Short Stories: A Collection of Magic - Updated Irregularly

Angels of Sun and Moon

Author's Note:

This is the first part of a longer short story that will be up soon. I feel like it's a little dark, so if that's not your thing, feel free to skip over it. Unless otherwise stated, the stories in this collection do not have to be read in order, so skip around if you want!

A clash of thunder. A breath of wind. These are the things the wizards heard as the child lay before them on a rune-carved stone.

A drop of water. A spreading cold. These are the things that they felt.

A battle of demons. A war of spirits. This is what was being fought inside of the sleeping child. Victory hesitated to show compassion to either side of this war, so it raged on, terrible and cruel.

The Wizards of Invocation called upon their angels. From moon and from sun, the angels came, floated down from the heavens, drifted with their purest light, landed on the sleeping boy, kissed his sleeping forehead. The angels entered the boy’s soul through that soft touch. Inside of his soul the angels were not gentle; inside of his soul they were cruel and brutal, as they always were when dealing with demons. They joined the legion of light; they fought the army of darkness. The angels slew with golden sword and silver arrow, their song a cry that rends the earth, tears it to pieces and rips the flesh that stands upon it, but their enemy was strong. Strong and terrible.

The Wizards could not see the enemy that plagued the child’s soul, could not see the world in which their magic had so much power. They could not see the child’s enemies, their hideous faces, their poisoned fangs, their soulless eyes. They could not see the clouds of death they breathed into the ever-chilling land that was the boy’s soul, but they could sense the child’s plight, foresee the fate that would befall him if they could not summon something stronger than the angels. They saw it in the boy’s furrowed brows, in his clenched hands. They could hear it in his labored breath, and the silence that closed in around it. They could feel it in their bones.

The Invokers began to invoke another, stronger celestial being. They invoked the Clastronmora, the one who is silent, the one who is dread. They knew the star he lived on, knew the names to call him by, the songs to sing to lure him. He came, and entered the boy’s soul to fight alongside the luminous angels.

Clastronmora fought with fang and spell, and demons perished – but so did angels, and Victory merely observed, making no judgement, lifting not a finger to save,  nor a finger to condemn.

A Wizard fell, and then another. One tried to flee, but you cannot run from demons. You can only banish them with light, but the Wizards had given their light to the child, and a soul in darkness is a soul to be played with. What terrible games demons are fond of playing. One by one, the Wizards fell to the grassy ground. The stars that could save them sparkled, uninvoked, in the night sky. Only one saw and cared.

Angels faded as claws tore their bodies, and Clastronmora vanished to his star. The child’s soul was darker than the void, and only one star cared.

The star had never been invoked. No celestial being lived within its white flames, it held no Cleansing Water, as some stars do. It birthed no Sparks. It needed none of that. Being a star was enough; stars were full of power on their own.

The white flame from high in heaven fell down to rest in a soul. The demons ran from the star, but they were not fast enough to escape the blazing fury that was the star. It burned more brightly than a thousand suns, more beautifully than a thousand moons. Its light inside the boy’s soul made all evil within him perish.

Piles of ash were made of the child’s attackers, but soon even these burnt away to nothing. The boy woke to a night with one less star.