"Then what do you believe if not me, your closest advisor?"
"What do I believe?" he repeated her question.
"Yes, what do you believe? Are you not still a man, hidden under all the hate? Do you not still have the ability to believe in something, anything else?" she challenged further.
"What more is there than the hate we possess? What else sustains us, propels us, drives us to accomplish that which we could never have accomplished without it?” he answered. “Do you not feel it, even now, growing like a rushing river in the midst of the heavy rains flooding it until its banks cannot hold back the torrent of power?”
"Yes, I feel it, and like you, I rely on it for strength and power, but there must be something more. Do you not long for a time when we do not have to hate any longer? A time when we can rest and just be together? I know we have much to do. I accept that and even enjoy it, but what happens after?" she asked. When she saw his eyes grow distant, losing some of their hateful excitement, she reached out her hand to touch his face. She thought she saw his eyes redden the way they would in the brief moments before tears broke their boundaries; and just when her fingers barely touched the side of his cheek, she believed she saw remnants of that innocent young man she had fallen in love with so long ago. However, all of her hopeful assumptions faded as quickly as the innocence and hope behind his eyes when his hand lashed out knocking hers away.
“No! There is nothing more!” he shouted, instantly grasping his fountain. Perhaps it was the softness she had just seen returned to his eyes, or perhaps it was the effect of losing Malice and Vile, or perhaps she had reached her mortal limit and could not contain any more of his hate induced abuse until some of hers was released; regardless of her reason, or reasons, something within her, deep within her, on a basic level, changed. When she would normally have begun pleading for mercy while backing away from him in an effort to mitigate some of the coming inevitability, using her power as a means of protection only, she found herself quickly standing, holding firm, and forming her power to strike back.
Lacking any hesitation born from her lack of desire to become the victim any longer, she lashed out with several mental spikes aimed at dismantling his consciousness. She felt them crash hard against a shield he had formed at the last second. Clearly, he had not expected her to act first, but she was tired of expectations and demands. Knowing that if she let up, if she gave him a chance to recover allowing him to gain the advantage, she would never be able to resist his powerful offensive weapons. So, she continued her assault by launching more and more mental spikes behind which she formed what she could only describe as a psionic whip. Continuing the wicked onslaught, she was waiting until the entirely of his defenses were consumed with protecting his consciousness against her mental spikes. In the moment, when he was left open for her psionic whip to crack against his subconsciousness, she would unleash the complexity of her hate in all of its entirety. And that moment was now. Much like a physical whip, hers snapped so loudly inside his subconsciousness that its reverberations were echoed in the deep reaches of his identity.
She had never before been able to strike him so effectively. But maybe that was because she had never employed the mental tactics Mordin displayed mastery over. Before, in every other encounter she had, training or otherwise, the manifestations of her dark-fountain laced power were limited to that which enhanced her physical prowess. Had it not been for the heat of the moment, she might have been surprised at her new abilities and hesitated just enough for Jesolin to attack first. But when the door to a previously closed room was standing ajar enough for her to grasp its knob and throw it wide open, there was no apprehension for what lay within. The only motivation was utilizing everything within her grasp without regard to its consequences or previous experience.
Strike him again, she heard a voice say within her mind. As such, while she formed another psionic whip, she grabbed the blades fastened to her hips and prepared for another assault. Just as it did the first time, her whip landed with lancing effectiveness against the crux of his subconscious identity. He writhed again.
Again, strike him again, bid the voice inside her head.
A third time she formed the wicked, subconscious whip, and a third time it struck with paralyzing force.
Now! Finish him! she heard the voice command with utter glee.
As she walked over to where he was writhing on the floor, her heart quickened and her breath deepened. She had sheathed one of her blades and gripped the other tightly in her right hand. So long, so long had she been tormented by his twisted love fueled by a hate so pure it altered everything it touched into a reflection of itself. So many times had he ravaged her body and mind seeking only to increase his control over her. So many times had he exerted his power, to its fullest extent, with no greater goal than to sate whatever mood or moment he was currently being consumed within.
She looked down, into his eyes, and saw them vacant and paralyzed, as if her psionic whip had cracked deeply enough to end whatever immortal substance was sustaining his mortal functions. It was fitting she be the one to kill him, for all of those who suffered the transformative pain at his hands, none had suffered as much as she. As she raised the dagger, preparing to make her final strike, he tried to speak, but was only able to weekly sputter. She bent down to allow his final words to be heard. After all, it was he who had shown her more power and ability than she would have ever known on her own. She, at least, owed his last words more than a lonely voice.
He sputtered again, but it was still too faint for her to hear. “Toil not, my love, for I did love you once. Your end will be swift and complete.”
As she finished speaking, he sputtered again, but this time with enough strength and coordination that, if he had desired, he could have formed words clear enough to be heard. But instead of a coherent, spoken language, she thought his sounds resembled laughter. As she stood up, preparing to deliver the blow that would set her free, at least as free as she could be with rampant hate still dominating her soul, he sputtered so clearly that none would have mistaken it for anything but what it was, laughter.
