by Eric Vall
The sorcerer roared in agony as the Qianlong’s teeth entered into the slope of his shoulders and sunk in deep. Yellow blood poured from the wounds, and he thrashed to get away, but the two of us kept him in a tight hold. I ripped the God Slayer downward, and when I pulled the weapon out, the blades came away with a massive amount of gray flesh. His lifeforce was waning; I could tell when I stared deep into the crimson depths of his eyes.
I’d waited so long for this, the final moment when I’d watch the life leave the sorcerer’s eyes. I stood in front of him with all of my women around me as the Qianlong pulled back and released the sorcerer from her grip. Heijing reared back, her head held high above us as her icy blue eyes flashed in the bright morning sunlight. My eyes slammed back down to Tuzakeur, and his gaunt, gray face looked paler than ever before. Purple light encased his hands, but the sorcerer barely had a chance to fight back during this battle, just as I’d wanted it.
I towered over him, and his thin, bony hands clutched at the wound I’d given him on his stomach. Without his massive, smoky cape, he looked only to be a frail, old man, and it made this moment only sweeter. I savored it for a moment as we surrounded him, then I stepped even closer to his shaking form.
“Where is Rana’s family?” I roared as I held the God Slayer in both hands and threatened him with the blades once more.
“I’ll never tell you.” Tuzakeur snarled as yellow blood seeped between his teeth and sprayed into the air.
“Then, you will die.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You think you can kill me so easily…Kazama?” Tuzakeur snarled as more yellow blood seeped between his teeth.
My women were too far behind us to hear the name slip from between his lips, and I gripped the God Slayer even tighter. I glanced back at them quickly, and from all of their faces, they were blissfully unaware of what the sorcerer had just said. I snapped back towards Tuzakeur and took a menacing step towards him, but the sorcerer didn’t react at all.
Above us, the Qianlong drew back, and her icy blue eyes narrowed on my face. It seemed that my infamy and the darkness that followed my heavenly given name hadn’t faded during the time that I was gone. The dragon’s expression changed as she glowered down at the both of us, and it was apparent that even the dragon-kind knew of me. Heijing didn’t react any more than the shift in position, as her eyes swiveled back to the sorcerer.
“You’ve tried to keep your past hidden for so long, even your minions don’t know your true name,” Tuzakeur went on in a voice bubbling with chuckles. “It’s such a shame, they trust you so much, but they don’t even know your true self. When will you tell them? Should I tell them for you?”
The wizard thought I was stupid. He thought he could outsmart me so easily. Yes, he was powerful, he’d nearly killed Heijing, and since she was a full-blooded dragon, that was no easy task. Though the Qianlong was strong, she was nothing compared to me, but Tuzakeur still thought he could beat me. I knew exactly what he was doing before he even moved. All of this, talking down to me, as if I were lower than him, was all a distraction.
Tuzakeur’s hands were still encased in purple light, but it was faded and pulsed frantically. It was all a façade, the Qianlong and I had weakened him but not as much as he was putting on. The fight wasn’t over, this was all a trick, but he’d forgotten one very important thing; I was a god, and he was not. He didn’t know, but I could read his thoughts perfectly from the power I’d received from Nergal.
I stepped back just in time as the neon purple light around his hands glowed, and the sorcerer slammed his hands forward. I ripped the God Slayer back as I stepped out of the way. Purple lightning crackled from the palms of Tuzakeur’s hands and hit one of the columns behind where I once stood. The stone cracked and splintered but stood firm.
Tuzakeur spun on his heel, and I was waiting for him with the God Slayer held high over my head. The wizard’s eyes widened in horror, he had no idea how I avoided the blow, but I had with ease. I brought the polearm down, and the three blades reflected in the sorcerer’s eyes as his mouth fell open in surprise. The shafts of the blades entered into the soft flesh of his gullet. I felt his windpipe crush underneath the power of the God Slayer as I pushed all of my dark energy into it.
