The Wounded World, a story of Mantra, Chapter 17

By Aladdin

Edited by Christopher Leeson

THE WOUNDED WORLD:
A Story of Mantra

Originally written 2006

Posted January 21, 2020
Revised February 21, 2020

CHAPTER 17

THE ROAD TO HELL

 Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night..

                            William Blake

I did a high-speed swap to remove my Blackbird uniform and get into my golden armor. I needed its magical enhancement to rev up my magic for the coming encounter with Gus. If my son was to be saved, I would need access to every watt of power available to me. "Here I am, Gus! I yelled into the sky. Surrender now and you won’t be harmed!"  

"I don't want to hit a girl,” a telepathic voice came back, “so I'm going to have some of my friends do that for me!"

Distantly, I saw a shimmer. Using my wizard sight to make up for the lack of light, I saw a variegated troop materializing into terrible reality -- a surreal mob that looked like characters out of a low-budget video game. About twenty feet above their heads, Gus was shouting orders, while brandishing a Nintendo joystick like a bandito would wave a revolver.

Lauren had witnessed Gus creating creatures like these before.  Tibetan mystics called these things "tulpas." I understood that they were not really alive and needed to continual energy injections to keep from powering down and fading away.

“Get them!” my little boy bawled out. The command started a rush in our direction: ninjas, thug knights, aliens, G.I.'s, golems, zombies, barbarians, fish-men, karate babes, and some tentacled horrors that looked seafood gone bad. This was an assassination attack aimed explicitly at me. Would Gus have been less homicidal if he’d known that behind my silver mask I was his mother? Somehow I doubted it. He simply couldn’t access his better nature.

I sent thought-alerts to Yrial and Strike, who were hidden in the vegetation.  “Get ready, set….”

Hardcase and I fell back from the tulpa warriors, luring the attackers into a cul-de-sac in which we could hit from three sides. At the last possible moment, I gave the mental shout of:  “Go!”

Yrial flew from her hiding place and deployed herself with me front, while Hardcase did a high jump to gain a new position on their left flank. Simultaneously, Strike rushed to a position on their right.

I began firing magical bolts, harsh, unvarnished magic which both burned and shocked whatever it hit. The “soldiers” were never alive, so there was no reason for anyone to hold back. I took out a pair of zombies off of the leading edge, mostly because they were the ugliest things I could see.  Though they staggered and fell, they didn't stay down. It seemed that Gus’s assault plan called for rebuilding the tulpas as quickly as they were knocked down. These manifestations were only game pieces, puppets obeying the rules that Gus was unconsciously laying down.

These video characters came on wildly, but without order. On our side, Hardcase and Strike were hammering at the enemy’s flanks, while Yrial I represented a wall in front of them, an entrenchment defended with magical firepower. As fast as we'd burn off limbs or blast torsos, the missing body parts would rematerialize.  Pretty clearly, we weren’t going to win by fighting a defense; we’d only waste our ammunition and sap our magical energy. A direct attack on the puppet-master was going to be needed.

"Grownups never play fair," the lad complained from aloft. "They won’t let kids gang up, but they do it all the time!"

Amazing! We were only four people while he was trying to overrun us with a small army. To Gus, this lethal business was just a sport. On the good side, the damage we inflicted was draining the boy, but, unfortunately, he didn't seem to be tiring very quickly, though he was using off-the-scale magic. Gus couldn't possibly be that strong on his own; he had to be feeding off some outside energy source. Instinct told me that he had a tie-in with whatever power supply was creating those green bolts in the sky.

With near-godlike potential, it was only the lad’s lack of experience that was holding him back. Unfortunately, if he somehow got inspired with better tactics we were dead meat. Myself, drawing on the method that Lauren had used to foil NM-E at the Mall, struck the entire tulpa host with a ghosting spell. All of a sudden, their fists, blades, zaps, and bludgeons were falling on us as harmlessly, as if we were empty air.

"Good thinking, Mantra!" Yrial shouted. I acknowledged her, but without much pride. How could I crow, having borrowed from an innovation created by a high-school kid with no real battle or magical experience?

Overhead, Gus just hung there, seemingly perplexed. He hadn’t yet grasped what, exactly, had gone amiss. His state of bafflement, fortunately, left me with an opening. Inspired by Lauren once again, I discharged a narrow magical bolt to strike the Nintendo stick clutched in his fist. The boy, physically stung, gave a shout and dropped the device. The loss of his security blanket seemed to throw him into a tizzy.

"Hardcase, the plan!" I yelled.

Tom Hawke charged through the mass of ineffective phantoms, a gas grenade in each hand. With an amazing jump, he bounced up to Gus’s altitude. Before the startled boy could react, the bombs clutched in Hardcase's nearly invulnerable fists went off. The explosions threw him to the ground, but he landed on his feet.

