Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens)

by Heath Pfaff

  "In all I'd heard about you, Xandrith, I never thought I'd discover that you were the type who would grovel for mercy at the feet of someone with more power for protection. You aren't the man I thought you were. And I think I prefer 'Little Crow' to 'baby bird.'" Crow's voice had lost its playful edge as well. A war of wills was building quickly. There was a heavy tension hanging in the air between them. Xandrith thought he could sense impending violence. He'd been a better judge of such things before the splitting that had resurrected Kassa, but he'd have to be dead to miss the hostility hanging in the air now.

  "Boys." Kassa broke the dangerous silence. "Now isn't the time for these kinds of arguments. Crow, you can leave whenever you want. Haley and I have already said we're with Xandrith on this, so you can either go with us or go on your own way. There is no point in arguing over this. Our path is set."

  Her words shattered the impending violence. Crow smiled his cocky, assured grin. It reminded Xan a little of his own mask of a smirk, but there was more honesty in Crow's face. He was young enough to still feel the mirth of his own self-assurance. "You're right, of course. We mustn't let our convictions get in the way of the friendship we're building here. We have more time to discuss matters. Nothing is set in stone yet."

  He was wrong, of course. Xandrith could see it, and he guessed Crow probably knew it as well. They were destined for a confrontation. Crow was at the whim of the blade, and Xandrith couldn't allow the trolls to get their way. Those facts wouldn't change. However, before their final showdown could occur they would have to deal with a more pressing situation.

  Xandrith hadn't alerted the others, but he was only too aware that they'd picked up a couple followers in the previous hour. He wasn't entirely certain he knew how he could sense them, but he could feel the presence of the mechanna-drayid creatures that were following them. They were like soft, barely noticeable wafts of magical energy that sometimes stirred the hairs on the back on his neck. He hadn't yet seen them in the open, or heard them, or even seen the signs of their passage. Still, he knew they were out there and following him and the others using the same senses by which he was able to identify their presence. Crow knew that they were getting close to Yillan Reach, but Xandrith doubted he knew that the Reach was already coming for them. Xandrith wasn't going to tell him either. He wasn't going to do anything that might provoke the young blade keeper to take immediate action. If Crow was aware that they were already being followed, he might push forward whatever agenda he had. Keeping the others in the dark was an unfortunate side effect.

  "Have you thought about how we're going to get inside?" Kassa asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "The route we took out isn't going to be an option this time, and I'm not sure we'll be able to just walk in the front door like we did last time either. Even if we could, I'm not sure we should."

  Xandrith nodded his agreement before speaking. He'd actually put a great deal of thought into that exact problem. He'd come up with a possible solution, but he was still debating it internally. There was a magical method that could be used to get him and his companions directly through the walls of the Reach without needing to enter through the gates. The magic was an old forbidden spell, one of the ones he'd found in the deepest depths of his mental catalogue of spells. When he'd freed Kassa from her living death and broken the bonesteel blade that had been a part of him, he'd gained access to what was the equivalent of an entire library of magical techniques and powers. Unfortunately, like a library, he couldn't just pull what he needed at any given moment from the tomes. He had to know where to look and what he was looking for. After he found what he needed, he could perform any spell he drew forth, but not necessarily with the finesse of a skilled user.

  The spell he'd found to breach the walls of the Reach was one he'd stumbled upon while his mind wandered aimlessly within the darkness of his cell at the mage's prison. It was known as a Tesserect passage. Two distant points could be magically connected allowing someone to pass from one to the other without interference from any form of obstruction or distance between them. The space between the two points was irrelevant. From one end of the passage to the other, it always took about a quarter of a day to pass through the connecting tunnel. This would make the trip through the wall take longer than it should, but it would also allow them to enter at any point they chose. Of course there were risks. There was a reason the Tesserect passages had become forbidden magic even though they might have otherwise changed the world for the better.

