Learning a New Life - 12. Chapter 12

Is this what it's like to be dead? Am I dead?

Everything is so bright, so bright towards the Glen, but there is so much carnage. Wait – everything is frozen. And who is that –? So bright …

But not. Beyond him, beyond the light, it's so dark. Is this a judgment? Am I going to heaven or hell? Why is the demon staring at him.

"Wha—what are you? What happened?" I asked the man bathed in white.

"I am your Guide," he answered, before turning to the demon. "You risk breaking the Accords. You cannot interfere directly without all-out war between us."

The demon seemed to sneer at my guide. I think I'm going to just step back and try to not say anything at this point. But the demon continued to speak, not to me, but to the other man: "Check your facts. I haven't directly interfered in this matter. I suggested to the warlock what he could do, and if my entrance wasn't well received by these lesser creatures, that's not my fault."

"The woman …"

"She attacked me first. The Accords clearly state that self-defense is permitted."

"But you didn't have to kill her!" I screamed.

The demon shrugged as the corners of his mouth turned up. "How was I to know?"

I turned back to the guide. I was utterly exhausted – emotionally, physically, and magically. I knew that guides existed, they were the counter-parts to demons, but I had never seen one before – no one had that I had ever heard of – and I didn't know what they could really do. "Can't you do anything?" I begged.

The demon looked on, the sneer growing.

The guide turned slowly to me, his mouth a straight line that I did not think was going to make me any happier. He placed his hands on my shoulders and I felt a trickle of power flowing into me. I looked to stare into his eyes, eyes with golden yellow irises that glowed like everything else about him.

He spoke quietly. "While the demon may bend the rules, I cannot, or at least not in the way you wish. I cannot directly interfere. I cannot bring her back, and Death has already taken her. I cannot even stop the demon unless he directly disrupts the balance.

"In a moment, I must return you to time's pace. Ananke does not like inevitability to be delayed, and even pulling you out of normal time is bending the rules.

"But, I have one bit of advice to you," the guide leaned in more closely. He whispered in my ear, "You do love Nate, right?"

I nodded, and I felt a tear run down my cheek. Joanna was dead, Susan and I were likely to follow, and I would never see Nate again.

"Then release him. Release him because you love him. Give him back his memory and let him choose. Love without choice is not love. I've transferred just enough energy for you to perform the release."

The guide pulled away and paused. I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand, but then the guide leaned over and kissed my forehead. I wanted to beg with him, to ask him if there was any other way, anything else he could do, when the white light and black shadow vanished and I felt the burning heat of a fireball dissipating on Nate's shield in front of me.

* * * * *

I blocked John's fireball moments before it would have hit Michael. I was almost afraid I was too late because he looked stunned and disoriented for a few seconds before he finished running to Susan. I redoubled my efforts to hold the warlock off as well as the demon, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold them off for long now that a creature of so much more power than I was now here.

The demon seemed to be standing his ground now, expressionless as he had always been. John, though, was taking the opportunity of Joanna's death and Susan's and Michael's distraction and was advancing. The fairies were no where to be seen, and I could tell the gnomes had left just after the demon's arrival.

I tried to channel more power to the elves' own magic, calling upon the forest to entrap the warlock and prevent his advance, but John's fire ability was the same as before and quickly burned through any restraint they could muster.

Wait – why am I feeling light-headed? No, the demon's not doing anything, and I know that the warlock can't affect me. But … "Michael!"

In less than a moment I was at his side, but he continued to do what I had never imagined. His face was emotionless, detached, as he touched the necklace in a few secreted places and recited a spell that I had never heard of. My head was spinning as he continued, and he looked as though he was about to pass out. Just before he collapsed, he looked at me with the most profound emotion I have ever seen, and he whispered, "I love you."

Time stopped around me as the necklace lit up and a beam of energy shot into me. I felt overwhelmed by millions of images filling my head, an entire lifetime, literally, to the point where it was … painful? I forgot what it was like to feel pain. The last time I felt pain was –

Wait! I remember. I felt pain when the demon touched me and transferred all the knowledge of the spells to destroy the elves as well as the energy to carry it out. But that was … that was …

I remember!

I was going to kill them, kill them all. Gain all their power but … something … they tricked me. They imprisoned me in that stone and turned me into a jinni! A fucking gay jinni!

I kept myself out of time as I turned towards Michael, and I knew well the utter contempt within me was directed at him. I'm free! I can do whatever I fucking want, accomplish my original mission and destroy my jailor in the process.

But then I saw him again. Michael, just lying there. Exhaustion, innocence, fear, and love etched in his face as I remembered everything, including his final act. The upturned cheek was scratched, and a bruise on his forehead was bleeding. He was covered in dirt and sweat, and yet, that's the face of the man who –

Wait, this can't be right! He destroyed my life, he kept me from achieving ultimate power! But … but he … loved me. Despite what I had done, he still loved me.

I swallowed hard and looked around again. Everything was still frozen, the demon passively watching, John – my brother – his face full of rage and hatred, something I once had felt, the only thing I had ever felt. Until I met Michael. I looked on and saw the destruction that John had brought to the elves, something I would have done before him. Only now I could see everything and everyone who was destroyed in that process.

I knelt down in that same instant of time and I turned Michael's head, gently, to face upwards. I kissed him, softly, on the lips. I knew it would be the last time. I knew what I had to do.

I had committed the guidebook that I had read so many months ago into memory: "If a jinni may not have enough power to grant a request, command, or wish, but if the jinni with all its soul desired to see it come to fruition, it could pour its own essence into the granting of it."

I closed my eyes and wished. Just before I felt myself completely empty, I used the last moment to whisper into Michael's subconscious, "For you. I will always love you. That, and everything I wanted, is what I leave you."