by Eric Vall
“Your coin,” I growled. “Or I’ll destroy you where you stand. At least now you will have a chance.”
“Fine,” the god said after a few moments of hesitation. “You will adhere to the rules?”
“Of course,” I laughed. “I need to make it challenging on myself.”
Cethin nodded, produced the same ancient coin that we had played with for millenia, and with a quick movement, concealed it somewhere on his person. Meanwhile, a thick fog rose up from the meadow around us and covered the clearing in white. Cethin’s arms dissolved into the same white mist as did the rest of his body, and in the blink of an eye, he had disappeared into the fog altogether. The mists thickened as he did so, and it became so heavy that I couldn’t even see the trees that had formed the archway, Cethin’s throne, or even the forest proper.
I was not put-off by this new trick of his though. I focused on trying to sense his divine power in the mists, but to my surprise, I couldn’t find it. It was indeed impressive. Not only was Cethin invisible to the naked eye, but he could also conceal his godly presence, a technique that would be most useful once it was in my grasp.
I squinted at the thick mist that surrounded me and turned slowly. Cethin could attack from any angle, and until I found a way to pierce the supernatural fog, I had best be ready for anything. My mind sorted through the many powers I had gathered in our trek across the continents as there had to be a way in which I could see through the fog. I immediately settled on my new powers from the twin animal gods. Whether ancient or modern, there had to be an animal within my arsenal that had the sensory powers to see through this fog. I quickly settled on an ancient bird that resembled an owl with two curved horns that sprouted from its head and dagger-like teeth within its beak. The bird possessed almost supernatural sight, capable of seeing through the thickest mists and the darkest nights. As I focused on the beast, the animal gods’ power flooded me, and my eyes twitched as they transmuted into that of the ancient owl-monster.
The world around me took on a yellowish tint as everything had been clouded became clear as day, but Cethin was waiting for me to make the next move, and the moment I shifted my vision, a pair of white tendrils burst from the fog on either side of my head and wrapped around my neck.
Though they were solid enough to strangle me, the tentacles slipped through my grasp like smoke as I tried to tear at them with my gauntleted hands. I lurched backward to try to pry away from them, but before I managed a half step, two more foggy tentacles lashed out of the mist and snaked around my ankles. With a mighty pull, the four tendrils carried me off my feet and yanked my limbs spread-eagle in midair. I writhed against the limbs but couldn’t break free.
Then I smiled. It felt good to have a miniscule amount of challenge again.
If physical might wouldn’t do then I would use magical power to free myself. As the limbs continued to strangle me, I summoned forth the power of the lava deity but decided to use it in a new way. Taking inspiration from the animal gods’ power, I did not create lava, but instead tried to transform my body into living lava. The deity’s power ran through me, and an almost familiar sensation of discorporation came across my body, as if I were leaving my avatar to become the free-floating entity that controlled my dungeon, but instead, my feet dissolved into molten lava. The smoke tentacles wrapped around my ankles recoiled in seeming horror, then quickly dissipated. My transmutation redoubled in speed now, and as the rest of my body dissolved into liquid rock, the other tendrils retreated as well. I dropped as a man-sized blob of white-hot magma and splatted harmlessly into a large puddle that incinerated the meadow grasses.
A white face began to form in the fog. The indentations of a nose, eyes, and a mouth that was turned upward into an amused expression came into view as a misty interpretation of Cethin’s face.
“You have learned new tricks,” Cethin said through his foggy avatar.
I offered no reply as I oozed my puddle form across the ground a few yards before I stopped and spread myself out. Once I was a good dozen paces across, I began to reform my body. I rose majestically up out of the glowing lava, molten rock dripping off my armor like a shower of dark power.
But I was not alone.
Around me rose six illusory duplicates that ascended in perfect unison. I dispelled the lava pool as the seven of us paced and shifted between one another, and then a moment later, we scattered and ran off into the mists.
