A Power Beyond Man by Ryan Matthew Harker (free reads txt) 📕

harshest conditions and after a lifetime of putting himself between a rock and a hard place had developed an iron constitution and the unshakable will to do whatever was required of him, even if what was required was a one man declaration of war against one of his very own unconscious fears grown into a hellish, energy devouring demon of tremendous power and capacity for destruction.
He knew a man must claim his karma or his karma will claim him but without knowledge of why the Spirit Render had become manifest he had no way to claim it. The first goal in this quest must be the uncovering of the Spirit Render’s origins and the only way the man knew to do this was to travel into the past, his past went east.
Eventually the foot path disappeared into a larger network of game trails and not long after the man found himself in territory he had not been in for most of fifteen years. It was at once familiar but not, old but new, and he fell back on a sense of direction that had not failed him since he was a wee lad. Smiling at the memory of a much younger him wandering an old dirt road behind his families homestead the man became briefly adrift in a sea of time.
Gazing about in rapture he took in his surroundings, the green of the forest vibrant and full of life, insects abuzz and the discordant harmony of splendidly feathered birds joyfully adding their melodies to the ethereal rhythm imposed by Mother Nature. Wonder of the type only a child can feel for his surroundings filled him up as bright sunlight flashed through the trees, warming the ground with its clean touch so that steam rose from the rich soil and lush ground cover. When his family had finally pulled their old but carefully maintained wagon up beside him their worry confused him and more than a little disappointed he was they had come to whisk him away from the forests beauty.
Having succumbed to a nearly trance-like state during the course of this memory the man barely reacted in time to save his life. Twisting to the left after hearing the loud pop the head of the homemade mace whooshed dangerously close to his head. Gutter spikes and corkscrewed chunks of metal bonded to the softball sized iron bearing would have made short work of the grey matter residing within his cranium and he was glad to have avoided it.
Drawing his knife as he twisted found him armed and squared off against his opponent but the red fire flashing from the other warrior’s eyes told him he faced no mere mortal. It was true, if he had any remaining doubts this resolved them, he and the Spirit Render were definitely connected. There was no other explanation for how quickly the fiend had located him. He had only been traveling the better part of a day. None of that mattered at the moment though. The ghost, was it a ghost, came at him again, and again the business end of the mace came rushing through his personal space.
The man knew he would be unable to keep up a dance of dodge for long and sought an immediate analysis of his opponent. What he discovered was not to his liking. Big as an ox, fast as a snake, and mean as hell; the man stole brief glance at his knife and felt underprepared for what lay ahead.
“Do your worse demon spawn,” he whispered under his breath.
Molten plasma surged from the hellish warrior's eyes as it lunged forward. Spilling out behind it the liquid fire trailed through the air with its passage and fell to the ground. Twin lines of fire ignited across the thick undergrowth and burned everything it touched to ash in an instant. The man sidestepped and plunged his long knife in the warrior’s chest. Leverage from the creature’s passage caused the blade to snap off at the hilt and he lamented the loss of a fine weapon.
The warrior bellowed in pain as it passed and the man briefly wondered what was going to happen now that he was unarmed. Fear at the thought of imminent death did little to shake him, a lifetime of surviving trials and travails had allowed him to make peace with his maker at an early age. No, what bothered him about dying prematurely was the knowledge his present task would remain incomplete and the Spirit Render would have the final laugh. His heart grew heavy but his resolve never faltered as he again turned to face his opponent.
He had had nothing to fear.
The man’s eyes made contact with his adversary’s form as its momentum came to an end and the demon warrior crumpled slowly to its knees. He was relieved and only a little surprised when after tumbling forward to its face the warrior then evaporated into a dense cloud of noxious gas and dissipated into the atmosphere.
The man walked over to where the demon had laid and searched the thick vegetation until he found his broken knife blade. He hunkered down to pick up the blade and examined it closely. It had snapped clean from the handle and he decided it would still find service as some kind of weapon. He wasn’t far from Cougar Country and he knew he would need to be armed to survive crossing the feline controlled terrain. He tenderly wrapped the blade with a strip torn from his tattered cloak and deposited it along with the rest of his sparse belongings in the small bundle of his hobo’s staff.


