Soul Hosts

by Joseph Isaacs

  Chapter 28

  Madness

  I've waited a long time for this. -Belok

  --

  Worse than the cut, was waiting for the blade.

  Jazlyn wondered if there was any way to escape, leap over the bodies of Asgaroth and Dragonking, hop over the energy rings, jump on one of the sky wolves… no, not even in her wildest imaginings would that work. She was dead. So let her be dead. Let the waiting end.

  "My life isn’t worth much anyway,” Jazlyn thought. “My own father wants me dead. No one will miss me.”

  The blue stone on her necklace warmed against her skin.

  "Your life is worth much," said the woman's voice. "Jazlyn, you are more precious than gold."

  "Mother? Is that truly you?" Jazlyn asked, grabbing at her necklace. She was glad her mother would be there. Her mother knew death, could help her step gently into its dark embrace, meet her on the other side of the Flaming Gates.

  "I am here, my joy,” she thought. “You are loved."

  There was no fighting the waves of tears that came like a storm, one trickling into the next, tiny tributaries releasing an ocean of grief. “Mother, I’ve missed you so.”

  “I wish I could have been there for you, Jazlyn. You’ve become such a brave woman. You’ve made me very proud.”

  Was this really her mother she was communicating with? How could it be, if her mother was dead? What happened to someone who died? If you could contact them through some medium like a necklace, did that mean they weren’t truly dead, but spirits? Or was it just what she imagined her mother would say if she were still alive? Still, illusion or not, it felt blessedly good to hear her mother’s voice.

  Flickers positioned the captured magi around Asgaroth. Unlike Jazlyn herself, who stood upright, the other prisoners were laid horizontally, left wrists stretched towards the Bone King’s entrapped body.

  “One mage from each of the known schools of magic,” Asgaroth said. “The same blood magic they used to trap me, reversed.”

  An image flitted through Jazlyn’s mind of the magi, led by Centuron and her children in their silver armor, bursting through the doors of Dark Fist. Asgaroth had already sent his sons to safety. There was nothing to do now but face his destiny. He pushed the image from Jazlyn’s mind.

  “That is all past now, and an eternity of tomorrows await me,” Asgaroth said. “When the spell is undone I can will my soul back into my own body. My sons have done well.”

  The Dracon turned to the Flickers. "Daggers. First the ones around Asgaroth. Then my daughter. Cut them, but do not kill them.”

  The Flickers drew out slender blades turned emerald by the moonlight. Jazlyn shivered at the sight of them, but the words ‘do not kill’ echoed in her mind.

  “They aren't going to kill me, after all!” Jazlyn thought.

  “Not yet,” Asgaroth said. “First they need to release me. The magi need to be alive for that. Once I am free, it is then you’ll die.”

  “Kill a helpless girl. And you claim you aren’t evil?” Jazlyn thought.

  "You'll leave her alone," her mother thought.

  The Flickers’ knives slashed across the left wrist of Dade and Doblin. They gasped in pain. Soon the blood was flowing from all of the magi surrounding Asgaroth’s body, eating away the amber Guardian snakes surrounding the Immortal. The wriggling bands dissipated, one after another.

  The tall mustachioed Flicker drew a dirk from his scabbard and approached Jazlyn, as another dark-haired guard held her still from behind. She tried to squirm free, but the guard’s grasp was firm.

  The dark-haired Flicker whispered to the mustachioed one, "This whole thing is crazy. This is the Daughter Draconi!"

  The mustachioed Flicker barked. “Do your duty!” A sadistic glee glimmered in the corner of his eye. She bit her lip, refusing to give him the pleasure of crying out. It was quick. Blood dribbled into the trench that ran towards the Immortals. She wondered if the Dragonking would be freed as well, but then she remembered Asgaroth telling her Darius was captured using his own God-weapon, the Sword of Luminescence, not with blood magic.

  Her father chanted, "Power inside me, these boundaries we shall break, for these are the souls I've come to take."

  Jazlyn felt like a fishing hook had been shoved down her throat and was yanking Asgaroth out of her. This hurt far more than the knife wound. She screamed, struggling against her bonds. She gasped as Asgaroth's mist slipped off her lips. The Dracon was a midwife of death, coaxing darkness from an unholy womb.

  Asgaroth’s mist was far darker than the ones emerging from the other magi. His inky-black mist hovered in midair. Was it because he was an Immortal, that his appeared different?

  Asgaroth was out of Jazlyn’s mind now, drifting towards his own body. For the first time in her life, she and Asgaroth were separated. It was a relief in one sense: no more headaches, no more voice telling her to tear the bones from people. On the other hand, it felt oddly lonely. She was accustomed to the feel of two souls inside her, even if one of them wasn’t a kindred spirit. Now there was vast emptiness. No, not quite. She still felt her mother’s presence, but it was fading slowly, becoming a distant echo.

  “Hold on Jazlyn,” her mother thought. Jazlyn wasn’t sure of how Death Speech worked exactly, but apparently her mother wasn’t a soul mist, for she was not being yanked from Jazlyn’s body. Asgaroth had been the one with the Death-speech. How was she still able to hear her mother with Asgaroth gone?

