Vesik 04 - This Broken World (9 page)

***

It was about an hour drive. Once we finished bouncing our heads off the ceiling of my ’32 Ford on the uneven gravel road, the steady hiss of asphalt was a sweet relief.

The Old Man hadn’t complained once as we hit the ruts and rocks. I’d cursed the entire time.

“That’s better,” he said. We headed north on highway 67.

“So you
did
notice the bumps.”

“Noticing something does not require me to complain about it.”

I cocked an eyebrow and shot him a sideways glance. “Did you just take a shot at me? I could have sworn you just took a shot at me.”

“It’s probably a sign I’ve been around you and Zola too much in the past year. I’m normally quite respectful.”

“Uh huh,” I said.

The Old Man chuckled quietly as I turned on the radio. I frowned and scanned the stations. Everything was static.

“Storm’s moving in,” he said.

“We’ll get a better signal closer to Fredericktown,” I said. I glanced up at the evening sky. “Looks pretty clear.”

“Not the kind of storm I was referring to.”

“Oh. You think the gathering powers are interfering?”

We both fell silent. I was pretty damn sure we were both thinking about just how bad a storm was heading our way.

I hit the accelerator a bit more than I needed to on the narrow turns and hills of highway 72. The Old Man braced his hands against the dashboard and laughed as I took a turn that would have been suicidal without the wide tires the old girl was wearing.

It wasn’t much longer before we reached 21 and slowly turned off into the huge, oval-shaped parking lot of Elephant Rocks State Park. The last car was leaving as we pulled in. I’d never run into a ranger when I came to visit Aeros, so I wasn’t surprised when silence and emptiness greeted us.

I threw my backpack over one shoulder. The Old Man grabbed another backpack and let the straps dangle from his hand. He tossed my staff to me and it smacked into my palm.

We started up the parking lot, loose gravel and bits of torn up pavement crunching beneath our feet as we made our way to the short pavilion.

My eyes wandered over the brown wood. “They painted it.”

“And?” the Old Man asked.

“The green was terrible.”

We followed the path past the little pavilion. The woods closed over our heads and every sound became suspect in the dying light. I began striking the path in front of us with my staff. The ferrule clunked against the asphalt and made a satisfying echo.

The granite boulders still drew my attention as we walked past. I’d never been anywhere else and seen anything quite like it. They weren’t as large or majestic as mountains, but seeing boulders the size of cars strewn through the woods was jarring.

We rounded the large, central hill of the park and the trail began to ascend. We crested the rise a minute later and could see enormous granite boulders the size of houses sitting on a red granite plain.

I’d come to think of Aeros as a friend, and it still threw me a bit, as we climbed, to see the names of his victims carved into the boulders beside the short wooden staircase. Most of the names were over a hundred years old.

We turned left, passed the string of boulders for which I was fairly certain the park had been named, and weaved between a few standing pools of water. One pool in particular would never go dry. Smooth pebbles lined the bottom of the water.

I smacked my staff on the granite surface beside the pool.

“Hey, Aeros! You awake?”

The Old Man actually laughed.

I pounded my staff on the ground a few more times. “Come on. Do you really want me to make with the glowy lights?”

Nothing happened. I sighed and kneeled down beside the pool.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” the Old Man said.

“Don’t I always?”

Judging by his expression, he didn’t think so.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
s soon as my hand neared the surface of the water, a dull, yellow-green glow rose between the pebbles. Gentle wisps of power brightened and waved from each stone, reaching out to the other wisps. The tiny fronds of light intertwined until a pattern emerged.

“Ehwaz,” I said.

The fronds twisted and shimmered until a glyph appeared within the pool—a rune, shaped like a jagged capital M and made of light. The glyph dissolved.

“Uruz.”

The light shifted as the fronds began to undulate and another rune rose between the pebbles. It looked like a lowercase n with the left edge higher than the right. A sharp line joined the top of each side.

“Oh, good. You didn’t get us killed today,” the Old Man said.

