by Vic Connor
The parallels continue. In Sanguis, later that night, Aremos rejoins Nightmare. It’s chained up high in the mountains and he takes its chains as its harness, jumps onto its back and flashes a little White Fire to burn it, to remind it of his dominance. The beast is cowed and it obeys him, leaping high into the air and carrying him onward toward his next destination.
Aremos read his next mission on arrival and was surprised to see that here, too, he must search out the demon’s lair inside the mountain range’s most volatile region: A black, active volcano which was liable to erupt at any time. He flies there now, atop his Nightmare, and laughs to himself as a violent roar rends the skies.
A layer of gray cloud rises above through which the wan sunlight finds it hard to filter. A shape is cast within the bellow of one of the thicker parts of the clouds—a mighty dragon, far off in the distance but gaining rapidly on Aremos and his mount.
“Of course,” he mutters to himself, smiling ruefully. “Arkhart and Sanguis are perfect mirrors of one another.”
However, as the dragon draws close to him, and as Aremos runs through his spells, readying some choice combos with which to start off the fight, its outline comes to him more clearly. This is no living beast. Its skin is patchy, most of its scales having fallen off, and great bones protrude through them. Its eyes remain unreadable, hollow in their sockets, as they glare down at Aremos, though a sinister green flame seems to flicker where they should be, and its leathery wings are so laced with holes that Aremos knows it is only by some great and baleful black magic that the creature can stay up in the air at all.
Then, he spots a detail that make him laugh. It comes within striking distance of his longest-range spells and he’s preparing to empower them when he notices a sword sticking into the dragon’s belly—his own sword, cast there just a half hour before. But his laughter soon dies when Aremos sees that the dragon isn’t alone. It has a rider, a small sorcerer in a thick robe and hooded cowl, clutching a staff of bones bound together: A necromancer of astonishing power, able to draw the dragon’s corpse and soul through from Arkhart to Sanguis and then to reanimate it to fight once more.
Aremos shivers now, terror growing within him. What manner of sorcerer has such power?
The answer comes to him: A dreadnought, surely, or one of their minions…
But he has no more time to think. He yanks the gold chains around Nightmare’s neck, making it swerve to the side and dive out of the undead dragon’s way. As they turn and swoop downward, the dragon emits an awful, strangled roar and breathes a cloud of noxious, horrible smoke. Flecks of ash and brimstone fly throughout the breath and Aremos watches it from a distance, the remnants of the great fire that once was.
The dragon turns to face them, its shredded wings slapping against the air. The cloaked rider points at Aremos and the dragon darts forward with an almost absurd agility. Aremos thinks he might have an advantage; this is definitely necromantic magic, possibly even demonic… With a harsh cry, uttering words of power, he raises the Staff of Adamant, pointing it at the charging dragon, and blasts White Fire into its face. It should burn the thing to cinders, it will tear the spirit from its undead frame, it will send them plummeting, inanimate once more.
But the necromancer holds up a hand and the White Fire vanishes, dissipating in the wind. Then, he begins his own incantations. The words are lost on the wind and the deep voice barely carries, but Aremos can feel the black magic gathering. A dark nimbus begins to play around the undead dragon and its rider; they stop in mid-air, a hundred feet before Aremos and his Nightmare, and the necromancer’s hands fill with black, pulsing energy.
He plunges his hands into the dragon’s neck, through the pulpy, weak flesh and into the bones beneath. The dragon seems to swell with power, the black nimbus growing, the fire in its empty eye sockets raging. It opens its mouth once more and this time the breath is strong, the darkness it spits out is complete: It is shadow, it is evil, and as it wraps around Aremos and Nightmare, Aremos feels every bone in his body rebel against its unnatural taint. He casts a protective barrier, a pure manifestation of white magic, to hold the darkness at bay. Still, the darkness washes over them, splintering through the barrier and then blowing it away as if it were nothing. Then, with his protection gone, the full force of the dragon’s breath hits Aremos, buffeting Nightmare backward and knocking Aremos himself off the steed’s back.
