Age of Asango - Book II

by Matt Russell

  "Oh yes, but I knew it would." He squeezed Cromlic’s neck, cutting off the airflow completely. The hissing turned to a gurgle. "I'm sorry, but I cannot let you kill this man. You hate him far too much. If you murder in hatred, it mutilates your soul. This I know." Somar squeezed harder until he felt a crunch. He let go, and the Bishop fell dead upon the floor.

  Cassian stared down at Cromlic's body, transfixed by it. It was the first time Somar had ever seen the boy rendered speechless.

  "I take your darkest sin from you, my son," Somar wheezed. He walked forward. His body was already beginning to deteriorate. He could feel bone and muscle burning. The pleasure was becoming pain! He reached out and grabbed a leech in each hand from Cassian's chest and said with a dark chuckle: "Brace yourself, boy." He yanked.

  "SHHHK!" Cassian shrieked, his body trembling wildly as skin and perhaps even a bit of muscle tissue came away. He took several incredibly rapid breaths and then said: "Hurry, get them all off! Maybe I can still save you!"

  The old man’s fingers closed around two more leaches and ripped them away. This time Cassian was silent, but Somar was beginning to hiss with pain. He did not understand anatomy the way Cassian did, but he knew instinctively that his body was ceasing to function. The unfiltered magic coursing through him was ripping his insides apart. There were only seconds left! In quick succession, Somar grabbed the last three leeches and yanked them away, and then he fell to the floor, a panting, sweat-soaked heap.

  "NO!" Cassian shouted. His shackles ripped away from his skin with a furious metallic snap. Somar smiled. The boy had all his power back. "WHY DID YOU DO THIS! I never asked you to help me!"

  Somar felt his body going very still. The pain was receding. He felt warm and at peace. "This is a good death," he managed to whisper.

  Cassian gripped his hand, though Somar barely felt it. The boy whispered: "You are the only—" he broke off, and tears dropped from his eyes, "You were more a father to me than my own ever was."

  "Thank you, Cassian," Somar softly exhaled. His vision was going black. "I think that our time together... was my favorite part of my life." He blinked, trying to see the boy, but he could not. It was difficult to speak—difficult even to remember what words were. "Do not.... die. Be strong, Cassian. Always... be... strong."

  Somar lost all connection to where he was. Cassian faded away, and warm, immense light appeared before him, drawing him in. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen...

  Chapter 37:

  His Destiny

  Cassian stared down at the old man’s lifeless body. His best friend was.... gone, the way his mother had been gone. They were stolen away into a realm that all of Cassian's immense gifts could not reach, and the sickening pain of that finality was overwhelming.

  "I understand why you did what you did," he whispered to the dead form, imagining that somewhere, Somar's soul was watching him. "We were the same, you and I, in our hearts if not in our circumstances. You understood everything I have done, and perhaps now… you will understand everything I am about to do."

  Cassian rose slowly as the last of his tears fell. He was enveloped in something beyond rage. By merely thinking it, he summoned spectral entities to heal his many wounds. They obeyed his will as they never had before. The constant mental battle with the leeches seemed to have honed his control over magic to new heights, or perhaps it was just the unbridled focus of hate.

  Cassian stepped out of his cell and gazed down the length of the Nemesai dungeon. Twenty-six sets of iron bars lay before him in a long row, many holding prisoners. He raised his hands, extending his fingers as he sent dozens of invisible tendrils of his power into and around the poles, and then he brought his hands together in a sudden clap. All the metallic bars ripped out of the mortar and collided into one another at the hall's center in a thunderous crash.

  Cassian said in a telepathic whisper as he reached into the minds of the suddenly terrified prisoners.

  There was a clinking to his right, and Cassian turned his head to see Soulic tugging on his chains as if to draw attention to himself. The man had been shackled to the wall as Cassian had been, but his injuries were far more extensive. Cassian flicked his wrist, sending twin slivers of magic from his fingers focused into thin blades. They slashed through the joints in Soulic's shackles with ease, and the Sansrit warrior stumbled forward as half rings of metal dropped at his feet.

