Corrosion: Terminal Horizon (The Portal Arcane Series - Book III)
J. Thorn
Corrosion: Terminal Horizon
(The Portal Arcane Series - Book III)
By J. Thorn
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Corrosion: Terminal Horizon
(The Portal Arcane Series - Book III)
First Edition
Copyright © 2014 by J. Thorn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Rebecca T. Dickson
Proofread by Laurie Love
For more information:
http://www.jthorn.net
[email protected]
For Robert C. Pettigrew, my right hand and first advocate.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgments
Other Works
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter 1
The edges of the black cloud filled the peak and smothered the empty cauldron. Kole stood with Deva’s staff in his hand, feeling the surge of energy left to him by his father, the same energy that healed his wounds from the battle with Major. The air tasted like rotten eggs and a shrill hum rose in volume as if the wind was about to die. Kole shook his head and blinked. He was not used to having his sensory perception returned to normal in the reversion, one of the results of accepting Deva’s power.
Kole felt death’s familiar whisper in his ear, never hearing the words but knowing it meant the end all the same. He watched Samuel and Lindsay run through the doorway and down the spiral staircase. He would find a way to slip before the entire mountain crumbled to dust. Kole remembered when Major tested Samuel, dropping him into a parallel universe to see if he could swim. The woman they found, Mara, knew the reversion favored Samuel because he had an ability they did not. She brought him back but they all recognized Samuel's special abilities. Kole was too angry and indifferent to detect those signs then, but now he knew. Deva was Samuel’s father and Samuel was destined to rule over the reversion and preserve the Great Cycle. That’s how it was supposed to be.
Kole smiled and thought of his parting words to Samuel.
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
“That fucker knew I put one over on him. He looked right in my eyes and knew I took his throne but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.”
He took three steps from the cauldron, walked into the cloud and peered out of the window cut through the rock. Kole hoped to catch a glimpse of Samuel or Lindsay. The reversion would not allow it. The cloud crawled over the rock face and devoured what was below as it had in the past and future. All universes ended this way. Some lasted longer than others.
Kole turned around and could barely see the cauldron. He felt a stirring in his stomach, a pain as though he wanted to vomit but could not bring it up.
“What the fuck are you doing with me?” he asked the reversion. “Ain’t never gone through one as top dog, as far as I can remember.”
The air inside the peak thickened and the wind’s distant cries intensified like an approaching locomotive. The pitch lowered and growled as the mountain shook beneath his feet. Kole could barely see anything in the room and the pain in his stomach forced him to hunch over and heave, releasing nothing but a sickened smile and a strand of saliva.
“Let’s do this. I’m ready,” Kole said.
“One must always be ready, my lord.”
Kole shot upright with his mouth open and his heart threatening to break free of his chest. He waved at the cloud as if to part the smoke and allow him to see who spoke.
“Is that you, Major, you son of a bitch? I swear to God, I’m sick of your shit. I will cut your ass to pieces.”
The threat sounded silly to his own ears, which made Kole giggle. He gripped the staff in his right hand, happy to have anything to use as a weapon. He killed people with less.
“I am Shallna and I will be your servant.”
As the hooded figure stepped through the cloud and towards Kole, he noticed the air thinned. He detected the faint odor of sulfur and burnt pine. When Shallna stopped a foot from him, Kole held his staff up in the air and roared with laughter.
“You’re the goddamn Grim Reaper. Holy fuck.”
“My name is Shallna.”
“Right. Got it, Grim. Now I know I’m in Hell.”
Shallna’s hood hung over his head, obscuring his face. His bony, white fingers wrapped around a staff carved from ancient bone. His robe was the deepest black Kole had ever seen and the creases were filled with gray dust as old as the mountain itself. The cloud enclosed Shallna and Kole as if forming a cell. The mountain’s death throes subsided but did not stop completely.
“I am here to serve the lord of the reversion as I have many times in the Great Cycle. I bowed to your father and now I bow to you.”
Kole’s mouth hung open as Shallna took one step back and bowed at the waist. Kole looked to his right at the cauldron and then towards the window, looking out upon the desert wasteland. Although he did not expect it, Kole would not have been surprised to see Deva appear. Shallna stood up after his exaggerated bow and remained motionless.
“I can’t see your face,” Kole said.
Shallna raised his hand and pushed the hood back. Kole recoiled and would have fallen if he did not have his staff in hand and firmly on the floor. At first, he thought Shallna was wearing a Halloween mask. No living flesh could look that old. The man’s thin, pasty skin hung in droopy folds from a bony face. Kole could see the sharp angles and cuts of the man’s skull beneath. Shallna’s white eyebrows met above his nose and tufts of gray hair jutted from random places on his face. He opened his eyes to reveal red pupils set in recessed, bloodshot eyes. Shallna smiled when he saw the disgust on Kole’s face, displaying diseased and wretched teeth filed to sharp points.
