Part 2

Brendan ducked under a low stone lintel and stepped from the shadows into the flickering torchlight of the Long Hall. Favoured by Krandor to make an impact on his subjects and supplicants, the leonine form of the Lord of Under London brooded in studied pose at the far end of the barrelled vaults. A massive longsword was unsheathed and held loosely in one hand, the other elbow resting on the arm of his throne with one cheek resting on the clenched fist.

"Ah, Brendan, welcome back to my hall."

Penny flittered past the druid to alight next to Krandor and whispered something in his ear. Features darkening with rage, he stood and raised a hand. The diminutive figure of the faerie cowered and Brendan's staff flared in anticipation. The flash of blood red light caught the lion lord's attention and he dropped his hand, forcing a smile full of pointed teeth. "You will come back and see me later Penny, you are dismissed."

The faerie sped away from the towering form of her master, her size shrinking as she approached the druid. As she dwindled to a mere mote of light, "Be careful Brendan" was whispered into his ear as she flashed past him, and she sped away into the tunnels.

"What do you want Krandor? Penny said you had something you wished to show me."

"Indeed I do Brendan. Something which will finally turn the tide on the darkness we have fought for so many centuries. The Collector has excelled himself this time."

Brendan frowned and walked closer to the lion lord, his staff tapping out the rhythm of his approach on the massive flagstones of the hall floor. "This sounds horribly like something that could create more problems than it solves Krandor."

"Like that thing you mean?" Krandor sheathed his sword and stepped down from his dias, one finger pointing accusingly at the staff whose runes still glowed in the gloom. "You almost destroyed yourself."

"Almost. All magic has a dark side brother; you know that. I kept the darkness contained within me. I fought it and I won despite the changes wrought on my body. The question is, is the price you will pay for use of the magic worth the benefit to you and those around you? Penny alluded to an ancient magic, one which has affected you somehow."

The lion growled, a low rumble of discontent echoing around the vaults. "The faerie talks too much."

"So what she says is true? Are you strong enough to control this magic, or does it control you now? I know the lure Krandor, I have fought the addiction of the power as it flows through your veins, and you can see how it has changed me. I may still have the heart of a lion, brother mine, but I am all too human in appearance now. We  druids wade through the mire so others can live in the light, but all too few of us survive the darkness within.

"What is this magic and what hold does it have on you?"

