended. He snarled at her. He looked from one to the other. “They sent a whore and a little boy.”

“They sent two god-
smiter
s,” Darius said.

The gods standing around them disappeared. Pearl cried out inside for Caris’ loss, for all of their losses. They had lost to this demon. They had been consumed by him, she realized. To stay alive, to maintain some power he had to take it. He took from Caris and they gave themselves so she could keep fighting him.

The Well vanished. Vunn stared at the spot it had been, a worried look crossing his face.
He circled them.
He challenged Pearl, “You can take pieces of me, you can chop my body into bits, you can rip me to shreds and you still won’t destroy me. I will always be here haunting you, forcing you and taking you,” he leered.

The arch disa
ppeared. Vunn stepped backward.

“Pearl,” Darius said. “There are some words I need you to say. To help me.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“I don’t know what they all mean, I’m only five. But it’s what we have to say.”

Pearl smiled as Vunn raged at them, held back by Pearl’s shield.
Torn apart and healing he was weakened.
He was useless, impotent, screaming and fighting. She nodded.

“Pearl Faith Dog Doran, Queen of Danycia and Chief Priestess of the gods of the Faold, repesen...repenstive of Caris the goddess, do you give Darius Somas Kolder Doran
the reponbilty and pimssion to
depatch in body, mind, soul the demon Vunn, to erdictate his being forever?”

Vunn screeched with primal
rage
, bashing his scarred and black-bloodied form against Pearl’s barricade.
She willed it to bruise him, cut him, give him back some of the brutality he’d shown Caris.
He staggered.

Pearl repeated, “I, Pearl Faith Dog Doran, Queen of Danycia and Chief Priestess of the gods of the Faold, representative of Caris the goddess, do give Darius Somas Kolder Doran the responsibility and permission to dispatch in body, mind, soul the demon Vunn, to eradicate his being forever.”

“Do you give Pimssion for Darius Somas Kolder Doran to seal the gateway from the underworld from which said demon amerged?”

Pearl gasped. “I give permission for Darius Somas Kolder Doran to seal the gateway from the underworld from which said demon emerged.”

He nodded. He turned toward Vunn. “You tried to hurt my Mama. You hurt too many people. She didn’t know how to kill you but I do.”

Vunn stopped beating against Pearl’s power. He fell to his knees, naked, scarred, dripping blackness. “I warned them. I told them you would destroy us all.”

Pearl moved forward. “We didn’t destroy anyone. You did it. Caris is safe with us.”

“She used you
for her own pleasure
,” he howled. “
She controls you, she’s filth
like you
,
and she’s
a whore like you
.”

“Darius,” Pearl said with the most conviction she’d ever had giving an order, “Dispatch him.”

The
grayness
started to sizzle around them. It frothed and moved, swirling. Vunn crackled like fat in a fire, the
blackness oozing fr
om him steamed and
boiled
. His sinews
expanded and pulled ap
art, snapping, frying in acid
. He no longer made noise, no longer looked at them, he
simply
eroded
into a shrinking sludge
. Left on the ground was the sickening greenish yellow st
rand that Glory had evaporated.

“That’s it,” Darius said, approaching. “That’s the rope to the underworld.”

“Oh,” she cried. “We almost did it last time. Without knowing. Glory almost did it.”

He held his little hand out to her while watching the rope wiggle. “Something is coming,” he called. “I need the hatchet.”

Pearl kissed the hatchet blade before she handed it to him. He also kissed it and with the total strength in his five year old frame he struck the writhing rope with the hatchet. It took three strikes to sever it clean through. The two ends
whipped through the sizzling gra
yness finally coming to rest. All life left it as it was consumed by the
frying
black
blood of Vunn.

“We have to go so I can close this world,” he said, looking around. “I got everyone out.”

“Oh, you saved them?” Pearl asked, tears welling up
in pride at her little brother.

“Yes! I wouldn’t leave them here. I really don’t like this place.”

Pearl gulped back tears as she held onto him and they shifted back and to the side, coming to rest in the bright colorful world he’d created. Everyone cried out at their appearance. Coral and Amias grabbed their son. He dropped the hatchet and Pearl picked it up, atta
ching it to her belt once more.

Darius struggled to get free of the crowd. His father lowered him to the ground and he ran to Caris, who stood with the priestess. He lowered himself to one knee, more steady than he ever had in front of the King and said, “Goddess Caris, the demon Vunn has been depatch...dispatched.”

She cried silently, smiling at Darius and those around them. She touched his head and p
ulled him up to stand with her.

“Oh!” he said, “I have to show you something.”

Darius looked to the arch. The image of her home appeared, the fields, the hill, and then they were gone. Coral cried out again but Krisa said, “Look.”

Darius and Caris were running across the field of grass, laughing and chasing each other. They went up the path that spiraled up the hill into the trees. There, they found the arch and pool Coral came across so long ago. And the wind chimes in the tree. Around the clearing stood the eight other gods. The shells of them stood motionless. One, however, moved slightly and whispered. Caris cried happy tears. She knelt down in front of Darius and talked with him for a few minutes and then Caris took her spot beside the pool.

Caris knelt down beside Darius.

“Thank you for everything. Thank you for bringing my friends back to me.”

“They will be okay?” he asked, worried for the shells of the gods.

“In this place they will heal. They will come back to me.”

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I won’t be alone for long,” she said. “And one day you will be here with me forever.”

“I will?” he asked, wide-eyed. “This is a very nice place.”

She nodded, overwhelmed at what he had created for her. “Your Mama and Papa, Pearl, Glory and Krisa will all be here too.”

“And the Marshalls and the King?” he asked, not wanting to leave anyone out.

“Yes, they should be here too.”

“I thought this would be a place for gods,” he told her.

“It is,” she said, pointing a finger at his chest. “And you created it for everyone.”

“Am I a…?”

She smiled at him. “You and Mama and Papa and the others. But you have to keep it secret. Just you and me okay?”

“Mama said I can’t keep secrets anymore,” he told her.

“This one is the best secret to keep. She would agree with me.”

He nodded. “Even Pearl? I can’t tell Pearl? She is the best secret keeper.”

Caris reconsidered. “You can tell Pearl. She is a god-
smiter
like you. You will always work together to do what is right.”

He was satisfied with that.

Caris stood and took her spot next to the pool. Darius waved. She blew him a kiss. He disappeared from her view and into the arms of his family.

The End