Arika and the Dark

[Cy Skywalker]

To the readers: This story could not exist without Kora, Sar Sha, Arikash, and Yaz. Disregard the fact that it says “2” in the title. This is not a direct sequel, more an episode, and like with Star Wars it is preferable to experience them out of order. If the story confuses you, specific what you wish clarified; it will probably come in the next chapter.

Heir to the Fates 2: Arika and the Dark

Evening on the highway between the WalMart complex and the mall, and the yellow pools of illumination beneath the streetlights lay in ripples over the hard black pavement. The afternoon’s rain had been half snow, but now all was melted away. Strange weather, though Morn of the Dark Wizards. Then, no; she had once seen the sky swirl like the accretion disk around a singularity. Strange is so relative.

Barely two years ago, that had been. In the time between then and now she had gone through none of those things which defined modern teens--SATs, driving automobiles, awkward dates--and all of those things which defined a Dark apprentice placed in a foreign realm. Sarcasm helped to define her, as did denial of her Light origin.

Her black boots flattened the stubby grass between the cracks in the sidewalk here on the outskirts of the residential development. Large identical houses in pastel colors rose up to her right, with familial touches such as flower beds or swing sets and plastic cars scattered throughout their back yards. To Morn’s left, the black highway reached an intersection and sprouted upreaching stoplight tentacles. Ahead of her a stand of pine trees separated the sidewalk from the road where both turned at a right angle to the highway; the WalMart existed beyond the sidewalk, trees, perpendicular-running thoroughfare, and parking lot.

Morn heard one whump--air pushed by huge wings. She raised her forearms in an X over her head and positioned her feet as weight fell down on her from above, weight with forearms similarly guarding except a long knife gleamed in each hand--

Morn pushed up. The wings pushed down. Gleams--the whites of two eyes, the silvers of crude blades, bronzes of body armor on the compact dark form above her. The knives scissored. Morn stepped to the left. Her left hand shifted and pressed on the attacker’s neck just below the coarse, punked hair. The flat of her right hand hit just below the attacker’s ribs. Its momentum carried it forward; it rolled and came up crouched, one wing crooked down and to the side. The attacker could now be seen; obviously female, African-American, teenage, dressed in tight black clothing with silver accents and bronze armbands. Her black wings like a bat’s and the red makeup from the side of her lip to her chin--these identified her true race

The Vampire threw a knife. The blade flipped once. Morn sidestepped again, drew her sword, ran her tongue over her lips. Magic blazed as lurid red light along the sword’s length, almost obscuring the silver steel. Morn reached out, swung, sliced the knife in half. They stepped toward each other.

Morn swung her sword for the young Vampire’s neck. Her remaining knife caught it and then, quick, the Vampire was inside Morn’s guard, teeth snapping near her ear and through her dirty-blonde hair, knife sliding down the sword blade to her hand. Morn pushed with magic.

The Vampire flew though her wings did not unfurl. She landed with her feet scraping the ground up to the roots of one of the larger pine trees. Immediately she turned and gripped a fold of bark; she jumped, flapped once, and ascended into the darkness of the tree boughs. Morn ran underneath the tree and circled to the far side. Behind her a picket fence separated a backyard from the roadside.

“Arika!” Morn growled, always certain of her foe’s identity, always surprised at her boldness. Here, beside the highway!

“Make it easy for the humans and die quietly.” Arika’s
voice from aloft had a soft girlish touch. “Humans? They need some excitement in their lives.” Morn focused upward. Her adjusted eyes could discern only gray clusters of branches.

“I agree.”

Morn laughed. “You could make this easier for us and give up,”

“Certainly not. He wouldn’t like that.”

Morn swung her red sword into the tree truck. It was a sizable pine, not ancient, as it had been planted for the development, but sturdy enough to climb if you could reach the branches. The Wizard sword sliced through. The tree toppled, heavy weight pushing it down in the direction of the houses. Arika flashed out like a bat and landed a kick just below Morn’s neck as the loud crack-thud boomed. The Wizard breathed once, forcing the white-hot pain into a compartment of her mind, and turned as Arika came again with the knife. Morn pushed it aside with her sword.

