She’d only climbed about fifty feet when she saw the center of the storm, far off, so far she could not make out the palace itself. But she could make out the raging lightning and thunder, even as the thunder claps seemed to lag behind about three lightning bolt flashes.
She descended the trees, took a deep breath, and quietly moved through the trees, prepared to take cover or to kill anyone with her bare hands.
69
Find any human settlement you can. Kill the guards. Gather forces and weapons.
Crystil repeated the mission steps in her mind. She ran down the road, completely unpopulated, even by animals of Monda. There should at least be a patrol. Or maybe they don’t need to patrol because… this spell had better work.
After running for an hour, she found another large tree and climbed. The palace had come into view, though it remained a distant small cube, looking less like the center of Monda’s imperial rule and more like a run-down home. She cast her gaze down and saw her first target—a small settlement, with three buildings and a large field. Out in the field, men and women in barely any clothes toiled away. Crystil’s rage rose to her hands as her grip tightened on the branches. A quick breath calmed her as she descended the tree and rushed over.
She pressed her back to the wall of the first building and slid along the side. She did not hear the sounds of anyone close by and peered around the corner. Two magicologists stood with their back to her, both in black robes. The black magic kind. Gotta be quick.
She looked around for a distraction of any kind and found a rock, small enough to be thrown but large enough to create noise. She prepared to throw it when they spoke.
“Think they’re coming back?”
“Who, the survivors of Monda? Why else would Typhos want us there tomorrow evening?”
“I don’t know. If I were them, I’d stay as far away as I could.”
“Because you’re a coward.”
“I’m smart, is what you mean.”
“Whatever, Tavorus.”
“I just don’t want to die. And for the record, that may happen tomorrow. They killed one of the guardians when they went to Anatolus, and we’re already down Gaius.”
“He was a pathetic traitor. He was no guardian.”
“He was a man of power.”
“He—hey!” he yelled, running to the field. Crystil wasted no time as the one magicologist remained in place. With about fifteen feet to cover, she sprinted to him, covering all of the ground just as he turned. She reached around and snapped his neck. Shesaw the other magicologist harassing someone in the field. Hang tight, she thought as she looked for cover. She found none but had a better idea.
She dragged the body behind the shed, knowing that the other magicologist might come and find it. She waited in the tall, unkempt grass a few feet behind the shed. She grabbed her rock and waited patiently. Once she saw the other magicologist appear, she threw the rock against the wall, producing a loud CLANG and the echo she had hoped for. Confused, the magicologist turned the corner and looked down.
“Oh, sh—”
Crystil jumped out and kicked him in the gut, doubling him over and weakening him too much to cast spells. She reached behind and twisted his neck. She saw no other magicologists and ran out to the human whom the magicologist had bothered moments before. It was a young boy, probably no older than 16, on his knees.
“Are you OK?” Crystil asked as she offered her hand. He looked up to her, realized she was human, and slowly took her hand.
“Is this a trick?” he said as she lifted him up.
“No, it’s a way of ending the tricks,” she said. “I need to know fast, though, are there any other magicologists in this area?”
The boy shook his head vigorously.
“At sunrise a new guard comes, but that’s a ways away.”
“Good. Listen, I need you to bring me as many former soldiers in this camp as possible. I need to talk to them, and I need their help. We’re going to bring down Typhos and reestablish the Orthranian rule.”
“Oh,” the boy said, his eyes lighting up and his voice rising. “Yes!”
“Go,” Crystil said. “But don’t be loud about it. Until we’re armed, we can’t take risks.”
The boy nodded and dashed through the fields. Minutes later, he showed up with a half-dozen men trailing behind him. The men all recognized Crystil, their eyes full of shock, suspicion, and confusion.
“Believe your eyes this time,” she said. “I’m Commander Crystil Bradford, and I’m here to reclaim this planet. But in order to do that, I need all of the help and all of the weapons I can get.”
“We can do that,” a burly man with long black hair down to his shoulders said. “There’s a warehouse about two miles west of here we buried all our weapons in. It was never touched because we never went there.”
“Until now,” Crystil said, a sly smile coming across her face. These guys are ready to fight. Good. So am I. “We’re going to fight Typhos and the magicologists tomorrow night. In the meantime, we gather weapons and soldiers and march toward the temple. Are we good with that?”
“Been so for years, Commander.”
