Echo, p.19
Echo, page 19
From the inside pocket of his coat, Zaros produced a potion that he poured on Doyle’s body. It sizzled like cold water on a sweltering surface.
Doyle’s jaws relaxed when his wounds started to heal. He allowed himself a pain-free moment before he spoke again. "Give up, Zaros. You still can’t beat me."
Zaros snickered. It wasn’t the first time he had heard these words from Doyle.
***
"This is a saber. Use it to fight," Zaros said as he raised a large metal sword with a black hilt and a slightly curved blade. He handed it to the eight-year-old Doyle, whose arms trembled with the weight.
The two boys stood on the stone bridge outside the castle. As the suns burned in the sky, sweat ran down young Doyle’s face.
"Great job. You’re good to go." Zaros turned around to leave.
"Wait," young Doyle shouted. "You haven’t taught me anything. Lord Jivar ordered you to teach me."
Zaros glowered and adjusted his scarf. Opening his palm out, he conjured a sword of flame out of nothing. "There are two ways to attack with a sword: piercing and slashing," he said before stepping one foot forward and thrusting his sword through the air. "When you pierce, aim for the heart."
Zaros stayed in his posture, signaling Doyle to copy him. As soon as the kid stepped a foot, he lost his balance and fell to the ground.
Zaros gave an unamused laugh."This is a waste of time."
"I’m eight years old," Doyle cried out. "It’s too heavy for me."
Clearly exasperated, Zaros squatted to meet the kid’s gaze. "When I was eight, I used to push a two-ton wagon through a rotten forest every day. My feet bled, and my back hurt, but I toughed it out, and so should you."
A spark of challenge appeared in Doyle’s eyes. He had promised Viessa to become stronger and protect her, even if he had to suffer. Pushing himself up, he grabbed the sword and pierced it forward as Zaros showed him. "I-I-is this right?"
"Your knees are shaking," Zaros said, coming to stand. "But not bad."
Starting that day, Doyle became Zaros’s apprentice. From cutting saplings to jumping hurdles while carrying a bag of rocks—whatever Zaros asked of him, he endured. Toughing it out, he never complained again.
***
Thanks to Zaros, Doyle grew up a warrior, but his loyalty belonged only to Viessa. He was sixteen when he heard her scream. He rushed into her room to find Zaros beating her. A smell of burned paper filled the air, and on the table, there were the remains of a book.
"Have you lost your mind?" Doyle grabbed Zaros by the shoulders and pushed him away.
Reeling to the back, Zaros stumbled onto a table.
"I didn’t mean to burn his spellbook," Viessa cried, clinging to Doyle’s arm for protection.
"Don’t be scared, Viessa," he said. "I’m here now."
"You pest," Zaros shouted as he came to his balance. "I’ll rip out your guts and feed them to you."
"Try." Doyle drew his sword and raised it above his head.
Viessa cringed when her brother conjured his fiery sword. He parried an overhead strike, then flung his blade at Doyle’s right leg.
Doyle dropped his sword down to absorb the blow. Both men retreated, keeping their blades up as they traded vengeful stares.
Gripping on the hilt, Zaros advanced. He swung his sword, but Doyle whirled around and grappled his hand. He kept his grip firm and pushed until he sent Zaros’s sword flying.
Zaros fell to his knees, his face glazed with shock. He had never lost to anyone before.
"Give up, Zaros," Doyle said, keeping his sword ready for another attack. "You can’t beat me."
***
"Give up, Zaros. You still can’t beat me," Doyle said. As soon as his wound started to heal, he went back to provoking Zaros, who snickered, looked down at Doyle’s open wound, and said, "But I can hurt you."
With the hot rod, Zaros stabbed again. Doyle squeezed his eyes shut from the pain. His blood splashed and spattered on Zaros’s clothes.
Sniffling, Zaros took his scarf off and brought it to his nose. "Fool." He smacked it at Doyle’s face. "Take a whiff, you fool. You killed the one person who tried to protect you."
"What?" Doyle asked, squinting from the pain and the apprehension.
"Nusku potion," Zaros said. "Your blood reeks of it."
Doyle smelled his blood, which had a zesty, unnatural stench. "What does this mean?"