  Asgaroth’s Guardian shield dissolved around his black-armored body. His mist headed towards the Bone King. Slowly, like creeping doom, it slid between his lips. Then, his dark eyes flickered open. A smile appeared upon his cruel yet handsome face.

  Her own soul began to emerge from her lips, but with a gesture, the Dracon cut the connection. Perhaps, her father didn’t want her dead after all. Or more likely her own soul was too worthless to bother to absorb. She possessed no magic of her own. She was just a normal girl, worthless to someone like her father.

  Jazlyn lay on the ground panting, watching the blood trickle from her wound.

  The dark-haired Flicker bandaged her wound. “Forgive me, Daughter Draconi.”

  He was apologetic, but that hadn’t stopped him from cutting an innocent girl. They weren’t bandaging Doblin, Zonalia, and the others though. They had to kill them to take their souls.

  The Dracon turned to his guards and gestured at the crowd of magi on the other side of the inner ring: Rif, his mother, and dozens more. The pale-faced prisoner shivered in the cold draught.

  "Now, cut the rest.” The Dracon’s shrill voice echoed off the crystalline walls. “Do not interfere with me while I suck all these souls in. Any disturbance will be punishable by death. "

  Royal Companion, Oz Strongfist, stomped his foot into the marble ground. “As orders the Dracon."

  The Flickers stomped in reply. “So shall we obey!”

  "How can they be so heartless?” Jazlyn wondered. “They’re murdering hundreds of innocents. Will no one stand up to my father?"

  "People follow mindlessly.” Jazlyn’s mother thoughts were growing softer, fading. “I believed in your father once. I was a sheep."

  Tears dripped down Jazlyn’s cheeks. Tears and blood and soul mists, everything was pouring out of her today. “I love you, mother. I’m sorry I failed you.”

  “You didn’t fail me, Jazlyn. I’m more proud of you than I can say.” She may have said more, but her voice became a distant whisper.

  On the other side of the inner ring, the Flickers' daggers rose and fell, screams of pain, and pools of blood flooding to the crystalline floor.

  The mists of one of the magi broke from his body, followed by a second. Corpses stared lifelessly at the ceiling. Jazlyn felt her stomach twist in horror. The severed mists moved towards the Dracon.

  The Dracon took in one mist through his mouth, then another, and another. Jazlyn had almost gone insane just having Asgaroth inside of her. How
would her father fare with the minds of a hundred magi? He was mad to think he could absorb so many souls.

 

  --

  “The Dracon is mad,” Rif thought. “I’m losing my mind with half a dozen souls and he has already absorbed thrice that number and still more are coming.“

  “And soon he’ll have yours and mine as well," Arth said.

  The Dracon continued to chant, though his voice sounded slurred. “Inside a pain I feel, come to me souls that I would steal.”

  The Dracon swallowed a soul, and then another, and another. Or were they swallowing him? Drool dripped from the Dracon’s lips and his eyes bulged. His shrill voice warped and broken, yet he continued to chant. He fell to his knees, and half rolled off the dais, but his guards dared not touch him. He leaned against the dais, on his knees now, but still the sounds poured from his mouth, along with spittle and drool. His guards exchanged glances, but did nothing.

  Rif was one of the last to be cut. All around him mages were bleeding and groaning as the mists emerged from their gagged mouths. The chanting, the groaning, the heart stone beating- it seemed as if they were all performing in a perverse choir of disharmony.

  A dark-haired Flicker approached his face looked pale and unhappy. Rif sensed that the man was ill at ease with his orders, yet still his blade dripped with the blood of magi.

  I deserve this, Rif thought, I killed those girls. I’m a murderer.

  Rif closed his eyes, not wanting to watch as the blade bit into his upper arm. In a haze of dizziness. Then, as quickly as it came, the wound subsided its throbbing. He watched a mist drift from his body- he couldn’t be sure whose it was. Perhaps one of the women he’d murdered. The gag did not hold the mist, which moved with the freedom only clouds possessed, unbound by shape or density. He craned his neck to the side and caught sight of his mother. His mother's mist was hanging at her lips as well.

  “Not my mother,” Rif thought. “Please, Source, spare her. Please.”

  Night lay on the floor next to his mother. Her face was deathly pale and she kept whimpering. “Grandmother. Where are you? Grandma… you promised.”

  The blood sizzled against the amber snakes eating away at the rest of the field around Asgaroth. Rif watched horrified, as the Immortal stood up for the first time in two millennia, his bone armor rattling. His coal black eyes searched the room.

  Flickers were shouting in dread as the Raslonians cheered the same words, “Asgaroth has risen! The Lord of Bones has risen!”

  --

  Ec whispered to Verica. "Go, child. Your time is now, while all eyes are on Asgaroth. Free the magi. The Source will guide you."

  It was indeed chaos on the inner ring and outer ring. The guards seemed to be petrified and excited at the same time.