Gus, too was blow away, like a feather on the wind. Still airborne, but moving erratically, he was overcome by a coughing fit. 

“Hit it, Strike!” I yelled. My badly-dressed buddy launched his rocket-propelled capture-net. The netting enveloped Gus while subjecting him to a series of painful electrical pulses.

The shock-treatment messed up Gus’s concentration and brought him down to the grass with an audible thump. Even as we hurried his way, the lad rose above his distress and threw everything he had into the fight. He struck out in all directions using lethal magical bolts. But his simultaneous cries of pain affected me worse than would any physical attack that I could have suffered.

"Move, Mantra, now!" Yrial shouted. She was right. We had to get this over with, so we could stop hurting him.

At that moment, Gus’s tulpa army seemed to be losing its material substance, fading away like ghosts.  Yrial and I dodged though their mass as if they were not there. The next step was mine; I had to put my boy to sleep, and then stand aside while the Amerind witch rendered him unconscious with a coma spell. I ran up while carrying out my spell-casting effort. Strike, on his part, was waiting for our signal to cut the current.

But as bad as things were for Gus, the lad was refusing to call it quits! The more we did, the more aggressive be became. His magical resistance seemed to be operating instinctively and, to my dismay, my slumber spells weren’t having any effect. The bolts of energy kept coming, wild and unaimed, striking about us like whips of lightning. One of them hit my magical shield and enough of it filtered through to make me cry out with pain. Additionally, its flash had filled my vision field with colored blotches that kep me from observing what was going on in detail. I staggered up closer and resumed throwing dreamland spells at Gus. If this wild fight didn’t end quickly, I guessed, there was a very real chance that someone was going to die.

Suddenly, the magical lightning storm blinked off, as if by the throwing of a switch. Hardcase was bellowing orders: "'Strike! He's out of it! Kill the charge!"

"Stand back, Mantra!" shouted Yrial as she slipped in past.

"Quick, Yrial!" yelled Hardcase. "Do your thing! Now!"

The witch shoved me away from Gus and stood over him with her arms performing ritual passes, but right seconds later she gave a gasp. Instead of pressing her enchantment attempt, she abruptly knelt down to examine the boy.

"Yrial!" I cried.

"M-Mantra," the green-clad Stranger stammered, “he’s fading away!”

I threw myself down on the grass beside to her.

"Careful, ladies!" Strike warned.

The seasoned warrior was still afraid of trickery, but I didn’t listen. My hands were on the boy, seeking for life signs.  Normally, I can feel a tingle in the aura of a living thing, but this flesh was like inert clay.

My heart leaped; this stricken child needed mystical resuscitation immediately! As I had done several times before with gravely injured people, I clenched Gus’s arm and tried awaken his faltering life-spark by feeding my own life-essence into him. It felt all wrong. I wasn’t getting the normal exchange of energy; he wasn’t drawing anything from me. I continued the operation, like a lifeguard desperately persevering with a life-saving technique even as every reasonable hope grew dim.

Seconds elongated into minutes. My companions stood around me, quiet. None of them wished to tell me what I didn’t want to hear. At last, the terrible truth became too stark for even a mother to deny.

He wasn’t going to resuscitate.

Gus was dead.

I had cornered an eleven-year-old boy into a fight against four adult ultras, and we had collectively killed him.

Because of me, Evie's brother was dead.

How could she ever forgive me?
 
How could I ever forgive myself?

Time hung in abeyance. My shoulders shook and cool streaks ran along my cheeks, flowed down my neck. My world started to reel. I felt Strike’s arm supporting me, and Yrial holding me up on the other side. I tried to shake them off; I didn’t want sympathy, I didn’t want help. I didn’t even want comfort; I wanted to be punished.

My plan, from its foundation, had been a disaster.
 
What should I have done instead?

"What should I have done instead?!" I repeated out loud.

"Nothing, Mantra,” Strike said. “We all did our best. We're all as responsible as you are, if anyone is responsible at all."

I swam in a sea of grief, but from somewhere in the inundating swirl came a hot spear of anger and I seized it. Half of me wanted to hurt these people for helping to me harm Gus.   Contrariwise, another voice was telling me to get a grip on myself, that it wasn't my own son who just had been killed.

Gus is still alive, it was saying. You can go home to him. Find the way home!

But I couldn’t just shrug off this awful thing. Whether this was my Gus or not, he was somebody’s Gus. The story of how his life had been lost through violence would be a wound upon their spirits that could never entirely heal.

I blamed myself. I should never have provoked such a fight. I should have done nothing at all. It would have been better if I had let Aladdin take him. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and with eyes wide open I’d spun down into the hottest core of the flames.

"We can't leave the little fellow lying here," Yrial whispered. "S-Somebody has to call the police.”