He falls a couple of feet and then his arm jolts painfully, wrapped in gold chains and tied to Nightmare’s neck. The Staff of Adamant falls from his hand, disappearing into nothingness as it tumbles end over end back down toward the mountains so far below. Nightmare is pulled this way and that as it tries to stay in the air, balanced and strong, with Aremos hanging around its neck.
Aremos braces himself, roaring in pain as his shoulder is nearly yanked out of its socket, but eventually he manages to pull himself up onto Nightmare’s back. Straining his will, he manages to get the savage creature under his control again.
The dragon has begun to fly higher—readying itself for a final charge, no doubt—and Aremos has a few seconds in which to survey the damage. He is unarmed and badly injured. His HP was cut nearly in half by that last attack and his defense is next to nothing. Whatever made up the necromancer’s magic, it was enough to nullify every ward and shield Aremos has. He looks at his steed as well. Its HP has dropped down to thirty percent and its morale is low.
But it functions, still obeys me, and it is enough for the moment, he thinks. But I cannot cast, not properly, not without my staff. He reaches out with his mind, trying to ignore the dragon as it turns above, as it takes them in its empty gaze and screams its awful, piteous, terrifying cry. The Staff of Adamant can never be broken … it is down there, Aremos can feel it. But there is more—more than he has expected, more to the staff than mere invulnerability.
It can never be ripped away from its master. He understands this now, and knows that he has known it all along. It was the only piece of equipment left to him when he first came to Sanguis, the only piece the dreadnought is always careful to return to him.
This is its magic, he registers. The staff is not adamant: its connection to him is.
With these thoughts racing in his head, Aremos reaches out his free hand, the one not clenching the golden chains, and waits. The dragon soars, then lunges down toward them, and the necromancer holds his hands out, chanting. Black lightning flickers around the necromancer’s body and arms and Aremos sees his own health and that of his steed depleting—black lightning plays all over them, stabbing them, cutting through them, stopping his shields from replenishing and cutting his flesh as it does so.
He tugs the golden reins and Nightmare swerves, descending lower than the mountaintops themselves, the dragon tailing them as they go. They can’t long outrun it—its preternatural speed is more than a match for their own. But it’s sufficient, he thinks, holding out his free hand. Sure enough, as they skirt over the tree canopy, a familiar sensation returns to him—the sense of his staff, of its completeness with him, comes back. A few seconds later, Aremos sees it, flying upward just ahead. He readjusts Nightmare’s course, swoops in toward his staff and grabs it, feeling a tingling of power as his fingers wrap around its length.
Next, he takes a sip each of both types of potion, magical and health, restoring his stats to a fighting standard. “Upward,” he roars. “To the skies!” He yanks the reins and his Nightmare begins to climb, the undead dragon and the necromancer closing in on them.
He turns, facing them, and he knows what to do. He grasped it as they’d dived toward the tree canopy. The Staff of Adamant grows warm, anticipating his actions, and he releases his power outward, drawing both on the white magic he has known for so long and the beast magic which is so new to him. They intertwine, as he’d suspected they would, combining the ferocity of the wilderness with the serene strength of orderliness. He rakes his power over the tree canopy, over the very sides of the mountains themselves, looping Sanguis’
power into his own; at the same time, he directs his magical attentions toward the dragon.
The necromancer begins to hurl dark bolts of energy at him, but his own magic intercepts them, robbing them of their destructive capabilities. The necromancer roars, as does the dragon, their dual frustration evident, and Aremos knows his suspicions to be true: They are one, they are linked. Destroy one…
The dragon lowers its head, snaps its wings and darts toward them, its claws outstretched. Aremos tries to dodge, pulling Nightmare out the way, but the dragon still manages to rip half of Nightmare’s wing away, dropping its health even lower and causing it to start falling, unable to support them.