Brendan paused, the two of them only a few yards apart. Krandor stood with his fists clenched, the massively muscled arms twitching with tension. With a visible effort, he calmed himself and held out a placatory hand. "I think there is something you need to see, brother mine."

~~~

The wind plucked at Brendan's cloak and ruffled Krandor's mane as they stood on the roof of a building overlooking Trafalgar Square. The area was a mass of tourists, commuters and traffic. Noise hit Brendan like a hammer as he looked over parapet to the tarmac below and he drew back as the stench of city life hit his nostrils.

Krandor swept an arm at the crowded pavements. "Look. You can see them Brendan, can't you? You can see the darkness infecting the scuttering mass of humanity, you can see what needs to be done..."

"I know my task, brother. And when we have finished whatever it is you to want to discuss, I will descend from here and do what I can to keep the Wraith Lord at bay."

"But it is never enough, little brother. You have given up everything for these puny creatures, you have left the confines of Under London to give your life to serve, nearly losing your own in the process to a magic so dark it threatened to steal your soul. Your staff is not a symbol of your office, it is a badge of slavery." Krandor cast a look of disgust at Brendan. "Even your appearance is that of the abhorrent human now. You are a shadow of your true self."

"I live in the shadows to serve the light. Father accepted that, why can’t you?"

"Father was a fool, as are you. These scum need no protection, they are irrelevant. They can never know the trappings of true power, never see into our world.”

Krandor reached into a pocket and produced a rounded stone resting it in the palm of his hand. "The Source Stone. The Collector passed it to me a few weeks ago and it is remarkable."

The lion's eyes were shining with fervour as he spoke, and Brendan felt the staff go warm in his hand in warning. A mote of light bloomed in the periphery of his vision and he felt the faerie land on his shoulder, hidden by his broad brimmed hat. "Be careful Brendan, he is no longer in control. The magic has taken him."

"Look at them Brendan. You can see the infected can you not?" Brendan cast an eye over the crowd. The Wraith possessed stood out in his vision; sentinels of darkness moving amongst the crowd, passing from one host to another, or pausing to bite and infect a new victim, unnoticed by those too blinded by reality to see.

"I can see them, and I need to get back to work Krandor."

"And I can save you a job little brother, or at least give you a bit of a hand." The obsidian depths of the Source Stone erupted into light, a multitude of beams of energy coruscating through the sky. Explosions ripped through the crowd below, and screams of pain and fear mingled with clashing metal and screeching tyres. "All yours little brother," said Krandor smugly as a host of Wraiths lifted to the sky above the square.

"Shades of hell, what have you done?" whispered Brendan as the smoke cleared. The crowd below had been decimated, and bloody corpses were strewn amidst the rubble. "You fool, you've given them corporeal form, brought them fully into the human world."

"I have made your job easier, little brother. Go get 'em..."

Runes flashed on the staff, and Brendan leapt from the roof, the staff arresting his fall and guiding him to the heart of the maelstrom of darkness threatening the remaining people below, bitter laughter following his descent. He landed next to a child and helped her to her feet. "Go, quickly child, hide. Penny, are you still with me?"

"Yes Brendan."

"Help them; get them out of here now."

Penny flashed into full size and held out a hand to the bewildered child. "Come little one, we must find your mother."

As the wind rose, runes lit like a beacon on the staff and the druid ran his hands over them like a flautist, chanting as the freed wraiths swirled over the dying, feeding on their fear. An injured man staggered to his feet behind him and stood watching in awe as a white hemisphere of power rose from the ground to enclose them, the Wraiths circling in the air above the druid, drawn like moths to a flame by the vast manifestation of magical power.

Brendan gathered himself, magic coursing through his veins. Throwing his arms wide, the shield exploded outwards in a shattering blast which ripped through the wraiths, obliterating them and tearing the sky with thunder.

The runes died and he stood panting in the unaccustomed silence of the blasted London square, a faint tinkle of glass from a shattered window barely audible over his own pounding heart. There were moans from a few survivors and a hand landed on his shoulder.

"I don't know what the hell those were, or what you just did, but I'm glad you did it. Those things didn't look friendly."

“They weren’t.” Brendan turned to face the man, noting his uniform and badges of office. "Policeman?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then the best thing you can do is help the faerie behind you and get these people out of here. Things are about to get even uglier."

"Faerie?" He turned around. "Ah, yes. Girl with the wings. Gotcha. And sir?"

"Yes."

"Good luck."

As the man bustled away, slipping into organisational mode despite the blood dripping from his head wound. Brendan rolled his shoulders and looked back to the rooftops. Krandor had lifted the Stone once more and clouds darkened overhead.

"Time to put a stop to this," muttered Brendan. He smacked the staff into the ground, cracking a flagstone, and a crackling bolt of green light slammed into his brother, wrapping around him and pinning his arms to his torso. Brendan pulled backwards on the staff and his brother was reeled in, struggling and snarling, the Source Stone held impotently at his side. As the bolt of energy drew him in he hurled epithets and snarled at his brother.

"What the hell are you doing you fool? I have the power to rid this world of the Wraiths, between us we can rid this world of their darkness."

"Not at the expense of innocents Krandor."

"Innocent? They're human. Not one of them is innocent; they are tainted, vermin, and worthless."

Runes flared and Krandor howled as druidic shackles of power tightened around his ribs, the smell of burning hair and clothing, acrid and bitter in the still air. With his free hand he pointed at the twisted corpse of a young boy. "You're telling me the death of even a single child is worth all this? What have you become brother, what darkness has infested your soul?"

His hand made a questing movement, and the Source Stone was ripped from Krandor's grasp. It hovered by the staff, and a tentacle of power wrapped itself around the Stone. Brendan gasped in pain and recoiled as waves of dark intent enveloped him, evil suffocating his mind as whispered suggestions of malevolent recourse flashed through his subconscious. He could see people running from the square and knew it would be so easy to release the power of the stone and mow them down. His gaze turned to his brother, still snarling helplessly in the liquid fire grip of the staff. He was the pretender to the throne, how easy it would be to crush him, do away with the pathetic morsel who had tried to harm him.

Red light flashed across his vision and the druid staff lit with its own dark menace, fighting back against the power of the Source Stone, the two ancient magics raging inside the frail human casing. Brendan screamed in agony, his soul pared to the bare essence of life as dark magic warred and coruscated through his veins, his skin, his mind. With his last vestiges of power Brendan brought his two hands together, and the two met…

