That, he had to admit, was a good plan. It was what he would have done, facing a more powerful opponent. Wear him down bit by bit, until...
A branch creaked, and Lucan saw a flash of white in the shadow of a tree.
He thrust out his hand, summoning power. Psychokinetic force hammered into the dead tree, which exploded into dry splinters. The crack echoed through the forest.
But nothing stirred in the ruins of the tree. Lucan turned in a slow circle, breathing hard, eyes darting back and forth.
Nothing.
He was alone.
Or so it seemed.
He turned again, scanning the trees, the dark mountain with the massive black city in the distance, the curl of smoke rising over the branches...
Lucan blinked.
If something caught flame here, the fire would turn this forest of dry trees into an inferno. A sharp smell came to Lucan’s nose. Meat, cooking over a fire. Did someone live here in this bleak land? Lucan’s mind sorted through the possibilities. Whoever lived here might well prove hostile, and whatever had started that fire might not even be human. Yet Lucan needed a place to rest, and he needed food.
He took a deep breath and walked towards the smoke.
The forest parted in a clearing, and in the clearing stood a village.
The small houses had been built out of the same black stone as the city that crowned the distant mountain. The place looked abandoned, the houses weathered, the doors and windows open and empty. A small domed church stood in the center of the village. The church’s windows had been smashed, and its twin doors lay on a pile of rubble at the foot of the stairs.
The smoke came from the church.
The village seemed long-deserted, without a hint of another living soul. Perhaps the reapers had killed whoever lived here. Yet still it looked...dangerous. As if unseen eyes watched from the empty windows and doors.
Yet there was that smoke from the church.
And Lucan needed a safe place to sleep.
He walked into the village, ready to unleash a psychokinetic blast at anything that moved. The village remained silent. The only hint of movement was the steady curl of smoke rising from the ring of windows encircling the base of the church’s dome.
That domed church...
Lucan blinked. The church was built in the style of the old kingdom of Dracaryl, which had once ruled over the Grim Marches, along with the Great Mountains and the Black Plains. Yet if that writhing black sky was any indication, Lucan was not in the Grim Marches. He wasn't even sure he was in the mortal world.
Why would a church in the style of Dracaryl be...here, wherever here was?
“You shouldn't have come.”
Lucan whirled, hand coming up to unleash a spell.
An old man stood in the doorway of an empty house, clad in rough woolen clothes and a greasy leather apron. A fringe of white hair encircled his bald head, and a maze of wrinkles marked his tanned face. A face that looked familiar...
“Crispin?” said Lucan in astonishment. He had known Crispin for years. The old man worked in the stables of Swordgrim, tending to Lord Richard Mandragon's horses. He'd been terrified of Lucan, but so had everyone else at Swordgrim. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Crispin's pale eyes glittered with hatred. “You don't belong here. You should go back, now, before it's too late.”
“Where am I?” said Lucan.
Crispin said nothing, still glaring at Lucan.
“What is this place?” said Lucan. “Answer me!”
“You did it,” hissed Crispin. “You killed the trees. You blighted the earth. You shattered the city's walls and laid it waste. It is on your hands.”
“What are you talking about?” said Lucan. “I have never been here before.” He glanced at the black city atop the mountain. “How could I have laid that city waste?”
“You did it,” said Crispin. “You drank the poison. You feasted on corruption. You killed the forests and ruined the city and tainted the earth with your vileness. And you did this all for nothing.”
“Damn it,” said Lucan, “give me a straight answer, or I'll tear it from you. Where am I?”
“You,” said Crispin.
“You?” said Lucan. “What does that mean? Where am I?”
Crispin fell silent, his eyes still bright with malice.
“How did you get here?” said Lucan. “We're a long way from Swordgrim...wherever we are. Did my father dismiss you from his service?”
“You brought me here,” said Crispin.
Lucan scowled. “I did no such thing.”
“I am your servant,” said Crispin. “I yearn to serve you, to obey you.”
“Do you?” said Lucan. “Well, obey. Tell me where I am.”
“You,” said Crispin.
Lucan gritted his teeth in annoyance. He focused his will, gathered power, and began casting a spell. The spell would let him reach into Crispin's mind, and force the old man to speak the truth. A strong enough will could fight the spell, but Lucan doubted Crispin possessed the strength of mind for such a feat.
Lucan finished the spell and gestured, his thoughts reaching for Crispin's mind...
...and found absolutely nothing there.
It was like swinging a sword through empty air. If Crispin's mind possessed defensive wards, his spell would have clashed against them. But it was as if Crispin wasn't really there at all.
Like an illusion.
Lucan cast another spell, the one to sense the presence of magical forces.
It found nothing.
He grabbed Crispin's shoulder. The old man gave no reaction. Lucan felt the rough wool of Crispin's shirt, the warmth of his flesh beneath the cloth. The old man was no illusion. He was really there.
Or else Lucan was hallucinating.
“You shouldn't have come here.”
A woman's voice, querulous and soft. Lucan stepped away from Crispin and saw an old woman in a black dress hobbling towards him, and all the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He remembered this old woman very well. Natalia had been his nurse as a child, watching over him until the age of seven. Lucan had preferred her company to that of his father and his brother.
