by Eric Vall
I turned my attention back to Duncan and grabbed him by his thick arm and ripped up his black sleeve to expose the pale flesh underneath. I looked into his face and asked my first question, fully knowing that he would refuse to answer.
“What does the Holy Order plan to do with Isolda’s descendant?” I questioned him, and Duncan sealed his mouth tight as he stared at me defiantly. “Just as I suspected. Morrigan?”
“Yes, Master?” the elven woman asked as she hurried closer.
“Look at his flesh, what do you know about it?” I asked, and Duncan glanced between the two of us hurriedly.
“Skin protects us from the environment, keeps us warm and cool in different temperatures, and aids our sense of touch.” The elven woman answered in her cold, stoic voice as she glared down at Duncan’s bare arm. “Why do you ask, Master?”
“Did you know there are one thousand nerve endings per square inch of skin? Isn’t that interesting?” I inquired with a tilt of my head, and Morrigan nodded once.
“Yes, but this is a conversation better suited for Carmedy, she is the one with the interest in medicine and healing,” the elf answered as her dark eyes met mine. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Close your eyes, my dear,” I grinned, and she did as she was told. “Imagine all the nerve endings in your mind, tiny pinpricks of red against a crème colored backdrop. They sense cold, heat, and more importantly, pain. Can you imagine the agony of having your skin removed piece by piece? Strip by strip? The stinging feeling of the air hitting the meat and muscle underneath?”
“It would be anguish; I would beg for death,” Morrigan whispered with her eyes closed.
“Uhhh,” Duncan groaned uneasily.
“Now, I want you to imagine digging into the flesh, feeling the meaty piece between your fingers,” I whispered into her ear, and before my eyes, a small, clean-cut appeared on Duncan’s forearm. “Peel it away, feel the skin tighten under your hand as it struggles to stay intact and whole.”
The Holy Order member’s skin tore in a three-inch-thick slice up his arm, it was silent, but Duncan’s screams were not as I held him in place.
“Now, stop and hold it there,” I commanded the elven woman as I leaned in close to Duncan’s pained face. “What are they going to do with her?”
“I-I won’t tell you!” Duncan sputtered but from the sweat that dripped from his round cheeks and the desperation in his eyes, I knew he’d break soon.
“Rip it, and begin another piece,” I instructed Morrigan, and the sliver of flesh swaying through the air ripped backward.
The skin lay there limply as another piece began to rip free from the rest, and Duncan rocked backward on his heels as he screamed for mercy.
“They’re going to burn her at the stake!” Duncan screamed as Morrigan ripped back the piece of skin with a wet squelch. “The elders wanted something big to lure you in, and they knew that anyone with relation to Isolda would bring you here! They’re planning a big celebration right before they sacrifice her to the gods!”
“What do the gods have to do with this?” I growled as my hand slammed out and gripped him around the neck.
“The gods said they needed to be appeased. If they did this one thing, then they would help the Holy Order in the coming battle against you.” Duncan gasped as more tears snuck out of the corners of his eyes.
“He’s not lying,” Morrigan stated as she held up her soul stone ring, and the orb within was cool and silent.
“How do you know all of this? You said you were a level two mage: you wouldn’t have this information normally.” I uttered as I looked into the farthest reaches of his consciousness.
“The lower level mages are assigned to the elders. I worked with Elder Matteo and attended all the meetings with him,” Duncan told us through gritted teeth. “The poor bastard could barely walk, and I had to carry him to the meetings on my back practically.”
“Why would the gods need appeasing?” I questioned as my hand tightened around his throat.
“I don’t know! They never covered that in the meetings!” the Holy Order member squeaked.
“He’s lying,” Morrigan stated as the soul stone began to glow blood red.
“Tell me why,” I commanded, and Duncan fought against me, but in the end, couldn’t break free.
“The gods want the weapon,” Duncan panted as he looked deeply into my eyes. “Some type of weird staff thing made up of seven pieces. Some rogue sorcerer guy came in and claimed he’d get it for them, but he hasn’t returned in a few months.”
