Disclaimers: This is a work of fiction. Any similarities between the characters in this story and real people (appearances, names, etc.) are purely coincidental. This story may contain homosexual material, including love and sex, so if material like this is illegal in your region or if it discomforts you, please leave.
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Breathless and taking a break from dismantling shields, Kiri said to Cpt. Nilsson, "I've destroyed nine hundred barriers. It seems like they are regenerating. We need a telepath, see what's happening under all of these barriers."
Wordlessly, Cpt. Nilsson gave Kiri a single head nod and teleported out. Kiri inhaled a big breath and then telekinetically grasped at a particle in the outermost shield. With a grunt of effort, Kiri pulled that particle out, and shattering the rest of the shield was like a hot knife through butter. Kiri then was breathless for a moment. She slowly inhaled, then exhaled, inhaled again, and then grasped at a particle in the next shield.
"Kiri," a male voice greeted with awe and reverence. "I understand you require a telepath. I would be honoured to assist you."
Grunting with effort, Kiri responded, "Would you... please tell me... what is hap- happening under all of... these shields?"
Ulysses was punched in his left eye by Mark, and he fell to the ground. Half a second later, Ulysses kicked Mark in the stomach, rolled onto his feet in a crouching position, and leapt at Mark. The two rolled as they fought, throwing punches and kneeing each other.
Mark, when he was rolled onto his back, stuck his feet on Ulysses' abdomen and kicked him over his head. Mark shot up to his feet and jumped on top of Ulysses and punched him in the cheek. Ulysses drove his right leg through both of Mark's and pulled, tumbling Mark over. Ulysses got up to his feet but the fight before him was of his mother beginning a magical duel with Mark. Mark pointed his palm at Kiri, linked and reinforced oxygen particles on his palm, and flicked it upward. The lightning bolt that Kiri had fired deflected upward, and Mark flung five boulders out from under the ground.
"Momma!" Ulysses cried.
Kiri looked. Ulysses, Kiri, and Cpt. Nilsson pointed their palms at each other forming a triangle. Each of them fired a bolt of lightning out of each of their palms, connecting to form an electric barrier that entrapped Mark. The male witch that Cpt. Nilsson had brought for his telepathic abilities used his magic to stop Mark in the middle of teleportation. Mark screamed as he fell sideways to the ground, his left leg missing from the knee down, blood spraying from the missing limb.
"Converge!" Kiri cried in a commanding tone.
Ulysses, Kiri, and Cpt. Nilsson walked forward carefully, maintaining the connections of their lightning barrier. Mark hastily performed a cell regeneration, keeping an eye on the lightning threatening his life. Mark attempted to once more teleport out of the lightning cage, but was still unable to. He threw flames out of his palm but they hit a barrier under the lightning bolts.
"Thiago!" Ulysses cried in warning. "Above!"
The male telepath maintained his grasp keeping Mark in place while also creating and maintaining a shield protecting them all from curses. With the electric barrier just inches from his skin, Mark was finally fully healed. He held his palms before himself, created a ball of energized particles between his palms, and magnified it in an explosion. Ulysses, Kiri, and Cpt. Nilsson flew through the air with devastating injuries. Thiago the telepath had created a shield around himself so he was unharmed, unfazed.
"Well, well," Mark said with mirth, his gaze on Thiago.
Mark grasped a particle in Thiago's shield and ripped it out, and subsequently shattered the rest of the shield. Thiago had anticipated this and instantaneously threw a giant slashing curse. Mark had also anticipated an attack, and easily deflected the slashing curse. Ulysses stood back up and latched onto every cell in Mark's body.
Ulysses was about to rip Mark apart with zero chance of survival, but duplicates of Mark began materializing. Ulysses was utterly shocked and terrified, he subconsciously stopped seeping magic out of his core. He had never witnessed let alone known that duplicating oneself was possible. One by one, each duplication of Mark raised their hands and began forming orbs of lightning. The spark of thought to erect a shield had only just hit Ulysses when one of the Mark duplicates had fired his lightning orb. Ulysses flinched and shut his eyes, readying himself for the curse to hit. But no pain was felt, no magicks harmed him.
