Chapter 24: Break on Through

I pushed past the urge to define my experience.

There was nothing.

Nothing to define.

At that point, I had to rely on my mind’s eye.

Become one with the darkness.

In mere seconds, my movement had to play out perfectly.

First a push spell—to repel the rushing boars.

Both hands locked.

I sensed heaviness.

A hard push.

Then, without hesitating, I edged to my left.

Tiny Jem had stopped me just a foot short of my original destination.

So I had to trust my mental map to a large branch.

Originally I’d marked it to impale Tiny Jem, but now I needed it for something else.

I reached out, ensnared it with my magic, and drew it to me.

With my senses gone—did I have it?

All I had for sure was faith in my memory and even more in casting my next spell.

Using my free hand, I flashed through the mudra.

Will my magic fire give me light?

At the end of my hand dance, a tiny, unnatural red fire sparked.

It floated from my fingertips to the top of the barely visible branch.

I concentrated on the fire, and the spark grew.

Bright.

Brighter.

Finally, I pushed out my illuminated torch.

Black, gray, and red hues flooded my vision.

The forms around me were the same, but they looked foreign, as if they had been washed in watercolors.

Everything had a temporal stutter, shifting off and snapping back.

Although, I didn’t regain any of my other four senses, I could see.

With visibility, time existed again.

And so did the dread.

I immediately caught sight of two of the boars in the distance, staggering from the ground.

Their glaring red eyes glowed with bloodlust, and saliva spewed from their mouths.

One minute, they were shifting forward. The next, they were lunging at me.

I wish I could say I reacted swiftly, but I fell backward, terrified.

But as I went down, Hellie launched outward, ferociously ramming one boar into the other.

I quickly stood and took stock of everything.

I’d expected four boars where only two remained.

The other pair was unaccounted for, seemingly gone, and so was the massive tree.

Were they dead or thrown into the distance by my push?

I looked over at Hellie bashing into the two boars—bare-handed, forcing them back. She jabbed into them, pulling out chunks of meat, ripping and tearing.

The scuffle looked devastating, but the boars fought back with maddening brutality.

Slashing.

Gnawing.

Hellie’s torn flesh peeked from her ripped clothing.

Everywhere her red blood splattered, it created a bizarre and luminous pattern.

Her human form was taking a thrashing. Even as superior as it was, could it survive Gluttony’s pets?

She held her own against the boars.

But for how much longer?

The looming threat of two more boars possibly attacking—out of nowhere—forced me to act.

We had to reduce the odds.

Sensing my move, a strong wave from Hellie signaled—

Urgency. Protection. Stay back.

She didn’t understand.

It was my job to protect her, too.

I rushed toward the fight, seeking to push her enemies back, but dividing my magic across such massive beasts began to diminish the fire.

I stopped.

Without the light, we had no fighting chance.

Soon the wild tussle pushed them out of range. They folded into the black.

We needed more light.

Using the fire I’d manifested, I pushed small embers into every loose branch I could see.

Before long I had created an arsenal of torches.

I then stabbed the base of my original torch into the ground.

Once again, using both hands and drawing very little on my magic, I lifted the torches in a circle around me, widening the perimeter.

My field of vision became twenty times greater.

Hellie’s battle with the beasts came into view again.

Blood drenched Hellie’s body. Hers? Theirs? I didn’t know.

A nudge hit me, that took me a moment to untether.

Heat. Warmth. Hot. Fire!

Instinctively, with the wave of my fingers, I pushed two torches Hellie’s way.

She snatched both from the air and slammed them into the boar’s eyes.

The fire spread instantly.

She then put her hands into the fire, causing it to violently erupt.

Hellie can augment my magic—what?

The boar bucked wildly, squealing—even though it couldn’t be heard—until it collapsed.

The radiance of the burning husk roared, illuminating the pathway carved by the massive tree I’d pushed.

It ran deep into the woods.

Tracking the devastation, I spotted movement.

The other pair of boars were storming our way.

Three against one.

I couldn’t let them reach us and gang up on Hellie.

It was my turn to protect my companion.

Grabbing a torch in one hand and magically carrying a fleet in the air, I ran, headlong at the boars, screaming.

But my battle cry only echoed in my mind.

Thinking myself clever, mimicking Hellie’s move, I dispatched half of my torches as projectiles into the devil creatures.

They burst into splinters against the beasts’ spiky hides like wood hitting a combine, instantly extinguishing the fire I’d hoped would consume them.

Damn. How can I defend myself against Gluttony’s pets?

Maybe I couldn’t.

My main goal was to keep these bastards off Hellie, but I wanted to stay alive.

When I was about thirty feet away from the boars, I took a hard right, stretching the distance from Hellie.

I’ll get them away from you, girl.

I pushed myself physically harder than I ever had, running my ass off. The sad thing about it was I couldn’t feel any of it—not my heartbeat, my feet hitting the ground, or my chest heaving.

