Read Online Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One by Jason Tesar - Free Book Online Page B

when he saw a flicker of shadow among the reeds.  Moving cautiously toward the water’s edge, he found a sandy shore that had been cleared of vegetation .  It appeared that the reeds had been harvested from this side of the lake some time ago.  Looking left and right along the shore, he found nothing.  Then he noticed something sticking out of the water a few yards in.
    Choosing his steps carefully, he waded out into the shallows .  It didn’t take long before he found something that he’d never seen before and it gave him a sickening feeling in his stomach.  Just below the surface, human bones lay half-embedded in the sand.  Their lifeless skulls looked eternally up at the sky through hollow eye sockets.   The long, narrow bones of hands reached outward, as if pleading for someone to bring them back to life.
    Sariel shivered.  He had seen many deaths among the angelic races, but never a dead human.  Though not immortal, their lifespan was still nearly a thousand years.  In fact, the first humans were still alive to this day.  He’d only heard of them dying by accident and had never seen it first-hand .  Yet now he looked down on s everal and it broke his heart.  Sariel slowly s hifted his consciousness toward the E ternal and immediately , his body went rigid.
    All around him, demons swarmed, screaming and wailing with mournful cr ies.
    He backed up a few paces and stared in disbelief.
    Their appendages were thin , their abdomens distended, and they flailed about as if in pain.   T heir coloring, which was normally blacker than the darkest night, looked sickly gray with blotches of white and pale green .
    “ Ikthier manom hatda !  Ikthier manom hatda ! ” they screamed in discordant unison .
    Baffled by their use of the Kahyin language, and their presence in this realm, Sariel remained silent for a moment, watching them swarm over the human skeletons like flies over refuse.
    “What are you doing here?” he demanded finally .
    The demons shrank back in fear, but their initial reaction quickly changed.  “We might ask you the same question,” one retorted.
    “Yes, what are you doing here, C hild of L ight?” another asked.   “This is not your home.”
    Sariel ignored the questions.  “You have been banned from this realm,” he stated.
    First one, then the rest began to laugh.  It was a grotesque sound, like a wheezing bark.
    Even without their cooperation, Sariel was gleaning useful information.  He noted that the creatures ’ movements, though awkward by their perverted nature, also seemed confined to a certain location.  As their spiderous forms crawled, then floated through the air with the look of dissipating smoke, each one moved through a space that roughly coincided with one of the human bodies.   They passed through the air and even down into the water and earth beneath the bones, but never elsewhere.
    Their starved appearance also suggested that the source of their strength was depleted.  Sariel looked again to the dead humans lying beneath the water.
    Impossible!
    Long ago, the demons were prevented from exist ing in the same realm as humans.  From that point forward, their only interaction with the T emporal came through manipulation of a being’s spirit , which existed in a realm partially accessible to them.   But no human would, or even could , consciously yield their bodily existence to a demon.  Humans simply didn’t have control over their own spirit in that way, and most weren’t even aware of this part of themselves.
    Pick them up!  Pick them up!
    The demons’ words echoed in Sariel’s mind as his gaze remained fixed on the bones.   Just then, s omething in the sand caught the light of the midday sun.  Sariel squinted at the reflection, then quickly pulled a short, thin reed out of the marsh by its roots.  Snapping the stalk, he used the makeshift pole to reach toward the sand beneath the water.
    “No. No ! ” the demons screamed.  “Take it for