“Tuzakeur,” Haruhi murmured as she came to stand at my shoulder, “He’s dead. We killed him.”
This was all new to me, it seemed that our three largest enemies: the Holy Order, the heavens, and Tuzakeur, were working together in the end. We’d eliminated the sorcerer, but it made me wonder why the heavens wanted the weapon we were actively searching for. What was so special about it? Even I didn’t know what type of weapon it became once all the pieces were reunited, but I would soon find out.
“Why were you out here?” I asked as I gestured to the corpses of his comrades. “You were searching for something, was it me or something else?”
“We were looking for the dungeon, then we were supposed to report back,” Duncan told me in a tight voice dripping with pain. “It’s believed to be where two of the pieces of the sacred item are, and we were sent to confirm that.”
“Is there anything else that you can think of that would help us?” Haruhi asked, and Duncan sobbed, since he knew his time was coming to an end and he clung desperately to it.
“Spare my life,” Duncan blubbered as he pleaded with his eyes. “I’ll be an asset to your army, please.”
“No,” I boomed as I let him drop to the ground once more, and he sobbed into the dirt. “You betrayed the Holy Order so easily, how do I know that you won’t do it again.”
Before the Holy Order member could speak again, I placed my hand out into the air over his head. Black energy swirled around my hand like a miniature thunderstorm, and I swiped down, my fingers tensed. I felt the air part as the orb of energy pushed down into the top of Duncan’s head. I momentarily considered sending him to the Underworld like the others, but decided to keep my word, and blinding white light flooded through his eyes and open mouth as his soul was sucked away into the spirit realm. I stepped out of the way as his heavy body fell forward and flopped onto the leaf littered ground.
Silence fell over the three of us, and I thought for a long moment about all the things that Duncan told us. The heavens and Holy Order were working together to fight me off. I shouldn’t have been surprised, they were two of my greatest enemies. I already knew that my father wanted to destroy all the mortals on earth, and this was just one of his underhanded ways of getting what he wanted. I assumed that he hadn’t told the Holy Order that was his goal or else they wouldn’t be helping him in the first place.
“What do we do now, Master?” Haruhi asked in a low voice as she clung to my arm. “Are we returning to camp?”
I turned and gripped the God Slayer in my hand. I sensed out the power of the second god near us and breathed in deeply. There was something oddly familiar to this god’s power, but I hadn’t recognized it yet. It was like an echo from my past, I could make out words but not the speaker, and I needed to know who it was inside of the dungeon.
I knew what had to be done: we needed those last two items before the Holy Order found them. We already had the other five, and soon, we would possess the holy item that both the heavens and the mages wanted. We needed to retrieve it tonight before anyone else could get their hands on it.
“We’re going to invade the dungeon,” I stated as I walked in the direction the beat of power came from. “We need to do it tonight.”
I guided my women through the darkness. I knew that both of them were tired, but they still had the energy to fight alongside me. I didn’t speak this entire time, and neither did my women as the heavy weight of what
we were about to do hung over our shoulders.
As we moved, I tried my best to figure out who this god was, the presence was so familiar that it almost set me on edge. I was a powerful god who could destroy all in my path, but this deity’s essence was so familiar to me that it made my hair stand up at the back of my neck. Maybe it was another god like Euron? Another deity I would have once called a friend while in the heavens, but that couldn’t be right. This presence was hostile and bathed in a golden hue that I couldn’t place yet.
The forest was thick with trees and in the distance, I could hear the hooting of an owl, but other than that, it was completely silent on our trek up. I spent this time reflecting on my times in the heavens and who could be in this dungeon. The closer we walked, the more familiar the presence became to me. It was on the tip of my tongue, and I wracked my brain for the face I’d attempted to erase thousands of times.