I wanted Tuzakeur to suffer as I killed him, wanted nothing more than to feel every ounce of pain I inflicted upon his flesh. This man deserved to be ripped apart limb from limb while still fully conscious, and that’s exactly what I planned to do.
My dark power came together all around me in a choking cloud, and I thrust out both of my hands towards the struggling sorcerer. The black mist rolled across the ground towards Tuzakeur, and the sorcerer attempted to scurry away. My left hand tightened into a fist and held him in place as the smoke overtook him. Tuzakeur sputtered for breath as my power invaded his lungs. Right as I took complete control of his body, my eyes flicked up to the Qianlong, and she already knew what to do.
Heijing’s massive head swung down and slammed straight into Tuzakeur’s back. The sorcerer blasted up through the air as a trail of black smoke followed after him. Tuzakeur screamed as the Qianlong changed direction and snapped her jaw closed over his right arm. Heijing pulled her head back as she snapped the limb free, then used her head to beat him back down towards me.
The sorcerer’s eyes were wide, but their irises were no longer red, but wholly black like the color of my power that’d invaded his body. His screams roared in my ears as I bent at the knees and prepared for the wizard’s impact. Tuzakeur slammed into the three blades of the God Slayer, but I kept myself in place against his weight. His yellow blood splattered into the air as he slid all the way to the bases of the blades and hung there limply. The purple light surrounding his hands faded but flickered lightly enough to tell me he was still alive, but barely. I pushed forward against the haft of the polearm and relieved the weapon of his weight.
Tuzakeur fell to the rocky ground with a loud smack, and his breath came out in loud gasps. My power had eaten away at most of his lungs by now and spread throughout the rest of his body like a disease. My power would kill if my blade didn’t first, but I wouldn’t let that happen. I tossed the God Slayer aside as I stomped over the lowly wizard. I knelt down beside him and placed my leather gloved hands onto the smooth surface of his bald head.
Tuzakuer’s skin was deathly gray, and the veins that worked their way up his forehead were tinted purple from my invading power. His eyes rolled up to my face, and his lips moved to form words, but none came out. This time, the sorcerer was on the brink of death, and I would be the one to push him off the edge into the abyss. I hoped whoever was in charge of the Underworld while I was gone would torture him to their heart’s content.
I dug my fingers into the flesh of his head with my inhuman strength, and underneath the skin, his skull cracked. I breathed in deeply through my nostrils as I glared down at him for the last time. His eyes didn’t plead for his life like most others did but stared up at me with acceptance. I didn’t do all of this for me; I did this for Rana and her family. We’d traveled thousands of miles in search of the sacred items for the bastard and each time he’d appeared and then he’d slip between our fingers like an eel. It wouldn’t happen again, we would find the redhead’s family without him.
I had nothing to say to him as we stared at each other in this split second, and when I tore my eyes away, the sorcerer sputtered loudly through moist lips. Yellow blood smattered his cheeks and dripped down his thin bony chin as I tightened my grip on him for the final time. Tuzakeur’s skull cracked and exploded upward onto the sun-bleached stones of the Qianlong temple. His destroyed brain was nothing more than gray flecks of mush scattered and stuck between the stones. The faint purple light surrounding his hands finally faltered and went out as I stood.
I glared down at his headless corpse for a moment and remembered each of the terrible things he’d done. He’d forced Rana to find the items as he stole away her precious family. The sorcerer then
manipulated the leader of Kanashimi and killed the only goddess I’d met who actually cared for her people. Perhaps I may not have had the moral right to say such a thing, but Tuzakeur was a monster who deserved to be destroyed.
My minions crowded around me and stayed silent for a moment as they looked over the dead sorcerer. Rana gripped onto my arm hard, and I glanced over at her. The fox’s baby-blue eyes were wide with fear and unanswered questions. I would address her in a moment, but right now, I wanted to enjoy the first moment of peace without the sorcerer hanging over our heads.
The Qianlong dipped down beside us, and Carmedy gasped in fear at the closeness of such a massive beast. Heijing’s icy blue eyes washed over the feline then flicked away as she used her muzzle to nudge at the wizard and make sure that he was finally dead. When Tuzakeur’s corpse didn’t react or move, she pulled away with a loud snort.
