Worlds of the Never: Tales of the Neverwar, #2

By CJ Rutherford

On Teralia, where magic has hidden for thousands of years, the Darkness arises to challenge the Veil spell. The barrier is weakening. 
Magic is returning to the universe. Only an outsider can prevent the destruction of the Glade and the people she loves. 

On Sanctuary, the supporters of Tenybris have taken control. The universe teeters on the brink of all out war. 

Standing against them are Katheryne, the Foundation, prophesied to rid the universe of Tenybris forever, and Derren, the other half of her soul. Along with a small band of extraordinary friends, they need to raise an alliance against Sanctuary, but incur terrible losses along the way. 

Unseen, the Beast plots the release of its Master. But Tenybris's freedom is not enough to sate the monster's depravity, as it sets out to corrupt and destroy whatever, and whoever it can.

This is the beginning of the end. Who will remain standing?

• Language: English
• Publisher: CJ Rutherford
• Release date: Apr 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781386750789

CJ Rutherford

CJ Rutherford has always been a story teller, even if they started out in his mind only. He grew up on a farm in very rural Ireland, and was left pretty much to his own devices most of the time. ​So, he invented his own world, with fairies, trolls, and other mystical creatures. ​His stories stayed with him throughout his life, sometimes scrawled down on scraps of paper, and occasionally brought to life in a sketch (although he’s the first to admit what he drew and what you might see might not bear any similarity to each other.) ​Along came two daughters, and at last he had an outlet for his imagination. As the girls grew up they were enthralled by the characters and the worlds their father created. He even brought them to life in his fantasy world, and they never knew when he sat down to tell them their bed-time story, whether they would be fighting a dragon or playing with one. ​But time moves on, and daughters grow up, and soon enough, CJ needed another way to tell his tales. The rest, as they say, is history…or the future, depending on how you look at it. Tales of the Neverwar is a unique fantasy series, spanning two worlds, one of magic and one of science. Millennia ago, magic was hidden to prevent it being used by an ancient evil malevolence to conquer the universe. Now, the spell hiding it is failing, and the magical land of Teralia is about to re-enter our world. The Darkness, banished for thousands of years, awakens as the magic grows stronger, and searches for a way to use this new magic, this 'science', to free itself from the prison entombing it. 20-year-old Katheryn’s ordinary life is turned upside down when she discovers she’s the only thing standing between survival, and the destruction of everything she loves. So begins a desperate battle across time, space, and multiple dimensions, as magic collides with science in an ancient battle for supremacy…for whoever controls the magic, wins the war.

Book preview

Worlds of the Never

Book Two

in the

Tales of the Neverwar

Books in the series:

Origins of the Never

Souls of the Never

War of the Never

This is a work of fiction. Magic is returning. Is there magic in your world? Look around, you may be surprised.

CERN FACILITY, SWITZERLAND

You're not thinking straight, Jason, snapped Julia, as she watched her boss prepare to commit professional suicide.  Jesus! I don't think you’ve ever had a crazier idea your my life!

I don’t have any choice, Jules. They’ve suspended me. This is the only way, don’t you see? His face was flushed, his eyes wide and shining with crazed grief.

Jules took a deep breath, forcing what she hoped was a calm and understanding expression onto her face. Jason, you’ve just driven through a security barrier, nearly killing the guard on duty. Then you go and pull a gun on Ted at reception. Jesus H Christ, the poor guy’s probably having a coronary up there. She jerked her thumb upwards.

I need to try, Jules. I need to try to bring Alice back. Jason’s expression was pleading as they descended in the elevator.

She's dead, Jason. For God's sake, we all saw it...whatever it was. Julia grew morose as she remembered the fateful day over two years before.

That day was the beginning of the end for Jason, as far as she was concerned. The death of his wife Alice had rocked him to the foundations of his soul.

Even now Jules suspected he awoke at night screaming and crying, wracked with guilt; even though there was no way the accident could have been foreseen, never mind prevented.

He glowered at her.

Where's the proof, Jules? he hissed. There was no body. Nothing...absolutely nothing left. No DNA, not even a single trace of an errant molecule. Nothing!

There was a feral look in his eyes as he pleaded for her to understand, but Jules shook her head.

Jason, the level of energy released that night was enough to make a crater ten miles wide and two miles deep, but it was concentrated in an area barely two meters across. How could anything survive that type of bombardment? I'm just amazed she was the only...