CHAPTER TWO


The Bright Land was once a glorious place full of joyful laughter, friendly neighbors, and warm sunshine. It was a thriving community of small metropolises, each of which contained a portion of the combined knowledge of the entire region, each in their own a wondrous place of learning.
All the Bright Land’s various fine folks were innately intelligent and industrious; everyone worked to contribute to the betterment of their society and was glad to do so. The Bright Land was full of peace and love and friendship. No one ever got angry, or sad, and no one ever got sick. Until the day their young goddess fell ill.
Rumor had been going around for some time. Little snippets here and there at first, and if there had been anyone to observe conditions from an outsider’s perspective this would have been their first clue something was wrong in the Bright Land.
Rumor is usually a sign of communal discontent and petty jealousy. A person who is wholly content with their lot in life and truly loves who they are would not feel the need to gossip over their life paths or speculate on the choices and actions of others. But the young goddess had already started to wilt and so had the constitutions of her people. So the rumors flew and soon enough they touched on the possibility of the goddess’s ill health.
The grist mill ground on for only so long before the people forgot even to give purpose to their gossip. For as the goddess wilt crept slowly into actual disease so did the minds of her people decline from intellectual superiority to mental degradation. Only by divine arts passed on throughout the generations did those that cared for the goddess keep enough of their morals and values about them long enough to place their young charge into stasis. Soon after even divine arts were not enough and the ruling cast of the Bright Land faded into social decline along with the rest of its inhabitants...

“I only want to be loved!” a young street urchin, swaddled in rags stained with the sweat and filth of going on one hundred days, pleaded with outstretched hands to the tumultuous crowd. “Please, please what’s wrong with you all?”
The crowd roared and cried out fiendishly at the child. In a tattered leather vest, pantaloons, and a red sash around his waist a man used a chipped cutlass to scare the urchin toward the corner of perpendicular walls. “Yeargh, ha ha!"
“No! Leave me alone. Why are you doing this?” the urchin dodged the cutlass and fell to the trampled sod. The small bundle of dirty rags shook with uncontrolled sobs and tears traced clean trails through the unseen grime on its face as it curled up into a ball in the grass matted chocolate pudding muck.
“Why?” the pantaloon wearing man mocked as he gesticulated his cutlass wildly at the mob. “This brazen little squirt comes inta our province crying about love,” he spat the word from his throat hole like an unwanted loogie. “An wants ta know why we be so persecutin’! Any of ya care to enlighten this poor dear before execution?"
“I-don’t-even-know-where-I-am!” the child wailed.
From somewhere in the back of the mob a blind old crone cackled with eccentric gaiety, “Where I am, where I am, where I am!” This mad chatter sent some of those around her into fits of hysterics and the entire mob shifted about unsteadily.
Pantaloon‘s lips cracked to reveal a three toothed grin and he turned back, raising his sword high above the defenseless orphan as he did so. “You’re in Hell!” he hissed and brought the blade down for a killing stroke.
Mid swing a rock struck poor Pantaloon behind the ear and down he went, fast as shot strung line in a fish pond. “Hurry, run!” a squeaky voice called at the stone’s impact.
Tear filled eyeballs peered from between swathing. Bright green and sparkling they saw the still form of Pantaloon crumpled in a heap before them. Bouncing from the fetal position in an instant the raggedy bundle sprang away from the stunned mob. “Over here!” came a cry. Altering course the sprinting dirtball bobbed and weaved around the edge of the reawakening mob and barreled between two houses.
A shadow detached from its fellows and ran alongside the urchin. A stolen glance with emerald irises gave a blurred impression of another flea bitten, lice ridden, rag wrapped bag of bones street urchin keeping step. “We’ve gotta hurry!” the other urchin called as the mob’s nasty curses and dire threats began piling up behind them. The twins put on an extra burst of speed, rounded a corner and dropped behind some long forgotten debris. Emerald Irises looked through similar folds of dirty clothe, into eyes a kind and gentle brown. After a few moments of angry threats growing in volume the mob stampeded past their camouflaging pile of garbage.
Emerald Irises tackled Gentle Brown with a bear hug beyond proportion. “Oh my God, thank you, thank you, thank you!"
“Wow, that was close!” gentle brown exhaled happily and pushed the ecstatic Emerald Irises away. “Slow down wouldja? We’re not safe yet. Follow me.” Dragging the other urchin to wobbly feet, Gentle Brown took off down the street in the opposite direction from the mob.
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