Part 3

"It used to be larger," Kole thought.

"Actually, it used to be much closer," the Bonesword offered.

Kole smacked his mouth around the Bonesword's prideful knowledge.

"Thanks, Boney."

"Please, don't call me that."

The angle of the mountains rose quickly in the following hours. Kole found footholds in the dark easily by simply asking the mountain. Over the course of hours, he found the different personalities of the rocks intriguing. The sandstone layers had a comical passive attitude toward their granite neighbors, which, according to the sandstone, took themselves far too seriously. Kole supposed that the sandstone understood that its nature was to erode quickly and ultimately find itself back in the Earth. The granite, however, tended to be a bit morose about its permanence, dragging itself along through the eons.

Kole found the quartz crystals and geode formations to be the most interesting. Part of the collective "crystal matrix", quartz was one of the oldest consciousnesses on Earth, and still carried the spark of the older, larger cosmic patterns. Kole had heard that the crystals store all the knowledge of the universe, and the crystal matrix is actually the means by which all things to be known can be known.

The crystals and rocks continued to tell him stories along the way. Occasionally, he would pick up a stone in his path and place it in his mouth. Tales were told, songs were sung, and truths were exchanged in the form of taste and texture. In this way, Kole continued on toward his goal.

And night became day.

The oldest tree sat above all others on the Middle Mountain. The oldest tree survived the Age of Chaos and rose with the new mountains. Its roots ran deep and now clung deeper to its friendly rocks on which it fell first as a seed.

The oldest tree was not truly the oldest on Earth, but it was the oldest one to survive in this region. It knew the world as it was before the demons came. It had seen the lights in the sky carrying people. It had heard the sounds of electric stories and music travel through the air. It had smelled and tasted the unnatural things in the air and soil. All the things that are no more, the oldest tree remembered, for it still carried these things within its thick gnarled form, locked in its cells and fibers.

A sweet breeze sifted through its thin leaves. The oldest tree felt the warm approach of a much older soul. The sky twanged with its passage, and the rhythm increased tempo as it approached. The oldest tree had not been visited in a long long time. As the visitor got closer, the oldest tree's sap ran a bit faster.

The white crow landed on the tallest branch. It danced and preened itself, enlivening the branch beneath its talons.

"Hello, old cousin," said the white crow.

The oldest tree had to remember how to speak the old language. It had been so long since the last time it spoke to anyone, much less in the elemental tongue.

The oldest tree replied," Hello, cousin crow."

The crow faced the wind and sniffed the air. The wind tossed his feathers in a language all its own.

"What news do you bring me?" finally asked the oldest tree.

The white crow blinked several times and shifted his feet.

"Oh," the white crow eventually answered, "I'm waiting... I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," said the oldest tree. "May I ask what for?"

"Sorry, I am a bit distracted... I have been sent by the Earth Guardian to protect a man."

The oldest tree considered for a moment the fact that humans still existed on the planet. "What man?"

"He will arrive in another day, can you tell me why?"

The oldest tree puzzled for a while at this strange question. Why had the crow asked him this? The oldest tree realized that she had been asleep for a long time. She had stopped looking and listening, and simply existed on top of the mountain. The crow had reawakened her senses.

The oldest tree reached out through her leaves and roots, and sampled the soil and sky...

"I... just noticed that these mountains have a sick spot..."

"Yes?" the crow urged.

The tree reached further outside of herself.

"... and this man... this man who speaks to stones is coming to heal the sick spot." The tree paused. "No, wait... the stones say that he carries two hearts in him. One is for life, the other for death."

"Why two hearts?", asked the crow.

"His brothers were killed by the bringer of the sickness."

The crow groomed itself for several minutes.

"Will you show his two hearts to him, old cousin? He will be stopping here to rest and gather his thoughts."

The oldest tree felt a great understanding run through her. "I will try."

And with that said, the white crow flew off toward the valley.

Ages ago, when Madak was a young man, he was proud of his blossoming talents and sensitivities to nature. In his village, he was consulted by the Elders often. He knew the best times to plant crops where to dig wells, and where to hunt. The knowledge came to him in whispers - in words that he could feel instead of hear. The whispers taught him about plants and their medicinal uses. He became a healer and later was recruited to aid in the Great Rebellion against the demons.