The dungeon entrance was fairly easy to find. Like most others, it was pressed into the ground. Blackened wood served as an archway with ancient runes and symbols pressed into it. Two golden pillars stood outside of the entrance like the ones outside of my own and the Dama’s. Whoever was inside, the gods didn’t want to let out or let escape. I stood tall outside the archway, and my shadow stretched before me like a dark ghost. The feeling here was like watching a massive wave roll and rise above it, the moment of dread before it all came crashing down.
I looked into the dungeon beyond and immediately knew who was inside. His holy sigil was pressed into the blackened wood hundreds of times, a name that I’d known for most of my life and tried to burn from my memory. I gritted my teeth as I held onto the God Slayer tighter.
“What is it, Master?” Morrigan asked as she placed a pale hand on my arm.
“Master…” Haruhi breathed as her hazel eyes moved over the sigils. “Is this…?”
“Yes...” I whispered as I turned back to them and grinned. “Let’s go.”
The darkness inside swallowed us whole, and I guided Haruhi and Morrigan with my hands. I wasn’t sure what he’d throw at us, but I knew that as soon as I stepped foot inside, he would know who I was and why I was there.
The change within the dungeon was instantaneous. The temperature outside was warm, and a tab bit humid, but in here, the temperature dropped so quickly our breath came out in gasps of condensation. My women huddled together with me as the soft trickling water above our heads formed into ice and pointed down at us like knives. Haruhi’s teeth chattered as she hugged her arms to her chest, and the elven woman wrapped a thin arm around her for comfort.
I gritted my teeth as I narrowed my eyes on the tunnel ahead of us and summoned up the fire gods power that I’d taken earlier. I wrapped all of us in a large ball of warm air as we walked on, and they seemed to become more comfortable.
I could tell that something was wrong, he wasn’t fighting me with all of his power. His attempts were weak, but he still attempted to keep us, more specifically me, at bay. It wouldn’t work, I knew his powers through in through. I could picture his sneering face and the golden light that always seemed to surround him. That image filled my mind and built up my rage inside of me. I pushed on ahead and felt his essence in every inch of this place. I couldn’t wait to see his face and take his life, it gave me great pleasure to picture it in my mind as I guided my women closer to the nexus.
The archway into his nexus appeared before us, and I stood in the dark entrance for a moment and breathed in deeply. This was the moment I had waited thousands of years for. I’d thought it would come when I finally journeyed to the heavens, but fate was on my side this time. I could see his silhouette in the dim light, strung up similarly to the way Athar was. He’d been beaten, wounded and left to hang in his empty dungeon for the rest of eternity. I laughed to myself as I leaned against the archway, and his head lifted at the sound.
“Kazama…it’s you…just as I thought…” he whispered in a hoarse voice.
I could barely make out his face in the darkness, but that didn’t matter. His voice sounded as it always did, but without the cocky hint to it that he had in the heavens. Being sent down from his place in the gods realm had taken him down a few notches, and it satisfied me. I grinned widely as I stepped into the nexus and spread my arms wide in welcome.
“Hello, Otia,” I sneered as I closed in on him. “I haven’t seen you in ages, little brother.”
Chapter Seventeen
Haruhi gasped in realization, and Morrigan’s white eyebrows merely raised in surprise as we stepped through the archway together. The sage’s hazel eyes were wide as she scurried forward then took a step behind my back in fear. She had no reason to worry, my brother’s powers were strong, but they were not the kind that could do physical damage.
“Otia,” Haruhi whispered as she stared up into his face. “The god of honesty and truth…”
“Your brother?” Morrigan asked as she glanced over her shoulder at me.
I didn’t answer, only stared up into the face of the man who had betrayed me and had me cast out of the heavens so long ago. It gave me great joy to see him here, strung up and beaten within an inch of his life. It did make me wonder, why had Otia been cast out? He was used by the Holy Council to weed out those who lied, my younger brother was essentially a living and breathing truth seeker. That was his only use to the heavens, and I wondered when that usefulness had worn out.