“We will see how long you can continue to laugh after my blade has pierced your cold, dead heart,” she cursed. Even at the moment of his death, he was mocking her, controlling her, and stealing her. She did not wait for his response. With the speed of a scorpions stinging tail, she drove her dagger straight into his heart. At least, that is what her mind’s eye visualized a split second before she moved. However, before her blade found flesh, Jesolin’s hate exploded in a bellowing thunderclap of rage throwing her backward against the wall.
As she regained her footing, protected by the power she held from the effects of the vicious impact, he continued to chuckle. She assumed her Shadow cloak and drew upon the depth of her hate for him. Yes, it was true he had given her so much more than what she would have ever experienced as the wife of Oolos, but in his giving, there was also a terrible price; a price she could not bear any longer. The price of pain. She had remained powerless to his repeated rapes and beatings, but with the emergence of this voice from within her and her new-found power stemming from her deepened hate, she felt empowered to act upon the voice's bidding.
"Well now,” he said, “you have grown, my little Raven,” he said.
Give in to the hate. Feel it within you, instructed the voice.
She listened and she obeyed. Detached from the processing of intentional thought, she drew the blade on her thigh and dropped into her martial stance. Jesolin did not respond in kind except to square his shoulders bidding her to advance.
Do it! commanded the voice. Without hesitation, strike him and all can be yours.
But she did hesitate. Regardless of what her inner voice had been screaming to her, the years she had spent under his control, the years of painful repercussions at his hands, and the numerous, torturous training sessions she had barely been able to suffer through all combined into a paralyzing seed that had been thoroughly water
ed and fed. As such, the roots of his control over her were comparable to those of the largest trees in the greatest elven forests. They were just too much to overcome in one moment of boldness. She wanted to attack him. She wanted to strike him and end his torment. But, if she had not understood this before, she understood it to its fullest now: there is more to action than desire, and more to freedom than hate.
In the split second of her hesitation, Jesolin grinned. He grinned and made her pay. She would not be the only one to utilize the psionic whip on this day. As impressive as hers was, it was small when compared to his. Quite possibly, he could have severed her from her identity rendering her utterly broken and nothing more than a senseless summation of bone and muscle lacking the greater portions of awareness. But he did not want her broken, not yet anyway. After all, his two new little ravens were not fully ready to leave the nest. As such, he needed her to function. So, instead of cracking the whip hard enough to sever her identity and subconscious awareness, the root of all intention, he held back and paralyzed it.
Groggy and disoriented, she barely felt his weight mounting her. And had it not been for the familiarity of his manhood, she would not have been aware of his presence as he penetrated her. The more he thrusted, the more she regained herself, and the more she felt the pain. But this pain was not linked nor expressed in any form of physical feeling. It bore more deeply than that. So deeply, in fact, that it penetrated the very understanding she had of herself – what she had been, what she had become, and what she would evolve into. When she looked into the latter, she began to cry. Is this all life had in store for her, to be used by this grotesque human, if he could be considered such any longer? Is this the summit of the mountainous pain she had endured? Was this as far as she was destined to climb? Again, her tears were not the reflection of the current moment because she had endured his brutality before and could endure it now. However, when her prophetic attempts to see into her future yielded nothing more than this repeated doom, regardless of her rise in power, her tears gathered in the pools of her resignation because of the overwhelming confirmation that this was all there was and all there would ever be.
Take him, said the voice. There is more than one way to win a battle.
Following the voice, in her weakened state, she lashed out with her power furiously and desperately. She struck him with her arms, legs, fingers, whatever she had left. But her attempts to struggle against him, to fight his rhythm and make him succumb to hers, were futile. Her hate manifested weapons crashed against the iron wall of his defenses. Her closed fists and her scratching nails, made no difference. He was taking her and there was nothing she could do about it.
No. Match him, said the voice again.
In this moment, every fiber of her being detested him, but then again, was that not the point of hate, to enrage the depth of loathing thereby eliciting a connection to powers and potentials not mortally available? She felt his fingers tighten around her neck, seeking the thrill of her suffering, a suffering that only provoked a greater urgency to his thrusting. Would he kill her? Was this when his hate would surpass his restraint and consume him utterly?
No! The point of hate is control. Control him! commanded the voice.
“I cannot!” she screamed, unaware her cry penetrated the boundary of her mind.
Are you not a woman, is he not a man?
Vismorda’s response was laden with tears and void of words. Her only reply was the acknowledgement that she was incapable of following the bidding of this voice. As Jesolin’s fingers continued to tighten, blocking any flow of air, and his trusting became more violent, she knew. In this moment, she knew he was going to kill her.
Let me show you! demanded the voice.