Julia broke off as she saw the ghost of grief cross her friend's face. It was a look he had done his best to hide and deny for months, ever since he'd come up with the crazy notion his wife was still alive.

Julia was desperate for the grieving process to resume, for Jason to let go and move on, but he just shrugged as a grimly determined expression replaced the brief glimmer of sorrow.

Jules, he gritted out, that energy level is one of the reasons I’m doing this. Think about it. There's no way we dialed the beams up enough to cause the sort of readings we recorded...There was something else there, something causing the energy spike.

Her reply was cut off by the doors opening to the main laboratory level, and Jason rushed out of the doors toward his old lab. The floor was deserted at this time of night but he looked furtively back and forth.

Julia ran to keep up. He swiped the card and opened the door into the room, crossing over to the familiar consoles which controlled the central emitter assembly.

Jason, you can't do this! Jules shouted, glancing at the fire alarm panel on the wall to her left. If she could reach it, the emergency cut outs would shut the whole lab level down. I won't let you end your career like this. She began walking towards it.

Jason drew the gun and pulled the trigger. For a second Jules thought he’d shot her, but when she opened her eyes there was a sparking hole in the wall where the panel had been. He turned the muzzle in her direction.

I won't let you stop me! he screamed. "I know she's alive, Jules. She has to be! They have to be."

Her terror subsided as she watched anguish replace the madness, and tears form in his eyes. Not many people had known Alice was two months pregnant when the accident had happened. Jason had told her on the flight back from the funeral service, but she already knew. Alice had confided in her that fateful day two years earlier, only a few minutes before her disappearance inside the ball of energy which appeared. This didn't matter now, however, as she knew she was the only one who could stop this insanity.

It was pure luck she had been driving out the facility’s exit as Jason ploughed through the entry barrier. She'd turned straight around, abandoning her car beside his to run after him, catching him just before the elevator doors closed.

How could they be, Jason? she asked, softly. It's been two years. Two years of nothing.

She saw the sentence cut into his hope. It was true, however. All his attempts to gather evidence to corroborate his belief that his wife hadn't been vaporized had resulted in nothing.

Unfortunately, the guilt driving Jason outstripped the logic everyone else knew to be true.

I needed more power, Jules! he shouted. They never let me have a full power test since that day.

Jesus, Jason, do you blame them? she asked. What happened scared the shit out of them. Fuck, it scared the shit out of me!

She knew it was useless as she watched Jason's calm expression turn angry.

I thought you at least might have understood, Julia.

She flinched as he used her full name for the first time in years. He’d known ever since they'd met she vastly preferred Jules to the name her parents called her.

You knew her, he continued. Alice was your friend. You should be doing anything you can to bring her back.

Julia’s face reddened. Damn you, Jason! she hissed. I miss her just as much as you do. But there's nothing to bring back! Can't you see that? She's gone. Accept it before you screw any more lives up.

It was a low blow, Julia knew, but she saw it hit home, and was glad of the pause it produced. If only she could delay him a few more minutes. Maybe security might be able to reach them.

She regretted the words as she saw the pain on his face. Jason knew exactly what Julia meant when she accused him of screwing up lives.  He’d abandoned his daughter Katheryne to this crazy idea. They hadn’t spoken more than twice since her mother disappeared.

She saw the moment of indecision pass as Jason sat down at the console and began typing. He typed one-handed, keeping the gun pointed at Jules.

Come on, come on. Load up, you piece of shit! He banged the console in frustration. He couldn’t keep an eye on her, and operate the complex controls at the same time.

He waved the gun to a chair opposite him. Sit down, Jules. And keep your hands to your sides. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will. You know I will.

This sentence, and her glimpse of the bright red keycard in his hand, formed a cold pit in Jules’s stomach. It was a master bypass key, issued to only ten or so people on the entire staff. Sure, most of them were Jason’s friends, but she didn’t think any of them would be stupid enough to willingly hand it over.

He finished the first sequence, and the control board lit up with alarms, as he bypassed the lockouts with the key card.

And if they hadn’t handed it over, then just how desperate was he? She wondered. Desperate enough to harm...or kill...a friend?

Where did you get the card, Jason?

If I can just stall him, give the guards enough time to get here, she thought.

