"The Legend of Ael: Celtic" by Jermaine Leroy Joseph

The legend of Ael: Celtic

1:

The land of Kartha was a desolation. Not just a place where nightmarish apparitions peered from cavernous rents in the blasted ground. Not only a seemingly stretching plain of rock that hid more horrors than there had been liars amongst men. It was, plainly and simply, a horrid place. A shrine to an end that had seemingly come already, long ago. The land of Kartha had once been a haven land, not a stain in reality. Now most feared it, and few walked its shadows. Till now.
The boy walked the darkness with obvious intent, his head held high, free to the desolate winds. Both shadows and tracks seemed to follow the boy, stretching long in the faint light, but only to where he had come, hunted, into the Kartha lands from another realm, more devoid of life than the one he stalked now. This was not the first such place he had visited, nor, did it seem, would it be the last. He had seen things that a boy should not see. Only days ago he had seen the inside of a person, the thunderous calamity of war and even smelt the stench of death. Yes, Celtic Maxwell had seen much, but today such memories were inconsequential. Today he had other business, besides his quest, which warranted more attention.
For a moment, Celtic slowed down for the first time since arriving, his eyes darting to a patch of darkness that seemed as any other. With a brief nod he continued on his way. Some of the horrors this world hid were not hideous to behold. There lurked creatures that took the form of the opposite sex, to entice you to death and doom. Fortunately, he knew, he was too young in body to be affected by such guiles. It offered a much more simple method of protection than his magic, the Light of Ael could create, skilled and complex as he had found it to be during his quest. But then again, he had learned than against common belief, youth had many virtues.
He had no idea as to how long he had been walking, since his quest had been a long one. In one realm he had come to, legend had been passed down three generations in the space of a week, his name sung out in chorus as they praised deeds he had only recently left behind. Time had no meaning for him on his quest; and he had little else. This leg of his journey made him pause though. The laws of Ael, and indeed those that had once traversed realities through gateways as he had done, were tricky at the best of times to understand. Yet he knew that ahead, somewhere, lay a man that he had left in London long ago, when time had had meaning. A man that had either doomed or graced him with the quest he followed. One he would kill again to get answers. If he had to. Smiling coldly, Celtic suddenly shuddered, his young mind still hating the way he could be so callous, so ruthless. It might be third time lucky. Maybe the old man would stay dead this time. Grunting, the boy looked at the sky to gain some semblance of day and night… and suppressed a giggle; the sort that only children could make. How could he tell whether it was night or day when the sky was green? Even now he felt a sense of vertigo looking at the cloudless heights. Either way, he decided, a break would do no harm. At home, his parents would have sent him abed already, not even allowing him to watch the Twilight Zone. It didn’t matter in the least.
He had all the Twilight Zone he needed right about now.
With a shake of his head, Celtic made a warding motion with his left hand, fingers splayed wide. A bright flash accompanied the movement and a circle of Ael driven fire made a ring about him, about five feet by five. Frowning, he widened the perimeters with a flick of his wrist, sitting and pulling off his rucksack as he did so. He found his eyes drawn to his left and stared a moment, his mind trying to comprehend what he saw. A mist hung in the distance, transparent and shimmering. It reminded him of tarmac when the cars drove past, a faint shimmer warning that the road was hot. It was more like that than mist, but he knew that it was something else besides. An illusion, so to speak, that likely hid something. Even his Ael blessed eyes could not pierce the shroud, and it made him pause in the act of sitting down. With a shrug the boy sat finally. If it lay in his road – and he guessed that it most likely would – then he would find out what was ahead when the time came.
As always, dismissing the shroud from his mind, Celtic took dry wood, stored away countless realms ago, from his pack, stacking them into a chimney like tower. He circled this with for large stones nearby and inhaled deeply. As always he closed his eyes and recited the litany of his quest.
“I am the fire of Ael, born into Light as a Knight of the Pure. Though I, the last and first, have no days to linger into; I forever seek for that which is hidden. I am alone in my quest, but not alone in the Light.” Stony eyed, the boy took his uncle’s lighter from his jeans and lit the dry wood, enjoying, as always, the sound the fire made as it crackled. It was not a cold place though, the lands of Kartha, but it was barren. It looked frozen but either way Celtic wanted the fire. Besides, it was routine now for him to light a fire in a new realm, every night during his first week. Again he looked at the sky and grimaced. Whichever it was out of day and night anyway.