"It means Viessa saved you," Zaros said. "She dosed you with Nusku potion so your blood will become impure and Jivar won’t use you in his ritual, but I swear I’ll bleed it out of you and let Jivar wear you like a suit."
Zaros lashed out at Doyle with punches and slaps, forcing him to cough out blood. Aghast by what he heard, Doyle allowed harrowing thoughts into his head. He remembered the potion Viessa gave him. Did he misread the signs? Was he the betrayer, not the betrayed?
"Out of all people, she cared for you." Sorrow crept into Zaros’s voice, replacing his discernible rage.
"Kill me." Doyle’s chest rose and fell. "Do it, Zaros. Avenge your sister."
Zaros grinned and replied, "I have a better idea." He snapped his fingers, and the wall on the side opened with a loud, grating sound. Behind it sat a middle-aged woman, who wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and tied her hair in a bun. At the sight of Zaros, she pulled her knees to her chest in fear.
"Doyle, I would like to introduce you to your mother," Zaros said. "I told you. An eye for an eye."
Doyle shook his head. "I don’t have a mother."
"Sure you do." Zaros approached the woman and lifted her head. "You even have her eyes."
"Please, don’t hurt me," the woman begged. Doyle saw the tears in her blue eyes sparkling in the glow of the fire.
"You were six months old when I came to her house," Zaros said, swaggering towards Doyle and allowing the wall to close. "Your house...I took you from your bed but didn’t bother to kill your mother. Now, I’m glad I didn’t, so you get to watch her die."
Doyle clenched his jaws. The iron chains clung as he pulled on them.
***
"Doyle," I cried out as I charged into the room along with Kirby and Vanna. The long passages had finally led us to our destination.
"What are you doing here?" Doyle shouted in a guttural voice as though he hadn’t had a sip of water in days. Beside him, a man in a purple coat stood. Zaros—I had seen him in my vision. As I eyed him with my resolute hatred and contempt, he drew a smug smile on his face and said, "The chosen witch. You and I have things to discuss."
"Sorry. No time to chat." I sneered.
I knew if I let him in my mind, I’d lose my temper, and that was the last thing I wanted. Without hesitation, I threw my hand in the air, creating a fireball that dashed at Zaros like a missile, but he snapped his fingers, and it vanished away.
"He’s wearing the amulet." Kirby hurled his body in front of mine as a shield. I looked at Zaros, and my chest pounded. Underneath his scarf, my mother’s amulet glowed.
"I know you," Zaros told Kirby. "I fought you before."
Kirby’s hands shivered. Without the amulet, Zaros was scary. With it, he became terrifying. Despite that, Kirby kept himself on an even keel. "Zaros uses Fire Magic. Don’t fight him with a fireball," he said, leaving me with two options: either turn dark or use noble spells with time limits. I chose the latter.
"Di terra, commoda mihi potestatem tuam." I summoned the magic of Earth. At my finger point, Vanna was lifted off her feet and shrank to the size of a bird. A shrieky, pipping sound escaped her throat when wings popped out of her back. They stretched and broadened magnificently while white and purple plumage covered her body and clothes. She circled the room as a proud eagle, ready to swoop down and snatch the amulet.
Kirby catapulted. "Corroboro." I slapped my hands together to reinforce his speed with the magic of air. He raised his dagger, preparing to strike, but at the very last moment, Zaros snapped his fingers. A flame burst out as if he had lit a match near an aerosol spray.
"Kirby." I screamed my lungs out. Luckily, the reinforcement spell helped my friend duck the blow. The fire almost caught the bird hovering above, but she flew away.
"Is this the best you can do, Chosen Witch?" Zaros asked as another flame surged up to the ceiling,
"Explodere." I blew up Doyle’s chains, so he fell to the ground. Kirby rushed to give him a healing potion.
Zaros’s fire ceased, and he looked down his nose— such a hateful look meant to break me. What should I do now? It was clear that he overpowered us. The right move was to retreat, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. A few feet separated me from the man who killed my mother. I couldn’t let him go.
Heat flushed through my organs. Whispering a spell, I let out a grunt, then a loud squawk that soon turned into a beastly roar. My bones popped and cracked, forced to rearrange. Fangs ruptured out of my gums, and my fingernails grew into claws.