Lost inside of myself, I was hardly aware of Strike and Yrial helping me to my feet. I blinked, hard, trying to clear my sight, trying to understand what this terrible night had wrought. Hardcase was standing in front of me, looking sympathetic – and worried. He would know, as did Strike, how ghastly this outcome would be for me personally.

"S-Someone has to wait here," I stammered. 

Hardcase stepped closer. "We'll all stay, Mantra."

I shook my head and pulled away from the three of them. "Not me! I have something to do."

"Mantra...?" began Yrial.

"My people have a custom,” I told them. “When a loved one dies in battle, an enemy warrior must be killed upon his grave. That's what I have to do now, to rightly honor the grandson of a king."

What I’d said even surprised me. The catastrophe had stripped more than a thousand years civilization away from me; I was suddenly a Dark Ages warrior again, the bastard son of a conqueror. I was thinking and feeling exactly as I had back then. Hardcase, especially, seemed perplexed to hear such an avowal come out of the mouth of a suburban homemaker. Even Yrial, who only knew me as an ultra hero, spoke with a voice of dismay. "Mantra, what are you saying? You're not thinking clearly."

I pushed her hands away. With my soul sliced into shreds, no friendly embrace could possibly afford me comfort.

"Mantra," Hardcase said softly, "you didn't cause this. You were doing everything you could to avoid it. Gus’s little body must not have been strong enough to channel so much power. But he wouldn’t stop; he took in so much power that it burned him out like a fuse in an electrical surge. Don't blame yourself, and please don't do anything rash."

I shook my head. "I have to tell a little girl that her brother is dead. But that’s not the worst of it. She has an enemy, one who’s lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chance to take her. She could die as badly as Gus died --"

Strike stepped up and grasped my arms. "Easy, Mantra," he coaxed. "I’ve been where you are now. All I could think of then was killing and smashing. I did kill, I did smash. But first I mourned, and then I took the time I needed to plan.  This isn’t the moment for revenge, not while you’re in such a state of mind."

I fought free of his grip and staggered away.

Tom Hawke moved up again, but didn't try to touch me. "What enemy are you talking about, Mantra?"

"Necromantra!" I said in a voice that emotion had stripped raw.

"Dear friend," spoke up Yrial, "the mercenary is right. You must mourn and endure; you must become again the person whom you truly are. Then you will be able to cope with this turn of fate. A new blow can never erase an old one. No matter how evil is this woman that you fear may be, her villainy cannot be used as an excuse to commit intentional murder."

I rounded on her. "You're a death-witch, aren't you? How would your people honor the dead while protecting the living?"

She shook her head. "My ancestors destroyed their hope – and ours -- by means of ritual sacrifice. They chose to slay only the most evil beings imaginable, but what they did was still an abomination before the gods. Ever since, we have been trapped in endless night."

"I know that you said that Necromantra has come back,” put in Hardcase. "But what does she have to do with anything that’s just happened?"

"Forget, it!" I declared. "You don't have to understand. This is a battle that should have been fought to the death a long time ago."

"You heard my advice," said Strike, "but if you’re still so determined, I'll go with you and be your backup."

"Thanks," I replied. Though I didn’t doubt that when push came to shove, he’d be against what I needed to do, I still wanted him with me.

At a time like this, I didn’t want to be entirely alone.

"I have a cell phone, Mantra," offered Tark. "Do you want me to call for an ambulance?"

I nodded. "Yrial, Hardcase, can one of you stay with the boy?" I couldn't bring myself to refer to Gus as a "body."

The pair searched each one other's face and came to an accord without using words. "We'll both wait until the medics come," the man assured me.

"This is going to be so very sad for the child’s parents," Yrial remarked wistfully.

"Yes," I answered back. “It will terrible. It will change them forever.”

And then there was Evie. I couldn’t stop thinking about Evie.

"I've got to go," I told my compatriots, "but please do one thing for me: Don't mention that you saw Mantra tonight."

Hardcase and Yrial again traded glances.

"I'm not dodging responsibility," I explained. "Aladdin was hounding me, until they arrested the wrong person, thinking she was Mantra. I’ve had to keep from being seen since then. The woman is an international criminal, but I don’t think anyone deserves the kind of treatment that she’s been getting. When things become saner, I want to rescue her from custody and make Aladdin think that Mantra has escaped."

That plan must have made me sound like a ruthless schemer, but the two ultras offered nothing to gainsay the idea. "It will be as you say," replied Yrial in a strange tone.

"Thank you," I said. Now I needed to get away from public view before my composure broke down entirely.

"Where are we going?" Strike asked edgily.

I shifted his way. "I'll guide you.  Do you have room for a passenger on that hog of yours? I need to rest if I’m heading into another battle."

"There’s always room for a friend," he affirmed with a nod. 

TO BE CONTINUED CHAPTER 18