“Ah, we’re going to play with illusions then,” Cethin chuckled, his voice now echoing throughout the fog. “I will admit that you’ve gotten stronger, but it will take more than illusions and lava to defeat me.”
My eyes were still infused with the owl-beast’s power, so I could see through the fog as smoke tentacles burst from the fog to strangle my doppelgangers. While my illusions writhed against their captors, they were only shadows, easily crushed to dust by the fog tendrils.
This didn’t trouble me at all, it was just another move in our little game, but I was ready to step it up another notch.
“Yes, enough with these petty games of hide and seek,” I intoned darkly as I drew the God Slayer from my void pocket. In one smooth motion, I slammed the butt of the staff into the ground while channeling the ice god’s power through it. As the God Slayer’s blades burst out to reveal its full glory, a blustering arctic wind exploded outward from it. The freezing cyclone crashed into the mists surrounding me and turned the fog into icy droplets of water as the winds blew it away. In the blink of an eye, the meadow was clear once more save for a single misty being floating by the wooden throne.
“The mists were a cute trick, but not enough to stop me,” I said with a laugh. “Still, it will be an interesting power to play with once I take it from you.”
“These are bold words, friend,” Cethin’s voice called out as the cloudy shape stretched and solidified into his usual avatar, “but you are no longer as powerful as you were when we were in the heavens, and I am capable of so much more than I have shown you.”
“Why don’t you stop with your arrogant boasting and give me a challenge?” I said with a self-satisfied smile.
“Very well,” Cethin grinned. “Since you’re already stepping on my toes by playing with the wind, we’ll play with the wind.” Without another word, the lanky god raised his hands to the air. Now, I could truly feel the full extent of his power as he summoned it up, the clouds overhead turning dark as pitch as they started to spin and swirl.
Good. I had been worried that Cethin’s boredom had made him lose his touch. I grinned even as the wind picked up and grew stronger and stronger. My minions wisely retreated further back into the safety of the trees while I braved the sudden cyclonic force that rose in the clearing. My armor was heavy, but the wind was powerful enough to sweep me away, so I twisted the God Slayer around and drove the spiked end deep into the earth and held on tight.
“You’ve stolen a lot of power from our fellow deities, my friend.” Cethin nodded approvingly as the winds lifted up my body, the vortex almost strong enough to pry my grip loose from my halberd. “Still, it looks like you haven’t gotten anything stronger than the weather, have--”
The brown-haired man’s words caught in his throat when he realized that something had caught hold of his ankle. While he had been gloating, I had summoned up the magic I had taken from the forest deity. The roots of the trees near Cethin, even the very grasses and weeds on which he stood, snaked up around him with startling speed. His ankles were snarled with plants even as wooden branches reached down to grasp his arms. Before he could react, the weather god’s concentration was broken as the roots and woods tightened their grip around his body, the very wood creaked and groaned with the effort.
As his focus was torn away, so was his control over the winds. The mini-tornado abated, and I fell back to my feet on the forest floor.
“Cethin, please,” I said solemnly, “you could not have fallen so far in the centuries since we last clashed.” I clenched my fist by my side, and the
plants followed my command by grasping the deity by the throat and squeezing.
“It seems as though I’ll have to use my full power after all,” Cethin gasped out, and I was pleased to see he was still smiling. This wasn’t over yet.
“Go ahead,” I retorted and spread my arms wide. “It won’t do you any good, but it will make our fight more interesting.”
Cethin’s smile turned dark, almost a mirror image of my own when I knew I had my victims in my grasp, and he snapped his fingers. Suddenly, the stormy clouds overhead crackled with sparks, and before I could react, the sky split with a burst of lightning bolts that raked the meadow. Trees were burst asunder, the canopy burst into flames, and I only barely threw myself aside as the ground where I had just been standing was turned into a blackened crater. Even so, electricity arced from the near-miss through my metal armor, and I clenched my teeth from the pain burning through my nerves.
