Sourtiarius - Chapter 1

Sourtiarius

Chapter 1


(To View Chapter 1, click on "Sourtiarius - Chapter 1" )
(To View Chapter 2, click on "Sourtiarius - Chapter 2" )
(To View Chapter 3, click on "Sourtiarius: Chapter 3" )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sourtiarius

By Eduardo Antunes


Introduction:

All the stories you’ve heard - of dragons and witches, demons and sorcerers - everything you thought was fiction, I can prove. I will prove, for they had once been, and they could just as easily return upon the whim of fate. The world, as you’ve known it, has passed…

I am Merrit, the Sourceror. The truth of what I’m about to tell you runs deeper than my own account. There are legacies at work, a veritable institution from which this all sprung, almost as strong as a religious fervor.

But there are others who know of such things, and such things will lie - as they must - in the past. But here I stand, the last Sourceror, perhaps, for another age of the world, and I am preparing myself for the long journey into the everlasting realm.

I am leaving this account so that it may be a revelation to you. Know that your mortality is sacred and your connection with God is great, for any alternative would truly be a travesty. I’ve gone through a struggle that has changed my humanity and altered my interpretations of life, and yet, of the few things I still desire, there is nothing I want more than to regain that connection with God that is the legacy of mortality.

***

Prologue:

October 18, 2002

Merrit looked down upon the Sourceror Tarrim, raw magic hardening around his body as the life slowly drained from his eyes. He could see all the background magic in the area flow through the dead Sourceror’s body and back into the plane of magic.

The enormity of the task he had just performed, and the dire consequences he knew would be inescapable, bore down upon him; there had been the explosive blasts of energy and assorted manipulations of the fabric of reality, but ultimately, a Sourcerous battle was one of will, and will alone. They had tried to force raw magic into each other and through to its plane of origin, a task akin to mentally pushing water up a waterfall.

Eventually it stopped. Merrit could see no trace of background magic, and as he looked down upon his hands, he could not believe that they were no longer bursting with golden energy as they had for the past six years. And he was standing on the ground! His feet were actually making contact with it!

For a fleeting instance the boy believed that he had been rid of the powers…had become a mortal – a human – again.

But his body suddenly convulsed, his back arched and he rose into the air, spinning gently. He was temporarily blinded by the magic flowing from his own eyes. As he regained his vision, he noted that his entire body was engulfed in a flame of mana.

The power! It was simply too much and he could not control it! Merrit felt reality become saturated with magic as it flowed freely from him, freer than he had ever imagined. The surge of energy was overpowering, a pleasurable sensation pushed to the extremes of tolerance.

As he screamed, a shaft of energy went forth and pierced the clouds above. His skin slowly transformed and became harder than steel. Raw mana gathered in puddles below his feet.

He came under a mental assault as his mind attempted to assimilate vast amounts of information – more than he could ever hope to process. The images flashing before his eyes were changing him, molding his spirit and his thoughts into what, it seemed to him, was the inevitability of Sourcery.

He fought back with all his will, attempting to keep the humanity that made up his spirit, the mortal innocence that drove the Sourceror and kept him on this planet to amend the wrongs he had induced with his arrival.

But the part of him that would forever be a Sourceror screamed back at him. Logical thought was all that mattered! Emotional bonds and regrets were things of another time, another kind. Logic alone would preserve the universe.

But Merrit Arcani would not allow himself to change into the cold, calculating and above all logical creature that is the Sourceror. He would not give into that temptation. And so the assault ended as his mental transformation came to a halt.

His body, however, could not contain the power any longer, despite its transcendence. Golden mana began to seep through from every pour in his skin. His body became a golden blur, convulsing sixty feet in the air as raw power surged forth from it in every direction.

It took twenty minutes for the entire ordeal to end. When it did, Merrit, the Sourceror fell to the ground and slept for the first time in years. He had no clue as to what side effects their battle had caused, but already they were taking place.

