Nearly two years passed, and a dreadful mission came up. The three assassins met up with the client and he briefed them on the mission. “This is an extremely challenging mission. I daresay, nearly impossible. That is the reason as to why I hired the three of you. I cannot say you are the best assassins existing today, but I believe your cooperation is incomparable,” Jeannes, the client said. “I want you to assassinate Iara Duneris.”
“The high priestess of Bristal?!” Aezil replied, shocked and confused. This was not the usual prey; the brigands, the thieves, the traitors they ordinarily dealt in. “But why? Why would you want her to be dead? I know this is none of our business but I want to know what sin this holy woman committed.”
“I cannot give you the details, but let me say this. Vanadis had been hoarding such powerful elements. With a swift order by the high priestess, all their enemies could be wiped out of existence,” Jeannes explained. “She could be extremely dangerous.”
“Is she that kind of person?” Aezil asked.
“That’s enough. This is no longer your business. Now, the high priestess will be visiting the city of Esmer three days from now. That is the opportune window for assassinating her. Esmer is a widely populated city with many tall buildings. I believe it will give you the advantage in assassinating as well as escaping. I have here a layout of the whole city.” The client laid a map out and indicated a route shown in red. “Here is her planned route around Esmer. Your reward will be a million golden suns,” Jeannes stated.
“One million golden suns! Now we’re talking,” Korhil gasped.
“With that kind of money, we’ll never have to work again!” Kielvine said.
“Treat this as your final mission,” Jeannes replied, and rolled the map back up.
“If we fail, we will be imprisoned, or we will be executed. But if we succeed, well, all the fortune we can ask for will be in our hands! I say we do it! We haven’t failed a single mission,” Aezil declared positively.
“Yes, Jeannes, we accept the mission,” Kielvine agreed. And so the three of them left and prepared for a final mission as assassins.
Three days have passed and the high priestess arrived at the city of Esmer. Aezil, Kielvine and Korhil planned thoroughly for this one chance swift strike on Iara. Everything was going according to plan when the route of the high priestess diverted from the original route. “What happened??” Korhil asked in confusion.
“This is expected. This is not a simple task, remember?” Aezil said.
“For now we blend in with the crowd and follow the high priestess,” Kielvine suggested.
It was late at night when Korhil found a promising opening for the high priestess. She was about to give her final speech for the day when he said, “After her speech I will use my wind magick to isolate the high priestess from all the guards. Aezil, you be the one to eliminate everything that comes close to the high priestess. Kielvine, kill her instantly, and then we all leave and disappear.”
“Sounds appealing. We can’t make a false move. I am certain the guards are strong. I know I cannot hold them back for a long time. This might be our one and only chance to kill her,” Aezil said.
“I shall do it as quick as possible,” Kielvine replied.
As soon as Iara Duneris finished her speech, Korhil immediately cast his sylphids along with a powerful tornado, knocking out most of the people in the vicinity. Aezil jumped toward the stage and cast lightning magick upon the guards around Iara. Instantaneously, Kielvine emerged in front of the high priestess, moving to slit her throat when he was stunned by an unknown force. His arms would not move, held by some invisible force he could not even feel. “Kielvine! What are you doing?! Kill her now!” Aezil shouted.
“I… I… I can’t do it!” Kielvine stuttered.
“What?! Don’t you dare wimp out, Kielvine!” Korhil added. “Let me do it!” Aezil said, and she charged toward Iara. Kielvine grabbed her arms, stopping her charge. “I can’t let you do this, Aezil… there is not much time to explain… you can’t hurt her!”
“What happened, Kielvine?! What’s the matter?! We need to end this now!” Aezil shouted. Her shout suddenly escalated as a flung spear pierced her body. The guards had taken immediate lethal action.
“Aezil? AEZIL!” Kielvine shouted in anguish, holding her, but nothing could be done. He carried her down from the parapet, lying her gentle down on the ground. Korhil was red with wrath, tears streaming down his face. He murmured damnations and turned and fled in escape.
“Kiel… Why?… Why did you do this?…” Aezil slowly whimpered, coughing blood.
“No… no… I didn’t do this… the high priestess… Aezil… it’s hard to explain!” Kielvine said and he wept for Aezil.