  Sometimes people who entered one end of the passage never exited the other. Tesserect, the man who'd first discovered the magic, had said that the passages within the tunnels were never the same even between two fixed points, and that he sensed a hostility in the walls. For all of that, he made many trips through the tunnels himself until he finally failed to exit on one occasion. This was all part of the knowledge of the spell, and yet Xandrith was still considering the passages. Tesserect had made nearly twenty trips before he’d vanished, and Xan was wagering that his group could make at least one.

  "I have a way inside. It will alleviate the risk of the mechanna monsters following us, or cornering us, but it leaves us open to other risks." Xandrith hesitated for a moment before sharing the rest of his plan. "There is an old magic that serves to make a passage between points, but the knowledge I have about the actual nature of the passageways is somewhat limited. There are risks. Once inside the passageways magic stops working, and sometimes people go into these things and don't come out the other side. As far as I know, groups should be able to use these passageways as long as they stay close together and keep moving forward. You can't go backwards once you start through, and the passages themselves were considered hostile by the man who discovered them, a mage named Tesserect."

  "That doesn't sound good." Haley noted quietly, her fox-mask expression showing a hint of anxiety.

  "I'll second that." Crow piped in, always eager to be a dissenting opinion. Xandrith hadn’t felt any agitation from Haley’s comment, but it was different coming from her. When Haley said she thought something didn’t sound good, she was saying that she was worried. When Crow agreed, he was turning Haley’s words into a rebellion against Xan’s authority. Xan was about to snap at him, but Kassa entered the conversation first.

  "As one of the two people here who have actually been in and out of the Reach since its fall, I'm going to agree with any idea that gets us past those things without a direct conflict. They are dangerous and there are a lot of them. I doubt they've gotten any less dangerous since the last time we entered that place. We don't know exactly what sort of mess we're in for, and I'd rather not take it on by fighting through the paths that it knows and controls." Kassa said casually. "I'm not particularly eager to be dead again."

  Xan grinned, though he wasn't entirely feeling it. "See, guys, Kassa doesn't want to be dead and she's going with my plan. How bad could it be?"

  Crow frowned and Xan could see the signs of him having an eternal conversation. "These Tesserect passages, I don't think we should use them. I think they're more dangerous than you're letting on. Why did Tesserect abandon his research?"

  Xan shrugged. "He didn't abandon his research." It wasn't precisely a lie.

  "I'm pretty sure he did." The younger man replied smugly. The blade was feeding him information about things he had no right knowing.

  "He didn't abandon his research. He disappeared into one of his own passageways and never came back out." Xan explained with a sigh.

  Haley and Kassa looked shocked. "You weren't going to mention that?" Haley asked, but Kassa kept quiet.

  "I told you that people go in and don't come out sometimes. Tesserect went through his passageways twenty times before he vanished. We only need to make the trip one time, maybe twice if we don't find another way out of Yillan Reach once we're inside. I would take the Tesserect path ten times in a row before I'd even consider heading into the Reach through one of the paths that the mechanna-creatures know about." Xandrith
tried to explain to the others. He hadn't even considered his slight omission of Tesserect's vanishing an important piece of information. Damn Crow for playing that against him. Xandrith locked eyes with the other and Crow refused to look away. The boy was trouble. A deep inner hostility roared to life in the assassin, angry and irrational.

  "Well I'm not passing through one of those passages." Crow declared, still staring straight at Xandrith.

  "Then don't. I didn't exactly invite you along, did I? You're welcome to leave this group anytime you want to." Xan wasn't able to work all of the agitation from his voice. His boiling aggression was getting difficult to swallow in regards to their little tag-along.

  Crow snapped straight, his back poised, his hand hovering over his weapon's hilt. Xandrith went still. Was this the moment he'd been waiting for? He wished he still had his old sense for impending violence, his internal warning system that things were past the point of return. Xan slowly began to gather magic, pulling it from the plants around him and from the boy, Crow.

  "I would be a fool to follow you through those passageways, and so would anyone else. You're going to get us all killed." Crow's voice had taken on a rough tone and he took another step towards Xan, his hand inching towards the handle of his fighting steel. "You've lost your mind, Xandrith. The mages tortured your senses out of you." His hand touched the hilt of his weapon and Xan snapped. A lot was different for Xan since the loss of his fighting ability, but the brutality of his responses had not lessened. His arsenal was limited, but what he knew he used effectively.