  Soulic forced himself up without words and walked toward Cassian. His naked chest was covered in still open wounds, and he looked thinner than he had been when they entered. The Nemesai had barely fed him at all, and he had been put through a hell even worse than Cassian had. Through all of it, the swordsman had not said a word—not given the Nemesai so much as the satisfaction of a whimper.

  "Can you fix these?" Soulic rasped, holding up his arms. Both hands had crooked, broken fingers.

  "Yes," Cassian replied. He held up his own hand and thought—not spoke—a spell. The small bones in Soulic's fingers snapped back together and into their proper places. The warrior’s horribly bruised face remained expressionless as the magic knitted the hard and soft pieces of the fingers into working order.

  "Leeches," Soulic said, tilting his head to the side. He had been given two. One was on the side of his neck, and the other was on his right pectoral muscle. Cassian waved his fingers, willing tendrils of power out with tightly controlled precision. The pulsing leeches emitted horrid screams as their bulbous bodies were sliced in half. Soulic finally displayed a touch of emotion by breathing a sigh of relief. He wagged his neck from side to side, eliciting several pops from the bones inside, and then said: "What's our play?"

  Cassian glanced back at Somar's lifeless body, then said: "I am going to destroy this place—wipe it from the face of the world."

  "Sounds about right," Soulic said in a vicious hiss. He walked past Cassian to one of the Nemesai soldiers Somar had killed and snatched the man's sword. He held it up in front of his face for a moment, looking closely at it and waving it in the air as if to gauge the weight and balance. Then he shrugged, lowered the weapon to his side, and said: "Ready when you are."

  "Your father's name is Gaius Norvelian," Cassian said.

  Soulic froze at these words and stared at Cassian through the black bruises around his eyes.

  Cassian glanced around at the prisoners still crouching nervously in their cells. They were not certain what to do. Each of them had suffered along with Soulic and himself. Up in the temple rooms, the Nemesai were starting to stir. The thick ceiling above his head had muffled the sound, but the inquisitors had heard something, and they would soon come to investigate.

  "The man is seventy-nine years old," Cassian went on. "Lord Norvelian is in poor health. Among his afflictions is a significant degradation of his mind. He is given to fits of screaming and paranoia—very possibly the result of reliving old battles and... sins."

  "Why are you telling me this?" Soulic said.

  "I promised I would reveal his identity if you served me, and after this,” he gestured around the dungeon, “you have given me more than enough. You may leave my service now. Come here, and I will remove the psychic tampering I did to your mind."

  Soulic gazed down at the stone floor for a long moment, breathing softly, and then he looked up at Cassian and said: "No thank you."

  Cassian frowned at him. The man's animus was quickly regaining its strength, and thus its defenses around his thoughts were returning. Rather than attempt to breach them, Cassian said: "Why not?"

  Soulic drew in a deep breath. "I've had some time to think during this... experience, and, if I'm honest with myself, I'm a mad dog. I need a collar around my neck, or I'm a danger to the world. You're a good fit to hold the leash. I doubt I could ever find anyone better." He gazed down at the Nemesai body beneath his feet and sighed: "Besides, I don't think it
would bring me much satisfaction to murder a crazy old man—not when I've finally found something to hate even more!" He kicked the Nemesai in the chest, and, with a crunch, the lifeless form sailed a dozen paces in the air until it collided with the wall and bounced.

  "It may be unwise to continue serving me," Cassian said.

  They heard footsteps above, and a gruff voice shout: "What the hell happened down there?"

  Soulic glanced at the door to the upper chambers. "If you destroy this temple, how will the Emperor react?"

  "He may be a bit cross with me," Cassian said, "and, by extension, you."

  Soulic frowned for a few seconds, looking thoughtful, and then he shrugged. "Let’s do it anyway. What are your orders?"

  They heard the crossbar to the dungeon entrance being slid open, and Cassian saw a young soldier in his mind’s eye.

  he said in a psychic shout into the man's mind. The Nemesai leaped away from the door in terror.