During the wars, Madak got the chance to learn about the detailed workings of human bodies. It became second nature for him to repair organs, reroute arteries, fuse broken bones, and stimulate battle-numbed brains back to life. The whispers spoke through his hands directly.

In the next twenty or so years, Madak worked his healing ways, and the song of Balance attuned his own body. He stopped aging. He became a true Magan.

The wars eventually ended, and Madak continued to provide his healing arts and knowledge to anyone who needed his help, but he sought more. Madak was entering into the next stage on the path of the Magan. Gradually, as those who knew him died or travelled away, he found isolation where he would continue to explore the knowledge of the secret worlds.

In his solitude, he began to tap into the elemental energies and contacted entities from the Outer Realms. The mundane world, however, interfered in his studies. Neighboring villagers began to speculate about the "crazy hermit" who kept to himself, and stories began to circulate about him associating with demons. Eventually, he had to leave for fear of his life.

The same pattern repeated in the next three places where he settled, and he developed resentment against the "common" folk. He recognized the truth in that he could have diffused the tension between he and the villagers many times. He could have appeared at the seasonal dances to wish them merry. He could have provided them with his knowledge about the planting cycles before their crops failed. His simply preferred his studies instead of human interaction, and eventually, he just turned his back on the villagers to spite them. Madak took to wandering the Wildlands. He learned much more there, among the beasts and natural elements. He saw the subtle patterns at work, and recognized the same patterns in the stars and stones. Then he met Laastra. Madak looked over the corpse on the table. Laastra will not be pleased that the fleshcrafting went wrong. The vaguely humanoid body had perforated several internal organs when its torso began to contort. Madak knew that the intended shape would not be easily achieved, but it had to be tried. His fleshcrafting abilities had begun to give him a sense of artistic challenge, and his most recent forms had given Laastra a sense of awe and pride. Madak had been too sure of himself. He assured Laastra that this initiate would be the most exceptional form yet - dismissing all doubt that it was indeed a demon, the camouflage would be perfect. ... but the initiate was only Human. There were extremes that the Human form could not tolerate. Madak was beginning to experiment with the cellular features of the forms. Surely a few deaths would be justified by the leaps he would make in understanding. He had indeed learned much from this failure, but the fact remained that there was one less that would be fighting for a pure Earth. One less assassin of demons.

Laastra was approaching. He already knew what had happened.

The tent flap was peeled back. Laastra entered. His features were lost in the shadow of his hood. Madak knew his face well, but despite his insight and sensitivity, he realized that he knew the man hardly at all. Laastra paused at the end of the table. Fumes from the fleshcrafting serum were still crawling skyward from the torso, and Laastra inhaled sharply. The fumes shuddered toward, then away from him.

"What happened?" His voice had no anger, only concern.

Madak reached for a surgical spike and began to clean it. "I... got a little too enthusiastic." Laastra kept his eyes on the corpse. "The fleshcrafting serum that you provided me has inspired me beyond my skills. I'm sorry. I lost track of my focus. He died before I could make any repairs."

A beat, then Madak added," ...When I saw how it was going, I anesthetized him, so he felt no pain in the end."

Laastra leaned forward and kissed the cheek of the malformed face. A click of wetness reached Madak's ears. "No need to apologize. He wanted so badly to serve in Naraka's army... he faced this transformation with great excitement."

Laastra stood up again. The light from Madak's lantern carved Laastra's face out of the shadow of the hood. A tear flared there on his cheek. "We will have a ceremony of transformation and call a servant of Naraka to claim him. He will serve Naraka from the underground."

Laastra looked at Madak then. There was no anger, still. There was patient understanding. Laastra left the tent and Madak was left with his thoughts.

Laastra and his group of a hundred or so followers had been wandering through the Wildlands when they found Madak. Laastra espoused then a love of the Earth, and had plans to reclaim it from the corrupt and vile demons that defiled the natural order of things. Madak listened to his monologue with detached amusement, but when he had the chance to speak to Laastra alone, he realized that Laastra had a highly developed understanding of Balance.

Not the close-minded sense of balance, that accounted for a handful of observations in the natural order, but understanding of all seven elements, and True Balance in the context of the Macroverse. Laastra had mapped out a pattern for Madak that was undeniably balanced. The demons did not belong on Earth, and Laastra's beliefs gave Madak something to focus on.