“Now, let us end this,” Cethin roared, passion back in his voice as the sky thundered with every word. The lightning had burnt away the plant life holding him down, and as electricity danced around him like a suit of armor, he hovered upon the very storm winds that whipped through the clearing. He snapped his fingers once more, and the storm clouds responded with a rage and fury that seemed greater than any god’s.
A tremendous lightning bolt, a blast that would be immediately lethal to any living creature, lanced down towards my seemingly stunned form. From the edges of the forest, I swore I heard at least one of my minions gasp in concern for me.
It was appreciated, but unnecessary, because I was not nearly as helpless as Cethin assumed.
As I expected Cethin’s finishing blow, I had already thrust the God Slayer into the earth before he cast it down as I summoned up the animal gods’ power to shift into a common house cat. Without my metal armor and with my much reduced size, the lightning bolt homed in for my impromptu lightning rod while I pounced away with my now enhanced feline reflexes. I was a good ten feet away when the blast hit, coursing through the invulnerable artifact weapon and into the ground.
Cethin’s jaw went agape at my continued existence, and in his ignorance, or perhaps arrogance, the weather god had let himself drift back over the pond around his throne, and that was exactly what I needed.
With a surprisingly cute-sounding meow, I reflexively arched my back and puffed out my tail as I summoned the lava god’s power once more. Magma burst out from the earth under the pond, and as it hit the cold water, a tremendous hiss and a burst of scalding steam tore through the air. Cethin howled in pain and confusion as his skin blistered, and his eyes were clouded.
But I wasn’t finished.
The rapidly cooling lava wasn’t yet solid, so it was still under my power. I willed it up and around, and once the steam cleared, a burned yet still living Cethin was encased in a cocoon of steaming, solid rock save for his neck and head.
I folded my arms over my chest and looked around at our battlefield. Chunks of earth were missing from the ground, trees had been torn away from their roots while others had been ripped away, roots and all. The dark clouds that Cethin had created gradually shifted back to white, and the sun appeared once more.
Our battles had always been lively, but this was one of for the books.
Cethin’s pained seething turned into a chuckle. “So now you will have your revenge, Dark One. Just as we all feared you would.”
“Yes,” I said as I walked toward him. “I’ve always won.”
“Except for once,” he growled. “When we all worked together to toss you from our realm. I laughed as you fell. We all did. Do you remember our mirth?”
“I remember everything,” I admitted.
“And you have lost once more,” he grunted.
“Oh?” I asked.
“Yes. You haven’t taken the coin from my pouch. That was part of our old game remember? I would try to kill you, and you would instead take the coin from me. You have not taken the coin from me. So while you may have bested me this time, you are far weaker than--”
“Are you referring to this coin?” I asked with a smirk and gestured to one of the trees from the archway that was still standing.
Cethin turned to see the leafy branches of the tree as they began to stretch and reach toward me like fingers. As they reached me, a curled leaf on the tip of the branch unfurled, and within it was a small golden coin. The leaf turned over and dropped the coin into my waiting palm
“B-but… how did you…?” the brown-haired man sputtered in disbelief. “When did you…?”
“I’m quite used to your tricks, Cethin,” I said as I casually tossed the coin up and down in my hand. “When I used the plant life around us to restrain you, it wasn’t just to restrain you. I also used that moment to search you. You were too distracted by the, well, strangulation to notice that the thinner branches were combing your person. After that, I kept the coin hidden within one of the trees for safe keeping.”
“I can’t believe this,” Cethin muttered as he shook his head, “but what if that particular tree would have been sucked up by my winds or blasted by my lightning? You would have lost the coin.”
“No, I wouldn’t have,” I said as I continued to flip the coin. “I would have simply sent my shadow slaves after the coin, but that doesn’t really matter now, does it? Because I do in fact have the coin, and now I have proven how much better I am than you. Again.”
Cethin blinked at me in disbelief. Finally, the god focused on me with his lips pinched together tightly for a moment before he burst into raucous laughter.