Just before her consciousness faded into the darkness of finality and she lost any voluntary control of her physical structure, she acted in the only manner she was still capable of. Though, in truth, she would have welcomed the peaceful reprieve from her pain and suffering death would have surely offered, she still had a will to live. And this will to live, this desire to continue within mortality, manifested because of a single need, she had to get them back. Not because he commanded it, but because they deserved it. So, unable to physically act upon her will to survive and continue, she did the only thing she was able to do, she decided and acquiesced to the bidding of the voice. And then, blackness.
When her eyes opened, struggling against the light to focus and adjust, she felt the lingering heat of a body lying next to her. A few moments passed and her recollection came rushing back, but that was it. She did not feel the residual pain, nor were her breaths labored as they normally would have been. Neither did she suffer from the groggy, mental haze following the insurgence of his power into her. A few more moments passed and she noticed heavy breathing, but it was not hers. She hesitated to turn her head fearing that giving sight to him would further increase her awareness allowing the full effects of his brutality to reveal themselves behind whatever it was they were hiding behind.
Almost startling her, he said, still breathing heavily, “My compliments, Vismorda, I did not think you had that much in you. You still may have use for me after all. In truth, I was going to kill you. I was going to tighten my fingers around your neck until the very last hopes of breath had been squeezed from your lungs never to return again. However, I must admit, you impressed me.”
She could think of nothing else but to maintain her silence.
“As admirable as your performance was today, it does not preclude you from my command,” he said as he turned on his side to look at her. “You will find my Ravens, and you will bring them back. Or you will die,” he said flatly.
********
There are many things revealed within the dark meditation, and while many of them are dedicated to the enhancement of combative performance, there are still many that are not. However, most of the unlearned, those not enlightened to the complexities of hate and rage, would never see the more subtle means of power. To the brutish combatant, he who seeks power and domination through physical displays greater than one's opponent, there is but one result from establishing and maintaining the dark link with one's dark fountain. But to him, the Prime Necron, he who seeks greater truths and more subtle means of control, there is a much greater world to discover. The vastness of ability and power contained within the absolution of hate was beyond anything he had previously thought possible. Yes, the gypsy shaman had been capable of unnatural knowledge, but they were nothing, and would never be anything, when weighed against the power and knowledge he had gained. And yet, though he had learned so much, he knew there was more yet to be revealed. But now was not the time to meditate upon the truths he did not know; instead, it was the time to manifest his latest secret and granted ability - The Five Portents of Hate.
Through the instruction of Jesolin, he was able to understand the five components of hate; and though his understanding of them, the ritual of imbuing each of these portents into a corpse to anchor the dark power thereby allowing it a type of pseudo-life linked to the will of the necromancer, was made possible. They were not giving life to the lifeless, for that is something not even hate can overcome, but they were creating something of use from the useless. After all, usefulness is an extension of hate. After all, if there is no useful purpose, then there is no purpose at all.
As he traversed the doorway into the Ritual Room, created very shortly after the Stone Keep had been taken, he observed a charred and blackened corpse in the center of the Ritual Circle. He had half expected to see as much given the failure of his Necromancers on their previous five attempts, but he had not expected there to be no visible progress whatsoever. He walked slowly toward them, the faint, reddish hues of the wall sconces flickering ever so slightly. While he was walking, he made sure to examine the ten-sided rune drawn on the floor, its lines made with the blood of its participants. The lines were drawn correctly, as were the smaller blood-runes at each of its ten points. There were five different ru
nes in all, each representing a different portent of hate - pride, division, jealousy, control, and finally domination. Circling from left to right, they were ordered correctly. There was no imperfection present within the physical drawings the ritual demanded. This meant there had to be either an imperfection in the way the ritual was being performed, or the power provided during its performance was imperfect and insufficient. And while there was the possibility his chosen necromancers could have slightly varied their performance from his very specific instructions, he felt the latter cause was the more probable explanation for their repeated failure. They knew well the consequence of failure, and they would undergo everything possible to avoid his wrath.
To him, hate had always been a dynamic manifestation expressed through combative magic. At least, that is what it had been until he had recently been given a deeper understanding by Jesolin's teaching. And because his transition of thought had presented as initially difficult, he had taken extra care and preparation when transferring that knowledge to his selected necromancers. No, there would be no deviation from his instructions; therefore, it had to be a lack of power. And a lack of power meant there was a lack of hate. And a lack of hate was a condition he could not abide.
"Do it again!" ordered Mordin, growing frustrated with the inadequate efforts of his ten gathered Necrons.
"Prime Necron, we have attempted this ritual per your instructions five times now with the same results. The mortal body is not meant to hold and house this type of power without the presence of a basin. Without an active dark fountain in the recipient, we cannot do what you ask," said a very fatigued necromancer.
Mordin slowly walked over to the Necron, knelt down beside him, and spoke softly into his ear, "Yes, I am sure you are tired. I have been very demanding." He reached his hand and gently placed his palm on the weary necromancer's shoulder. "I can see that you are tired. But do not worry, your rest is coming soon." To the other nine necromancers he added as he stood up, "Is this how all of you feel?"
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