I’d seen Aeros step through the pool before, but I still jumped back as the water boiled without heat. Bubbles of light flowed from the fronds and broke the surface of the water. Dozens at first, and then hundreds spilled out into the air. The bubbling mass expanded and the bubbles merged before they dulled into a red granite body. Two lights kindled in the black pits of the highest granite boulder. A moment later, two glowing eyes rolled down to meet mine. A wiry crack in the surface turned into the Old God’s smile.

“I heard you knocking,” the earth said as he pulled his boulder-like legs out of the fading pool of light.

“You just wanted to see if I remembered,” I said.

“It has been a while since I crushed someone here.”

“Let’s try to keep that streak alive,” I said.

“Alive … yes. Zola would likely prefer that.”

“Uh, I would likely prefer that too.”

Aeros’s face fractured into a grin as he turned to the Old Man. “It is good to see you again.”

“And you,” he said.

“How would you like to proceed?”

The Old Man ran his fingers over the white beard on his chin. “He’s never faced an Old God directly.”

“He did defeat Azzazoth and the Destroyer.”

The Old Man nodded. “Yes, but he had help with Azzazoth. He nearly lost himself killing the Destroyer.”

I took a deep breath. He was right on both counts.

“A brief demonstration, perhaps?” Aeros said, his voice rumbling through the stone beneath my feet.

“Like old times.”

“Yes,” Aeros said, agreeing with the Old Man. “I am glad to see your realization of what I am has not destroyed our old alliance.”

The Old Man’s hands began to emit a soft, yellow glow. Streamers of power floated away from his forearms like smoke. “I admit, I thought we’d have to kill you when I learned you were an Old God. You look different than you did in the war with the witches. I didn’t expect a rock to age. How long has it been? A century? Two?”

“More time has passed us by than a mere century. We met in the Civil War once more, but when last we sparred, you still wore the name Levi.” Aeros took a step away from the pool, leading the Old Man onto the wider plain of granite. Every footfall thundered as granite met granite.

“I still answer to that name.”

“How long since you answered to Leviticus?”

The Old Man slammed his fists together and a waterfall of power poured from his hands. “You will not anger me so easily any more, old friend.”

Aeros’s smile widened. “I am glad of it.”

I backed away, closer to the edge of the staircase.

“Prepare yourself!” It was all the warning Aeros gave.

He threw a hook like a wrecking ball. The Old Man’s shield flashed up as he took half a step backwards. Aeros’s fist glanced off the shield in a shower of sparks.

“Pulsatto!”

The wave of force didn’t even phase Aeros as he lunged at the Old Man. The Old Man’s showed actual surprise as the wall of rock turned at an impossible angle, aiming a strike at his legs.

“Modus Ignatto!”
A pinwheel of fire erupted across the rocks. It wouldn’t hurt Aeros, but the god couldn’t see the Old Man maneuver to the side behind the tower of flame. “Too slow.”

Aeros’s eyes brightened as he crossed through the fire. The Old Man’s hand blackened as he swung a punch at the Old God’s head.

My jaw hung open as he connected and drove Aeros’s face into the granite plateau.

“You haven’t slowed down a bit in your old age.”

Aeros laughed as he pulled a knee up beneath him. “An artful distraction.”

The Old Man nodded and leaned back against the nearest boulder. “You could have killed me with any one of those strikes.”

“I know you better than that, Old Man. We all do.”

“I must say,” the Old Man said, “you don’t give away your target like you used to. Back in the Civil War, I could dance around every attack you threw.”

Aeros paused and studied the small man before him. Small to Aeros, at least. “Some of us were not born to fight.”

“When the options are fight or die, everyone was born to fight.”

My eyes trailed between Aeros and the Old Man. I had broken memories from when I’d touched the Old Man’s power with my own. Fragments of the time he’d spent as a Centurion were in my head. I had broken visions of Aeros, and cannons, and blood, from the Civil War.

“When will the wars stop?” Aeros said. “It is no better than the gods of old. Petty, greedy, and destructive.”

“There are some things that are better in this world,” I said quietly. “People who stand up for victims and try their best to help others, to protect others …”

“To avenge others,” the Old Man said.

When my gaze travelled from Aeros to the Old Man, I was surprised to find a smile on his face.