"Uly," Cpt. Nilsson's voice said with sympathy and concern lacing his tone.
Ulysses opened his eyes. He was shocked to see no trace of Mark in sight. There were countless witches in battle in the vicinity, and his mother and the queen staring at him with confusion in their eyes.
"What happened?!" Ulysses demanded. "Where is he?!"
"He's gone," Kiri answered with concern. "You- you had him. You were this close. What- what happened?"
"How?!" Ulysses shouted with a pulse emitting from his core in his outlash. "How did he do that?!"
"Do what?" Cpt. Nilsson asked. "Teleport?"
"No!" Ulysses replied with frustration. "The- the- the cloning! The duplication!"
"Cloning?" Queen Sofi said. "Uly, there was no cloning. There was no duplication of anything. What- what do you think happened? What did you see?"
"He- he- he..." Ulysses stammered and flung a bolt of lightning into the ground. "Mark cloned himself somehow! He- he duplicated himself! There was fifty Marks right here just now! And every one of them was attacking me with lightning orbs!"
Kiri stepped up to her son's side, wrapped her arms around his waist, and said, "Son, no duplication happened. Mark didn't clone himself. You had a hold on his every cell. You were this close to ending him. This was likely the soul magic that he has mentioned."
"We need to learn what this soul magic actually is," Ulysses said with conviction. "Where did he learn it? Who created it?"
"I've never heard even a whisper of soul magic in my countless millennia," Kiri responded and kissed Ulysses' shoulder. "But we will consult the books."
"The books," Ulysses agreed solemnly. "But for now, we end this battle."
Four of the world's most powerful witches flew off in different directions, firing spells and curses.
Mark stood, waiting, his eyes connected with Josh Truesdale's. Josh was attempting soul magic, trying to plant images in Mark's mind, with absolutely no trace of success.
"You are a telepath," Mark said gently. "The process of soul magic is exactly telepathy, just in reverse. Instead of receiving information from a person, you are planting information. The tricky part of planting information is all of the million thoughts going through one's mind at a single moment, conscious and subconscious. You have to find a space in between, and feed a stream of information in. Now, try again."
Mark stood very still, his gaze steadfast yet gentle. Josh attempted once again to put a story together in his mind to plant in Mark's mind. Mark waited, expectant, but his sights remained on Josh. There were no visions or images planted in his mind. Mark clapped Josh on the shoulder amicably and suggested they break for lunch.
Mark teleported to his home in Kenai, Alaska and made himself a turkey sandwich. After he ate, Mark went out to the backyard and laid on the snowy yard. Mark closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, connecting with nature, centring himself.
Forty minutes later, back at his base near Kenora, Ontario, Mark stood before Josh once again. Josh had successfully pieced together a terrific story in his mind during his lunch break, and had planted that series of images in his dog's mind. He reimagined the story again, and tried once again to set these images in Mark's mind. Josh could see it in Mark's eyes that his soul magic was unsuccessful. Josh growled and flung flames to his side in frustration.
Ulysses had skimmed through the last page of the book he was researching, and slammed the book shut. He grabbed the next book in the pile and opened it.
"Nothing?" Queen Sofi asked softly.
Ulysses sighed and looked up. "Nothing. Five hundred, forty-nine books we've gone through and nothing."
"We will find something," Queen Sofi consoled while flipping the page. "This soul magic seems much too big for some witch tens of thousands of years not to write about. What eludes me is why soul magic would fall off the face of the earth. Why does no practitioner today know nothing about it? What happened to deem soul magic so taboo or unsanctioned that every practitioner on the planet would no longer speak of it?"
"That is the question," Ulysses responded while skimming through the page. "Whatever happened, happened before my mother's time. Which only adds to my fear and intrigue."
"This one is Ke'qit," Queen Sofi stated and handed the new book to Ulysses.