Laying down, facing the shadows, Celtic ran through his quest one last time before he tried to sleep; another routine. If Sarah’s father had been right then the beginning of the end was not far now. Not far at all.
Perhaps. Time mattered little wherever he went, he reminded himself. With a mental shrug Celtic chastised himself for thinking too far ahead. His job, for now, was to find the old man, and catch Sarah. By his count she should only be three days ahead of him, but she was taller, and faster at walking anyway. Maybe, he thought, she might find him first. She… It was another of those things that didn’t matter, at least not to him. If Sarah came upon the man then Celtic doubted even his Ael magic, the power of everything pure and searing within reality, could bring him back from wherever the man seemed to go. Perhaps the man would prefer it that way. Once Celtic found him, the Ael magic would purify alright, but he had ways of using his magic that made tortures of the Dark seem like bouncy castles at the fair. Chuckling, he brushed a stray strand of black hair from his narrowed, thoughtful eyes. If one had seen him then, as he sat contemplating the future, they would have wilted as they were. It was the look a dead man and a hero both. He might be only twelve years of age but his life, or bluntly: his quest; had marked and matured him more than natural, even for some of the realms he had visited.
Thinking of tomorrow, unsure if he would sleep or not, Celtic closed his eyes. Within seconds he was fast asleep, his mind conjuring a demon far surpassing any he had ever encountered. This creature had a name:
The Past.

Panic was around him as he ran, headlong, to escape the thing that chased him. As he ran, a quick look back told him he had to push himself faster. With a thought and a twirling of his index finger the man was sent sprawling. Again he cast a look back. The thing, this… man was on his feet already. It was a man, to be sure, and yet even as he had looked back there had been an indefinable quality to the figure’s ghastly, diseased riddled face. Something that had made him all the more aware that he that followed was not, in fact, a man. Not even human. Not by his count, anyway. Whatever chased him wore the skin like a rubber mask. He dreaded to imagine what it was.
So he ran, heedless of where he went or who had seen him; his mind somehow knowing exactly where to turn in this foreign part of the City. Telling him when the man got too close to him; close enough to stroke his neck with crippled fingers, if the thing had a care to. He knew what the people on the pavements and in their cars thought; and it repulsed him that they could be so closed of mind. ‘There’s another street kid running from a tramp that caught him stealing from ‘im. Best not to get involved.’ He could imagine them whispering in the café as he sprinted past, ‘It serves him right, so it does.’
Yeah, it served me right for a few things in life, he thought sourly as he ran, his heart pounding in his chest. But stealing had never been included and never would. But this man wanted to steal from him, oh yes. And what is was…? It was another thing he did not want to think on. Could not as he sprinted through people and traffic. One lapse in concentration, he realised, and he would be caught. This was all his fault anyway, he could tell. He was the one who had begun to… to… it didn’t bare thinking of.
Fire burnt whatever it touched, as a rule, and that was that. He was no exception.
Dashing about a corner without a thought, Celtic ran five steps into the shaded alley before realising that everything seemed too still. Making sure he could not be seen on either side of him, staring at the shadows that could not be pierced, he prepared himself with his fingers splayed wide on his right hand. If he had made fire from nothing earlier then he could do so again. Holding back tears of fear Celtic moved in a shuffle, watching the end of the alleyway. He wanted, after all, to actually live to see his eleventh birthday.
A sudden whistle made him turn; its sound the same as when wind chimes jingled. With shock he found himself facing is science teacher, Miss Hill. For the barest second Celtic wondered if, perhaps, she was on the thing’s side and then he began to soundlessly talk, his hands making movements that portrayed his fear. How could she be allied with the thing that chased him? There had always been a goodness, what his brother called Light, inside Miss Hill.
“What is it Celtic?” As always, her soft voice made him relax some, a semblance of a smile starting at the corners of his mouth. How could he have even suspected Miss Hill to be like that thing? Maybe the creature with human skin would go away if it saw her, an adult, with him.
“I’m… being followed by…” he struggled to find the words. “… A tramp. He chased me.” She scanned his face, he could tell. Perhaps looking for fear or shock. What she saw seemed to make her smile sadly, regretfully. What she had seen would soon manifest into something that should not be. A strength beyond self, the power of Ael in the form of a child. Celtic however knew nothing of what she saw, but it would have come to the same anyway. He was out of breath but he felt hyperactive. Almost like he had just won a competition and found out that the prize was beyond his expectations. He felt on fire, and was glad for it since it held back the fear.
