Bound to the Abyss Read Free Page A

“Nightmare,” Ean breathed out, although how he had thought of the lie so quickly, he’d never know. He clenched his right fist to hide the rune. The figure at his side wordlessly picked up Ean’s limp body and put him back in bed. Ean was out soon after.
    * * *
    When Ean awoke, the green light from the first moon cast the room in a soothing glow. He stretched out his free left arm, feeling tired but good. Actually, he felt pretty great. Taking off his sling, he moved his right arm about, bending the elbow and twisting his wrist and forearm about. It wasn’t even sore! Next, he checked out the rune on his palm.
    The rune was still there, giving off a faint glow that mixed with the moonlight and turned his room a faint purple. However, there was more now. Small, dark blue lines ran out of the rune, moving along his palm and up his fingers. The lines wrapped around his hand and seemed to converge on the back, creating a swirling design. From there, smaller lines shot out and moved up the back of his fingers as well, ending at his fingernails.  
    “Well, that’s new,” Ean said to himself, turning his hand over and back repeatedly as he inspected the new addition on his hand.
    “That’s just the beginning.” Ean looked over and found Zin sitting on his dresser. “The longer that rune is on your body, and the more you use your power, the faster your strength will build. At least that’s what I gathered it was supposed to do. Oh, and sorry about lying to you about the pain. I figured it would just make you nervous if you knew it was coming.”
    “Oh, yeah. It was much better not knowing,” Ean half-heartedly threw his pillow at Zin, which the imp easily snatched out of the air. “So what’s different now? What can I do, summon stronger creatures? Actually be able to control the creatures I summon?”  
    “I have no idea. Let the magic settle into your body and then we can see what happens. Remember, all I know is that your power and tolerance should increase.” Zin jumped down off the dresser and made his way over to the bed. “There is one thing you can do right away.” He reached under the bed and pulled out Ean’s bag. The Book was still sitting on top of it.  
    “Wait!” Ean exclaimed. “Cleff didn’t see this stuff, did he?”
    “Nope, thankfully, when your body started jerking around, The Tome landed on the bag and I dragged them both and the finger under the bed before he broke in. How about you hide these things away again?”
    Ean grabbed The Tome and the finger, carefully placing both into the bag. He was about to start crawling under the bed to access the rune to his Pocket, when Zin’s raised hand stopped him. “No. Just use your hand. You should be able to create runes now just from your power alone. Just try visualizing your finger as a knife carving the rune.”
    Ean cast a funny look at Zin but went along with the imp’s suggestion. He sat on the floor and started to trace the same designs he used to open his Pocket onto the floor. As Zin predicted, the design began to glow with a faint light, rising a few inches off of the ground, before dissolving into the floor. When he had finished, the rune light grew, rising a few inches off of the ground before disappearing as the gateway to Ean’s own personal storage space opened up before him.  
    Ean couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t even needed to retrace the activating rune at the center of his design. This would be much more convenient in the future. He grabbed his bag with his scarred left hand and slowly lowered it into the Pocket. Once it was inside, he instinctively placed his right hand on the edge of the portal and tried willing it to close. As he expected, it closed on its own, replaced by the rune used to summon it. With a brush of his hand, the rune disappeared as well. The only light now came from the rune on his hand and the green moonlight coming through his window, the two mixing into a hazy combination of both colors.