“My appearance disturbs you.”
“You look like the Emperor from Star Wars. Yeah, that fucking disturbs me.”
“I forget how young you are,” Shallna said. “The reversion has not had time to…” He paused, searching for the right word. “Weather you.”
“Put your hood back on.”
Shallna did as Kole instructed.
“Just like that, huh? I tell you to do something and you do it. No questions asked.”
Shallna grunted, forcing the confirmation from his mouth.
“Kiss my hand.”
“My lord?”
“I said kiss my hand.”
“The cloud, the reversion. The mountain will be—”
“The mountain will wait. Kiss my motherfucking hand.”
Kole held out his left hand wh
ile gripping the staff in his right. He dropped his wrist like a lady making an entrance at a grand ball. Shallna took Kole’s left hand in his right and brought it up to his face. Kole felt Shallna’s icy breath on his skin and pulled his hand back as if it were on fire.
“Good enough.”
Shallna bowed again and Kole sensed this was out of habit more than respect.
“Is the reversion going to take us out? Felt like the mountain was coming down before you got here.”
“It will,” Shallna said. “I do not have the power to stop the reversion and neither do you. You must manage it and I will service you.”
“Whoa. I guess you ain’t been around modern America lately, old buddy. Where I come from, ‘servicing’ is something the queers do to each other. I don’t need your service.”
Shallna stood still, waiting. If the master said not to use a word, he would not use it. He was not privy to the rationale behind most things. In time, as had happened with Deva, he would learn from Kole. Shallna knew the lord of the reversion came through the bloodline. However, the second son took the throne from the first born and that never happened before.
“We do not have much time.”
Kole chuckled and looked around the peak again. Tendrils of smoke crawled from the corners and Kole thought the smoke hissed like snakes. Shallna stood still and waited.
“What do I have to do?”
“You must choose the next locale. The next reversion to initiate.”
“Are you some sort of multi-dimensional travel agent? Choose from what?”
Shallna showed his black grin while removing the orb from beneath his robe.
“From this,” he said to Kole.
Kole reached out with his left hand and placed it on the orb. It reminded him of a bowling ball without the finger holes. The surface was smooth and chilled like a marble floor on a winter day. Lines of light passed through the orb, dancing beneath the surface to an unheard song. Kole felt a tingling sensation where his skin touched the surface and he pulled his hand away.
“What the hell is it?” he asked.
“The orb.”
Kole shrugged and rolled his eyes.
“It is the nucleus of the reversion.”
Kole shook his head as if that explanation was the most worthless he had ever heard.
“It is from within the orb you will find the reversion’s next destination.”
“A crystal ball. Why didn’t you just say that, you cryptic asshole?”
Shallna waited, uncertain of what Kole was asking.
“I look into this and it takes us there?” Kole asked.
Shallna looked around as the smoke snakes came closer to the orb. Matter gathered at the edges and Kole thought it looked like the smoke was morphing into real snakes.
“There is not much time left. If you do not choose the new locality, the reversion will do so for you.”
Shallna shivered and pushed the orb a bit closer toward Kole to emphasize the urgency of their situation.
“What do I do?”
“Place your hand on the orb and look into it.”
Kole moved his left hand towards the orb until it hovered just above the glassy, glowing surface.
“Like this?”
Shallna waited. Kole was stubborn and strong but he had a head made of granite.
“Before I do this, I need to know what the fuck is up.”
The smoke snakes hissed and came closer to the orb. They were snapping their translucent jaws at Shallna’s robe. He raised his head and his hood slipped onto the back of his neck. Shallna made eye contact with Kole for the second time.
“You are the lord of—”
“No,” Kole said, interrupting Shallna. “I mean what’s up with Samuel. Lindsay.”
Shallna nodded.
“Deva fulfilled his ahimsa by relinquishing the reversion to a son.”
The smoke snakes hissed at the mention of the former lord.
“However, Samuel did not fulfill his and that is why the Great Cycle has pushed him into another reversion.”
“So his duty is to—”
“Sit on the throne,” Shallna said, hoping his master would not punish him for the interruption. The reversion would wait only so long and, judging from the movement of the cloud’s tentacles, they did not have much time left.
“He wants my gig. I got it now. I’m the boss but Samuel has to become the boss to get released. Is that what you’re saying?”
Shallna nodded.
“How does he get it? Does he have to kill me first?”
“The reversion does not recognize life and death as you have in the past. If Samuel makes it to the peak of a reversion and destroys the cauldron, he will become the new lord and, in doing so, fulfill his dharmic responsibility.”
“Where does that leave me?” Kole asked.