As my senses heightened, I saw the tiny beads of sweat forming on Kirby’s forehead and heard the potion going down Doyle’s throat.
I had used shapeshifting spells before many times on Kirby and Vanna. They never told me how painful it was when their bodies changed. They wanted to spare me the guilt, but I wished they had given me a warning. That day, every inch of my body hurt as I transformed myself into a black panther.
I raced towards Zaros, my paws barely touching the floor. I heard Kirby scream my name and wondered why he was freaking out. Never had I felt more powerful.
To the ground, I wrestled Zaros and dug my claws into his chest, preparing to bite, but in his eyes, I saw no fear, not even concern.
"I remember this," he said with a grin on his face. "I killed you before." But it wasn’t me he killed. Lying on top of Zaros, I realized why Kirby panicked. My mother also used shapeshifting spells, and in her last fight, she attacked Zaros as a black panther.
"Cinis cinerem. Ut pulvis pulvis," Zaros whispered. "In qua virtute potentiae qui furabatur." Pressing his hands on the sides of my head, he attacked me with the spell he used to kill my mother. An unbearable heatwave tore through me, starting in my head, then invading my organs one by one. It felt like my brain was melting, and I lost all awareness of the present moment. I heard Kirby’s voice scream, "Go to hell," but I could no longer see him.
When I regained my consciousness, I was human again. Zaros lay on the floor. His hands covered his left eye. Kirby was down on one knee, his mouth curled into a snarl and blood dripping off the dagger in his hand. He had jabbed Zaros’s eye.
An eerie silence prevailed in the room, broken by the sound of the amulet hitting the ground. Eagle Vanna had successfully grabbed it, but she dropped it while transforming back into her human form. Before she or Kirby could get to it, Zaros snapped his fingers one last time, and a group of people appeared in the room, attacking us from all sides.
***
I was lying down helplessly when one of Zaros’s soldiers appeared. She had a knife in her hand and wore a brown shirt with the word Curiosité on it. That had once been a French coffeehouse in Spiritsvale but was demolished in an earthquake a year earlier. Five people went missing in that accident, including a waitress. I remembered this because Grandpa’s firm managed the insurance case.
The waitress stood before me, looking all normal as if she was human. But with a glance, I could tell she was soulless. Like Jivar, she had deadpan eyes and a pale face that portrayed no emotions.
She pounced at me, but Doyle swooped in and pulled her away. By the time I came to my feet, everyone in the room was fighting. While Doyle fended off the waitress, Kirby fought off two attackers, and four had cornered Vanna in the back of the room. But there was no sign of Zaros anywhere.
I glimpsed the amulet on the ground. If I can get to it, I can end this. I lumbered towards the shiny thing, barely keeping my balance. Zaros’s attack had left me disoriented. I didn’t even notice when a big man came from behind. He bent my arm and slammed my body to the wall, breaking a rib.
I wailed.
***
I never understood how another fire started. Someone might have thrown a fire staff that caught the cloth on the wall. Everyone jumped away, but the fight never stopped. There were punches and blows, grunts and growls. A momentary victory occurred when Kirby stabbed one of the attackers with the dagger, paralyzing him, though the others never faltered.
The growing blaze illuminated the room, leaping into the air and moving my way. I stood there, no longer able to move. The broken rib gave me a sharp pain that hit with every breath or movement.
I would’ve gotten seared if Ebba hadn’t shown up and dragged me to a safe corner.
"E-Ebba. Is this you?" I started to doubt my eyes. After all, Zaros almost vaporized my brain.
"It’s me," she said.
"What? Why? How?" I mumbled. "How are you here?"
"I hid in the car trunk," she answered without a stutter.
"Are you crazy? You’re gonna get yourself kill—" I stopped, gasping for air. The smokeless fire ate away the oxygen in the room.
"Don’t say anything." Ebba helped me rest against the wall. "Just breathe."
If things were bad for me, they were worse for Vanna. Through the flames, we saw her fall back, splashing in a puddle of her blood.
"No!" I hauled myself forward, trying to get to her, but I couldn’t go too far. The attacker raised his pat and prepared to give her a final blow, and Vanna closed her eyes, surrendering to her fate.