I stared up into his worn face and remembered him as he once was. He was my parent’s favorite, the bouncing baby boy that was always bathed in a golden glow. His eyes were honey-colored and with a warmth that poured from the inside out. To my parents, he was everything good and kind that I wasn’t, and they favored him until the earth’s end. Even as the oldest son, I could never measure up to Otia, the bastard who took my place in the heavens and in everyone’s hearts.
Now, Otia was chained to the ceiling by long lengths of clinking metal. His legs hung in the open air and were fastened at the ankle to the floor by more metal links. His face was gaunt, and a gloomy blue aura replaced the golden glow. It was so satisfying to see him like this, and I felt laughter bubble up in my throat as his eyes opened, and he gazed down at me.
“Kazama…brother…” Otia whispered through cracked and dry lips as he leaned forward.
His chains rattled and shook as he attempted to look closer, but he grimaced in pain. I inclined my head to him, and I squinted up into his face.
“How dare you refer to me by that name,” I snarled as I gripped the God Slayer tightly in both hands. “You’re the one who had me thrown out of the heavens, you are no brother of mine.”
“Brother, please,” Otia choked out as tears spilled down his hollow cheeks. “Have mercy on me! Yes, I betrayed you but look upon me in my time of need with mercy and kindness like you have done for Athar and the Dama. You are here to kill me, that I know but please, look upon my face and see the reflection of you within it.”
I breathed in deeply and glared up at my little brother. Mercy and kindness? He must have forgotten who I was in our time apart. I spared few and killed many who stood in my way, and when I looked into his face, I saw nothing more than an obstacle. Mercy? He wanted sympathy from me? Had he forgotten what he’d done to me so long ago? I couldn’t look at him and see someone who deserved pity.
“You want me to spare you, Otia?” I scoffed as I looked deeply into his honey-colored eyes. “You want me to have mercy on you in your time of need? Where was your mercy, brother? Where was your pity when I was in front of the council? As I recall, you had none and sneered down at me from the council as I was dragged from the sanctum and thrown from the heavens. You don’t deserve the death I graciously gave to the Tichádáma and Athar, you’ve cared for no one but yourself. You don’t deserve what I gave to them, if anything, you deserve to suffer for the rest of eternity.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing, Kazama!” Otia screamed in pain as he launched himself forward in his chains. “I was under the influence of our father
and thought what I was doing at the time was good and right for the god’s realm!”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shook my head as I looked away from his face toward the chains that held him in place. “You were a boy, not yet a man.”
“Then you will have mercy on me?” Otia asked in a hopeful voice, and I smirked as I worked through the plan in my head. “Please, release me and allow me to fight alongside you in the battle against the heavens. They wronged you as they did with me.”
“What happened?” Haruhi asked from over my shoulder, and Otia’s eyes swiveled to her. “Why were you cast from the heavens? Did you break one of the cardinal rules like Master, or was it like Athar? They threw you out for no reason? You’re the god of truth…you couldn’t be thrown out for one of the cardinal rules…”
My little brother took in the feline with his honey-colored eyes and then scrutinized Morrigan. His thoughts said something about me never changing my ways, but that wasn’t what mattered right now. The librarian was right in her assumption, Otia hadn’t been thrown out because he broke one of the cardinal rules. I already knew why the god was cast out, but I wanted him to say it for himself.
“Our father…” Otia breathed heavily as his golden eyes met mine. “He’s crazed and wants to kill all the mortals, especially humans. He views them as--”
“As vermin,” I stated as I cut him off, and my little brother nodded in agreement. “And you tried to stop him, maybe not stop him but you and the others were opposed to his plans.”
Otia nodded limply as he hung his head down, and the shadows of his jaw and cheekbones were thin and sharp against his taut flesh.
“Let me help you, Kazama,” my brother whispered as he raised his head and looked directly into my eyes. “Let me come along with you and fight against the heavens and those who follow after them, including the Holy Order. I could be an ally, we could help each other, please.”
