Fantasy Maleficus

Taking a small saucer from the cabinet next to the refrigerator pouring a generous amount into the dish. Charles didn't let on he saw the hungry looks as the cold liquid filled the dish. Turning his back to them, smiling as he heard the sounds of scuffling as they tried to fight over positions around the saucer. A chill ran down his spine as he felt holes being burnt into his back. Taking a dry swallow as he closed the refrigerator door slowly turning around. His mother's fiery green eyes burned with her fury as she stared down her son.

"Just where have you been?!" Darla asked through clenched teeth, her eyes flickering over to the saucer as it was drained by something she couldn't see. "And just what are you doing leaving out a bowl of milk?"

"I'm sorry that I ran off like that mom, I tried to get back, but I got trapped in the fae forest," Charles said, apologizing for his rude behavior the other night. "Well, they cleaned my bathroom, so I fed them."

"Who cleaned that bathroom of yours?" Darla asked crossing her arms, arching an eyebrow thinking he was lying to get out of his approaching punishment.

"The Brownie's guess they followed me home after I left the fae elf village," Charles said, rubbing the back of his head.

"You expect me to believe that you were taken to their village, that no human has ever seen," Darla said, giving him a skeptical look. Biting his lip Charles wondered how much he could tell his mother, the elder didn't tell him not to speak of the village, yet it felt like he wanted it kept secret as much as it could be helped. However, his mother wasn't going to accept anything other than proof that he was indeed there. Just what would make her believe him when he had no real proof, he couldn't take his mother to the village that would probably offend the fae. That was something he couldn't do when he needed a teacher to understand fae magic.

"Rubrum vis globus," Charles muttered thinking this was the only thing he could do. Something strange ran down his arm centering in the palm of his hand, a small tiny ball of red light burst into being casting his fingers in a red glow. His mother gasped as she felt the strange magic coming off the ball of light.

"Charles, just what have you being doing?" Darla asked, backing away from her son.

"Learning that I have no talent for the schools of magic that are taught in the tower. When I ran out," Charles said, his cheeks heating as he looked down at the floor. Shaking his hand to end the spell, he would have to explore the strange feeling later. "I thought to myself I need a teacher, which the key opened a doorway to the fae lands. Where I learned that I have a different kind of magic than what the rest of the family uses," he said, as Selene flew into the room buzzing around his head. Angrily shaking her fist at him for destroying her hard work before diving into the unruly tangles of wet hair. Wincing as Selene set out to comb his hair to show that she would ensure he need not wash out her nest ever again. Once it was neat and tidy, she rapidly beat her wings together showering his hair in a dusting preserving that moment in time. Returning to her spot on his head to salvage what she could of the braids. "That I was told it is the reason Selene has taken a liking to me," Charles said, pointing to his head.

"And just what kind of magic are you supposed to possess?" Darla asked, her eyes going from her son, to the fairy, then to the now empty saucer.

"Fae magic," Charles said matter-of-factly.

Months had passed since he told his mother about his discovery, his seventeenth birthday had come and gone without Charles noticing. Learning at a pace that left him breathless after the months of failure at the tower. His teacher always watching over him from afar once she had taught him how to feel the flow of the arcane around him. It was up to him to understand how the energy flowed through him as he practiced a certain spell that she had taught him on any given day. Always telling him the arcane had a will of its own as it flowed through its purist form; in nature, the elements, even people who knew how to enter the flow of the arcane. Warning him never, never to fully enter the stream, only drawing off what he needed to perform whichever spell his mentor had asked him to undertake.

"Master why is it that no one ever enters the stream?" Charles dared to ask as they walked through the forest. Her ebony hair was streaked with crimson as it drifted of the gentle breeze. Her gothic punk outfit seemed so odd on the fae as her miniskirt did nothing to hide her ample ass. Her black stockings cut in deliberate places to reveal enough for one's imagination to take hold. The silver chains rattled as her hips swayed as they pressed deeper into the forest. Black leather wrist guards were dotted with wicked looking spikes as her arms swung at her side.

"Because Charles, one as young as you would lose what you are to its will if you tried," she said, looking over her shoulder her ruby eye falling on him. "Only the Sages have the ability to transverse the stream of the arcane and return whole from the encounter. To my knowledge there has never been a human sage, we would have written down such an event in our own codex as you call them. However, it is rare that a human can use our magic, the last one was four hundred years ago by your calendar. Who knows you just might be the one who upsets that long standing record?" her voice carrying an ominous tone.

"So where are we going? Vena?" Charles asked, ducking beneath a branch.