He didn’t reply. He simply rushed recklessly through the startup process, totally oblivious to her and the alarms.

Who did you hurt to get it? Lars? Piotre? Brigitte? she persisted. The last name caused Jason to pause and turn. Jules’s blood turned to ice.

She’s not hurt, he said, his face reddening. She’s...I drugged her. She’ll be fine in an hour or so.

Julia gaped at her friend. A desperate plan flashed into her head. She needed to drag his attention away from whatever he was trying to do.

You son of a bitch! she screamed. She’s pregnant, you asshole! What if what you gave her hurts the baby?

It was a stretch, and Julia felt sickened at her lie, but it was all she could think of to delay him. It succeeded. She relied on his grief at losing his own unborn child breaking through, and for a few brief moments, it did.

He looked at her, tears welling in his eyes, and for a second Julia knew she had reached him. The pain on his face was heartbreaking to behold, as if the grief of the last two years was at last being set free.

Jules started to walk over to her friend, reaching out to take him by the hand and let him cry the tears he so badly needed to, but she stopped abruptly. Looking at her friend felt like a foul breeze had blasted into the room, and Julia stiffened as Jason’s pupils widened. They kept expanding until all that remained was a pair of black orbs which bored into her soul.

This wasn’t Jason McNair anymore. There was no way her friend and mentor could provoke the feeling of absolute terror and revulsion she felt right at this moment. His face was cold and emotionless, but his eyes, though black as night, burnt like embers of hatred as he gazed contemptuously at her. She didn’t care about the experiment anymore. She just wanted to stay alive long enough to get to the door, and run.

She needn’t have worried about her immediate safety, however, as Jason – or the parasite lurking within him – turned to the console. His hands flashed impossibly fast across the keyboard. She watched as he locked out all external access. Elevators, stairwell access doors, all of them were locked as he overrode the protocols.

Dimly, she realized he shouldn’t be able to do this. Jason was a geek, like her. There was no way he should be able to access the mainframe security systems with the level of expertise he displayed.

With this task complete, he continued on with his original plan. Jules watched as the power levels on the capacitors feeding the particle beams pegged out at maximum. The control display was a sea of blinking-red alarms, as Jason prepared to carry out what looked to her to be a simultaneous collision of every operational beam.

All the safeties were locked out, and Julia knew a catastrophic reaction was imminent. Indeed, it appeared this was exactly what Jason wanted to happen, as she watched him fine tune the emitters.

There was only one way to prevent it, she realized, as her stomach turned to lead. She paused for half a second before a grim determination boiled up inside her, spurring her into action. She ran out of the door to the lab, half-expecting to be shot in the back. The elevators were locked out, she knew, but if only...

Please open, please, please, please...yes! She let out a small cry of triumph as her card unlocked the heavy doors of the collider aperture assembly chamber. They slid apart slowly, and she squeezed through.

The light forming in the centre of the aperture was approaching blinding levels, and she hadn’t thought to grab a pair of protective goggles on the way in. She’d been too busy grabbing the fire extinguisher. She paused to utter a prayer to whatever gods might exist.

Oh God, Katheryne...I’m so sorry, she thought, as she threw the metal canister with all her strength into the merging beams.

She imagined she heard a scream of fury and frustration, as the fireball engulfed her and the rest of the entire level, destroying everything in an inferno as hot as the fires of Hell.

THE DEEP FOREST

The shadow laughed. At least, it might have passed for mirth, if it had possessed a corporeal form. It was all so easy, it thought, drawing its consciousness back, away from the accursed Citadel and its swarms of Eldar.

It knew there was little risk of detection. The arts it projected were so subtle, even if it were suspected such a spell was being cast, finding out how, and by whom, would be next to impossible.

No, these People of the Lands no longer possessed the knowledge of the dark arts the shadow employed. This magic had existed within the Lands for eons before Tenybris rose up and tapped into the forbidden well of energy. It never occurred to anyone, not even after all this time, to wonder how Tenybris had gained the knowledge to grow so powerful in the path of black magic.

Even now, thousands of years later, everyone assumed his soul had become so twisted that the power he possessed naturally, through his link with the Lands, had turned to evil. They were all so terribly wrong.

As the people of the Lands were capable of such extremes of personality, so was the energy which flowed through it. It was true that as the Lands remained pure, the safety it granted the People prevented any evil influence from taking hold.