Light exploded around the Qianlong, and dazzling sparks of golden light fluttered around the beast’s enormous body as she transformed. The dragon’s head shrunk in size as did her body while the light around her nearly blinded us. Carmedy gasped when the golden light cleared and revealed the Qianlong’s human form to us. This wasn’t her natural form, we already knew that, but it was fascinating to see the creature shift between bodies so easily almost like the Kitsune.
Heijing reminded me of Popī in a way, she looked young by mortal standards, possibly in her late teens. The dragon was over five hundred years old, but her human form was petite and childlike as her icy blue eyes moved over the whole of our group. Her long hair, which was pinned back with white flowers was the same color as her scales, light blue with hints of red when she turned her head in the light. She wore a long robe that brushed at the ground as she stepped forward and examined us further.
Haruhi broke from our group and took hesitant steps towards the Qianlong as if the creature would strike out any moment. Heijing settled her icy blue eyes on the sage’s face as the feline tiptoed closer and then suddenly stopped as the dragon spoke in a harsh tone.
“You intruded on the land of the Qianlong, you broke the sacred treaty between the Qianlong tribe and the catkins of Canarta,” Heijng uttered in a sharp tone as her eyes moved over our party then stopped on me. “No human or catkin are to set foot past the twin peaks, do you not know the laws of your own land? But… you, you are no human, are you, Dark One?”
“Hey!” Rana blurted out as her expression soured, and she stomped towards the Qianlong.
“Shhh,” Heijing quieted the redhead, and Rana’s eyes widened in shock. “Be quiet; I’m not finished.”
“Yeah, go on, insult us some more!” the fox cried as she threw her paws into the air and turned to walk back toward me.
“You came into a place where you were unwelcome,” Heijing said in a somber tone as her eyes burned into mine. “But if you hadn’t, I would be the one dead, not the bastard sorcerer. For that, I must thank you. Without you, I would be dead, and the legacy of the Qianlong would’ve died along with me.”
Rana stopped her complaining and turned back around the stare at Heijing. The Qianlong pressed her hands together and bowed low to us out of respect. When she straightened, she slipped a pale hand into her deep sleeve as she came closer to our group. Heijing passed by Haruhi and nodded to the feline politely as she moved on. Once she stood directly in front of me, she removed her hands from inside of the sleeves of her robe and held out a small metal rod encrusted with jewels.
“Take it. It’s one of the sacred items you’re searching for, no?” Heijing asked as she held the piece out to me.
“We …don’t need it anymore…?” Carmedy questioned as she turned towards me.
“We will still need them,” I confirmed in a hushed voice.
“Then take this too, I no longer need it.” The Qianlong said in her monotone voice that reminded me of Morrigan’s.
The dragon placed her hand directly in the middle of her chest and closed her eyes. Nothing happened at first, but as we watched, the air between her tensed fingers shimmered then solidified into a ball of swirling ice. The power passed down through generations of the Qianlong tribe floated in the palm of her hand and Heijing watched it for a moment. This was the power given to her from her mother, Guoshe, and the dragon whispered something to the orb of energy that I couldn’t hear.
Heijing held the orb out to me with resolute eyes, and I took it. The sphere floated over my hand as it did hers, but I felt every inch of my palm turn icy cold from its nearness. I brought the orb closer, and it pressed into my chest as all the other gods had, but this time it came with such a rush of coldness that I shivered, and when I exhaled through my open mouth, it came out as a mist of steam. I felt invigorated and refreshed as the Qianlong’s power became mine.
“It is called cryokinetics. It is a Qianlong trait that no other dragon possesses,” Hejing told me as her icy blue eyes met mine. “Seems like a silly trait for a dragon to have, dragons from legends breath fire, not ice.”
“How are we going to find my family?” Rana finally broke down and asked as she clutched onto my arm. “Tuzakeur was our only connection to them, and now …we’ll never find them.”