I imagined my body had to be at the point of fatigue.

Not long after, I got the answer.

One by one, the torches faded and fell. All except the one in my hand lost their magic.

I looked back once to ensure the boars had followed me.

Yes, they were following me and galloping hard.

Both of them phased in and out of the darkness right on the edge of the light.

They were gaining, closing the gap. It was only a matter of seconds before they were within striking distance.

Ahead of me, I spotted a tree with a massive trunk towering above the others.

Maybe I could devise a plan if I got to higher ground.

But there was no time to climb. So, without thinking, I instinctively performed the push spell on myself.

As I lifted into the air, spinning haphazardly upward, I focused on carrying myself to the strongest, highest branch.

Sadly, for me, I wildly undershot my target and landed in a dense part of the tree.

Unable to feel, I imagined I must have hit hard because the torch flipped from my hand and fell on a branch just below me.

It dangled, barely lodging into place.

I tried to pull it to me, but my sense of reaching out vanished.

There was not much time left before my magic completely drained.

Serving as a sort of timer, I watched the burning flame, weaken, growing dimmer.

The thought of returning to nothingness made me examine my grip on the tree.

I immediately noticed the branches surrounding me rattling.

I looked down.

One of the boars kept trying to climb, banging into the tree but wildly falling backward after each attempt.

The other boar circled the tree, staring up.

Facing each other, they paused, no doubt communicating through their movements—working out a way to either get up the tree or bring it down.

I started to move to the torch, but I gave up once I saw my hands and limbs wearily swaying.

My body had to be hurt by the awkward landing, but I had no sensation of it.

Afraid I would succumb to exhaustion, I imagined gripping tighter.

After I settled my thoughts, I saw the tree limbs shaking around me again.

The boars were ramming the tree.

F#@k!

At some point, if they keep doing that, this tree will collapse—but before that, the torch will fall, taking away its light. And I’ll lose the only advantage I have right now.

Even though death seemed certain, having those fleeting moments of safety gave me time to think.

Replaying my memories, I realized that Tiny Jem said he used rune magic to set his deprivation spell.

In The Lords of Omni, rune magic had two fatal flaws.

One, it relied on proximity—meaning the runes had to be set within the forest.

Two, if the runes were destroyed, so, too, was the magic.

As I worked out the details, I noticed it was getting harder to think clearly.

My thoughts seemed loud and jumbled.

Spacing out, I intermittently lost consciousness.

I had to be on the verge of blacking out.

I focused every vestige of my willpower onto Hellie, prodding and poking into her mindscape until I sensed her anima and her rage.

Hellie, seek the runes. I know you can track the magic. Then destroy them so you can transform and kill these motherf#@kers.

From that point forward, my fate was in Hellie’s hands.

I floated from watching the boars rush into the tree, chipping away chunks of bark and inner layers, to what had to be sight through Hellie’s eyes.

Is this real?

She had either left or killed the boars and was cutting through the woods at a blurred pace.

She carried one of the torches I had left for her, and the flame’s magical properties made it seem like she was dashing underwater.

That’s it, girl! Find the runes! Destroy them!

When I flickered back to my sight, I saw my torch finally dislodge and fall.

As soon as one of the boars passed over it, either the fire was extinguished or I blacked out.

It didn’t matter either way. I went back into the darkness.

Am I dead? The faint words of my final thought faded into nothingness.

In the next I-don’t-know-how-many-moments, it felt like I was in the stillness of the void again—the place where I created Hellie.

I was everything and nothing until it all burst outward like a tidal wave.

First, I felt pain in my body pulsating all over.

Then I heard the gurgling of my breath, followed by the metallic taste of blood, which I coughed out so I wouldn’t choke on the large amount that had pooled in my mouth.

Then, a short moment later, the pungent smell of rot and filth forced me to open my eyes and see the vastness of the night sky filled with stars above.

I was no longer in the tree.

The boars had toppled it, and it leaned into its neighboring trees.

I was oddly slumped over my backpack, still secured to my back.

As I moved to sit up, I immediately saw guts roll off my body onto other fleshy pieces surrounding me. The disemboweled remains of the boars were splashed in a circle all around me.

Despite this being my second time waking up to dead things, I vomited.

Holy shit! How did I survive? Hellie.

She was sitting just beyond the edge of my feet, guarding me. She hadn’t moved since I returned from unconsciousness.

I struggled to my feet and took a few steps until I collapsed into her back, hugging her blood-soaked coat.

I immediately reeled back in disgust to wipe bits of moist fleshy tissue and gnarly innards off my face and Hellie’s fur.

Then I re-embraced her.

I held her tight and stayed there for a few minutes, doling out love and compliments.

I was grateful that she had heard my thoughts and kept us alive.

I twisted around in front of her, and she looked down, her eyes glowing white.

Staring back, I said, “Let’s go kill that gluttonous bastard, Tiny Jem… Gula… or better yet, Hellhound Food.”