"To the sacred grove, a witch without his own staff is no witch at all," Vena said, smiling at him as she looked back at him. Leading him through twists and turns leaving him bewildered and dazed on how he was to return if Vena wasn't there with him. Reaching the edge of the grove, Charles felt something odd about the place, something warm, something holy about the place as its energies ran up his legs. It was as if he had been there before though he couldn't put his finger on the sensation. Shaking off the feeling, looking out on the meadow, four pale wood staff's stood erect, darkened with age and the weather stood a single rosewood staff. Charles felt drawn to it as he took his first step into the meadow, then another, and another. His eyes looking upon only one thing, paying heed to nothing else, Vena smiled as she watched the four other staffs disintegrate back to the ether which they were spawned from. The elder had told her directly to bring Charles here for one purpose only; to retrieve the staff of the last human sage. What she had told Charles was partly true, she didn't want him to know what they already knew about the boy. Watching as he reached out, Vena held her breath as his hands wrapped around the staff. Her body was thrown backwards as a white hot pillar erupted from the ground beneath Charles engulfing his body in the flow of the arcane.

"So the time has come that a new Sage walks the land," a disembodied voice filled his head. "You and I are the same, a part of the same soul that transverses time and space. My knowledge is yours as yours is mine, however, know this my future self with the release of my staff an ancient battle will once again require that the Sage leads the battle against the darkness that follows the light!" As the words faded from his mind, Charles finally understood why he never fit in to any particular group. He was never meant to. He was meant to stand alone if the need arose. The fact that his own isolation never seemed to affect him was to benefit him through the years that a Sage was supposed to walk alone. However, if this darkness that his past self spoke of was returning, then he would need all the help he could get.

Charles floated three feet off the ground, his staff resting across his lap as he combed through the years of his former life. It was a strange sensation to say the least as Charles knew every spell, every incantation that was connected to the arcane. Even the other schools of magic that had evolved from the single source put a smile on his face. Selene floated above him as he made arcane symbols with his hands, closing his eyes feeling his essence split into six different copies of himself. In his mind's eye as the arcane energies connected each one of the copies encircling Charles in the key of Solomon. Delving into the stream that flows around them riding its current as it floated on the very air of Venefizas Haven. He was everywhere all at once, knowing every object so intimately that its very essence called out to him to embrace them wholly.

"Sage," Vena whispered not wishing to disturb his meditation. Looking away as Charles opened his eyes, the pure white light of the stream poured out of his him. Blinking as his spirit returned to his body, losing his concentration, falling to the ground in a loud huff. Scowling as he heard Vena's chuckle fill the air of the glade he had set himself up to train in. "Forgive the intrusion into your solitude, the elder wishes to speak with you at this hour."

"Right," Charles said, about to brush the leaves from his hair before Selene rushed in removing the debris from his body. Thinking it would mar her perfectly crafted braided nest that sat on top of his head. Where she could lord over her friends as Charles walked through the forest towards the elder's home. Rubbing his eyes, thinking he hadn't truly returned from his dip in the stream as the trees seemed to phase in and out of reality. Stopping just outside the elder's small garden, waiting patiently on the edge of the garden, having learned over the months that he had been visiting the fae lands. That the fae elves didn't take kindly to anyone intruding into their private domains.

"Ah good, you brought him," the elder said. smiling as he held an ancient leather bound tome close to his chest. "Do come in," he said, waving them in as he headed towards the lone table that sat in his small flower garden. "Now Sage, as you know you and our own Sages are reincarnated when the need for their talents are needed in this world. As it has been before you, and shall be once again when you return to the flow," he said, carefully turning the brittle pages until he came to the very thing Charles was meant to face. Charles stood beside the elder as he stared down at the image of the dark figure on the page. Its face hidden within the shadow of its dark hood, its dark robe flowed over the creature's sickly body. A shiver ran down his body as he ran his fingers over the tentacles that replaced the creature's feet that curled, wiggled, and lashed out. Charles knew the being far too well for his own teenage mind to deal with, as the past images flashed in the forefront of his memory. The battles that were fought in the ages of antiquity, the pain, the blood as many fought to the bitter end. Then there were the times when his past selves had won those tenuous battles only to be left with scars so deep nothing could ever cure them.

"Now, as you're probably aware by now this creature is not something we would call whole," the elder said, his finger tapping the page.

"Yes, he's more..." Charles took a moment to find the right word to describe the beast. "Verisimilitude, it's like the monster is there, yet it has no substance," scratching his head, "however, his powers are very real," Charles said, rubbing his left arm remembering past wounds.