And somewhere, thousands of feet beneath him, a creature stirred.


Chapter 1: Fruition


The television screen played its shadows on the wall, primary colors mingling with the occasional flash of static to create the impression of a room belonging to a permanently harassed individual.

Occasionally, a cross would appear on the screen, or an overenthusiastic gentleman in a suit would wave The Book around, stressing the importance of some point he’s attempting to make.

As the view pirouettes from behind the couch, a figure is shown to be asleep, seemingly in a drunken stupor. A young man, no more than 25 years of age, lay sleeping with a beer bottle leaning precariously from his limp hand.

He has ash-blonde hair and, although not immediately obvious due to his sleeping, blue eyes with a burst of green in the center. His hair is long and wavy, going down past his chest, and he has a full beard and mustache to match the Dwarves of legend, about whom he reads so much.

His name is Ezekiel Profanti, and he is a true believer.

This is usually an embarrassing affliction in our modern culture, but he manages to get around it. He doesn’t mind hanging out with his pothead friends and checking out the girls, but he still keeps his faith and can often be seen silently mouthing his prayers to the Lord as if he were a trusted companion, constantly by his side. He believes that his friends don’t notice, although they really do, but no one bothers to point it out.

After all, what would be the point?

Everyone has to be allowed some freedom to be insane in his or her own personal way. Perhaps it’s a nervous tick, or a tendency to stare for slightly too long before responding, but it is a common denominator among the majority of the human race.

At the moment, Ziek, as his friends call him, is getting over an eventful night using the ages old remedy that is sleep. Inside his little apartment, nothing changes. The television is permanently on the Christian station and the atmosphere is aired out once a season, at best. Outside, however, the world is changing.

***

The lights were dimmed to better accentuate the raw magic flowing from his eyes and hands. The metallic staff that seemed to be made of quicksilver levitated at a slight axis approximately a foot to the right of his body.

The sizzle of air molecules bursting as they entered the magical field surrounding him provided background noise as the crowd within the room sat down to listen to what the Sourceror had to say.

It was hard to believe that this scrawny boy could have been partly responsible for the creation of the Badlands in Northern Alaska. If one were to remove the fact that he has blazing eyes, fiery hands, a floating staff and glowing skin, he looked like an average young man from the suburbs.

Merrit Arcani, read the name on the clipboard that Jonathan Strathmoor was holding. He looked into the completely impassive face, showing no emotion until its owner instructed it to do so. Truly, the boy’s body was under the complete control of his psyche. He shook his head again as he considered the amazing power present within such a small frame.

No one knew exactly what was in the Badlands; they had proven to be unreadable, as each test yielded varied and sporadic results.

Jonathan was part of an assault force working for a rather obscure branch of the United States Marine Corp dubbed the Capacitors. He’d taken a flight up there, along with the rest of his team. The helicopter could barely approach the area without being blown to the ground from random magical discharge.

Nevertheless, they left with a clear picture of the chaos within. Surrounding hundreds of acres of land was a vast bubble of energy, lightning constantly dancing across the sky. Within the center of the distortion, a permanent mushroom cloud raged, pulsating as veritable shock waves of magic extended to the very border, strengthening the boundary.

A number of officers had been seated around the semi-circular table when the Secretary of Defense entered and took his seat, bringing Jonathan’s wandering mind back into current events. With this new arrival, the meeting was set to begin.

“You’ve come to us of your own free will, of course…” began the Secretary nervously, phrasing it as a statement rather than a question.

The Sourceror Merrit gave the slightest of nods, unnerving those present in the room.

“You’ve stated that you had a hand in the creation of the Badlands?”

Again, the barest hint of a nod, but behind the gesture a mind whose will could stretch very far indeed. Jonathan could literally feel the admission present within the gesture as if he had felt it himself. The boy seemed capable of communicating empathically to better accentuate his words and actions.