“I see…” She paused and chewed her rosebud lips. “Don’t worry about him.”
“Why is that Miss-?” His teacher smiled, and with the speed of some wild animal, silenced him with a finger over his mouth. Her eyes, he noticed, were the strangest indigo.
“You’re ten?” When he nodded, his teacher frowned. What, he wondered, was wrong with being ten? “Then you’ll soon see, Celtic. If it…” She laughed lowly. “Some things not even Ael can wait for. Do you understand?”
“Like tea-time? Miss, who is-?” When she shook her head, Celtic fell silent. There was something refreshingly ominous about this conversation. “Is something wrong, Miss-?”
“Don’t keep calling me Miss. And yes, something has been wrong a long time. That man that followed you knew that too.” She giggled heartily when she saw the puzzlement on his face. “Never mind, you’re fine now, so don’t worry.” She stuck out a hand which Celtic reluctantly shook. It seemed such an adult thing to do. “Out of school, just call me-”

“-Sarah?” His voice trailed off into the shadows beyond his circle of protection. With wary eyes the boy looked about, remembrance of his dream driven away by cold calculation and a pang of loneliness that only the abandoned could feel. It seemed brighter, the green of the sky covering everything in a faint emerald glow. Sarah’s favourite colour.
Just thinking of Sarah made him feel young or, more to the point, he felt his age. Levering himself up onto his elbows, Celtic glanced at his circle of Ael magic and quickly discerned the floating motes of ash that fluttered fitfully in the sight, blasted winds. A sign that some creatures had tried to reach his sleeping form. Foolish, but the boy respected them all the same. He had seen worse demons freeze where they stood when they sensed his presence. Shrugging away the last vestiges of sleep, Celtic stood, shouldered his rucksack and looked in the direction he thought was east. Sarah lay in the direction he faced, beyond the shimmering shroud somewhere. He could feel her magic like a breeze of fresh air. Perhaps, just perhaps, they were the last that fought for Ael. Yes, she lay east, if the direction had a name. Of that there was no mistake.
With a child’s questioning mind, he wondered of a sudden whether the peoples of Kartha had once called east by a different name and then, with a shrug the boy shook a hand, watching the circle vanish as though it never was. Without a backward glance he left the smouldering ashes of his fire and went on his way.
It took several hours before he even felt he was getting closer to his goal. Just as his pace failed to falter, so did the barren landscape fail to change, its torn ground broken and dishevelled. Truly, it seemed as through Krine had drained this planet even of its history. Kartha looked to have been a blasted land since the beginning of existence, the abused child of reality. The boy had seen pictures of deserts once in school, and had actually found himself in one long ago, but this was enough to make a desert cry if it could. Kartha was a black Antarctica, frozen in green light. Far and wide, in every direction ahead or behind, the land rose or lowered in craggy defiles of pointed stone. A mountainous dead land that had long since passed away. What passed for hills were really lumps of rock, cracked and bleeding the now familiar light. Not surprisingly, the light that gleamed in dark corners happened to be green. At least the eyes were red. Gleaming things that watched him pass balefully. Mountains did loom in the distance, on his road, unsurprisingly. Dark against the emerald sky they posed interesting questions which the boy avoided dwelling on, keeping his eyes fixed ahead; certain that trouble lay ahead. He paused only once that day, and again on the second. He wanted this business done with.
It was on his third day that he came upon the two travellers, his back to them as he rested after walking most of the day. It had grown dark, the sky turning so dark a green as to seem black. Shadows danced to the light of the circle surrounding him, and had he not been blessed with his magic then he would have gone so far as to wonder if death was similar to the darkness that engulfed the land. It was as he began to eat a Wispa bar, thinking of the past, that he heard a cough from behind him. With a speed that had made many wonder at what he was, the boy turned with murderous intent in his eyes, his fingers crooked to unleash the full power of Ael unto his confronter, his new thoughts driving away memories of what he called his youth. Before he had learnt of how the end might come. It was only his realisation that he’d never heard a creature cough that made him pause and he was glad that he had, when a voice called to him in greeting.
“Hile there fellow, and may the peace of the Gord be on you.” Slowly, his mind still cursing that there had been no warning, Celtic rubbed weary eyes and looked for who spoke. There, in the shadows that danced to the lit circle about him, were two stooped figures, their eyes gleaming even in the darkness. They could not pass the circle, that was true, yet there was something about what they had said, the fact that people even inhabited this waste still, which puzzled him. Had they said Gord, or Lord? It brought the stirrings of a memory that seemed lost to him at present.