“Here,” Aremos whispers, removing the White Fire from the chains and replacing it with something else: He pulses a few quick spells of healing through the gold, into his Nightmare, and feels the creature sigh in relief. Its wounds knit themselves together as its HP returns to forty percent. Then new, leathery skin begins to grow, filling out until the wing is complete once more. Their descent is arrested and they begin to climb again; in the meantime, Aremos’ previous spells are starting to work.
All around, below them in the trees and the mountain gullies, a screeching, angry chorus has awoken. Tiny beasts grow and grow, and a cloud seems to arise from the treetops, ascending to meet Aremos and the necromancer. Coming close, he sees the first few of their number: hundreds of birds, all working to his orders. “There’s something unnatural, something wrong here, something that threatens us all!” he tells them. “Come, defend your homes,” he commands, and they listen.
The birds gather in a flock, pulsing and turning as one, all around them. The beat of hundreds of wings soon becomes overwhelming and deafening, louder than the harshest of thunderclaps. Aremos points at the dragon, not so far off now and coming back for another attack. As one, the birds fly forward.
The dragon exhales, culling the birds with its awful breath even as the necromancer begins to strike them down with curse after curse, zapping them from the air. But the birds are too many and they know their target. The majority avoid the dragon, swooping around its vast bulk and aiming squarely for the necromancer.
They join together around the dark rider, and Aremos doesn’t witness what happens beneath the swarm of birds. The next thing he sees is the black-robed figure falling, falling, as hundreds of birds surround him, pecking at him, tearing at his flesh, killing him in mid-air.
As he dies, another hideous shriek comes, deafening Aremos again. The dragon throbs, struggling to hold itself together. It flies toward Aremos in desperation, tearing at Nightmare. Aremos fends it off, however, blasting lightning into its skull and sending it roaring away as it struggles to hold its form with its master dead. Aremos and Nightmare bump along the dragon’s back as it passes, and then it is gone and they fight to right themselves, turning to watch.
The dragon’s health and defenses have plummeted to almost nothing. Aremos stretches out with his mind, ready to commit the coup de grace. Once more, he finds his sword, embedded as it is in the dragon’s underside. The dragon, meanwhile, turns to face him, charging him and the Nightmare with what little strength it has left, prepared to bring them both down with it.
Aremos finds his mark and begins his spell, yanking on Nightmare’s chains at the same time. He loses sight of the dragon as they dip and turn, dodging out of the way of the charging beast. Aremos feels the rush of wind as it flies above them and he releases his spell, heating up the sword. His spell makes it glow and burn, cutting through the last of the dragon’s health as Aremos’ power funnels through its hilt, its blade, and up into the dragon itself.
They turn back just in time to witness the dragon falling to pieces. The dragon’s skin sloughs off in great clumps, then wasted muscle withers to dust and its bones fall apart, everything raining down onto the trees below as an internal, white flame roars in its belly. It disappears, all of it vanishes, and the last wisps of the fire and chunks of the dragon’s body fall away.
Two dragons in one day, Aremos thinks, exulting in his prowess. Then he sees his HP and his magic bar, both in tatters after fighting off the necromancer’s magic and battling the expiring dragon. “Down, down,” he murmurs to his mount.
The volcano isn’t far off, and they set down one valley away from it. “I need to rest, I think,” he mumbles, falling from Nightmare as they touch down. Free from him, the dark Pegasus takes off, leaving him alone, disappearing through the forest canopy.
“It is well with me,” the battle mage manages before passing out.
As ever, the chat rooms have followed his exploits. Observers have viewed the battle and streamed it for others to watch, standing witness to this curious mage. He’s very new to have discerned that the different strands of magic can be combined, they say. He’s very new to have defeated both the dragon and the wizard single-handed.
He’s furious, they say; we’ve seen this. But he’s smart, and he’s learning how to use his rage… He’s one to watch, they all conclude, as Aremos lies sleeping in solitude, recovering from the fight. And the news travels fast enough: Aremos, victor of the great battle with Wyvern_hardmod9 in Arkhart, is victor once more over the beasts of both worlds.
Everybody knows, within hours, that he has slain two dragons in two worlds, all by himself, in one evening.