The Secretary was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. He had expected power, but he hadn’t expected it quite like this. For some reason, he had imagined a frail man holding an old book in his hands rather than this youthful specter before him.

Apparently having reached a decision, Merrit finally began to speak, much to the Secretary’s relief.

“You’ve seen the destruction that can be wrought now that there is magic…It is much worse than any nuclear weapon. There are still creatures present within these Badlands, both ancient and mundane that will awaken to a fiercer power than they had ever known, and that is just one location you have to concern yourselves with. You must take some precaution; warn others of the threat these beings pose. They represent a genuine challenge to your way of live, and with each passing day that you neglect to warn the populace, the chance of another disaster occurring increase.”

He paused for a moment, while staring at the Secretary, and motioned for the man to speak. Jonathan noted the slightest change in Merrit’s expression when he paused; it was as if he had sensed the Secretary’s question coming to the foreground of his thoughts.

“What sort of weapon or,” he glanced tentatively at Merrit’s hands before returning to meet his gaze, “power, was used in the creation of such an uninhabitable place.”

“Not uninhabitable, as I have already stated.”

“Inhospitable, then!” He responded impatiently, in a harsher tone of voice than he had intended.

Merrit held his gaze for longer than was strictly necessary and then began, “That is not the issue at hand. I am not here to provide you with weapons and powers to govern, police, or otherwise pervert upon the population of the planet. I am here to warn you about the dangers that are yet to come. To my understanding, Tarrim had planned on reviving a powerful dragon intent on devastation…a dragon powerful enough to call forth celestial creatures to its aid. You must be prepared for the host of monsters that will shortly be posing a threat to the planet.”

“And you don’t have any suggestions on how t’remedy the problem you’ve caused in Alaska, boy?” asked another officer in the room, who Jonathan vaguely recognized as a General.

An intense empathic response emanated from Merrit, a feeling of anger and remorse. The atmosphere of the room took on a dense quality, and Merrit’s normally glowing eyes became streaming rivers of golden light going six feet into the air.

It only lasted for a second, but it was enough.
Merrit regained his composure, stared the General directly in the eye and said, “That was a sacrifice, not a battle. It cost me my mortality.”
“Jesus Christ, son, you can’t even tell me what’s up there! You expect us to take action when there ain’t even a goddamned target to go after. The only threats I’ve seen materialize have been a product of your freakish powers…your fight with that rag-head Tarrim, beatin’ each other up from London to Alaska. Now, I don’t know what kind of fuck up you turned out to be, boy, but you’d better take responsibility for your actions afore I take you down mahself!”

Jonathan shook his head at the sheer thick-headedness of the General, a man named Wolfe. How he could speak to the Sourceror as if he were a normal child, he didn’t know. He anticipated patience on Merrit’s part, believing that the Sourceror would place the importance of his message over the bickering of the General.

He was, however, horribly mistaken. Merrit stared at the General for a moment, just as he had done to the Secretary of Defense, and shook his head.

“I can see that to continue this discussion further would be pointless. Most of you wish to either harm me or use my powers in some form, and those of you who actually care have little say in the matter.

“I will leave you all with a warning. I implore that you take some precautionary measures against any abuse of power by the hostile creatures I promise you have been awakened within your very borders.”

And in the blink of an eye, Merrit Arcani disappeared.

***

In the center of the distortion known as the Badlands, an ancient creature awakens: K’Ta, the Shadow Wyrm. Two hundred feet long and ninety feet tall at the shoulders, the creature crawls out of the depths of the crater and basks in the raw magic surging through the land, strengthening its body after an eons old sleep. It knows who awakened it and instinctively realizes why it was done.

It leaps into the air, thaumic discharge crackling along the length of its body, and flies away from the Badlands, leaving a trail of magical fallout in its wake. As the sound of its passage dopplers away, a word is unmistakably heard dieing into the distance:

“Merro…”

***


His name is Bard.
That much is known to be true. The rest, however, is mere detail, as he would so adequately put it. To be a bard had been an unknown occupation in that time; people were musicians or songwriters, but the term bard had not been applied for centuries.