~~~

“Brendan?” A hand smoothed his face and he opened his eyes to the muzzy image of a faerie, whose wings fluttered nervously at her back. “We need to go before the humans organise themselves and come back. Can you stand?”

“What the hell happened Penny? Krandor?”

“Krandor was obliterated in the blast. You screamed a lot, brought your hands together and then everything went dark and blew up. You’re the only thing left.”

“Thing?”

Penny ignored the question and dragged him away from the blasted remains of Trafalgar. “I’ll find you a mirror in a moment, we need to go. Now.”

~

“I always told Krandor the magic was untrustworthy,” mused Brendan. Following the explosion in the square, Penny had guided him through the hidden ways back to Under London and nursed him back to health. Two days later, he stood shirtless in front of a mirror, Penny fluttering around his head in miniature as he examined the damage. Runes chased each other over his wood dark skin, an endless parade of lettering swirling and dancing around his body. They were watched by obsidian eyes in which white fire leapt and swirled. “What the hell am I now Penny? Before, I was a human druid, made that way by the power of my staff of office, but now?” He held out his hands and lightening crackled between the palms. “Now I seem to be something else entirely but I can feel both the power of the staff and the Source Stone within me.”

“Do you feel the need to murder a crowd of helpless humans to prove a point?”

“Not at present.”

“Then I’d suggest you’re still a druid, and still you, despite appearances to the contrary. You might want to take it steady for a few days though until you work out what you can do. And a pair of sunglasses might be worth using too, as your eyes are a little unsettling.”

“All I can do is fight Penny. If I don’t, the Wraith Lord will win and humanity will descend into complete madness.”

“But what can one man do Brendan?”

“What he must, and besides I am not the only one, there are others. I have lived with visions of the future all of my life, a future in which there was nothing other than darkness and insanity, and myself and a few others doomed to keep fighting knowing we had little or no hope of survival or triumph. I have lived without hope for so long, yet the magic has not let me rest or stop fighting. None of the visions ever showed me this future though, the magic is ever changing. Now I have new a hope.

"As long as there is hope, there is a chance… without a chance, humanity is doomed and the lands of the fae will follow regardless of what beings like Krandor thought. The two worlds are inextricably linked and dependant on each other.

"We must fight on Penny, but in the meantime I'm hoping the Collector still has that wee dram he promised me a few days ago. I think I may need it.”

~~~ The End ~~~

Word Count - 4140

Fantasy SD Round 1 - Rules

Your entry must be written in the Fantasy subgenre Urban Fantasy.

● You must use 4 out of the 8 given pictures as integral parts of your story. You may use more if you like, but no extra points will be given for doing so. Failure to use at least 4 will result in disqualification - I used the four in the slideshow on the right; the picture of the guy in a neon alley with a red runed staff, faerie sitting on a rooftop, lion with a sword on his throne, and glowing hemisphere of power surrounded by flying thingies

● You must incorporate the farm implement for your designated group somewhere within your story. At least briefly mention their given farm implement. It must fit with the scene and not interrupt the story flow - mine was a butter churn

● Your story must be between 4,000 and 6,000 words.

● Your group has no bearing on how you will be judged. The entries with the five lowest average scores will be eliminated at the end of this round.

● You will be judged on:

*How well your story represents the given subgenre (5 pts.)

*How well you used your 4 chosen pictures and your group picture (5 pts. and 3 pts.)

*Spelling, punctuation, and grammar (5 pts.)

*Overall likeability of your story according to the judges (5 pts.)

This round ended at 11:59 GMT on October 20th, 2013