As the holidays come to a close and term time begins anew, Somera heads to university for the first time in the new year. She has submitted all of her assignments electronically to the central portal, and she has done the reading she will need for the next few weeks. Despite the trepidation of entering back into public life, being observed by strangers, foreigners, who might mock her either behind her back or to her face, Somera feels ready and eager to begin again with her coursework.
However, she wasn’t expecting what she finds when she arrives on campus. There is a buzz, an excitement. Everybody is talking, standing in animated groups, all asking questions; people are standing around large posters, staring up at them. The posters are everywhere, pasted up on various walls in the grounds, on windows, trees … everywhere.
Somera hurries through it all, her teeth chattering in the cold, ignoring the posters and the crowds. She doesn’t care what these people are excited by, she’s not interested in whatever the latest fad or intrigue might be. The doors to the academy slide open, letting her in, and she walks along the main corridor where she sees more of the posters, more groups of people talking.
As she passes closer to one of the groups, she overhears something that brings her up short: “Aremos … who is this guy … Aremos … he slew the dragon all by himself … hurled a sword into its belly and zapped it right out of the sky … seriously, who is this guy?”
She stops and turns and, for the first time, notices what is on the posters. A picture of Aremos, cartoonish and slightly pixelated, covers most of the page. It’s the image of him as an avatar, the one that shows up in chatrooms and listings as his profile picture—as Somera’s profile picture. Pasted over the image in big, bold lettering are the words: WHO IS AREMOS?
Somera’s time spent venting her anger and frustration over Christmas has clearly brought Aremos to the gaming world’s attention once more. She had no idea; this certainly wasn’t her plan, though she has indeed been playing hard, and doing well. Most of these people here, if not all of them, have no idea that Sanguis exists. The staff certainly do not—the whole point is that it’s guarded as a secret from the Pixel Academy and Lynch Media. So they don’t know what has been pushing Aremos to even greater heights, what has been teaching him to fight more effectively, more creatively. They don’t know that, after Sanguis, Arkhart is child’s play and, as such, Aremos walks through it effortlessly, slaying beasts who could devour whole warbands with a few new, well-honed tactics and the appearance of ease.
“It’s like he’s on steroids, dude, I’m telling you,” one young woman says to her boyfriend, hand in hand as they stare at one of the posters. “Like, suddenly, nothing can t
ouch him, like everything’s easy…”
“I know,” the boyfriend replies. “I watched the video of him killing the dragon. He was in control the whole time, like it was nothing… Falling through the air, still knowing he’d win. And that landing, using the vortex like that… Dude! It was epic.”
If only you knew, Somera thinks. If only you could go up against a dreadnought intent on humiliating you… After that, a dragon is easy.
While she stands staring at one of the posters, a group of five girls from her class walk past, laughing.
“You want to know who he is?” one of the girls asks her. “What, so you can marry him, or recruit him for Allah?”
A couple of the girls laugh along with her, but the other two look annoyed. “Bridget, don’t,” one of them scolds. “There’s no need…” The rest of her reprimand is lost to Somera as the girls walk on past, mingling back into the crowd.
Aremos once more swells with rage inside Somera’s breast. “I’ll show you, bitches,” Somera whispers to herself. Without her realizing it, her fingers flex instinctively by her side, as if to grasp a tighter hold of the Staff of Adamant. She decides she’ll log into Arkhart and Sanguis tonight, destroy the demon in its lair in both worlds, rescue Meredith—body and soul—and then reveal herself to the world, posting her picture and name.
“Then we’ll see who is laughing,” she mutters to herself, stalking off to class with her shoulders bunched up and her body tense.
Her brother, Altaf, calls her that afternoon. He sends her a text telling her to get on her tablet and, as soon as she is logged on, he Skypes her. “I guess school is the same for you,” he says as soon as the connection is made.
“Hi Altaf—” she begins, but he’s too excited.
“Everyone here is talking about it, too. The same thing,” he continues, jabbering away excitedly. “Who the bloody hell is this Aremos character? And how does a level thirty-something do what he does!?”