“Hello to you and your own, too” Casting a look about him warily he tried a smile. “What can I do for you? It seems strange that you’re out, in this place. I’ve seen nothing but creatures possessed of Krine’s intent.” Celtic stood, not wishing to seem rude but trying to hide the frown from his face. It seemed wrong that the figures did not, as he had become accustomed to, bless themselves against such a naming.
“Would it be right to ask if we share in your warmth?” Saying nothing Celtic turned away as an opening appeared in the circle. The figures came in slowly, as though unsure of themselves, and not him. They did not seem afraid. Celtic had always had a way of knowing when people were. Frowning slightly, the boy handed them some bread from his Cadbury’s lunchbox and watched silently as they ate ravenously. When they had finished he let them enjoy some of his water supply and waited.
“Stranger, you asked me a question when first I came. It would seem that I also wonder about you, and how you came to be here.” The man passed him the flask and licked cracked lips. “You are young to be here, Earthling.” Nodding, Celtic drank deeply, wondering if any water still ran in this world, before he turned his attention to them.
They were old, it could be said. Their skin pulled so tightly over the bone that they seemed decayed. They wore loose fitting clothing, brown in colour, as were their boots. From the look of their footwear they had travelled long, but, he saw, they carried no luggage. The woman, strangely enough, was the only one out of the two that carried arms. A revolver with a nickel grip poked from the waistband of her trousers. He wondered where they had come by such a thing and dismissed the thought.
“You know of Earth, then.” He said calmly. “And this is Kartha, am I right?”
“Aye, so it is.” The man licked his lips again and coughed heavily. It gave the boy the impression he was dying. “How is it you know the name of this evil place?”
“I am a traveller, I know much.” Celtic leaned back on his elbows when he sat down, his eyes keen as he waited for the question of his age. When none of croons spoke, Celtic turned to the woman with a polite bow of his head. “Are you two married, then?” The woman laughed lowly and shook her grey head.
“No,” she whispered, eyes turning softer than velvet, like the tone of her voice. “We too travelled before, when all was young. Tell me stranger, what is your name?” Celtic smiled sadly, remembering a time when his name had meant as little as that of any other. It brought painful memories of his mother and how she had loved and looked after him. His mother had named him, against his father’s wishes he assumed, since Alan Maxwell seemed to call his son ‘C’ and nothing else. It was, she had said long ago, during his sixth birthday, a name that meant something. A name of power, and of great things to come. Had she known? He found his mind wondering. Not exactly, but there had been some power at work, some force driving everything to that moment in the attic. That…
“Celtic Maxwell… I hail from London.” He said slowly, banishing the thoughts that threatened to break him into tears of homesickness. The man eyed him as though reading his mind and the boy coldly dismissed him with a stare that could have frozen ice. The man, however, stared back with a humorous twist to the set of his lips. He waited for the question of his age. It did not come, as he had begun to expect. “Common courtesy would be to give your own names.” With a shrug, saying he did not mind, Celtic began to pack his belongings away.
“We of Kartha have no names. We of the Wild have no names. What use a name if all die that may utter it?” The woman muttered gravely. Pausing in the act of packing, Celtic wondered if perhaps these people were here to give him some insight he had previously forgotten, or to tell him something of the end of his quest. He hoped so, but he had learnt to expect the worst. “Would you listen if we spoke, Celtic of London?” The woman said with a smile that showed pearly teeth. He found himself wondering where they brushed them and must have frowned. “Take no offence, young traveller, it is our custom to ask before we talk of what is past.” The old man nodded, and once more went into a fit of wheezing. A spider made of sticks fell from his white hair, crawled into the circle, and became a piece of ash floating in desolate winds. With a nod and an easy smile that he hoped would encourage them, Celtic waited. “Then would you hear of Kartha, and the ruins of the Last City? Would you hear of the Lonely Village yonder and the lands ahead? Would you know of the temple that lies in the Dread? It is a hard tale stranger and the telling will be long.” Eyeing the sky Celtic found himself understanding that perhaps the people of this land had had no choice but to be subjugated by Krine, their lives full of obsessive customs. He wanted this all over with, but it would be near impossible and dangerous to try to find his way across the Kartha lands in such darkness. Perhaps he would listen while the sky brightened. Perhaps something would come up that aroused his true interest: his quest.