The knife did not break apart as she had expected. They fenced for a few steps, Morn pacing backward, blades flashing up and down and forward. The knife now had the red magic-glow. Morn backed until she felt the change from pine needles to thick wet grass beneath her feet. Then she jumped, feet whipping over the plane of the fight, in a corkscrew kick which caught Arika beneath the jaw. The Vampire dropped. Morn misjudged her landing in a split-second of thought and landed on hands and knees, elbows dipping down to the cold ground for a moment. Arika reached forward. Mourn strained and lifted herself into a sitting position and then a stand a meter away, against the fence--the tree had taken out the yard to her left--

Arika levered herself up with one hand, swung her legs like a gymnast, and flapped. This brought her to standing, oval face passive.

Both breathed heavily, rued it, and moved--Morn pointed her sword forward. Arika threw the enchanted knife. Her judgment from Morn’s two former dodges was sound; the blade sliced into Morn’s upraised hand as she sidestepped. Then it thudded, lightless, into the picket fence. Morn gasped with a hiss like a snake’s and pulled her bloodied hand to her chest. She too wore black, with a simple trench-coat over jeans and a button-down shirt with collar. No gleaming armor for her, except for the black sword belt and scabbard studded with silver. She raised the blade in front of her face and wounded hand. The magic sizzled slightly in their peripheral hearing.

“Why this time?”

“He knows.”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“He’s told me to kill you.”

Morn ignored this, though a strangled thought like no flooded a compartment of her mind. Again she pushed. This time the Vampire was thrown farther, back to the limits of the highway. Morn ran after her. Arika picked herself up, dazed and holding her head to one side. “Whelp...”

Morn stepped forward, swung her sword. A tug on her leg pulled her onto her back. Narrowly she caught herself with her arms, but Arika was pulling on the thin line-and-lasso she had thrown unseen, dragging Morn toward herself, smiling with her two fangs exposed like a viper’s retractable needle teeth.

Morn cut the line. Arika had needed only recovery time, though--she flew forward and grabbed Morn’s hands at her hilt. Claws cut into the skin of her knuckles.

Morn was very used to that. But again Arika snapped at her neck and she could only step and lean back, too close to kick, hands burning with blood and sweat. She hated her weakness, and stamped down on the top of Arika’s foot. The boot was thick. Then she hooked her foot behind the Vampire’s and Arika fell; Morn pulled to get her hands free. She raged for her ineptitude. Arika rolled away. Morn called the magic again and threw. Arika rose as if on a thermal, wings spread and face tight with concentration, stable and about to dive until--

They had come too close to the highway. A minivan or
some large vehicle swept by and Arika tumbled in its wake. She got a handhold on the back of the car’s roof and Morn watched her speed away. She tucked her wings in, becoming smaller and less gargoyle-esque as the car passed down the road.

Morn stood silently and lowered her throbbing hand.

She smiled for the moment, for the juxtaposition of
worldly and strange.

Beautiful, until she remembered him.

[Cy Skywalker]

II

Morn, walking in the development now as dawn struck into the distant sky, ran the tips of her fingers down a beige-sided wall. The windowless side of this house could have been mistaken for any other except when the girl’s hand touched it and the wall rippled like water and then like glass. It became a square doorway onto a shadowy silver corridor as the screech of nails on a chalkboard faded.

Morn had long grown used to disruptions in the life force, but not so with the conflicting emotions which had been stewing within her since her decision to finally speak to her master--since Arika’s casual mention of him. A Wizard would never work with a Vampire, not if she were the only magical being in the world.

She trotted down the gray corridor tucked between dimensions The insubstantial rooms changed some times. This night the first room was a small one to the left. It contained a tall shelf of books draped in curtains the same color as the red carpet, wood paneling on the walls, and the tall master Wizard laying, dressed entirely in layers of black, on a low wooden couch against the near wall. The walls were made of magic, which gave the pleasant effect of glowing concrete. The books and the scarlet cushion on the couch smelled dusty. Morn knelt beside the master’s head. The rustling of her clothing defied the silence.