Natalia had also died nine years ago.
“This,” said Lucan, “this isn't possible.”
Again he worked the spell to sense the presence of magical forces, expecting to find that Natalia was an illusion, or a shade conjured up by necromancy.
And again his spell detected no magic. Natalia was really here. But she had been dead for years, even before Marstan had left his polluted memories in Lucan's mind...
“You shouldn't have come here,” said Natalia, again.
“I don't understand,” said Lucan.
“You did this,” said Natalia.
Lucan saw more men and women emerging from the houses. He knew all of them. The cooks in the kitchens of Swordgrim. The old knight who had taught Lucan to hold a sword, before his talent had manifested and his father had apprenticed him to Marstan. His brother's childhood friends, bullies and thugs like Toraine himself. The bailiff of the town outside of Swordgrim's gates. Lucan knew them all. Some still lived.
Some had been dead for years.
Had he lost his mind? Or was this all a vision taking place within his own head?
“You did this,” said Natalia. “You slew the trees. You poisoned the ground. You poured your corruption into the earth. You brought yourself here. You did this to us.”
“You summoned us,” said the old knight, his armor clanking. “You created us.”
They drew closer, closing in a circle around him. Lucan backed away, ready to unleash psychokinetic blasts. They pushed him towards the church, drove him towards the doors.
“You did this,” said Crispin. “You tainted the earth, blighted the ground.”
“You did this to yourself,” said Natalia.
“It is your fault,” said the old knight.
Lucan backed up the sta
irs to the church, stepping over the fallen boards of the door. Should he attack and fight his way free? With his magic, he would have no problem fighting off a dozen old men and women. But these people had done him no harm. And some of them had been dead for years.
Were they even real?
“Go and look,” hissed Crispin, face twisted with rage. “Go and see what you did to yourself.”
Lucan backed through the doors of the church, turned around, and almost screamed.
In place of the altar, a bed of glowing coals dominated the far end of the church, painting the walls with hellish light. A thick iron chain hung from the ceiling, and a naked man danged from the links, roasting over the coals. Black blood sizzled against the coals, and Lucan saw that the chain had been threaded between the bones of the hanging man's forearms. The man himself almost looked like a Malrag, gray skin covered in tumors and growths, black veins threading through his twisted limbs, his eyes ablaze with crimson light. And his face...his face...
The man dangling from the chain, whimpering in agony, had Lucan's features. Lucan remembered the bloodstaff burning in his hands, remembered watching in terrified impotence as his skin turned gray, as his limbs twisted and knotted...
He heard a metallic clink from the church's steps and turned.
Crispin, Natalia, and the other stood on the stairs, watching him. They held a chain of black iron in their hands. They were going to chain him, Lucan realized with a chill, bind him and let him roast to death.
He snarled and lifted his hand. Let them try! He would blast...
“You summoned us,” hissed Crispin.
“You poisoned the land,” said Natalia.
“Why do you fight us?” said the old knight, armored hands creaking against the iron chain.
“Resist us all you wish,” said Natalia, “but you will not escape us, for you called us into being. Whether you wish it or not.”
She took a step forward, and she and the others changed.
One moment they were men and women. The next they were gaunt shapes draped in hooded black cloaks, white hands and feet jutting from the folds like bones from ashes. Darkness filled their hoods, but Lucan had the sense of something malevolent watching him the within blackness, something that hated him and yearned to watch him suffer.
The reapers.
Lucan yelled and flung out his hands. Psychokinetic force exploded from him and slammed into the reapers. Some crashed into the walls of the church, while others tumbled backwards down the stairs. Yet the creatures recovered quickly, springing back to their feet with fluid grace, rushing up the stairs with terrible speed. Another blast of invisible force sent them falling down the stairs once more, but the reapers against the wall recovered and came at Lucan.
Lucan had driven back the reapers before. But here, trapped in the church, they could harry him until his strength failed, and then they would kill him.
Or, to judge from the creature hanging from the chain, they would do worse than kill him.
He had to alter the odds.
Lucan thrust his hand towards the ceiling, all his power and will flowing into the next spell. The psychokinetic blast hammered into the dome like a thunderbolt, ripping it to a spray of rock shards. Lucan hooked his fingers, and his will caught the shards, sent them hurtling at the charging reapers. The rock chunks slammed into the creatures, knocking them to the ground.
Their bodies dissolved into reeking black smoke.
But the surviving reapers scrambled over the rubble. Lucan lashed out with psychokinetic blasts, driving them back, but one of the reapers got close enough to rake him with pale claws. Lucan tried to dodge, but the claws tore through the skin of his shoulder.
Droplets of his blood fell against the flagstone floor, soaking through the cracks.
And Lucan felt power surge from the earth and into him.
Power like iron, burning like molten stone. Lucan's weariness vanished, his weariness fell away, and the wounds on his shoulder closed. The remaining reapers froze in place, gazing at him with fear, and Lucan drew upon the newfound power. A symbol written in lines of crimson fire appeared on his palm, and the sigil's fiery light fell upon the reapers. The nearest three burst into flames, crumbling into stinking black ash, while the few survivors fled. Lucan laughed, climbing over the rubble of the dome and striding down the church's stairs. He would hunt down the reapers one by one, make them scream and weep and beg for mercy...