“I love you, Aezil!” Kielvine shouted. When the guards reached them, Kielvine was bound in chains, torn away from his dying friend and lover. He was brought to Krimmirr to face punishment for his serious offence–and of course the regiments knew how that had gone.
Back on the valkyrie, Kielvine finished his story, his eyes misty in dismay.
“Hey, Kielvine, why is Aezil still alive?” Draken asked. “I… do not really know. I guess I have to deal with her in order to know what happened after that gruesome day,” Kielvine said.
Reighild hammered the silver dragon’s shield orb that surrounded the queen and those remaining on her side. Nothing could be heard by the steady strikes of his Libra Zodiac Endowment. The mighty hammer was so large that his arms alone could not support it had the magick itself not created metal struts spontaneously to support the weight of the war hammer. The atmosphere of the room was thick with the encasing darkness. The Dark Mage paced impatiently behind the traitor Master Knight, gloat and the desire to get on with it.
“Reighild, try a different endowment. Your hammer fails to penetrate even the scales of the Silver Dragon,” Dio ordered.
“Yes, my liege,” Reighild answered, and he uttered a spell. “I call thee… the dweller of the desert! Scorpio!” Reighild’s war hammer disappeared, replaced by a halberd, a spear with a gleaming sharp axe blade at the end of the intricate staff. Black overtook his armour save for the mark of a scorpion emblazoned orange on his chest. “Maybe this will penetrate Angelus,” he murmured, and he swung his massive halberd. When the axe blade connected with the barrier, a minuscule crack appeared.
“Aha!” Reighild exclaimed.
Everyone shrieked underneath. The damage on Angelus was incremental, but very real. Mikhal placed a reassuring hand to the queen’s arm. “My queen, please bear with it. A little more time. The Master Knights have defeated the enemy. They will be on their way here even now.”
“Fear not, the Angelus cannot be destroyed. Have confidence!” Queen Jeannah replied.
“Yes, my queen,” her people answered in despair.
Jael had almost arrived to Krimmirr when Helena’s voice crackled through the valkyrie’s transmitter. “Jael! Jael, can you hear me?”
He leaned forward and pushed the button to open the channel. “Yes, I can hear you.”
“We have defeated the Titans and are on our way. Wait for us before engaging Reighild and the Dark Mage,” she said.
“Very well. I will wait for you at the South Krimmirr Tower,” he said, and set down, disembarking and waiting.
Moments later, a valkyrie crashed into the gate of Krimmirr and the impact could be heard throughout the castle.
In the throne room, Dio reacted. “What was that?” “The Titans are defeated, my lord,” Reighild replied.
“Hmph. Those Master Knights exceeded my expectations. Nevertheless, I shall finish the survivors myself,” Dio muttered. “Reighild, enough time wasting. The enemy is here. Ready yourself.”
“Yes, my lord…” He prepared to summon a new endowment. “I call thee… the great twins! Gemini!” Reighild shouted. Two swords appeared, and he grasped them one in each hand, one red, one blue; one fire, one ice.
Meanwhile, at the gate of Krimmirr, the survivo
rs of Fulbor crawled from the wreckage of the valkyrie. Helena took a quick count and was relieved to see there were no significant casualties. “Is everyone all right?” she asked.
“No one seems to be injured,” Draken replied, affirming what she saw to be true.
At least no injuries that hadn’t already been known to them. This was a tiny blessing, but she would take it. The sooner they could move out, the better. Diurus and Ace were in no better condition than when they been brought aboard, but they were in no condition to see battle. There was really no time to hide them either, and she gestured for them to at least move away from the crash site and hunker down in the shadows. “Kielvine, with me. We will face the Dark Mage head on. Draken, go to Jael at the South Tower. You will find a way to rescue the queen and the others. But be sneaky!”
Everyone acknowledged the plan, and they broke apart, walking with caution into the taken castle.
Draken made his way down to where Jael waited and the two of them circled the castle, finally entering through the back door which led down to the maids’ quarters. There was no indication of a presence of guards. Not Krimmirr’s ordinary guards, nor mages of Malevolentiam. “No one seems to be guarding the castle. Can it be only the Dark Mage is inside?” Jael muttered.