His striking eyes were lidded. He lay relaxed on his back, right arm supported by the back of the couch and left set across his chest. His well-defined face looked serene compared to when he was awake, but still restrained the mien of a resting wolf ready to bare its fangs.

Morn’s feelings for him confused her concerning their exact melange of definitions. Soft emotion compelled her to barely touch his cheek. The beginnings of a blonde beard ran down his jawline to his square chin. There also tiger-stripes of the black paint used for Dark spells were applied from his neck to his lower lip.

When Morn touched him his mouth twitched. He raised one arm and passed it over his shock of hair. The loose sleeve fell back and revealed smooth musculature.

After a moment Morn slapped his shoulder, stood, and back away across the room. “Master Ryo!”

He lazily opened his eyes and sat up.

Morn worked her mouth but managed no words; his fire-orange eyes stalled her. He stared. She had stared back so many times, until evil grew tiring. The world was a breathe of lightness which she felt was her true place.

Getting there, she knew, required passing through the cliché rebelling apprentice/vampire hunter phase.

Knowing that you are in the clutches of something, a whirlpool for example, and getting out of it are two very different things, even for the very intelligent, as are knowledge and wisdom.

Ever since she’d first left Ryo, beginning the cycle of angst and return, Arika and she had played at stealth and fighting. Only when it turned more deadly than fun did Morn wonder and did Arika drop pronouns like informants’ names.

“You sent Arika to kill me.”

The master’s voice was deep. He soothed, “I cannot find a new apprentice until the old one is dead.”

New apprentice. Dismay fell like a weight into a pit and did not echo. Morn’s expression froze at neutral.

“I’m here now, Ryo. What are --at--no. How would you find a new Wizard here?”

He shrugged. “Whomever I find will be weak and young compared to you. But my knowledge must pass on.”

Morn walked back toward him. This challenge--she couldn’t have explained it, but the challenge satisfied more emotion than had that which came before. “I’m here now. I left once but I won’t have you sending someone else to kill me.”

“You won’t allow it, apprentice?” He snarled.

Again Morn reached out and stroked his check. He stood, keeping their faces close together.

She disappeared.

Morn always shivered at the bus stop, even wearing as she was black jeans, a winter coat, a white hoodie, and a Star Wars T-shirt. (The dialogue with Ryo had occurred the night before, and she was not tired.) The gray sky between the bare trees standing across the street; surely, she thought, this glum vista made the early winter feel colder.

“You have your lunch?” asked her father.

“I packed it this morning.” (Her father ‘s true identity: the bird into whose nest the cuckoo had been set by the Wizard.)

“If you’re still cold in school just keep your coat on, okay?” He was tall and well built, with thinning black hair and an addiction to personal safety. “Be careful of ice!”

He moved back up the driveway just as the bus drew near down the road. Morn resettled the strap of her bookbag over her shoulder.

“I love you,” said her father.

“You too,” mumbled Morn, and she swept up into the school bus world of sleepy high schoolers and stale pop music.

Later, between second and third periods, the hallways were filled. Clips of conversations passed Morn’s ears. Working your way from Calculus to AP English, she had learned well by junior year, you keep your head down.

Arika was moving toward her with the left side of the hallway. Unlike Morn she stood a head taller than most of the students their age. She wore tight green jeans and a gray shirt with a green clasp at the back of her neck. Her short hair was tipped with electric blue. Morn envied her, in the small portion of her brain dedicated to clothing, how nothing Arika wore did not flatter her.

They smiled at each other. “Your trap failed,” said Morn.

“I’ll get you next time!”

“Just try it.” She managed.

“He hired me--” The crowd pulled them apart. Morn smiled still, How reassuring it is to have friends, to share with them imaginative events. She and Arika had known each other from elementary school. They shared lunch time conversations about movies and metaphysics. She made an excellent, fun ally. Morn had never met her family.