The Warlock by Mackinley Clevinger, July 15, 2016
The occasional snapping of a twig or shuddering of the overgrowth intruding on the abandoned dirt road I traveled along tried to distract me from the flurry of thoughts spinning around in my head, but either it was nothing more than forest critters at play, or the scythe I toted kept anything threatening away from me as I thought about Carmen and… the others. He was still… alive, in his – its own way.
I spun the scythe around me, leaving a whirlwind of shredded leaves and branches in my wake as the sun-bleached, cracked wood dug into my palm, the three-day old flesh still tender and not accustomed to the rugged world I’d been revived into. My body remembered how to move, how to use the scythe; I guess after I settled into it, all the old skills from the farm came back to me.
The farm… Carmen’s farm. Dad’s, ruled with an iron fist that I’d felt all too often, but that was all over. Dad was dead, he would be even if I hadn’t happened to him after all this time, but Carmen… Carmen had been roaming the lands, waiting to bring me back. Alone. The last survivor of the Warlock’s servants, begrudgingly following orders and seeking the first chance to rebel.
How had he – it, I mean, – managed to survive where the others hadn’t? I’d made the whole family obey me. Carmen. Delilah, Adrian, Lucas… Ingrid. If my revival had been known to them, there was nothing they could do but be there, serving ‘me’ beyond death. For that matter, where had they been when I…
I brought the scythe to a halt, detaching an already-blistered hand to rub at my neck where I knew I’d see nothing in my reflection, but could still feel where the blade had… I let my hand drop by my side, limply, as I trudged along the path, just barely lifting the scythe from dragging along the ground with images flashing in my mind, inescapable in their ferocity.
The world around me darkened at the edges, my vision slowly tilting as it shrunk down to a short space that I could still see. I stumbled, my body shuddering as strength drained from my limbs. The scythe fell out of my hands, the dull thud of it hitting the dirt lost in the thumping of blood in my ears. My knees slapped the dirt, my hands only barely getting in place to catch myself from bouncing my face off the ground.
The shuddering of my body, the tremors that danced along my arms and legs, and the roar of blood in my ears were all I could feel, all that existed of the outside world as the memory grew louder and stronger, finally coming to a sudden, freezing halt as a sound, coming from right beneath my bare chin, scraped its way into my brain. In the perfect stillness of the forest, I heard a blade slide along my throat, the sound stopping as soon as it began but its echoes alive within me as I lay trembling in the dirt, the memory passed but the feeling raging through me.
In time I rose to my feet, unsteady as tears flowed and stained my face but set with an anger, a frustration that no amount of ‘understanding the greater good’ could divert. The scythe leapt up from its perch in the dirt behind me, pin wheeling through the air and slicing through the overgrowth in an unholy frenzy before careening into my hand with a solid impact that should have nearly toppled me, but didn’t move me an inch.
I gripped the scythe with both hands, digging my fingers into the old wood and feeling it start to scream and twist from the pressure. Something pumped within me, some second, smaller heart deep within my gut that flooded rage through my veins, outlining my vision in spider cracks of pulsating red as it trickled out through my skin, streaming along the haft and blade of the scythe.
The pressure built throughout me, the tiny organ pumping more and more emotion into a body that could only leak so much of it at a time. I shut my eyes, trying to hold the rage in, bowing my body over with the scythe clenched tightly as the red across my vision grew larger with every pulsating beat that sent tremors throughout me. I gritted my teeth, but the pressure sought a release and slipped its between my lips in a near-silent hiss before expanding, forcing my jaw open and turning into a roar.
My eyes flashed open, the red cracks receding as rage poured out through my throat with a deafening blast of sound that refused to end. The anger, the frustration, the despair; it weaved itself into my voice and tore through the overgrowth, ripping plants from the ground and tearing bark from towering trees as a line across my throat burned brightly, a branded reminder of the past.
I turned, lashing out with the scythe at the untouched vegetation behind me before my voice could reach it, cutting through the overgrowth without resistance and leaving behind droplets of the red rage on everything the scythe touched, devouring plants and racing greedily towards their roots, leaving death and decay behind them.
I swung about myself wildly, letting my rage flow through me and turn the towering growths of nature to so much dust on dying earth, the flickering red droplets a burning carpet that surrounded me as my voice turned the cramped dirt path into a barren clearing with me at its center, dotted by the few trees too large to be uprooted by my screams.
A final swipe toppled a thick tree barren of its skin and deeply gouged, sent rolling towards the edge of the clearing by the waning force of my voice. The rage was fading, the pumping from my gut slowing in contrast to my racing heart, and at last my voice fell silent.
Amidst the destruction and ruin I had brought upon the forest I stood tear-stained and flushed, breathing deep, shaky breaths that cooled the flames that had spread through me. The sound of my breathing and the blood pumping more slowly in my ears were all I could hear, the last trickles of rage burning through the ravaged forest all I could see as the shifting carpet dissipated.
I eased my grip on the scythe, fingers cramping as I tried to unbend them and free them from the grooves I had worked into the handle. Along the blade, the rust and old blood had disappeared, the metal now shining brightly in the sunlight that cast down onto the newly-exposed path. I could see myself in it, see the flushed cheeks that adorned my brown skin surrounded by the destroyed forest behind me.
I looked up into the light and breathed out the last inklings of my rage, letting the warmth of the sun replace the heat beneath my skin and dry the tears that still ran down my face. The cool calm and the comforting heat of the sun slowly slid through me, replacing the last vestiges of anger and frustration.
A tranquility bloomed in my chest as I let out one final heaving breath, bowing my head before the sun and letting it warm my exposed neck as my hair parted and dropped to surround my face, a black veil to keep the outside world away from me while I let the calm feeling spread through me.
Tears welled up in my eyes and dropped to the barren, dead soil; different tears than those that had raced down my cheeks moments before. The feeling of peace within me overflowed the meagre container of my body, carrying itself away from me in a soft rain as I lifted my head and parted my lips, letting a soft, wordless song spin through the clearing and uplift the small stalks of grass and saplings that rose from the decay I had wrought.
This world was different than the one I’d known. There was pain, but… I could sense there was something more. Something I hadn’t ever felt as The Warlock all those centuries ago: Hope. There was more to the world, to myself, than I had thought, something hiding behind the rough surface that had once brought fear and anger to the forefront of my life.
There was more than deals for power paid in death, more than the never-ending revenge against the past; there was something stronger than the most devastating feats of power that hadn’t saved me from my fate. There was… was…
And the feeling was gone, the tranquility passed, leaving me alone. No rage, no peace, just me. Directionless beyond the vague path I’d followed, confused about the world and body I’d awoken into, uncertain as to what power had left as soon as it had arrived, and standing in a clearing of burgeoning life that I had just killed. Just me.
What remained of my old life was what I chose to carry with me; I could make deals, amass power, and let the choices I make, the people I hurt, be the driving force of my new life. I could forgo it and try to live how I’d dreamed of before finding my magic, or I could… I could do anything. The Warlock was me, but I’m not… I’m nothing. A blank slate; free.
Just me.