Ulysses set the book on top of the pile beside him while keeping his eyes trained on the page before him. His dark eyes remained scanning through every word at great speed. He flipped the page, and skimmed, and flipped the page. Soon enough he had not found anything useful in that book and sat it atop the waist-high stack on the floor.
"This is it," Ulysses stated with excitement in his voice. "This book you've found! This is it!"
Utterly intrigued, Queen Sofi rose from her chair and asked,"What's it's say?"
Still skimming through the words, Ulysses answered, "It's only a blurb. This practitioner was... sixty-eight years of age when he wrote this. Guiso, the king at the time, twelve-thousand-seven-hundred-five years ago, banned the use of soul magic. He banned the teaching, the practice, and writing of soul magic. But... nothing else. Fuck."
"At least we've finally found something!" Queen Sofi said with mirth. "This makes me feel relieved and so happy!"
"I need to find more works by this practitioner," Ulysses said more to himself while rifling through books and books. "Stolis Khi. Try to look for more Ke'qit books, hopefully it is written by Stolis Khi."
Ulysses resumed quickly skimming through the book before him while Queen Sofi looked at only the first pages of the books before her. Book after book after book was stacked in the useless pile, the queen had perused through two hundred books with growing frustration.
"Stolis writes about a practitioner who kept using soul magic to satisfy her wife's sexual needs," Ulysses stated while reading from near the end of the same book. "A year after the prohibition. The practitioner was arrested and executed in the centre of Multan as warning, King Guiso was serious about the ban of soul magic."
"This is Ke'qit," Kiri handed Ulysses another book.
Ulysses placed his hand atop the new book while still skimming through the first. Satisfied that there were no other mentions of soul magic, Ulysses moved the second book before him.
"This author mentions another execution due to the use of soul magic," Ulysses announced excitedly while reading. "This time in a small village in Mongolia. A father was using it to teach his daughter right from wrong. And this happened... three years after the prohibition."
"That's good," Queen Sofi said with thinly veiled excitement. "That's good. Anything else?"
"Ummm," Ulysses continued to skim through the book. "Let's see... Here! Here! A young, young female was imprisoned for delving too far backward in telepathy! She had accidentally implanted an image in her teacher's mind! She implanted an image in another practitioner's mind! That's..."
With a laugh of utter giddiness, Queen Sofi finished the thought, "That's soul magic!"
"That's soul magic! That's fucking soul magic! Okay! Okay. Backward telepathy. Shouldn't be too hard, now, can it?"
"Backward telepathy," Queen Sofi said more to herself. "Doesn't sound too difficult, no. Would you like to practice on me?" Queen Sofi asked with excitement.
Shocked, Ulysses replied, "Soul magic? You want me to practice soul magic on you?"
"Sure!" Queen Sofi answered as if the answer was completely obvious. "Why not? We have to figure out this soul magic. I can take it."
"We have to make sure it's safe," Ulysses cautioned. "We don't know the specifics. And another thing scaring me is the fact that soul magic was banned. Why was it banned? The use resulted in death without question. There has to be a reason, and the reason must be big."
"I'm the queen of the magical world," Queen Sofi stated. "There are no laws regarding soul magic. And even if there was, I could write you a dispensation. I am one of the most powerful practitioners on the planet, I can handle it."
"Okay," Ulysses acquiesced. "Yeah. I have been curious about this soul magic. When should we test it?"
Queen Sofi shook her head and replied, "No time like the present."
Queen Sofi sat in the armchair opposite Ulysses, and waited.
Ulysses brought all information he had on telepathy to the forefront of his mind. To start off his practice, Ulysses tried to read the queen's mind, but was only able to detect hints of emotions, not enough to determine the emotions. But he tried to backtrack through the queen's emotions, trying to find a gap. He finally found a gap and tried to insert an image of the sun rising over Mandalay Beach.
"Nothing," Queen Sofi stated softly. "I can feel your presence, but I see what's in front of me and hear what's around me."
"I found a gap," Ulysses explained, trying to be patient. "It's inserting images that seems challenging. Shall I attempt it again."