  Xandrith lashed out with his magic, grabbing Crow from his feet and slamming him into a tree trunk with enough force to rattle the entire plant. Kassa screamed at the sudden explosion of violence, jumping forward to grab at Xan's arm and try to hold him back as though physical restraint might actually stop him. Haley seemed to vanish into the background. Crow's scimitar hung loosely from his hand, still in his grip only because it was dangling from his fingertips. Xandrith's power pulsed up from his chest and flooded through his body, feeding into the hunger of his troll side. Violence. It demanded violence. Never was the darkness harder to control than when he embraced the red magic of his lineage while giving into his rage and violence. He reached deep inside of himself and grabbed for fire. He didn't want just a hot, red flame that would slowly burn Little Crow to a cinder. He reached deeper for the dark black and white roaring flames of the true fire, a flame that would turn flesh to ash and bone to dust. He clawed at the power, feeding on Crow's life as he cloaked himself in energy.

  "Die." He whispered the word as Kassa clawed and pulled at him trying to get him to stop. He was lost, though. He'd gone too deep into his magic, too deep into his hate for Crow. He released the fire within him, and that is when something went terribly wrong. There was a terrible, loud, rending explosion and the world seemed to reject him, throwing Xan into the air like a child's play thing. A concussion tore through his body, and when it hit his head consciousness swept away from the assassin. He never felt himself hit the ground.

  Chapter 2

  Everything Wants Us Dead

  Xan returned to the world of the living with a groan and a half-hearted propping open of his better eye. Every muscle in his body ached and his left shoulder was sending an uncomfortable spasm through his collar bone. It was either dislocated, broken, or otherwise severely beaten. A shadow fell over him, blocking out the sun that he hadn't really registered as being up. He ignored the shadow for a minute while he tried to decide if he actually wanted to move anymore than he already had. The shadow didn't ignore him, however.

  "I was worried about you." Kassa's voice slipped quietly over him like a comforting blanket. For a moment his pain didn't seem so bad. Her presence alone helped him calm down and gave him some anchor by which he might find a place of reason in his world.

  "I think I was struck down by an angry god." Xan grunted as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Slowly he was rebuilding the course of events that had led to his black out. "Do gods take pity on loud mouth, annoying brats these days? None of them ever took pity on me, and I am arguably still a loud mouth, annoying brat."

  Kassa reached down a hand and helped Xan fight his way back to a standing position. The world swam and churned as he got to both of his legs, regretting his decision to regain consciousness. Oblivion had been much less nauseating.

  "Haley claims she broke the magic you were about to unleash. I'm no expert on those kinds of things so I couldn't tell you what actually happened, but she certainly feels responsible." Kassa was brushing the dirt off of Xandrith as she spoke. "All I know is you had that Crow kid pinned to a tree and you looked like you were going to kill him. There was a loud crackling snap, like thunder, and then you went flying through the air."

  Xan nodded numbly. "Haley said she could do that, but I wasn’t sure I believed her." The assassin looked around the campsite. They were in the same place they'd been before he blacked out. He noted the absence of Haley and Crow and a sharp panic took hold of him. "Where did she go? She didn't leave with that kid, did she?"

  Kassa put a hand on Xan's shoulder. "Calm down Xan. She went for a walk and Crow offered to accompany her. I don't believe he means her any harm. In fact, I think he might be honestly thankful for her stepping in and saving his life."

  Xandrith was still agitated. "I don't trust her being alone with him. Crow is bad news. He's a slave to the trolls."

  Kassa nodded her reply. "And he's a young man who is trapped into a fate that he doesn't really have any control over. Haley is the same way. They both have those cursed weapons. You hold that against Crow, but you don't see Haley the same way. She is just as much a threat as he is, Xan."

  "Haley would never ..." Xan began to retort, but Kassa cut him off with a finger over his lips.