“That is untrue, both what Carmedy and Rana said,” I told them as I took the rod from Heijing. “We will use the sacred items, and we will journey to find the last two.”
“What about my family?” the redhead cried even more desperately, and I turned my eyes towards her.
In any other situation, I would have reprimanded the fox for her behavior. I was the Master here, and they were my minions, they should never demand information from me, but this was a different situation. The fox’s family was taken away from her, and she was desperate to find them after all of this time. Just as she seemed to have hope of finding them, I’d killed the single person who had the key to that information. I was patient with her and pressed my lips into a hard line.
“You already have a way to find them,” I told her in a soft voice, and Rana’s baby-blue eyes narrowed on my face. “I think the Dama described it as a ‘finder of things.’”
The redhead thought for a moment then her paws went immediately to the sapphire around her neck. Her fingers clasped around it and held it in her fist as she stared at me.
“The Eye of Alipsis? What do you mean?” Rana asked in a hushed tone.
“Wait,” Haruhi broke in as she hurried over with wide eyes. “You have the Eye of Alipsis? Do you know what this means?”
“No…” Rana trailed off in reply.
“You can find your family!” the sage said excitedly as she took the redhead’s hands in her own. “The Dama told you how it worked, right?”
“Not really,” Rana sighed. “As Master said, she only told me it was a finder of things and to hold it up to my eye.”
“Here, try it now,” the librarian pressed, and the fox took off the necklace. “Hold it up to your eye like so, do you see anything?”
“No….uhm…yes, there’s a bunch of lights, about six of them in that direction.” Rana told us as she pointed south, and Haruhi nodded knowingly.
“Are they all clustered together?” the sage asked as she stepped aside, and the redhead took a few steps towards the lights.
“Yeah…just all in one spot, they’re not moving at all.” The fox stated as she finally let the pendant drop from her eye and turned towards the librarian. “What does that mean?”
“Rana…those lights …they’re your family,” Haruhi stated, and instantly, tears filled Rana’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks. “The Eye of Alipsis is like a guide, or like the goddess said, ‘a finder of things.’ The stone looks deep into the heart of the user and finds the thing that person wants most. To you, that’s your family--”
“You’re telling me…I-I can find them…with this?” Rana sputtered as she held the necklace aloft, and Haruhi nodded softly. “I’ve had the Eye…since we left Machstein…I-I…”
“It’s okay,” the sage soothed as she held out her arms to
the redhead, and Rana fell into them. “You didn’t know; it’s okay.”
“M-Master had me use the Eye at the top of Machstein, and I-I saw the lights then too…” Rana sobbed into the librarian’s shoulder. “I didn’t know, shit, I didn’t but if I did…things would be so different.”
I crossed to them and placed a tender hand on the redhead’s shoulder. Rana pulled away from Haruhi and wiped at her eyes as she blinked up at me. I gently stroked her hair and looked into her pained face. If we had known on Machstein what the lights meant, we could have traveled towards them. I had to make an important decision about this situation. Rana couldn’t go along with us on our next adventure, but I desperately needed the other two sacred items. I wanted the weapon that Tuzakeur sought after to use it in my battle against the heavens.
“What are we going to do, Master?” Rana sniffled and looked to me for answers.
“There is only one answer to that question, and I know all of you aren’t going to like it,” I told them in a somber tone, and their faces became serious as all of my women huddled around me. “We’ll have to split up.”
“What?” Annalise shouted.
“You cannot be serious, Master…” Morrigan breathed as she shook her head.
“I am very serious,” I said as I raised a hand into the air to silence all other complaints to the idea. “I would like to go after the last two sacred items. I know for sure that Rana couldn’t stand to leave for another adventure without going to find her family first. Both are pressing matters, and if we split up, we can get them done quicker than if we were together. The Holy Order is watching us just as Nergal said, the Heavens are also keeping an eye on us. It’s only a matter of time before one of them attacks us; in fact, the Holy Order already did when they came after Haruhi. I am your Master, and I must protect you, and this is one of the ways I am going to do it.”