  Cassian looked at Soulic. "Our Elokiens are being kept on the third floor of this structure in a wooden chest. If we somehow make it through this, I would prefer not to have to fish them out of the rubble."

  Soulic lifted his stolen sword and gently touched the tip with his finger as if to gauge the sharpness. "How many are up there?"

  "Twenty-two," Cassian said. "Four have gathered in front of the door thus far. Another eighteen are rushing down from the upper levels."

  "Twenty-two it is," Soulic said, his voice taking on a strange, almost beastly cadence, and Cassian felt the power of the man's animus begin to flare.

  "Just a moment," Cassian said. Soulic could certainly outfight a handful of Nemesai, but these odds were somewhat ridiculous. Cassian gazed up at the ceiling and focused his magic upon the air, mentally forming the cracking field he had developed long ago to expand and amplify the vibrations of his voice many hundreds of times over, and then he spoke aloud: "This is Cassian Asango. Bishop Cromlic is dead. The Nemesai order has come to an end. I am going to destroy this horrid place. I know all of you cruel men can hear me. I grant you one brief moment to run away with your wicked lives. You have sixty seconds." He sensed a psychic explosion of fear above him as the soldiers of the church panicked, trying to decide what to do.

  "You have a gift for subtlety," said Soulic, gazing at him with a raised eyebrow.

  Cassian turned and walked to the nearest empty cell, raised his hand, and then began to chant. Nearly two years ago, he had seen Dimitris cast the Drathnakal—the most destructive spell known to man. Cassian had not heard the words his brother whispered, but somehow, they came to him now, as if drawn from the ether of the universe. He felt a massive swell of his own power leap from his hand and become absorbed into a cacophony of whirring spectral forces. He focused them into a battering ram of spinning energy that glinted every conceivable color to an almost blinding level in the darkness of the dungeon. When it was ready, he sent his construction forward. The spell ripped through the stonework, obliterating everything in its path. Remaining in control, Cassian curved the Drathnakal upward, and within a few thunderous seconds, he had carved a tunnel up and out of the temple to the streets of the capital. The spell continued its path even after he let go, soaring up into the sky, and there came a collective awe from hundreds of the minds of peasants that had come to protest for him.

  he telepathically whispered to the men and women who had shared his imprisonment.

  Nervously, one-by-one, the prisoners did as they were told. Cassian watched a feeble old man in tattered rags come to him first, and then a slender girl a few years younger than himself. They had bruises of course and looked half starved.

  "ASANGO!" a deep shout boomed through the door from above.

  "Ah-h, there’s that bastard," Soulic said with a vicious smirk. Cassian recognized the voice from above as belonging to Sebastos, the remarkably tall high inquisitor who had spent dozens of hours inflicting pain on his Sansrit companion.

  Soulic walked to the mess of bars in the center of the dungeon and snatched one up in his hands. He moved to the foot of the stairway and cocked the long piece of iron back like a javelin and shut his eyes, breathing softly as he adjusted the angle of his shot to whatever his animus was sensing. "SEBASTOS!" he shouted suddenly, and then he sent the bar flying. It tore a hole through the thick wood and disappeared through it, and immediately after came one of the loudest screams Cassian had ever heard.

  A fierce grin played across Soulic’s bruised features as the Nemesai’s groans grew quieter until they twisted into a sickening gurgle.

  Cassian turned back to the other prisoners, who were cowering at this new show of violence. "Go," he said to them in a gentle but authoritative voice, gesturing toward the exit he had drilled in the wall. They timidly moved at his command and disappeared up the rough pathway of charred stone and soil. When the last of them was gone, Cassian turned to Soulic and said: "You may go now."

  “Bye,” Soulic said, and he raised his sword and ran up at what was left of the door. The mad Sansrit warrior burst through it in a spray of splinters and then began to attack. Cassian did not bother to follow the battle. Nearly every Nemesai in the temple had fled now, and the few left were no match for Soulic. Instead, he shut his eyes and reached out to his dragon, whom he could sense only a few hundred paces away, clawing eagerly at the ground.

