by D N Meinster
"Horses," Rikki said.
"Correct. Dead horses raised a few eyebrows, but most shrugged it off. However, they were not all I needed. I could bring back the dead, sure, but the Thalians would only be average lackeys. I could have just as well taken control of five guardians. I needed suitable minions. And Milo let me achieve that.
"Milo's soul was touched by the Goddess, gifted with magic. He was my only option, seeing as I still needed you. So I took the young mage to the cemetery, split his soul into five pieces, and placed the torn bits into each of my resurrected Thalians."
Rikki couldn't control the tears that began pouring down her face. This was not true. Hatswick wouldn't kill Milo. He cared for him. Why was he saying these horrible things?
"This corrupt magic was unpredictable, and the mage's abilities manifested themselves in different ways in each of my resurrected. But it was sufficient. They were what I needed them to be."
Rikki covered her ears. "Stop," she begged him. "You didn't. You didn't."
"It's not as if I enjoy sacrificing young boys. But his soul gave magic to the servants of Neanthal. It was a worthwhile sacrifice."
"He was only a boy!" she screamed. She held out her arm for her staff, but it couldn't break free of Hatswick's grasp.
"No, I can't let you have this yet," Hatswick said, clamping down on Amelia's staff.
"Why did you even give it to me? Why did you lock away Neanthal? Why are you a sin mage?" Hatswick was only spinning Rikki's mind about, creating more questions. No person had ever caused her as much hurt as Hatswick was doing. The excruciating pain could not be contained, and she continued to cry while she shouted at him.
"I suppose I can tell you now," Hatswick said gleefully. "You know how you always blamed that bronze staff of yours for your inadequate ability? Well, you were right. I specifically enchanted that staff to hold you back. Couldn't have you growing as powerful as Amelia. It would have put my entire endgame in jeopardy."
Rikki stretched out her hand and from it a green fireball erupted and flew at the Grand Mage.
Hatswick flicked at it with his staff and it dissipated. "Exactly, my dear. I had to keep control of you; keep tabs on you. Any volatility was a risk. I needed you here, for this moment, and I succeeded."
"Keep tabs? You were controlling Phyllis that night!" Rikki yelled.
"More than that night. And not exclusively for you. But I knew you would try to escape. Again. Do you realize how much anxiety you caused me? Nevertheless, you did what I needed. You destroyed Amelia's barrier."
"You wanted me to do that?"
"It did more than keep you in. It kept my sin mages out. And only the staff that created it could undo it. You were a marvelous accessory. You'll be as much responsible for Neanthal's release as myself. He might even keep you around if you pledge yourself to him."
Rikki couldn't take it. She had inadvertently helped the Thalians. She was going to be responsible if she didn't stop him. She had to stop Hatswick. Whether it was really him or not, this Grand Mage was going to get his comeuppance. She only needed to get her staff back.
"Hatswick," she said. "It still doesn't make sense why you would have helped Amelia lock Neanthal away."
"That was then," he said. "And it's getting weary having to explain everything to you. Why don't you have a guess while we wait?"
"Wait for what?"
Hatswick shook his head. "Come on, give me your hypothesis."
"I'd like to say you're possessed, but even if you were you wouldn't tell me."
"You can do better than that," Hatswick said to her.
Rikki thought for a moment, trying to form some logic through her thoughts of heartache and betrayal. "Jealousy, consistently increasing over hundreds of years. That's a drawback to a long life."
"Yes, I've found our negative emotions tend to swell as the years go by. I never enjoyed being second best. Sure, I surpassed all others, except for one. Amelia. Your great-grandmother. She who displayed her might with a crystal around her neck." Hatswick glared at that very necklace which was wrapped around Rikki' neck. "Pompous bitch."
He pointed his staff at the necklace, and it began to tighten around Rikki's neck. She pulled at the silver band, trying to hold it back before it could choke her completely. As she kept tugging on it, Hatswick propped his staff back up and the necklace loosened, returning to its original size. He ripped it off her and sent it sprawling across the room.