Queen Sofi offered no verbal response. Instead, she sat back and laid her arms on the armrests. Ulysses inserted his mind into Queen Sofi's once more, and easily found a gap in her emotions again.
A minute passed before Queen Sofi informed Ulysses that nothing in her perception changed in the slightest. Ulysses reclined in his seat and hung his head over the backrest.
"I can find gaps in your mind like the books say," Ulysses said quietly, full of frustration, "but it's like they're moving. The gaps are there one millisecond and gone the next."
Perplexed, staring off into space, Queen Sofi responded, "Can I test it on you?"
Ulysses eagerly nodded his head and cleared his mind. A few seconds passed when he felt like there was somebody standing directly behind him or right beside him, but he knew from his past telepathic experiences that somebody had inserted their mind into his. And then that presence disappeared.
"I think it's you going through a dozen emotions or a dozen thoughts racing through your mind at any given moment," the queen stated with excitement and wonder. "We know that now, so we just need to learn how to insert images into ever-moving minds. That doesn't sound too difficult."
Ulysses slowly nodded his head and replied, "That's what we said about soul magic."
"But we learned!" Queen Sofi said with mirthful laughter. "We can learn this, too!"
"You're right. I believe we can. We're two of the world's most talented practitioners, we will master soul magic one way or another."
Queen Sofi tried her very best to suppress her smile, but it showed through the biting of her lower lip. She sat back in her seat once again, and waited. She felt the presence of Ulysses' mind in no time at all, but, again, no change in vision or hearing. Ulysses removed himself from the queen's mind and dragged his palm down his entire face.
"Soul magic is fucking exhausting," Ulysses lamented. "I feel like I battled half a dozen practitioners in these two attempts."
Queen Sofi nodded solemnly and responded, "It is very taxing. Now, sit back."
Mark sat on a dock with his feet cooling in the waters of Lake Otisco. He gazed out at the sun setting over the hills, peace and relaxation washing over him. Mark inhaled a long, slow breath, taking in the immensely fresh air.
A moment later, a memory of Ulysses popped into his mind. In the memory, Mark had awoken before Ulysses, Ulysses looked absolutely beautiful sleeping. Mark simultaneously closed his eyes and shook the memory out of his mind.
Mark cleared his mind once more, appreciating the red and orange hues decorating the skies and clouds before him. And then another memory of Ulysses perched on his windowsill sketching played in his mind.
Furious, Mark screamed and created an explosion in the heart of the lake. Water shot every which way in a giant dome, but Mark teleported before even a drop touched him.
"My king," Josh greeted him with excitement. "I've successfully implanted images into Aoife's mind. It- it- it only lasted two seconds, but I-I-I did it!"
Forcing his smile, Mark responded, "That's amazing, Joshua. Let's see it."
Mark could instantly feel the telepathic presence of his protege one second, and an image of riding a Ferris wheel took over his senses the next. Just over two seconds later, Mark's vision was once again of Josh standing before him.
"That was fantastic!" Mark told the man as he strode over and clapped his shoulder. "The audio was a little quiet and spotty, but this is fantastic progress! I cannot express to you how happy this makes me. Phenomenal work, Joshua."
Josh bowed at the waist and replied, "Thank you, my king. Thank you."
"Go practice," Mark commanded gently while pulling the man into a one-armed embrace. "We need as many practitioners using soul magic during the final battle as we can manage."
Mark watched as Josh walked back to the campfire. Three of the five witches sitting around the fire clapped Josh on the shoulders and back, congratulating him on his successful use of soul magic. And then an instant later, another image of Ulysses washed over him. In this one, Ulysses held a glass of white wine in his hand as he recounted stories of the fifteenth century.
"Mark," Ulysses greeted with utter confusion and going tense.
Mark opened his eyes and was astounded to see Ulysses and Queen Sofi sitting in her office. The queen's eyes widened in alarm and Mark instinctively teleported back out, still unaware that he had teleported there in the first place.