“Don’t forget about Reighild the traitor,” Draken replied.
They made haste through the hallways towards the nearest section of castle–the infirmary. Draken gasped as they came close. Blood splattered across the floor and walls all throughout the infirmary. In the middle of the enormous bloody puddle, Aya lay dead on the floor, her head cracked open. Vaan, however, sat on a chair against the back wall, his skin cracked and stony. He hardly resembled a human being anymore.
“I don’t get it. They killed Aya, but Vaan’s unharmed,” Jael murmured and he went near Vaan. Vaan’s irreparably damaged skin was now bandaged with a layer of thin silica sand swathed around him in earthen strokes. Had Jael not known who it was, he would have thought it to be an earth or rock elemental. The sand scales were hard and made a tiny crack, snap noise when Vaan’s fiery eyes snapped open, glaring directly at Jael. “Vaan?” he asked, confused.
With difficulty, Vaan contorted his badly burned face to speak. While his words came slow and laboured, they thundered out with deafening volume. The organs beneath still functioned, it was the flesh destroyed. “You… left me to die, Jael. Why? You left me to burn! Look at me! Am I not hideous?!” Vaan, rock and blood, screamed furiously at Jael, sitting motionless.
“Vaan, I… I,” Jael murmured, staring at his feet. “Look at me!” Vaan shouted.
“You never cared. You always thought about yourself!” Vaan shouted in a rage.
“No, Vaan, no… I wanted to save you but I couldn’t! I tried, but I failed! I failed! Don’t you remember?” Jael tried to reason.
“Enough! You left me to die!” Vaan replied. His anger was only growing, and a sudden quake was felt throughout the castle, a low rumbling exposing the rage beneath.
“Vaan, stop it! The queen is in danger. Dio’s inside Krimmirr. We can settle this later, there are more pressing matters!” Jael uttered.
“Impalus!” Vaan shouted. Spikes appeared from his sandstone skin and darted towards Jael.
“Kappe Flam!” Jael shouted, and a cloak of flames appeared, burning up the spikes before they could strike.
Draken surged forward, standing in between the two of them. “Jael, we can’t reason with him, let me handle this.”
“Damn it!” Jael swore. “Just do not kill him. Please…”
“Of course,” Draken answered and Jael hurried from the infirmary, making his way through the halls to the palace. Of course Draken was right; it was a waste of his stamina, he needed to be there to face Dio, to rescue the queen, to protect those of his friends he still could.
Helena and Kielvine stormed the throne room. “Reighild, you traitor!” she shouted, alerting on the face of the man she’d once trusted with her life.
He only laughed at her, stalking towards them. In his hands were twin blades by design but not element: one searing red, one frigid blue. “How dare you accuse me of such treachery? It is Jeannah who should be called the traitor! A slave who dared sit on the throne. She is not royalty; could never act as royalty.”
“You snake!” Helena spat out at him.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the lady Master Knight. Reighild, keep them hustling. I will destroy Angelus myself,” Dio said.
“Yes my lord,” Reighild replied. He strode before Helena and Kielvine, already at the ready. “Since there are two of you, my Gemini Endowment will be enough. I believe you haven’t seen the Twin Blades of Ice & Fire, Helena.”
“Whatever it is, we will defeat you,” Helena replied. She conjured her Retribution, while Kielvine followed with his Fragarach.
Dio chuckled. “Oh no, no, no… Reighild, Helena is your only opponent. The wielder of Fragarach will face the Deva.”
Kielvine paled. “What? Aezil is here?”
From the floor, a shadowy apparition aspirated, rising up into the shape of a woman, a voice coming from deep within it. “You… killed my brother… I… I will never forgive you…” “Aezil! Stop this nonsense!” Kielvine shouted.
Slowly, Aezil emerged from the shadows. “No. You betrayed me once. Now you have revisited your treachery upon me by killing my brother. Your ally’s spell drove him insane. In anguish, he took his own life, but it was your hand that slew my brother!” Aezil replied, delivering a swift strike to Kielvine who stood in emotional shock and horror, disarming his Fragarach. “Fight me!” she shouted in disgust.