I did this. I failed Vanna. That thought killed me.
"Eíbùr." Ebba’s voice bellowed in the cave. A golden aura formed around Vanna, absorbing the blow.
"Wh-a...?" My tongue was caught in my throat.
"I-I didn’t want to d-do this," Ebba told me. I sensed both shame and hesitation in her voice.
She pointed at the amulet, and it glided towards her hand. Once she put it on, a grimoire appeared to her and opened itself to an empty page. "Prohibere tempus." She ordered time to stop.
Everything froze. The fire no longer danced, and Zaros’s soldiers stood like statues. Kirby hurried to help Vanna, and Doyle grabbed the broken chains and flailed them at the wall, breaking it.
How did Ebba do this? What is that spell she used? A million questions came to mind. A normal Time Freeze spell would paralyze everyone in the room, except the witch who cast it. The spell Ebba used froze only the enemies.
"W-ho are you?" I summed up all my wandering thoughts in three words.
Ebba gazed at the frozen flames. Slowly, she turned to me and wiped off her bloody nose. "My name is Lú. I’m your great-grandmother, Echo."
Arc 4: The Truth
Chapter 18: One Side of the Story
It was a shady day on a land that never missed the sun, long before this story had ever begun. People lived in round huts of wattles and straw, and every morning, a bird in the color of blood would caw. One day, everyone woke up to a woman screaming. Her husband was murdered.
People wrapped in linen garments gathered on the shore of the oasis spring. The tension rose with every traded glance. Who murdered the chief of the Gudea tribe? Until they found the truth, everyone was suspect.
The widow’s tears snuck in with her sweat. On the sand, her husband’s body lay, gray as ash and foul as garbage in the sun.
A young girl came running with an infant in her arms. She was more afraid to stop than to stumble. She wore linen and a brown cloak, and her braided hair reached the middle of her back.
"Lú," a tall man uttered her name. He raised his staff, preparing to revenge for his pride, but an older man stopped him, saying, "First we question her, then you punish her."
***
Lú’s story began thirteen years earlier. When she was an infant herself, her mother took her to a nearby hut, where old Umu lived.
Umu was an ugly, toothless woman with a grin full of disdain and a home that reeked of her nauseating sweat. On a small fire, she heated a blade sharp enough to cut through the skin. "Take off her clothes and put her on the ground," she instructed.
The mother held her child close to her chest. She would’ve faltered hadn’t it been for the nudge she received. Staring at her, the grandmother, who was barely in her twenties, scowled. New mothers were always hesitant, but Grandmothers knew best. They knew how to respect tradition.
Lú’s mother put her on the dirt. She stripped the infant of her white clothes to show her smooth, tanned skin. On her left forearm, the child had a symbol carved in ink: a triangle, entangled with two infinity signs that crossed each other. The mother remembered how her child wept when they engraved the ink into her skin. That pain was nothing compared to what was about to come.
"This is her secret." The grandmother referred to the tattoo on the infant’s arm.
"Now, she gets her virtue," said ugly Umu. With the blade in her hand, she edged towards the infant who started to whimper.
The mother clutched at her daughter and pulled her away, but the grandmother intervened, "You’re not strong enough." New mothers never had the strength.
The grandmother restrained the infant while the mother retreated to the corner and covered her eyes. Her skin crawled as she imagined the hot blade getting closer and closer to her child’s genitalia.
The infant screeched like a kitten devoured by a predator.
The mother’s heart sank. She fell to her knees. But she didn’t try to interfere. She let the grandmother do the job. After all, grandmothers knew best. They had lived through this so many times they learned to accept it.
The infant’s blood flowed down her legs. Umu put a few leaves on the wound and left it alone to heal, and the mother stayed on her knees, paralyzed by shame and self-loathing. That was the world Lú came from, one where a mother failed to protect her child and where infants were mutilated in the name of virtue. The name Lú was Sumerian for “someone,” but it also meant “no one.” She was someone because, well, she had a physical body. She was no one, denied the right to become somebody. Before she could speak, she learned to be voiceless, to accept intrusion, and to endure the inescapable pain.