"Your Highness," a male witch said in a voice laced with concern. "Are you alright?"
Mark offered a lopsided smile and answered, "I'm fine, Pierre. How are you fairing with the soul magic?"
Ashamed, Pierre replied, "Not quite as good as Josh. I can get sound into your mind but nothing else."
Ulysses nodded thoughtfully, and then motioned with his head for Pierre to use soul magic on him. Mark suddenly heard the hissing of a house cat for a fraction of a second. Pierre yipped with frustration and walked back to the fire. Mark called out to him that it was progress and that he was proud.
"Mark teleported to me," Ulysses told his mother in a confused tone. "One moment he wants to kill me, to get me out of his way, and the next he seeks me out."
Kiri nodded thoughtfully, her gaze distant, and responded, "What does this make you think?"
Ulysses shook his head and answered, "I don't know. I don't know. It is bizarre, it is confusing, and it is infuriating."
"I think there is a part of Mark that wants you," Kiri rationalized. "He still loves you, I think. He may want to take over the world but he still desires your touch."
"I still want him," Ulysses admitted easily, "but my desire to protect the world from him is stronger.
"I do have a question, mother. Did you know or ever hear of soul magic before now?"
"I did not," Kiri answered with a shake of her head. "There must have been a huge incident before my time that caused the knowledge of it to be buried. It- it couldn't have been more than two thousand years before my birth."
Deep in thought, Ulysses then asked, "Did your parents ever mention it? Or- or- or... Or your grandparents?"
"Mark was the first practitioner that mentioned soul magic to me. Have you had any success practicing it?"
Ulysses did not answer, which is how his mother knew she would be experiencing his attempt. She could feel his telepathic presence, and didn't particularly like it. She had never liked having someone else in her head, she felt it was intrusive and claustrophobic. And then she felt alone and autonomous and like she was back in control.
Kiri inhaled a big breath and asked, "So what is your strategy for soul magic?"
"The books Queen Sofi and I found tell us that you put together a story, a string of thoughts that you insert into the mind of a person. There are gaps in the mind, in between two thoughts where you are to implant thoughts, images, audio. It seems effortless but the gap that you're trying to fill keeps moving. That is what makes soul magic so difficult, it feels impossible to move the thoughts with the gap because it moves so quickly.
"Another task you have to do to achieve soul magic is using more of your core to increase the power of your implanted thoughts to overtake their senses."
Kiri laughed darkly and sarcastically asked, "Is that all? So how has Mark mastered soul magic so quickly?"
Ulysses shook his head deep in thought and stared off into space for a moment. After what seemed like an eternity to Kiri, Ulysses replied, "I refuse to believe that Mark has always been a practitioner. There is absolutely no way. His shock at the existence of magic was too genuine. He had no idea."
Kiri shrugged a shoulder and rebutted, "Maybe Mark is just a terrific actor."
With a slow shake of his head, Ulysses said, "Impossible."
"It is not!" Kiri exclaimed. "I have no doubt that Mark loved you- he may still love you, but the things that he can do! The power that he has! Son, Mark has too much knowledge and skill to have come this far since you introduced him to our world! That is the only thing impossible about Mark! To have become this fearsome in a mere three months!"
Full of despair, Ulysses said, "I cannot express to you, mother, how unimaginable that is. I cannot tell you how I know that. But I do know that."
Kiri sighed before she responded, "Okay. I will take your word for it. Then we have to figure out how Mark has become this formidable this quickly."
"That is something that has been on my mind of late."
Kiri told her son to attempt soul magic again, and sat back in her seat.
I hope that you are enjoying this series so far. I have been working on this series for about two years, it is so new to me. Listed below are my other works of fiction if you are interested.
Car Radio
Connected
Do Not Go Gentle
Near Wild Heaven
The Other Half of Me Unknown
A Quick Fall
Some You Give Away
Somewhere a Clock is Ticking
Strawberry Wine
Tearing Me Apart
You Call It Madness
You Don't Mean to Hurt Me