That is, unless you count fantasy games, where a bard is a musician who’s lyrics and notes could cause magical effects upon people, places, and things.

It is this kind of Bard to which he relates, and rightly so. An era of drastic change had occurred in that time, magical events manifesting around the globe, and Bard had been one of the, shall we say, inevitabilities of that time and that change. Charming abilities so inherent in his personality began to express themselves through his art, and people were truly and deeply moved by his music…

In the last few months, their crowds have been growing steadily. Catalyst now had an audience large enough to carry them into a record deal. The reviews kept coming in the local scene, praising the counter-harmonics that the guitarists were famous for, the pulsating bass lines, and the primal beats of their two thousand horsepower drummer.

But the biggest praise fell upon one person: Michael Murdock. Both the backup singer and the lead guitarist, he was undoubtedly the life of the show. The men at his concerts would stare in awe at his guitar solos as the women swooned to the harmony of his singing. Never missing an opportunity to secure another fan, he manages to sneak in a few smiles as he makes eye contact with some of the ladies in the audience.
During their last show, the lighting equipment began behaving strangely.

What normally passed for a half-assed attempt at a light show seemed to take on a life of it’s own. A very definite pattern took effect in the flashing of the lights, their sequencing matching the emotions of the song much more than any music video or snarling rock star could ever convey. The audience stood there, entranced, and Catalyst could no more end their performance than stop their hearts from beating.

The song went on and the empathic music tore into the audience’s very being, demanding that they share in its emotional outcry. As the music reached a crescendo, minuscule balls of light began weaving in and out of the band’s instruments.

Patterns of red and blue, black and silver, and gold and green, melded into a swirling pillar in the midst of the band. As the music took a definite downswing, the frequency of the lights slowed and the only stars of energy left were tiny, silver ones streaming like mercury in a zero gravity atmosphere from the dieing notes of Michael’s solo.

Eventually, the spell was broken due to the sheer physical exhaustion that took hold of the band, but the one who seemed the most drained was Michael. As the last note took hold of the audience, he fell to the ground limply. The audience steadily awoke from their trance and began cheering the band louder than ever.

The clapping and whistling continued as they hoisted their unconscious band-mate off the floor. It thundered in the background as they climbed into their communal van, equipment at the ready, and guitarist still asleep. And it lasted as long as it took for the police to arrive and arrest everyone who wouldn’t stop cheering for the best performance of their lives.

***

The phone rings to the tune of Mozart – tiny, blue lights dancing upon the digits as the cell phone vibrates across the table and lands on his lap. The half-empty (or half-full, as he would put it) bottle of beer almost spills on his pants, but he manages to recover as he returns from the depths of sleep to answer his summons.

Before picking up, he has the presence of mind to look at the time and check the caller ID. “Hmmm…2 A.M. and an unknown caller.” He mumbles as he puts the lukewarm bottle on the table, sits up, and presses the phone to his ear.

“Yellow, red, and blue, which color are you?” he asks in greeting.

“It’s Mike. Look, man, something really weird happened tonight and I need to talk to you.”

“Mike…it’s two in the morning…can’t this wait?” he asked wearily.

Pulling out all stops, Michael said, “It’s about God, man.”

He knew he’d got him. Ezekiel was by no means a Christian fanatic, but he did care about his friends’ souls and took every opportunity to be the biblical conscience of the situation. He could be relied upon to judge the seriousness of the matter by a blatant reference to God.

“Alright, what happened?” he asked, as he stood up to fetch himself a beer.

“I’ll talk to you in five minutes. I’m almost there.”

“You’re coming over?!”

“I need to talk to you face to face. See you soon, bro.” And with that, Michael hung up.



*To Read Chapter 2, Click on "Sourtiarius - Chapter 2" .*