Madak had spent the last 15 years wandering through the Wildlands, cataloging creatures and plants, learning the subtle patterns of life and nature within the uncorrupted ways of the New Earth. He had reached a point of completion in this point of his life and he opened himself to a new direction. He invited a change into his life, and Laastra was there to lead him toward it.

As he followed Madak out of the Wildlands, he was amused by the constant references to Naraka. Naraka, the consumer, was a mythological entity which destroyed all decaying forms and reassembled them into their elemental parts. This pattern of transforming chaos into order exists throughout the Macroverse, so Madak found it easy to accept a name for it, but Madak had never been totemistic in his ways. He never attributed his knowledge as coming from an entity, or used a spiritual form as a focus for his strengths. He simply knew things and sought to understand more. As he had not been formally trained by another Magan, he recognized the possibility that there may be entire realms of knowledge that he had not been exposed to. There might be vast power in acknowledging some external deity for strength and wisdom, but it was difficult for him to accept Naraka as a source of comfort. Naraka, to him, was the totem deity for farmers who had to justify losing their crops, not a tangible being one could commune with, nor invoke against enemies.

In the five years that Madak travelled with Laastra, he learned much about the complex workings of the elemental being called Naraka. He saw Naraka's gifts in action - spontaneous creation of flames from hands and feet, black beetle-like armor appearing just beneath the flayed skin of adherents during rituals, and he himself travelled to the labyrinths of Naraka - a place he had previously thought to be part of fireside storytelling for disheartened farmers.

Madak had seen Naga - the servants of Naraka - in several forms. He knew that there was definitely some part truth behind Laastra's beliefs. He felt the power in the rituals, Laastra and the others focused on using the Naga to attack the demons that threw the Earth out of balance. Several demon camps were destroyed in this manner. He saw the aftermath. Scorched corpses everywhere.

One night, Madak acknowledged his appreciation of Laastra's path and asked if there was anything more he could do to help than the healing work he had been doing, and participating in the cleansing rituals. Laastra smiled a full, dangerous grin and grabbed Madak by the arms. "Now, we can begin to truly heal the Earth," Laastra said with paternal excitement.

Laastra then told Madak about his deeper plans. Laastra needed a Magan to help him create soldiers for Naraka's will. It would involve a metaphoric fighting fire with fire, and altering the forms of some of the more dedicated members of the group (which had grown close to a thousand by this point) into demonic shapes. These demon-shaped soldiers would infiltrate the demon camps and learn their secrets, then assassinate the leaders if possible.

Madak blinked hard and fell out of his reverie.

A cricket was somewhere in his tent. Its song distracted him from his thoughts. It stopped. Madak bent over and saw the dark green musician behind the one leg of the table. Madak spoke to it in the voice of patterns and said that there was nothing in the tent that it could eat or mate with, and directed it to the exit. The cricket chirped for another second, then flicked out of the tent opening.

Two pairs of humanoid legs appeared just after the cricket left. Two demon-formed soldiers entered. They looked down at the body on the table. One spoke in a voice that did not match his appearance. The voice was childlike. The form was beastial. "Naraka has chosen him. We are proud." Then they carried the body out into the musical night.

Madak felt ill. He felt no pride in his actions, only the sting of his own willfulness. He then realized that it wasn't a human being he had twisted into a demonic shape, it was merely a slab of clay that he had shaped. How many had he changed? Over two hundred? He stopped counting a long time ago. He had crippled many of them, but only until he could heal them. He had never killed one of them before.

Or had he? There was that one boy. Before the transformation, he was exuberant and full of joy. After the pain of his transformation, and his eyes turned to those yellow slits, and the thorny plates scabbed over his scalp... there was nothing left of joy in him.

Death is relative.

Something Madak had written in his journals years before. Death is only transformation into a different psychic space or form. That boy had also died on his table.

Now that once-boy lurks through demon infested territories, hoping to fall in with a band of demons only to destroy them. There is no room for true joy in deceit, and I think the boy knew that the moment he realized what he had become. An agent of lies.

"True Balance comes from truth."

That epithet was originally spoken by Grie. It sounds trite taken out of the original context... which eluded Madak at the moment, but here, it seemed poignant. Surely Laastra had to see that the deception of using these demon-shaped soldiers is not in keeping with True Balance. It is a cheap shortcut. Why hadn't he seen this before?

... but it is getting the job done. Several demon camps have disappeared in the soldiers' areas of focus. Madak supposed that all was going according to plan... he just had to clarify what his role in the "plan" actually was.