"Yes, that's the best way to describe it," the elder said, nodding his head. "Where it came from, I don't know nor why it only reveals itself once a Sage is reborn," he said offhandedly, tapping his chin. "I do know, only you can face that horror." Charles was taken aback as something assaulted his mind. Taking hold of the table's edge as the will of the arcane pulled his spirit from his body, flinging him back across the dimensions. Coming to a stop in a room he knew all too well given the years he had spent playing there as a child. His father lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor yet somehow Charles knew he would live. His mother and aunt were trapped in the black tar like substance the creature had created out of the ether. Charles opened his mouth to scream out as he willed his body to move to free his family from this monster. Only to be stopped as the creature spun around so fast it made Charles' head spin, it's wart covered hand cupping his mouth as it brought its free hand up silently shushing him. Charles watched in horror as they sank deeper into the ooze before disappearing altogether, he felt so helpless as that ogre held him in its grasp.

"These are mine for now," it's haunting voice filling his mind while wiggling its finger in disapproval of his arrival. "If you want their souls intact then I suggest you find them before the witching hour of Samhein." Its eerie cruel laughter filled his mind as the creature faded back into the ether. Thrust back into his own mind, Charles' body trembled with fear and anger, anger that he could do nothing to stop the thing, fear that he could do nothing against the beast.

"Sage are you alright?" Vena asked, her hand resting on his shoulder.

"No," Charles said weakly, trying to swallow his fear. "It has taken my family and there wasn't a damn thing I could do," he said, his fist slamming into the table.

"Well, your astral body wouldn't have the powers you have here, so that is no surprise," the elder said matter-of-factly. Charles looked at the man coldly, wondering if he was so removed that he wrote off the abduction of his mother and aunt. "Take no ill will from my words Sage, this is how it normally starts," he said, turning the page. "Once the creature rises it seeks out those closest to his enemy using them to lure the Sage into a battle on its terms. Now, I am sure it gave you a time frame to save them before they are lost to the shadows."

"The witching hour of Samhein whatever that is," Charles said, biting his lip.

"It's what has come to be known as Halloween by your people," Vena said darkly, knowing the bloody history behind the day. "So three day's to find where they were taken before it consumes their souls," she said, pacing behind Charles.

"That, I can help you with," the elder said turning to the section that the elders before him had written the accounts of the Sages before Charles. "From those that had survived their battles with the creature, we elders have taken upon us to write everything the previous Sages could impart to us. Please have a look, maybe it will give you answers that are turning in your mind," he said, leaving them alone to look over the ancient text. Hours passed as Charles poured over the book trying to discern where it had taken his mother. The area's where the previous Sages had battled the beast all seemed to take place in areas where once pagan rituals were held. As he pondered over the locations, none of them felt right to him. Pushing the tome away from him, growling in frustration knowing his own worry was getting in the way of things.

"What do you mean, only you can fight this thing!" His father shouted as Charles told him everything he could about the creature, which wasn't much. "There were four of us here and nothing we could do could touch that thing!"

"That's because it uses fae magic," Charles stated his hands tightening around the arm rest of the chair.

"And just what is fae magic," Mora asked, gently touching the bandages that were wrapped around her forehead.

"It is alive, it has a will of its own, something you probably can't understand unless you experience the stream for yourself," Charles said, trying his best to describe his own experience.

"That can't be," Steven said, shaking his head.

"Well, where do you expect your own forms of magic came from? They didn't just miraculously come into creation on their own," Charles said, sarcastically.

"Watch your tone boy," Steven growled.

"Steven hush, we are all worried for Darla and Marilyn," Mora said, studying her grandson. This wasn't the same boy she had known all his life, there was something old and comforting about the boy that she couldn't put her finger on. "So you're meant to fight this thing alone?" she asked, watching Charles nod his head. "They didn't say you couldn't have help now did they?" she said, smiling warmly at her grandson.

"Alright," Steven said, blowing out a sigh, running his hand through his hair. "So then, as much I dislike sending my son into the maw of this beast, it seems I have no choice in the matter. However, do what you need to focus on this thing and leave the rescuing of your mother and aunt to us. While we may not be able to harm the creature, that doesn't mean we can't confuse it long enough for you to deal the killing blow."

"So have you any idea on where the thing might have taken them?" Mora asked patting her son's arm, knowing just how worried he was for his wife and his son.

"From what I could gather, it likes to choose ancient pagan ritual sites," Charles said, hanging his head. "However, the ones it has shown itself in the past... I don't feel like it would choose the same place where it fell before."

"And how do you know this feeling is correct?" Steven asked, leaning forward.

"Because it and I share the same connection to the stream," Charles said matter-of-factly. Steven started to speak to refute his son's claims yet the look in his son's eyes told him he wasn't lying to him.

"What about Stonehenge?" Mora blurted out. Unsure why she had said that, and the confused looks on their faces didn't help settle her mind.