“I’ll be glad to hear it. I’ve water if the telling is long.” He frowned. Their way of talking was wearing on him already. “I think it’s true that wisdom comes with age. Go on, tell me a story.” Almost he winced. He’d sounded almost three years old. Well, he could not have it both ways.
“Then, I guess, the man will start. He’s oldest of us, and the tale, much as it is, begins with him.” The woman coughed once and rubbed her hands together.
“It began-”

With a bang, the earth seemed to throw the buildings about like dominoes. The man, whose forgotten name of a long ago time was Grant Kiris, stared up at the bank as it began to fall into itself. It was a large building, quite possibly and easily the biggest in the city. With tearful eyes Grant looked upon the decimation as though caught in a bubble of slow motion. Never had he thought he might see such an awesome, yet frightening thing. Throwing up an arm without realising, the man began to remember where he was and turned away, determination clear in his dark eyes. Kartha was no longer safe, he knew, regardless of what the ministers said. Everyone else seemed to have come to the same conclusion. People ransacked the shops, throwing homemade bombs and smashing windows. The sort of anarchy that could only come near the end of all things, as this so obviously was. A group of young men, barely adults, barged past him without a backward glance, almost sending him sprawling onto the streets from the pavement. Wiping tears from his face, Grant began the arduous task of jostling his way through the raging bustle, ducking and weaving as bottles and pieces of old chairs flew about him. One of the missiles struck him on the side of his head, sending him sideways, but he continued onwards, his vision blurred. And there in the street, he saw…

The old man paused, fingering the scar that ran from his ear to his white hairline. The woman seemed more attentive than Celtic felt, her eyes on the old timer as though she had not heard what had come before her time in this blasted land. She barely seemed to breathe, her eyes glazed as she tried to picture such disaster. Or was it…?
“So many people…” Celtic moved; a barest shift of his eyes. She was crying it seemed, as she tried to envision a world before the desolation. As a child always does, the boy wondered whether he could, or should, console her and decided that his time to be young had passed not long ago. Some things were too late too change.
“What did you see old timer?” He asked solemnly, eyes cold as he gazed at the scar. He knew of what the man spoke of, this anarchy that raged sometimes when a place fell. Earth had had its moments.
“I saw the Darkness take flesh, young ancient. I saw Krine.” The man once called Grant smiled grimly. “And it did not surprise me that it should take such a form, such as I can remember.”
“What form is Krine? I MUST KNOW.” Celtic leaned forwards, his voice commanding and the old man nodded.
“You two share some fate, I see, some… some piece of presence.” The man turned to the woman as though indecisive. “It is something that I cannot for the life of me recall, but, suffice to say, there is a form below its many shapes. Let me tell you what happened to this world instead.”
“No. That is quite alright, old man.” Celtic closed his eyes. So close to unravelling a possible key to his success. So close. What, he wondered, would truly be at the end of his quest? It was a thing that had come to haunt his waking thoughts.
“You mentioned something of a city. Was this the very one you spoke of?”
“Aye, it was, it was, and so it was, and never shall be again, for the Dark has descended on this world and none can lift it.” The man eyed him, hope actually seeming to glisten in his eyes in the form of tears. Nodding, saying he would do what he could if it came, Celtic watched the two old folk grip gnarled hands together. Hope. It was a thing that the boy had seen break people worse than failure. Hope, he’d seen, could be worth less than success. “The city lies in the direction we came, beyond the village that lays yonder. It was once a grand city of spiralling buildings, young ancient, and I believe that you know of what I speak. Tall towers, glittering domes and broad walkways that stretched across the air.”
“That’s what I call a bridge. We had a real famous one in London, and as far as I know it’s still there. It was called Tower Bridge, but there were others.” The woman nodded, clapping her hands in gleeful remembrance of her past. “I’ve seen a city. Tell me; was there such a thing as chocolate?” When they frowned in confusion, the lines in their faces screwing up like shrinking paper, the boy shook a hand at them, assuring them he’d been serious. “It doesn’t matter much,” he lied. How he missed not having to save his food. Especially his Pringles, which were, obviously, all gone. “What is in the city?”