“Try to smash him,” the Old Man said. “We’ll find out if he was paying attention.”

“You mean paying attention to how you blocked everything at an angle?” I asked.

“You make it sound so easy,” the Old Man said, and I was damn sure that was sarcasm in his voice.

“Begin,” Aeros said.

Aeros was not fond of warnings.

He took one step forward and threw a hook. It was one thing to watch the Old Man and analyze his defense. It was quite another to have a fist larger than your head, made of granite, hurtling at your face.

“Impadda!”

The angle wasn’t good. Aeros’s fist still glanced off the shield, but I caught enough of the blow that it slammed me into the boulder at my back. I cursed and ran into the open area of the granite plain.

Another hook.

Another shield.

Electric blue energy exploded across my vision as the shield turned his attack away. He stopped mid-punch and threw a left immediately after the right. I was wholly unprepared. My shield flashed up, but the punch landed squarely. I watched in amazement and horror as my shield failed.

I dove backwards and Aeros’s fist narrowly missed my chest. I held my neck forward so I wouldn’t give myself a concussion when I landed. The hit was hard. I rolled to the side and rose to my feet, gasping for air.

The Old Man was laughing. I found myself irritated beyond reason at that.

“Come on!” I said to the pile of rocks.

Aeros looked to the Old Man. I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye. Now Aeros was taking cues from the Old Man? Oh, hell no.

The Old God swung at me with a hook again. I crouched and summoned a shield. His eyes widened as his blow was deflected upward, leaving the right side of his body exposed.

“Pulsatto!”
My voice was almost a snarl as the wave of force exploded from my hand. I didn’t hesitate as it hit Aeros in the head. It wasn’t enough to damage him. I swung around behind him, drew the focus, and summoned a soulsword.

“Yield,” I said. The golden blade licked the air beside my head.

“Well done,” Aeros said, turning to face me. “Very well done. You are outside of my reach. Of course, should I choose to travel through the rocks, you are never out of my reach, but well done.”

“You learn fast, but not fast enough,” the Old Man said.

Out of sheer frustration I snapped out, “Oh, I need to learn faster?” I let the blade vanish and turned to face him. “What do you suppose I need to learn? Something like you did at Roanoke?”

He stiffened, his shoulders tightened ever so slightly. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been looking for it. Some small part of me gained a glimmer of satisfaction before the sane part of my brain told me not to poke the bear with its paw on the big red nuclear button.

He didn’t even move. An enormous boulder stood beside him, and then it was simply gone. Shattered. The burst of ley line energy was practically an afterthought. The damage was already done, and the calamity of falling stone was a deafening accompaniment. Stones the size of people and small cars collapsed to the plateau and slid off the edge. Smoking holes riddled several of them in regular patterns.

The Old Man let out a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a fit of rage. He turned slowly and met my eyes. An ancient memory, his memory, boiled and churned in my mind, showing me the promise of violence behind his gaze. I reached for my focus, because I knew the depth of his fury.

“The old wolf’s been talking about things best forgotten,” the Old Man said, his voice flat.

Aeros banged his hands together. It shook the entire granite plateau. I could have sworn the huge boulders, balanced beside each other, started to shake. The greenish yellow filaments that formed his eyes blazed into brilliant light. He gave us both the most irritated look I’d ever seen grace his rocky face.

“I will tolerate many things, but you must not put my domain at risk. I respect you both, but the power that lies within the Old Man is beyond anything you can imagine. Do not tempt him into using it.”

The Old Man’s shoulders sagged slightly. “My apologies. I should not have reacted like that.”

My eyes trailed across the names carved deeply into the surface of the granite boulders. Men who didn’t know better and thought to summon an Old God. I saw Aeros as a friend, but he was still a being I may never fully understand. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for us to get pancaked today. I nodded to them both.

“Now then,” Aeros said, “you have enough energy to enrage the Old Man, let us see how you use it against me.”

That mountain of granite could move. He came at me with his arms raised, fingers laced together. My first instinct was to throw up a shield. My next thought was that he’d expect it. My mind flashed back to some unfortunate necromancers who’d tried using a shield, and then I remembered the Old Man. I dove to the side instead.