  "I hope the Source knows what it's doing," Verica thought, slipping into shadow form. She leapt from the outer ring to the inner, feeling the energy snakes nipping the bottoms of her feet with electric tongues.

  She rushed to a bleeding warlock. “I’m here to help you. Don’t move or make any noise, or the guards won’t notice.” She loosened his gag.

  The pale-faced mage whispered, "Who is there? Are you an angel?"

  “That’s the first time I’ve been called an angel,” Verica thought. “Like it better than abomination.”

  “When the wraiths first came to this world, the Ancients worshipped us as angels,” Lukor said.

  “Lukor, do you think this is a good time for a lecture?” Verica untied the warlock's bonds. The mage was missing several fingers. Verica felt a shiver run through her. “The wraiths are the angels, and us humans, the devils.”

  She wove through the guards and prisoners towards Jazlyn. “Hold on, Jaz. I’m going to get you out of here.” Verica managed to undo the stubborn knot binding Jazlyn's wrists.

  Jazlyn pulled the gag out of her mouth. “Mouse, is that you?”

  “No, it’s your other invisible friend.”

  “Oh, her. Thought so.”

  Verica hugged Jazlyn, inhaling her scent. Shadow tears raced down her invisible cheeks.

  “I’m alright,” Jazlyn said. “Save the others. Go.”

  Verica looked around. The soldiers' knives rose and fell, as if conducting an orchestra of murder. The Dracon must have sucked over a score of souls by now. He was on his knees, drooling.

  If there was an underworld, this was it. Still, the Heart Stone beat on.

  Asgaroth strode towards Dakarth, his bone armor clacking. Dakarth moved to embrace Asgaroth, but the Immortal held up a gauntleted hand to stop him.

  "The Sword," Asgaroth said, his voice so powerful, it echoed even over the cacophony of murder.

  Dakarth handed a black blade to Asgaroth. The blade looked as if it was filled with a starry night. Inside it were dozens of dots of light dancing.

  "Wait and watch, until I order otherwise," Asgaroth commanded the Raslonian soldiers.

  He held the blade aloft.

  “The Sword of Night was Asgaroth's God-weapon,” Lukor said, “He brought with him when he fell from the sky in his metal box.”

  Verica stared at the sword in the Dracon’s sheath. The Dracon's weapon had been the famed Sword of Luminescence. It was the only weapon that could stand up to the Sword of Night.

  Four Flickers with spears charged towards Asgaroth. Asgaroth's black blade broke through their spears, leaving them splintered, broken sticks. A smile played upon the Bone King's lips.

  --

  Rif could do nothing more than watch. He watched Thunderstone's mist leave him and fly towards the Dracon. He watched the blood drain from his wound. He watched his mother’s mist rise to her own lips, tenuously clinging to her mouth. He watched as the world around him transformed into a hell worse than his worst nightmare.

  Rif squirmed against his bonds. There had to be some way free. He had to save his mother.

  "Please, Source save us,” Rif thought. “I'll do anything. Anything. Be merciful."

  No mercy was shown. Rif's mother’s mist broke off and flew towards the Dracon. “No,” Rif thought. “This can’t be happening.”

  “Let go,” Belok said, though his voice was growing fainter. “You don’t need to feel this pain. Let me take control. Let go.”

  Rif watched in horror as his mother’s body grew still and quiet, her soul mist entering the Dracon’s greedy, drooling mouth.

  Rif felt as if the ground had been pulled beneath his feet, leaving only a gasping abyss into which he could fall for eternity. When his father and sisters had been taken by the slavers, his life had fallen apart. This was even worse. Rif had always been closest with his mother and now she was gone to a place from which there was no return. He might as well die as too.

  “You should’ve listened to me,” Belok said. “The quickest blade rules.”

  Genika said something, but her voice was faint. Then it too disappeared, drifting off towards the Dracon. Rif tugged helplessly at the ropes.

  “Let me take over,” Belok said. “It’s too painful. Too hard. I’ll give it back. Just let me help you for a moment.”

  The pain was too much for Rif. He let go.

  A girl’s voice spoke to Rif…to Belok… from a shadow.

  “Don’t be scared. I’m a friend, here to help you. My name’s Verica,” the disembodied voice said. He couldn't see her, but he could feel his bonds falling away. Belok recalled Wayden telling Rif about seeing Verica in wraith-form with Mistress Night. Verica had such pretty red curls and she was being so kind to him. It would be nice to give her the gift.

  “I've got to go free the others,” Verica said, and she left him.

  Belok stared at Rif’s mother’s body. It was cold and still. Rif had cared about her, but she had purple hair. She wasn’t worthy.

  Belok rubbed his sixteen-year old wrists where the ropes had chaffed them. He liked his new young body. There was a cut on it though. He ripped off a piece of cloth to bind the wound. Cutting
was the old way of giving the gift. He had a better way now. Cleaner just to take the soul whole. His eyes fell on Jazlyn. So pretty, fiery red hair.

  "The Dracon’s not the only one who can suck souls," Belok thought. "I’ve waited a long time for this."