  "I'm not implying that Haley would intentionally betray us, but she's under the sway of that weapon as much as Crow is. It listens through her, and it becomes a stronger influence on her the longer it’s with her. Neither of them are their own people as long as they carry those blades. You should know that better than anyone." Kassa's voice was that of reason, and Xandrith knew it. That didn't mean he enjoyed hearing it.

  "I'm not sure I'm fully in control of my anger anymore." Xandrith said quietly, and he let himself slump to the ground. He was done standing. Kassa sat down next to him and put her arm around his shoulder. "When I use my magic while I'm angry or for violence it threatens to burn me up. I feel like a leaf caught in a stream being pulled away. I need the power to do what I must do, but the more I use, the more afraid of it I become. Kassa, what am I supposed to do?" Speaking the truth was difficult.

  Kassa squeezed Xan's shoulders, pulling him close to her. "We'll keep going Xan, and when you lose control, I'll pull you back. If you're ever not sure about something, just listen to me and I'll help you find your way back. I'm not going to let you go."

  Xandrith chuckled softly. "Our positions have changed. I thought I was the one that was supposed to be saving damsels in distress."

  Kassa's wolf-mask features smiled. She reached back behind her head and pulled the mask free, exposing her real smile behind the mask. Xandrith was immediately stricken by how beautiful and honest her face was, and he was stunned to find out just how much he'd missed seeing her real features. The mask didn't entirely hide the Kassa he knew, but seeing her warm eyes staring back at him from her beneath her smooth brow was unmistakably wonderful. She reached out a hand and touched the stubble on his chin that was slowly growing back into a beard.

  "You make a gruff damsel." Kassa's voice was light and warmed by her smile. "But I guess I'll have to make do." She leaned in closer, her face bare inches from Xandrith's, and suddenly he was only too aware of what she intended. He leaned forward himself, his lips already tingling in expectation. He'd pictured them doing this exact thing many times, but this would be the first time they'd ever been so intimate. She was so close to him, her eyes locked on his, and he could feel her
breath against his lips.

  ***

  Haley walked through the dense brush, mindful of her direction of travel. She needed space and time to think, and she wasn't going to get that with Xan crumpled on the ground looking completely broken by the force of the magic that she'd so abruptly snapped off. She could have killed him. That realization struck her for a third time, and it hit every bit as hard as it had the first. She'd almost killed Xandrith with her power. He'd been on the verge of killing Crow, but that didn't change the fact that she'd used her own power against Xan's, and she'd gone too far. Why had she even interfered on the new-comers behalf?

  She didn't owe anything to the tag-along, but when she'd seen the magic gathering around Xandrith she'd reacted on instinct. She hadn't wanted him to kill Crow, and it had been so easy to reach out and snap the currents of his spell as it formed. She hadn't even known what spell she had been breaking, but she'd torn it apart anyway. When black fired had erupted from the ground at Xandrith's feet she'd thought he was dead. He'd been lifted from the ground and tossed away as though he weighed nothing at all. And what had she done instead of going to him? She'd stood there, dumbfounded at the outcome of her tampering. Kassa, who had only just managed to avoid the blast of the refracting magic herself, had gone to Xan's side.

  Haley couldn't do it herself. She'd been the one who'd caused the damage. She couldn't bring herself to go and see up close what she'd done. He's dead. She'd thought over and over again. I've killed him. It had felt like ages before Kassa looked up and announced that Xan was alive, just unconscious. Relief had been mixed with a rush of self-loathing and bitterness. Without another thought she'd turned and started to walk away.

  "Where are you going?" Kassa had called after her.

  "I didn't mean to hurt him. I only broke his spell. I just ... I need a moment. I'm going for a walk." Haley's answer had been half-hearted, numb. She didn't know what to say, or what she should do. She'd only known she couldn't be there with Xan after she'd betrayed him so deeply. She wanted to blame her cursed axe, but she knew that it wasn't the troll-blade's fault. She'd acted on her own. She hadn't intended to hurt Xan, only to stop him from killing Crow, but what good were intentions with an outcome as violent as the one she'd perpetrated?