The power drained from Lucan, and left behind only corruption.
He fell to his hands and knees and retched, body shaking with cramps. Long, painful moments later, he looked up, blinking.
The reapers were gone.
He heard the clank of a chain.
Lucan got to his feet, looking into the church.
The creature hanging from the chain, the thing with his features, gazed at him with burning eyes. For a terrible instant, Lucan felt drawn to the thing, pulled towards it, like iron filings towards a lodestone.
Like the creature was a part of him.
It grinned at him, black tongue rasping over jagged yellow teeth, and vanished in a swirl of black smoke. The empty chain swung back and forth over the coals, gleaming in the red light.
Lucan stared at it for a moment, and then staggered down the stairs.
Mattias waited for him in the street, worn cloak billowing in the moaning wind.
“This isn't real,” said Lucan, “is it?”
Mattias grinned. “Real, you say? What is reality?”
Lucan growled. “I am sick to death of games.”
He focused his will and cast the spell to read the thoughts of another, directing it at Mattias.
And the spell crashed against a ward like a wall of molten iron. Lucan stumbled back a few steps as his spell rebounded through his mind. That ward had been powerful beyond anything Lucan could have cast himself, even with the aid of the bloodstaff.
Mattias lifted one eyebrow.
“That,” he said, red fire glimmering in his eyes, “was an exceedingly bad idea. I ought to shatter your mind into a thousand little pieces. But that would be so very wasteful.”
“You're real enough,” said Lucan. “That ward proves it. What is this, then?” He waved his hand at the village, the dead forest, everything. “Is this all your illusion? Some sort of game?”
“Bah,” said Mattias. “What a tedious mind you have. Is this all real? If you mean physically real, materially really...then no, of course not.” He grinned, the red fire in his eyes glimmering. “But more things are real than just material objects. Mortal men are both flesh and spirit.”
“Flesh and spirit,” said Lucan. “Then...this is the spirit world?”
“Should I tell you?” said Mattias. “Well...you've survived this far, perhaps you deserve some of the truth. Why not? Yes, this is the spirit world.”
That would explain why Lucan's summoning spells failed.
“Is this hell?” said Lucan.
“It's certainly not paradise,” said Mattias. “But you're not in hell. Or one of the hells. Not yet, anyway. Probably because you're not yet dead.”
“Then you brought me here,” said Lucan.
“I most certainly did not,” said Mattias. “You did it to yourself. You were using a bloodstaff, weren't you?”
Lucan said nothing.
“Forged in the blood of a powerful Demonsouled,” said Mattias. “Mazael Cravenlock himself, most likely. Did you tell him about it? No? I doubt it. You needed all that raw power, never mind that...”
“It was necessary,” said Lucan. “We faced powerful enemies. Without the bloodstaff's strength to augment my own, I could not face them.”
“And the bloodstaff served you so well when you faced your enemies, didn't it?” said Mattias. “You triumphed decisively over Malavost.” He smiled. “Or the bloodstaff eroded the defenses of your mind until Malavost could take control of you, force you to kill the Elderborn Seer, and then make the staff explode in your hands. I forget whi
ch.”
Again Lucan said nothing. Mattias's description of the battle, and of Lucan's errors, was all too accurate.
“Children that play with fire,” said Mattias, “get burned.”
“How do you know what happened?” said Lucan.
“Oh, Malavost was another student of a student of mine,” said Mattias. “Like you. And a good teacher keeps track of his wayward students.”
“Fine. I am here entirely through my fault and not some game of yours,” said Lucan. “This is the spirit world. I am not, apparently, yet dead. Why?”
Mattias studied him for a moment. “When the bloodstaff's power backlashed through you, it did not kill you. It twisted you, yes. But it did not kill your physical body. It did, however, sunder your soul from your flesh. Currently, you are trapped here, in the spirit world,” he gestured at the silent village and the dead forest, “in a domain of your own making, made up from your own memories.”
“And why are you here?” said Lucan.
“Entertainment, of course,” said Mattias. “Watching you struggle to escape has been most stimulating.”
“And how do I escape?” said Lucan.
“I told you,” said Mattias. He pointed at the black city on the distant mountain. “Your answers lie there. I strongly suggest that you get moving. Just because your mortal body hasn't yet died doesn't mean that it is invincible. And there are several people with a keen interest in obtaining your mortal flesh. It turns out that you can do all sorts of interesting things with blood tainted by Demonsouled corruption.”
“The reapers,” said Lucan. “What are they?”
Mattias grinned, gray eyes glinting with red light. “You drew Demonsouled power into your flesh, over and over. Where did you think all that power would go, exactly?”
Something crackled behind Lucan.
He whirled up, half-expecting to see the reapers or his deformed duplicate. But the church was empty. Again he heard the crackling noise, and realized it came from the dying coals.
Lucan cursed, and when he turned around, Mattias was gone.
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