Warlocks Index – Previous Chapter
The Maker stood at the rear of the tent, in front of a large ornate throne. His expression of shocked surprise was there for but a brief moment before the anticipated glitch covered his expression with composure, but I had sealed my thoughts within a mental seal and created a false copy for The Maker to see. I could see through his mask, a semi-transparent cover to his true face, which revealed anger and fear.
“Hah, I knew you would return.” The false Maker stood tall and clasped his hands behind his back, while the true Maker seemed to mimic the movements without the appearance of confidence, uncertain and hunched. “Everyone does. After all, I offer a future of satisfaction.”
“For Whom?” I said it simply, softly, an honest question from a sincere curiosity. Neutral.
He faltered, the image paused and the real flinched. “What? For everyone of course?”
“And what would this satisfaction look like?” I remained still, projecting calm serenity, which was easier than I expected. Catching him as I had filled me with a soothing sense of satisfaction. I knew that would soon change.
“It looks like a life without worry.” His voice had become sharp. “No conflict. We can make a world of contentment.”
I start to walk slowly following the inner wall of the tent. “With you in charge of course.”
“It’s my vision.”
“Of course.” I stopped pacing near a small desk. “And we, you and me, will make people content.” I deliberately said as a statement.
He smiled. “Yes.” He lingered on the “s” a little too long.
I watched the real Maker slowly extract Silver Tongue from his cloak. “That’s the part I have a problem with. I don’t make people do anything.”
“Maybe not, but even you can be made to.” Confident that I could not see him, he raised the pipe to his lips.
I did nothing to stop him. The real fight had started, and I stepped in to face it.
*****
A cave. Dark and wet. Glowmoss covered the roof and walls. A cave very like one I was lost in as a child. Strange noises echoed around me. The air was damp and unpleasant. There had been stories of strange beasts that lived deep within the holes of the world. My imagination had created so many horrifying things hiding in the shadows. A child’s imagination. A child’s fears.
“You’re all alone.” The Maker’s voice whispered in my ear, ghostly, and hollow. “Your friends abandoned you.”
I visualized my younger self before me and knelt down to him placing a hand on his head. “Fear not young man. You do find your way out, and your friends, they will apologise. Eventually.” Then I reached out grabbing into the air. I pulled the thread that hid there with as much force as I could and the world around me changed.
A field. Bright and Sunny. High grown wheatgrass everywhere. A land foreign to me with children playing in the grass, and a young boy that looked like I once did but in shabby clothing among them. He tripped and fell, into a pile of manure. When the others saw him, they laughed and teased him.
A growl from somewhere and the world changed again. I was outside a door. Looking up at the handle just out of reach. Behind was my mother, and I wanted her. I was crying. She was always busy. Never there when I wanted her.
“She never loved you, did she.” His voice was harsh, full of contempt. “But what if you could make her love you?”
I felt a childish appreciation for the idea, but of course a child would appreciate such a thought. Their needs were all they knew. They weren’t knowledgeable enough to conceive a bigger perspective. I removed myself from the child and knelt down again.
“Your mah is an important person. She gets to tell other people what to do, but who is it she always comes home to?”
My younger image looked up at me thoughtful, then a small smile. “Me?”
“That’s right. You are more important than anyone else because she always comes home to you.” It wasn’t what I wanted to hear when I was him, but it was what I needed to hear.
A sudden glitch changed the face of the boy into something twisted with hate, and he launched himself at me clawing at my face but fell through open space. I had shifted to stand behind the boy. The act was over. I dropped the false mental image, kept the mental shield, and slashed at the air around me, cutting through multiple threads of the Maker’s dreams and memories, their realities spilling forth.
A cry of rage and frustration echoed through the blending skies as a ghostly shape charged towards me. I stepped to one side, deflecting the charge with a casual swipe of my arm. The Maker fell out from the cloud, rolling on the grounds.
“I will break you.” He yelled.
“I will not resist.” I said.
Without moving, he was flying at me once more. I dropped to one knee ducking beneath him, then turned around to face him.
I was on a cobbled road, a small town in the distance. He was flying, a blur of black, taking on the shape of a black bird, diving from up high. It cawed a high-pitched screech as it impacted against my chest, throwing me backwards, into a town meeting with the Prefect and farmers guild. I rolled to my feet, searching about for The Maker’s new form. and saw Murtain thrusting a pitchfork at my throat. I shifted to stand beside the thrust weapon, grabbed it, pulled the thrust further before reversing it, pushing it back into Murtain, knocking The Maker out of him.
We were in some sort of court hearing, with a younger Maker in chains. The people were angry, yelling, throwing things. The sentence was permanent expulsion.
The Maker, back on his feet, turned back to me. “How dare you! I WILL KILL YOU!” He was nothing but rage, self-righteous, and uncontrolled. His defenses were down, and everything was focussed on attack. He charged at me with blind rage.
I stood my ground, stretching out my arms, making myself ethereal. With nothing to grasp onto, he passed straight through me stumbling to the ground.
I turned to face him. “You were banished, weren’t you?” I reached out into the air and a glowing thread appeared on my fist. “I wonder why?”
He looked up at me, no longer disguising his disgust. “Don’t you dare.”
“Then you tell me. What did you do?”
“I will tell you nothing. You have NO RIGHT TO JUDGE ME!”
“I am sure I don’t need to. You have judged yourself already.”
He snorted. “You’re just like the rest of them, High-and-mighty, self-important, simpletons.”
“You know me well.”
He looked to the thread in my raised fist. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn’t?”
“DON’T PLAY WITH ME!”
“You mean like you played with everyone else?”
He was on his feet, in my face. “I was helping them. Fixing them.”
“I think they may feel differently.” My voice remained as neutral as I could manage.
“They wouldn’t know. I made them better.”
“For whom?” I looked blankly into his eyes.
He seemed to struggle for something to say. His eyes tried to penetrate my mask. I could hear his pipe music almost as an undertone to his breathing. “You don’t know me. You can never know me. What I’ve suffered from people like you.”
“People like me? Brother?”
“We’re nothing alike.”
“I noticed.” I could tell his frustration was building as a slight tremor shook the corner of his mouth. I spread my sphere of awareness beyond the tent. “And you are blind.”
“Me? Blind? I’m the one with vision! I’m the ONLY one that can see.”
“You only see your own selfish ideals.” I mentally drew the threads of everyone in the camp. “How about a new perspective,” and with a swirling gesture I gathered the threads of the captives, guards, servants, and everyone he had affected forcing them into his head and mind. For too long he had been forcing others to question their own minds. Now I forced him to see the fruits of his labour, from their point of view.
My hands began to glow as the energies of the threads blended together. The glow spread until I was a brightly lit entity. I was the nexus, a combining of energies, making for a stronger, powerful connection. The opposite of a void that consumed. As a final move, I added all that I had experienced because of the Maker; the distress of Cassinda, the death of Tobus, the fear and anger of Murtain. The glow intensified drowning out all vision.
The world of dreams dissolved around us, leaving us in the middle of the tent, my hands wrapped tight around his head. His knees buckled as he slumped to the ground. I followed keeping my hands to his head, channelling the dreams of his victims into the core of his mind. I helped him lightly fall to the ground, as his eyes rolled back, and he fell unconscious.
“Rest well, brother.”
Reflection of a Ham 
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