When Tenybris returned from Sanctuary so long ago, with the seeds of bitterness planted within his soul and the taint of murder on his hands, he brought a sickness to the Lands which lay dormant for over a century. As his dissatisfaction with Olumé grew, so the pit of hatred and envy and lust called out to him.

The dark energy intoxicated him, drawing him deeper as he fell farther into depravity. The pit grew along with him as they fed off each other's evil. The bond between them strengthened. A part of Tenybris’s essence, the part that would eventually gain sentience and become the shadow, crossed over to the pit.

Then the Veil fell. Tenybris fled in defeat, and the bond of mutual power was sundered.

The shadow was diminished to the edge of nonexistence, and it lurked in the darkest places it could find in this world filled with light and happiness.

The centuries passed as it fled every possible encounter which might reveal its existence. Eventually, over a century ago, it found its unwitting pawn, as he stumbled aimlessly through one of the densest parts of the forest.

The elf, Hallor, was lost. He wasn't wise in the craft of the hunt, and though he was an experienced rider, he was knocked out of the saddle by an unexpected branch, his horse taking advantage of the unexpected freedom to canter away.

The shadow had watched as the Faer folk led Hallor deeper and deeper into the woods, in their peculiar perception of fun.

As Hallor approached the shadow’s hiding place, it sensed the anger at the Faer folk which Hallor felt. It saw the ambition burning at the centre of him, the need to be greater than he was meant to be.

So the shadow reached out and planted its own seed, as had been done to Tenybris so long ago. It used guile and deception, because Hallor, though ambitious, was at his core a good person.

The shadow wove an intricate web of lies, so at the beginning Hallor believed it was the great Olumé himself talking to him in his dreams. Oh, how the shadow laughed. Even now, the fool still believed his ever more deplorable acts could be somehow justified by serving his dead leader.

Unfortunately, events had accelerated faster than the shadow anticipated. It still wasn't strong enough to grant Hallor the power to break the spell maintaining the Veil. He was about to commit his first murder, but it would take many more to develop  the dark energy required to draw his soul into true evil.

The Faer were coming for it, the Shadow knew this with certainty. If his slave could succeed in his plan, however, and the child could be stopped, the pitiful forces the Faer could throw his way would be crushed.

So what if the Magistry came along in support? They might find the Shadow a touch more powerful than they expected.

As it stretched its power outwards, the limbs and boughs of the nearby trees obeyed its will. Mighty oaks and elms were under its command, and the earth for miles around would be poisonous to any but his allies.

Let them come, the Shadow thought, smiling, and let them die!

THE GLADE

Hallor was furious. His blood boiled with hatred as he watched the council members rise to leave the chamber. His outward appearance was perfectly calm. He was quite adept at hiding his feelings, but this latest debacle strained his ability greatly. His muscles grew tight as he gripped the arms of his chair, seething with fury.

His daughter, his mind spat the word out, was on the verge of ruining the plans he'd spent over ten years putting into place.

The story she'd just finished recounting to his fellow council members, had the potential to unravel his efforts to assist the Great One, Olumé. There could be no greater honor than being tasked with such an important job. How dare she put this at risk?

Thousands of years ago, these Lands of Limitless Magic were hidden behind a barrier called the Veil, to prevent the magic of the land from being used by a creature called Tenybris.

Tenybris had been a friend of Olumé's since childhood, but he was twisted to evil and hatred, and for centuries succeeded in using the power of the Lands to conquer a huge part of the universe. These captured and broken people were fed to his slaves, who consumed their souls to feed their master’s insatiable appetite.

The unlucky ones were resurrected as slaves, their bodies intact but their souls corrupted and bent to Tenybris’s will.

Tenybris was an evil beyond redemption. When Olumé's great plan sprang into action and the Veil began to fall, moving the Lands and their magic out of all reality, all of Tenybris's power, all of his evil deeds were undone.

The souls he and his slaves had stolen were released to pass into the Never, to mix with the energies there and be reborn.

The souls of the people of the Lands were called home. Not merely the members of the Eldar, Faer Folk or Dwelves, who were perverted for Tenybris's use, but all the creatures he created to use as the tools and engines of war, were irresistibly drawn back to the world of their birth.

This world became the Veiled Lands. At the centre of it lay the Glade, an area of peace and tranquility, which remained so for eons.

There was a time, barely a century before,