“You have bested me,” Cethin said through his chuckles. “Who would have guessed that we would have met again after all these millenia? I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun. You know how these mortals are, so puny and weak and boring.”
“Not all of them,” I said thoughtfully as I waved my hand, and Cethin’s rocky prison broke apart at my command. The weather god only fell a short distance before his own winds picked him up with a casual gesture.
“Perhaps.” Cethin shrugged as his burns healed quickly. “I have yet to meet such mortals, but no matter. I surrender my power to you, Dark One, and perhaps this means little after so much time, but I am sorry for what we did to you.”
As he nodded to me, a glowing yellow sphere emerged from his chest. The orb floated toward me and passed into my chest. My heart raced, my breath quickened, and my skin started to tingle with the awesome sensation of new power flowing through my veins. I closed my eyes tight as I savored the euphoric feeling of Cethin’s power joining with mine. As my heartbeat returned to normal, and I opened my eyes, I noticed that Cethin’s body was starting to fade away.
“Leaving so soon?” I said with a wry grin.
“Perhaps glad to be free of this place finally. What I did to you was soon done to me. Exile. Imprisonment. Self-loathing. Poetic Justice. I don’t know how you freed yourself, but this is a fitting end to my existence. Goodbye Dark One. I hope you have all the revenge you can stomach.”
He reached a foggy hand out to shake mine. I joined hands with him, and a split second later, he faded away altogether. Then I stood there for a moment and stared at the place where my old adversary had stood only seconds ago.
“Goodbye, Cethin,” I said quietly.
Chapter 14
“I’m sorry you had to kill your friend,” Carmedy touched my shoulder gently. Her words and touch broke me out of my thoughts, I hadn’t even noticed my minions approach me through the ravaged battlefield. She then wrapped her arms around me. “That must have been hard for you.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said as I gave her a return embrace.
“Well, I know you didn’t directly,” the feline alchemist began, “but still, he passed on because you won the bet.”
“Yes,” I replied softly as I stroked her black hair. “In a way he is gone, but the truth is, much like the old forest god, Cethin is free to wander the heavens once more. There is no reason to be sad whe
n it was something he so greatly desired.”
“Well, that’s good then!” Carmedy smiled at me. “I kind of forgot about the forest god. He was really nice!”
“Nice for having thrown us into a death battle,” Rana snarked, but there was a smile on the fox thief’s face.
“Now that that’s settled, perhaps we better start searching for the treasure,” Annalíse spoke up.
“Hey, that’s my line.” Rana chuckled. “Since when do you care so much about treasure?”
“Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t care as much about the treasure, except for trying to find the sacred objects of course,” the swordswoman added, “but I’m hoping to find more augmentation stones for Bloodscale.”
“Ah, so that’s it,” Rana said with a grin. “You’re hoping to find the good stuff before the rest of us do.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Annalíse,” Carmedy said as she jogged off toward one of the tunnels that branched off from the main cavern. “I’m going to find one first.”
“Hey, we weren’t starting just yet!” Annalíse laughed as she raced off to join Carmedy.
“I guess we have a competition on our hands,” Rana chuckled as she chased after Annalíse and Carmedy.
I shook my head in amusement at their antics. Of course, their little competition was for their own fun, for in the end, I would ensure that whatever enchanted items we found were given to those that needed it. Besides, I would find far more hidden treasures here with my shadow slaves who I summoned with a mental command.
Morrigan stayed behind with me, and she brushed back her silver-blonde hair as she turned her dark eyes to me. “Master?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“The god. He called you ‘Dark One.’ Why?”
“Ahhh,” I said as I exhaled and closed my eyes. “I will tell you someday. For now, I wish to leave those memories alone.”
“I understand,” she said as she nodded. “May I say one thing to you, Master?”
“You can say as much as you wish to say to me, Morrigan,” I said as I smiled at her.