"That would seem to be where it has chosen to face you Sage," Vena said, from the entrance way to the living room.

"You sure?" Charles asked, uncertain that this was too easy given the lengths it went to, to hide from him up to that point.

"The elder confirms it," Vena said nodding her head, ignoring the stunned looks from the other two in the room. "As we speak our best spell casters ready themselves to aid you in this quest," she said, smiling proudly.

Fog hung low to the ground as Charles looked out on the ancient stones that glowed beneath the pale light of the moon. He could sense the foulness of the air as the stream was twisted and distorted from its true course. Charles watched as the fae that called that place home fled from the disruption of their source of life. Feeling Selene shiver as she cowered in her braided nest, twisting his ring as George gave his own opinion on facing the creature alone. Peering over his shoulder ten well trained fae elves stood at his back, along with his father and grandmother, who stared wide eyed at the sight. He saw his father's hand twitch, wanting to reach out to ensure himself they were indeed real.

"Be sure of yourself Sage and you will come out of this alive," Vena said, from behind him offering her support. "Leave the safety of the others to us, focus on the task at hand," she said, before nodding to the others as they moved into position to save the hostages. Breathing in deeply as his hand gripped his staff tightly, trying to beat down the fear he felt threatening to explode. Charles knew it would only strengthen the beast if it sensed the fear within him. Focusing his mind on one thing alone, hoping it would keep his nerves steady as he walked forward to his awaited battle.

Feeling the arcane energies swirling around him as he entered the site, calling to him to twist the world around him. Images of the past played out in a ghostly loop as Charles pressed deeper into monolithic site. He could feel the creature stirring within the shadows watching him, waiting to strike when it thought he was unprepared. Stopping in the center of the cultured site, feeling its crooked fingers running along his back.

"Ah Sage, so you come," it whispered, its foul breath coating his skin. "Have you come to free the souls in my care?" it chuckled evilly.

"Of course. Do you think I would allow you to keep them?" Charles growled shrugging off its touch. Thrusting out his staff, spinning around forming a circle of protection as he readied himself for his assault. "Now release them or face destruction!"

"Oh, such confidence for one so young," it cooed as it drifted around him looking for any weakness it could exploit. "Here take them if you can." Waving its arm feeling the fabric of reality fold in on itself. Suspended between the stone pillars the tar like substance held them aloft, hanging across from one another, Charles had a suspicion he was meant to choose which one he was meant to save. Catching the slight movement as his friends and family moved into position waiting on his signal to free his mother and aunt. It was all up to him to keep the creature's attention long enough for them to escape safely without getting himself killed in the process. "Now come, let us dance our fateful battle," it said, before launching itself at him. Catching its outstretched hands with his staff listening to its skin burn underneath the touch of his staff. Its howl of pain resounded throughout the night air as Charles struggled against its overwhelming strength.

"Adolebitque!" Charles grunted trying to keep from being torn to shreds by its pestilence filled nails. The world around him shuddered as the beast burst into flame, clawing at its robes as the holy flame ate away its dark essence. His eyes flickering over as they cut his aunt free from the spell the creature had encased her in. Hearing his mother's body drop to the ground, smiling inwardly knowing half of their plan was going their way.

"Charles!" His father called out with his mother in his arms. "You finish this here and now! You better not get yourself killed in doing so," Steven said, looking at his son in the light of the flame before moving off to a safe distance.

Steeling his body, feeling the flow of the stream in turmoil, wondering if he could keep true to his father's words. An idea struck him out of the blue, he didn't know if it would destroy the beast or only delay the inevitable. Sending his staff spinning around him, feeling the flow of the stream centering on him as his staff increased in speed. Filling his body with its white hot light, Charles felt feverish as the will of the arcane bent around him.

"Ego Sum Sage, Ego Sum, Vos Revertetur Unde Veristis!" Charles shouted out, focusing all of his might on the creature. His head snapped backwards as the flow of the stream erupted from the center of his chest. Engulfing his foe in its blinding light, eating away at its body piece by piece, returning it back to where it was spawned from. As the last wisp of the creature's essence faded into the ether, crumbling to the ground, feeling his body drained of every ounce of energy he had. Steam drifting off his weary body, his staff wobbled a few inches in the air before dropping back to the ground.

"Charles! Charles!" His mother's voice calling out to him as she raced through the structure. Groaning as she barreled into him wrapping her arms around her son before checking if he was injured from his ordeal.

"So, the Sage has won once again," Vena said, smiling proudly at her former student.

"No," Charles said wearily, shaking his head. "I've only stopped it for now, I can feel it out there, trying to reconstitute itself before challenging me again. The battle still rages on, it's only a matter of time before it shows itself once again."
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The End​