  Cassian felt the creature bolt forward and leap into the air, spreading his wings. The dragon sent forth a blast of white fire that shattered a section of the temple's eastern wall and then folded its wings and whipped through the resulting hole. Cassian felt the dragon land on the floor above his head. He raised his hand and sent a burst of invisible concussive force upward, and his power ripped through the wood and stone. Then he willed his body to rise, and after a few seconds he was eye level with his beloved pet. The dragon leaned into his face, its hot, sulfurous breath stinging his skin.

  "I have missed you," he said, running his hands over the rough scales. The dragon nuzzled his forehead for a few heartbeats with its snout, and then it turned and gazed down through the newly made hole in the floor, its blazing yellow eyes fixing on Somar's lifeless form.

  "Yes," Cassian whispered, "he is dead."

  The dragon's lips curled back, revealing curved teeth. If Titus thought of Cassian as its father, then Somar was something of an uncle. The old man had walked with the dragon in the gardens some days, and he had spoken to Titus like a child, telling it about the world and even reading to it in the evenings.

  "We are going to destroy this place," Cassian whispered, putting a hand on the back of his companion’s neck. "We shall leave a gaping scar in the world as has never been created by man." Titus emitted a metallic growl of anger and a nod. It continued to stare at Somar's body as Cassian climbed onto its scaly back.

  He grabbed hold of the bone-spikes on the dragon’s head he had used so many times before as handles. Seated, Cassian made a slow gesture toward the old man. His magic reached out and cradled Somar's limp form, raising him up carefully through the hole in the floor.

  "Soulic," Cassian said, sensing the eyes of the Sansrit warrior behind him, "take Somar’s body outside. He needs to be at least fifty paces back from the temple walls. Make sure the protestors are likewise drawn back from the parameter."

  "Understood," Soulic said as he stepped around Titus. He held up his arms and accepted the corpse, and then looked up at Cassian and said: "What are you going to do?"

  "I am not entirely certain. Just go."

  Soulic nodded and hurried away, carrying the old man's body with an acceptable degree of respect.

  Cassian reached then into the ether, his mind shifting back to the construction of the catlike creature Dimitris had unleashed upon him years ago in their duel. As with the Drathnakal, he had not learned the names of the spectral entities that went into this spell, yet they came anyhow. Never had he felt so con
nected to his sorcery.

  Cassian shut his eyes and poured his anger into his magic, and it took shape into three massive, wolf-like creatures of shimmering blackness. He stared at them only for an instant before issuing a simple telepathic command: The apparitions lurched into violent attacks upon the walls, the pews, the doors, and the stained glass windows that depicted horrible images suffering in the name of divine justice. The beasts were extensions of Cassian’s will, yet they were alive and capable of acting on their own. The thrill of their wild frenzy filled him with a sense of omnipotence.

  He rose with Titus, dragon and master as one, high above the chaos. The vaulted ceiling above them shattered with a thought. Cassian's power seemed to know no limits. Below, he sensed Soulic make it to the street. The Sansrit warrior began to shout at the enormous crowd, and they slowly drew back from the temple, which was now in flames. As Cassian rose higher into the sky, he felt their eyes upon him. He would give them a show that would be spoken of for centuries to come.

  The air grew wet and icy as Titus carried him up into the clouds. When the height and angle felt right, the dragon spread its wings wide and called upon its wild, primal magic. They floated in stillness in the sky mist. Cassian shut his eyes and raised his hands out in front of himself, beginning to concentrate. His mind plunged further out into the ether of the universe than it ever had before. He was acting on mad instinct, reaching tendrils of his consciousness fully into other dimensions—places he would never have dared to go before. Rage pushed him through all hesitation. The Nemesai had taken everything from him! His mother! His father! And now… the one he had allowed to step into their place!

  When Cassian opened his eyes, he saw an enormous mirror-like orb floating in the air before him. The shimmering surface, which was larger than he and Titus combined, seemed to swirl slowly around like liquid, giving the impression of calm, yet the mass emitted an impossibly deep hum that made Cassian's bones tingle within his flesh. He stared at it in wonder, seeing his image upon his dragon distorted and reflected back.