“I do not know, my lord.”
“The fuck you don’t, Grim. I command you to tell me now.”
Shallna remained silent.
“So Samuel is coming for me. He’s going to seek out the cauldron and destroy it and I gotta keep him from doing that. I gotta stop him and his little bitch from crashing my crib. What if he does? What happens to me?”
Shallna winced as duty bound him to answer.
“The reversion will swallow you into an everlasting hell. You have become the lord of the reversion and if you do not protect what you have been sworn to guard, you will suffer forever.”
Kole nodded as he realized how simple his existence had become, even in a world of infinite universes.
“Samuel needs to destroy the cauldron to save his soul and I need to stop him to save mine.”
Shallna nodded as the first tendril of smoke to materialize into a serpent sunk its fangs into Kole’s wrist.
“Get the fuck off me,” Kole said as he shook his arm and dispelled the snake in a puff of smoke. Three more formed and circled the orb.
The invisible, protective cell that Shallna created was being eaten away at the edges by the reversion. The cloud could not be held off for much longer. Shallna pulled his hood over his face and the orb shook in his hands.
“Master, please.”
Kole nodded. The mountain shook and the vibration came through Kole’s feet and rumbled through his entire body. He felt a headache instantly blossom behind his forehead and realized only moments were left before the reversion decided his destination for him.
“I’m ready.”
“Look into it and the orb will present your options. Place your finger on the world you wish to rule.”
Kole laughed. The entire process felt ridiculous, like a scene out of Lord of the Rings. The pain in his body, however, was not humorous. The headache grew in intensity and that narrowed his vision. Kole felt the sickness in his stomach again.
He looked into the orb, past Shallna’s fingers holding it in place, and saw the emergence of a landscape. Elongated buildings stretched into a dark, black sky. The steel and glass exteriors created artificial canyons with an onyx ribbon of asphalt on the ground. The carcasses of automobiles sat on the roads. They were piled in random places and charred by fires so intense they blackened the steel. Kole saw a flock of black birds circling the top of the buildings, swirling around them in silent motion. A low fog clung to the surface obscuring the storefronts and street signs.
“New York City? Looks like I Am Legend.”
Shallna did not know how to respond.
“That locality suffered an apocalyptic event and the reversion is there to cleanse it.”
“Are there people there?” Kole asked.
“You mean Samuel?”
“I guess I do.”
Shallna nodded. “He will be there. With others.”
“If I can get that reversion to swallow him, I’m good, right?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kole smiled. He was going to enjoy a change of location, especially in a world already destroyed. He looked closer into the orb.
&nb
sp; “I don’t think its NYC. I don’t know what city it is.”
“The orb shows the multiverse. It may not be one that existed in your world of origin.”
“I don’t recognize the make or model of those old cars,” Kole said. “It’s like the ruins of a city from another planet. Let’s rock this fucking thing.”
Shallna waited as it became difficult to see the orb through the encroaching smoke of the reversion.
“We must go now,” he said to Kole.
“Here we come, Samuel. Better be bringing your A-game. Me and the Reaper here, we’re gonna fuck your world up.”
Shallna and Kole disappeared in a burst of light as the orb transported them from the peak. The mountain crumbled into the cloud and the world collapsed into the eternal void of the reversion.
Chapter 2
Samuel pretended they were not in another reversion. He closed his eyes and tried to wish it away. He escaped the desolation of the previous world with Lindsay at his side and he believed in the impossible now, including the long lost feelings of warmth and love he thought were gone forever. But underneath it all, Samuel knew he was not free. The taste of the air, the way the sound warbled in his ears. It all indicated this world was in reversion, and no matter how hard Samuel tried to convince himself it wasn’t, the truth would be there like the unending tides crawling up the sand at them.
Those final moments at the peak brought Samuel a clarity he hadn’t had since he put the noose around his neck in the prison cell. Deva revealed he was their spiritual father, that Kole and Mara were his siblings. Samuel did not quite understand the difference between a spiritual father and an ordinary father, but he did not care. He saw enough of the Great Cycle to understand powers and energies were in the multiverse beyond his comprehension. He felt the connection with Mara, and Samuel was pleased he was able to play some role in her redemption.
Mara helped him set aside the residual guilt. Samuel felt a sense of closure with Deva. The man, the zombie, the creature, the demon—Samuel could not classify the being that claimed to be his father. In Deva’s final moments at the end of a reversion, he looked at peace. The transition of power did not go the way Deva expected, which led Samuel to believe that even the lords of the reversion were not privileged to all of its mysteries. Deva seemed surprised the Great Cycle would allow another son to take the helm, not Samuel the first born. Kole sacrificed his own redemption to save Lindsay and Samuel. At least that’s what Samuel believed until their final conversation.