"Aergo loved her, assigning her tasks that I was more than capable of," Hatswick continued as Rikki caught her breath. "Giving her titles that I deserved just as much. I was second best in his eyes, even though he was always first in mine. I had served other kings, but he surpassed all of them. Why couldn't I surpass all others? What was it that made her so damn great?"
"Not being you," Rikki stated. "Not being a Thalian." Her hands slowly deserted her neck, and she considered striking him again for the blasphemous cacophony that erupted from his chapped lips. But there was no way she could stand up to him, even if she had her staff. He was still the most powerful mage in Kytheras, and even though she was related to her, Rikki was not Amelia.
Hatswick smirked. "Neanthal revealed the answer to us. He was the one willing to tell us the truth of our world. We are all pawns of the Goddess Magenine, and she gets to decide who is the best. She gifts mages their abilities. She empowers kings. She pulls her strings from some Bastion while we here in Kytheras suffer. I have always been jealous of Amelia, but my hate has only ever been directed at Magenine. And when I open the Door, She'll know She chose the wrong mage to make second best."
"Amelia's gone!" Rikki cried out. "You are the best now. Come on, Hatswick, you have to be smarter than this."
"No man is above revenge. It may not be the intelligent decision, but it is the most fulfilling."
"Neanthal will tear down the world!"
"Neanthal wants a world where all mages are equal," Hatswick replied. "Where they are all the best, the most powerful, that they can possibly be. Anything less would be useless to him. He does not desire tiers like the Goddess, only a singular plane."
"She gave you those powers," Rikki reminded him.
"Her mistake," Hatswick said.
Rikki couldn't even think about turning against the Goddess who granted her this magic. How could Hatswick? Perhaps it was not jealousy but insanity that had decayed his mind over hundreds of years. He was the oldest mage to ever live. Though his outside appearance was not decrepit, she could not behold the state within.
"You really are a sin mage," Rikki said, telling herself that more than she was telling Hatswick. It was still hard to comprehend. She had been trained all her life by a sin mage. Or rather, maybe she had been held back all her life by a sin mage, because of who she was related to.
"I should have been one sooner," Hatswick sighed. "Then I might not have to bother with this tricky undertaking."
"How are you going to open the Door?" Rikki asked, hoping to learn the details of his plan. There could still be a chance to stop him.
"I had five replicas made of the Keys that locked him away," Hatswick relayed. "We will both enchant them together, exactly as I did with Amelia so many centuries ago."
"Like I'll help you."
"You will," Hatswick said, the corners of his mouth rising slightly. "But this corrupt magic requires an extra touch." He turned his head to a slumbering Leidess. "Her soul is special, unlike any other left inside this realm. With it, I will bind the replicas to the Door, and then they will open it."
Rikki focused on Leidess. What was so special about her? She only knew that Aros cared deeply for her, and there was no way she was going to let Hatswick use her for corrupt magic. She was going to stop him. She had to.
Rikki slid off the top of the sarcophagus, her body finally returned to its normal weight and flexibility. She stood up, tall as she possibly could, though she was still bending her neck to look Hatswick in the eye. "By the Goddess, you will never open that door."<
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"So undisciplined," Hatswick stated. "You always acted like you were above the rules. It was obvious you inherited Amelia's arrogance. I kept my eye on you because your volatility was a potential liability to my plan. Every time you tried to escape, I feared that the next time you might succeed. All I wanted to do was control you. And now, I can."
The outline of another person appeared beside Hatswick, and their details were filled in rapidly as they faded into being inside the room. Spira looked the exact same as she did during their last encounter, though there was a noticeable bruise on her chin.
"No!" Rikki screamed, she tried to use her magic to lift up the lid of the nearest coffin.
But Hatswick swung his staff and Rikki dropped to the ground, disrupting her attempt.
"You see, I knew you'd be too powerful for just one mage to handle. Auspiciously, Spira's ability manifested as mind control. Together, we will make you do exactly what we want."