“Why, the Wild of course.” The woman wagged her finger. “It was not Krine that finished this world, but the mindless Wild. Nature turned queer, so to speak.” Queer? Celtic suppressed a giggle. His brother Andrew had always said that queer meant… well, it was hard to explain surely, but he knew that nature couldn’t possibly be a queer. What his father called a Brownie Thief. Only a man could be a queer. “You understand?” Nodding, Celtic ate the rest of his Wispa bar and sighed. There was only one left. “Well, maybe you do and maybe not, ancient. Have you seen the very ground spit forth demons? Or ever witnessed fog that can take a man’s skeleton from out under his skin? I think not. Have you seen buildings become living creatures that tore themselves from the ground to smash and grind? That I witnessed, and only the later stages, I tell ye.” Looking at the man with a grimace, the woman shuddered and rubbed her back as though it pained her. Why offer relief, Celtic wondered, it was obvious that the world was doomed long before he had arrived.
“No, I’ve not but I can imagine the terrors, believe me. I have seen much, old woman, and done much that may seem worse to you than what your world has witnessed.”
“Have you made a planet barren of life?”
“Aye… Yes.” Celtic lowered his head and smiled coldly. “I do what I must.”
“Then there is no difference betwixt you or-!”
“Woman…” The old man touched her arm lightly but she threw it off, turning her back away from him. With a sorrowful shake of his white head, the man once called Grant muttered an oath towards all women and eyed Celtic darkly. “I cannot truly say that I do not understand what she means. Yet I know that both the Light and Dark are cruel, but ultimately do not have the same purpose. What more can I tell you, for we must soon be on our way.” He paused, licking withered lips again, and coughed twice, spitting out blood into the light of the circle. No sound accompanied its disappearance. Seeming to come to a decision the man rubbed tired eyes, many years in use. “We go to use the Ael gate, to leave this world. The Lonely Village will soon be consumed by the Wild, as was the temple and the cities before it. None can find the Rainbow Rose, hidden somewhere in the Wild and its shadows. I believe that it is long destroyed, to be frank. I think I have earned my right to speak so.”
“I came from the world before and after. The gate is open, as I leave all ways I pass through. Such is the wish of Ael.” The man actually laughed at this.
“You are Ael, in the flesh. It is your will?” With a puzzled glint in his eyes the boy nodded. “Then it will help.” He’d not actually thought like that since the attic, and the things inside. Not since...
“It won’t matter. There’s vampires, see? Vampires in the attic and they can be mighty mean.”
“What!” The woman shrieked and Celtic shivered. For an instant he had gone to deep into his memories. To deep into how he had come to where he sat now. Holding out a hand in apology, he watched as the woman stood, her hand reaching for her revolver, fear on her face. “You know what guards the rose. You know, you know, you know, you know! You know what guards the rose.” Eyes wide, unthinking, the boy sent a white lance of light into the woman, making her fall in a crumpled heap.
“What have you-?” The boy turned and for a wonder the man fell silent in fear. “Is she dead?” He ventured after a while. Shaking his head Celtic wondered on the woman’s reaction. All things had a meaning. Could it be that he had to see his worst nightmares again, and worse, the vampires that had been in his attic, leering through the windows when he came from school in the early winter dark? Quite possibly, and he believed that this was, perhaps, meant to be. He found himself thinking on the rose the woman had spoken of. The Rainbow Rose, the man had named it. Had he not heard something long back, in a time that had seen him crying for his mother in fear of being away from home? Something that spoke of a rose and a grave, a riddle meant to lead him to… a temple. Licking suddenly dry lips, aware that minutes had passed in dreadful silence, the boy realised that he needed to know not of the rose but of the temple. Within it might lay some clue as to whether his quest was true or not. It didn’t matter, either way he was going to destroy Krine and find what he had been seeking so long.
“No, she’s not dead. I wanted her to take a nap, like in the cartoons, you know?” The man just stared at him. “You wish to be on your way, old one; and I wish to be on mine. It is simple really,” Celtic leaned forwards. “Tell me what you know of this temple. How I might reach it and the like. What monsters are there, under the bed and in the closets of this world?” Upon seeing the man steeling his resolve and leaning away defiantly the boy clenched a fist, hating himself. With a narrowing of his eyes the woman rose from the ground, her body jerking in pain. Low moans and thin shrieks escaped her old lips. The man started towards him and Celtic made his knees shatter with a thought. He would cure them afterwards but, for now… “Now, lets try again. Tell me of the temple.” He smiled coldly. “Better yet, tell me what you know about this.” Holding out a hand to the crying man, he opened it to reveal a golden glow. Instantly, the man began to babble.