“I… can’t…” Kielvine muttered.
“I will kill you either way…” Aezil replied but Kielvine just stood and looked at Aezil. She dashed and smacked him to the ground and he showed no sign of hostility.
“Kielvine! Fight her! Don’t let your past dictate your future! This is all for your homeland, your kingdom!” Helena said. A massive blow to her gut smashed her into the wall.
“Never ever take your eyes off of your opponent. I taught you that, yes?” Reighild said. He continued with another blow, knocking her into a window. She crashed through, landing on the lawn. He immediately followed. The moment she was knocked from the battlefield, Aezil seized Kielvine’s hair and they were devoured by the shadowy apparition.
Dio treaded slowly towards the Angelus barrier. “My queen, if you dispel your barrier, I will not harm anyone. I simply need you.”
“I cannot easily give up the throne to you! You maniac!” Queen Jeannah cried.
“Let me put it simply. If you cooperate with me, none of your subordinates shall perish,” Dio said grimly.
“Never!” the queen cried.
“Stubborn, aren’t you?” Dio spat. Black flames covered his armour, engulfing his seamless cape, his mask emitting blood red as if to melt, his gauntlets discharging massive amounts of flames.
With a loud bang, the door of the throne room spread open. “Stop it right there!” Jael shouted.
“And who might you be?” Dio asked.
“I am Jael, the queen’s son,” Jael replied.
“So you are the fire mage. Hmph. Come here, child. Let me see what you can do with my magick,” Dio said and challenged him, beckoning him to commit.
“Jael! Do not fight him!” Queen Jeannah yelled.
“I can handle this. Please let me defend you. Let me defend my kingdom,” Jael replied. His eyes burned with anger and passion.
“My queen, I think it would be best if we let him be,” Rohan said.
“Come here, child,” Dio uttered. Jael dashed toward the Dark Mage but when he approached Dio, he sensed an eminently powerful aura coming out of the Dark Mage. His body began to shudder, hairs rising up on his arms. Freezing stiff, he tried to force himself through the malevolent aura. When his foot slammed to the ground, he stood motionless except for the uncontrolled tremble humming throughout his limbs. “What’s wrong?” Can’t you move?” Di
o asked in sarcasm. He could do nothing about it. His body shook. Fear and dread ruled his mind, thoughts and voices battering him with an utter sense of failure.
“Infierna!” Dio shouted. A sudden burst of flames exploded out of his body, and the heat was so great even Jael recognised it for what it was. A superior form of fire magick that quavered with a wine-red dark inferno. Dio smiled to see the horror on the boy’s face. “This is called Inferno magick. Now I ask you. Do you want to fight me?”
Jael couldn’t move, could hardly talk. “I… I… will destroy you. I vow…” He forced his mouth to make the words.
“Let me see your power, young mage,” Dio answered.
“B… Blazia…”
“Perhaps you want a jump start?” Dio said, and threw a discreet black flame towards Jael, knocking him back.
“Blazia!” Jael shouted. Pure flames enshrouded his body.
“Now, that’s better,” Dio stated.
“I vow to defeat you. If I breathe, I will defeat you!”
“Clever boy… come at me!” Dio shouted with his deep maniacal voice.
“Explosion!”
Jael dashed, and attacked but Dio touched his chest and whispered, “Outburst.” An explosion burst from his hand where he touched Jael rippling and blasting out. Jael was instantly blown to the other side of the room. He collided with the wall, slumping to the ground and coughing, spitting blood. “If you won’t take me seriously, you will die in vain,” Dio uttered. The Dark Mage’s magick was fearsome and Jael wondered if he could defeat him. Could he even fight him?
“My son!” Queen Jeannah screamed, and the Angelus wavered as she lost concentration.
“Why haven’t I thought of that?” Dio murmured. He then strode across the chamber to Jael, gripped his skull between his dark gauntlets and squeezed, shouting, “Jeannah, if you don’t submit yourself to me, your son’s skull will be crushed before you!” Jael cried in pain. Dio squeezed his skull even tighter and he saw stars.
Teliko Mageia: Curse of the Frozen Flame Page 33