"Please, Hatswick!" she begged before the world around her turned fuzzy. Her body went limp, though she could still make out all that was happening around her. She was solely a spectator now, as the sin mages used her body for their terrible goal.
"Uterak and Ale are dead," Spira quietly informed her superior.
"Magenine tries to counter us," Hatswick growled. "Let's ensure their sacrifice was not in vain, shall we?"
Rikki's body rose back up, though she kept willing it to disobey. Her arm reached out, and Hatswick placed Amelia' staff in its grasp. She couldn't feel the metal rod, but she tried to use it to break free of their power. But her staff couldn't hear her any better than the rest of her body.
Hatswick reached into his cloak and removed a clump of five skeleton keys. He let go of them and moved his hand back to his side, but the keys remained floating in the air. He lined them up side-by-side, allowing a better look at them. They weren't much larger than average keys, and they didn't sparkle like new, but instead had spots of dark black and what may have been dried blood. They also contained so many intricate twists and turns it was almost inconceivable that they could be perfect replicas of keys Hatswick hadn't seen in three hundred years.
Hatswick lined his staff up with the replicas, while Rikki's body was forced to mimic him. Both of their channeling crystals began to glow bright white, and the light shot out from the staffs and wrapped around the replicas like rope. The light looped and looped, hopping from key to key, until both of their beams were interlocked and indistinguishable from another.
Rikki placed her free hand on the crystal, and Hatswick did the same. The channeling crystals suddenly turned a harsh shade of red, which streamed from the staff and consumed the white light. All that remained of the light had become red, and it ensnared the keys before completely vanishing.
Hatswick held out his hand and the replicas drifted into his palm. He returned the newly enchanted keys to the inside of his cloak before turning his attention to Spira.
"Don't dawdle," Hatswick ordered. "Kill her quickly and come to the Door. We cannot underestimate what Magenine's stooges may be capable of." He approached Leidess and placed his hand on her. "When I leave, you won't be able to maintain your hold on her mind. Consider that when determining how painful you want her death to be."
With those words, Hatswick shifted out of the tombs, taking Leidess with him.
Chapter Twenty
Conscience and Consensus
Aros was all too familiar with death. He had spent innumerable seasons without his father. When he was younger, he would wake up every morning and note how many days it had been since his father had passed on, but at some point that number became too high to remember. His life went on, with that empty space his father left them filled up by himself, his mother, and the Kerus. He was always aware of the absence, but it became passive knowledge, like knowing the sun was going to rise each morning.
Death had affected Aros, but he never anticipated affecting death. It was not something that was supposed to be in his control; it was just supposed to happen. He would go about his life, but one day the Goddess would call him, or someone he knew, to the Bastion. That was the natural order in Kytheras. Murder was unnatural.
There was no evidence left of Doren's victim. Ale's body had vanished, with not even a faint wisp of smoke left behind. But Aros' victim was still there, lying face down in blood-drenched sand. Aros couldn't look away from the body, though he deeply desired to look at anything else. He didn't want that body to be there; he didn't want to have killed someone.
Uterak's death may have been justified, and it may have been necessary, yet it felt wrong. It didn't matter that he had been resurrected. There was still life inside him, and Aros had taken that away. He had committed an unnatural act, and he wanted to take it back.
Maybe they could have stopped these Thalians without killing them. They had stopped Spira well enough. But there were only so many possible outcomes when all one possessed was weapons without magic. That weapon was going to either maim or kill.
Aros studied his clawblades, the pristine shine of the Ligold lost behind scratches and blood stains. He did not make these swords for battle. They were not supposed to stab or pierce human flesh. They were for looking at or employing in games.
Why did he do it? Why did he pierce Uterak's head with his blade? He should have aimed better and tried taking out his eyes instead of taking his life. Why hadn't he stopped himself? Why hadn't the voice stopped him?
"Is this what you wanted?" Aros asked, loud enough for Doren to hear. "Did you want me to become this?"
Aros prepared his clawblades for combat, expecting the source of the voice to finally materialize.
"What's going on, Aros?" Doren asked.
But Aros ignored the Prince, instead focused on getting a response from the disembodied voice. "Answer me!" His swords swung wildly around his body. Maybe the source of the voice was invisible and he could still hit it with his swords.
Aros' clawblades were stopped mid-swing by Doren's shield. He stood in front of his companion, with their weapons frozen on top of each other's. "Who do you want to answer you?"
Aros wasn't ready to tell Doren what he was hearing. He trusted him enough in battle, but could he trust him in the aftermath? The Prince might have him locked away in the dungeons if he knew what he was screaming at. But perhaps he didn't need to tell him about the voice to make him understand.
"We're murderers," Aros stated, pulling his blades off the shield and returning them to his back.
"We did what we had to," Doren replied, though a quiver in his voice shattered any feigned confidence the statement was supposed to project.
"Have you ever...?"
"No," Doren said. "Never."
"How do we go on?" Aros murmured, hoping for some kingly advice from the Prince.
"We have to," Doren said. "We have to stop the Thalians. We have to save Leidess!" He put his shield in its sling.
Leidess. What would she think of him now that he was a killer? She was adamantly against violence. He remembered a rant she had, going over how almost each war in a certain history text could have been avoided. He wished he had been smart enough to avoid this.
"Mourn not for these abominations," the voice finally spoke to him. "Your actions were not unnatural, for you have only returned them to their natural state."
"It's still a life," Aros whispered, turning away for Doren.
"If you care about saving lives, then delay no further, for the Corruption's release is imminent."
Aros knew Neanthal could be released but stopping him may not only have been beyond their abilities, it may have also required more death. He did not want to partake in it. "We have to go back," he informed Doren.
"Back?"
"To Castle Tornis," Aros clarified, facing his companion. "We'll tell your father and get an army to stop them."
"There might not be time for that," Doren said.
"There isn't," the voice added.
"We cannot stop them ou
rselves," Aros contended. "Just the two of us? Against the Grand Mage and his fellow Thalians?"
"I still don't want to believe that about Hatswick," Doren said.
"Either way, we need help. Rikki's not even with us. We don't have magic and we don't have the skill. Isn't this what the Guardians of Kytheras are for?"
"I'm afraid too, Aros. I know we might not be capable. We could very well be on a path that will lead us straight to the Great Bastion. Honestly, I want to go back. Whatever we may face at the Door, I'm not ready for it. I'm already exhausted from battling those two. I'm not sure I have it in me to face an even greater challenge."
"I definitely don't!" Aros shouted, informing both Doren and the voice. "I won't fight someone again knowing that I could kill them."
"Then you go back," Doren said. "Tell my father. Bring an army. I'll go to the Door. Maybe Rikki will be there. We'll stall them for as long as we can."
Doren's words played over in Aros' head as he realized the ultimatum being presented. If he abandoned the Prince, he would most certainly die, hoping that the guardians might get to the Door in time. If he stayed with the Prince, they would both likely die in a fool's mission to stop the Thalians. It seemed like it would be an easy choice to make, for the only way to live was to return to Castle Tornis. But that was the coward's path. Aros wasn't going to allow Doren to head toward certain death by himself.
They were both caught up in a war, and Aros couldn't run away from it. He'd already faced death in each battle he joined, as did the Thalians he opposed. They were all willing to give their lives for causes greater than themselves. And if they were willing to put themselves in such positions, then it must not have been a revelation for them when they met their ends. Aros didn't want to be the one to deliver them to such a fate, but he was not going to let Doren sacrifice himself. He would save Leidess, he would save Rikki, and he would save Doren. This was his cause, and he would not forsake it because he was afraid of the outcome. He would fight for it, engage with those whose ideals conflicted with it, and do what was necessary to achieve it, no matter how he may feel afterward. He was on the side of the Goddess, and on the side of life, just as the voice had said.