70
Crystil came to the warehouse and saw a building on the verge of collapsing, the structure worn down from years of storms. She turned to the long-haired man who gave a simple nod, and Crystil kicked the doors open. Inside, dust and smaller arachnias covered the floor. Crystil coughed as she waded through the building. Near the back, she came to a single tile in the floor slightly off position compared to the rest. With the assistance of the man, she lifted it to reveal a small hole with a ladder.
No lights, Crystil thought as she let herself down, adjusting her feet at every new step. After about twenty such steps, she felt solid ground, but still had zero visibility. Wish I had someone to cast a fire spell here. At least the void helped prepare me. As long as there’s no Dyson.
She felt around with her arms, and her newest ally did the same, walking left after she had walked right.
Then she felt it.
The cold, cylindrical shape that narrowed as she moved her hand down the shaft. The curve of a trigger.
The Nakar 17. She grabbed it and gently held it.
“Loaded?” she asked.
“Should be,” the man responded. “Don’t think we’re going to find extra rounds here, though.”
“We don’t need to,” Crystil said. “Forty rounds per clip. We don’t need to destroy a fighter. We just need to destroy a soft body that happens to cast magic.”
She counted eight guns in total, more than they needed. She grabbed two and told the man to do the same, climbing back up. She handed the long sniper rifles to her fellow humans.
“Here’s the deal, guys. We—”
But a giant fireball struck the ceiling, causing beams to collapse.
“Go!” she said as she rushed outside. They can’t sense me. But— “Take cover,” she yelled. “Don’t move. I’ll take care of this myself.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me, that’s an order!”
Everyone safely evacuated the burning shed and ran in different directions. Crystil cocked her gun and looked through the scope. She saw two figures, each in black robes, standing still. Two shots took out those magicologists. But the sound of the bullets echoed through the forest, if not all the way to the temple. Crystil cursed herself out. Nothing you can do. But it’s about to get a lot worse.
She turned to the other soldiers, annoyed.
“That one was easy. But this will be tougher,” she said. “We are all going to go to the palace, and we’re going to attack at sunset. In the meantime, we need to split up. Find as many outposts as you can, kill as many magicologists as you can, and get as many soldiers equipped for battle as you can. If we stick together, we’re as good as dead. This is not combat we can win by traditional methods. We have to fight as individual, guerrilla units. Understood?”
Everyone nodded. Som
e looked shook, though, as if fighting a battle they could not win. Inspire them.
“All of you have seen how these guys operate for years now. All of you are still here, which means you know how to survive the magicologist threat. And now, for the first time in years, you have the ability to fight back. Keep moving, stay alive, gather reinforcements—but keep them at a distance—and attack. These are skills all of you know, and I have faith you will succeed. OK?”
“Yes, Commander,” they all said together, with more confidence than Crystil expected.
“Then go,” she said.
When they had all disappeared, she broke off for the road, staying to its side. Dawn neared, the brightening sky warning her of the shortening time. She ran along the road, occasionally ducking in the tall grass as magicologists passed by. She felt the temptation to pull the trigger every encounter, and would hear the sound of bullets firing in the distance, but she held her ammo. Save it for the battle.
At the break of dawn, she had finally made it outside the temple. She took refuge in a building about five hundred feet away and lined up her sniper scope to the temple wall. About six magicologists patrolled the area. She turned it down to the entrance and saw dozens of others approaching. They know we’re coming.
Then we’ll give them exactly what they expect, she thought as she set herself up on the fifth floor, her presence invisible to everyone on the planet and her activity non-existent until the final battle broke out.
71
Celeste spent most of the night awake, but for a very different reason than the previous evening.
She thought of Typhos repeatedly, but instead of fearing him, she became curious. Why does he hate Erda so? Why did he treat me so well? Why didn’t make much of an effort to kill me?
Maybe he’s not the evil villain all of us want to make him out to be. He’s short-tempered and committed some serious atrocities. He killed a lot of my friends.
But does that mean he can’t change? He can’t possibly be like this permanently. There’s got to be a way we can persuade him. Didn’t work in prison… might it work if we have him pinned down? Rehabilitate him instead of executing him?
She wanted to believe she could save Typhos and use his strength to benefit everyone. She wanted to believe if he was supposed to be the savior, he could still be the savior. For all of her hopeful thoughts, however, the reality of the deaths he was responsible for and the heartache he had caused washed those away.
But the glimmer of hope never left her mind, and when she finally fell asleep, she dreamed she was in front of Typhos.
This time, she had the power. She held a sword with a red ruby over him, and he rested on his knees. He was exhausted, his head down, his hands on his thighs, and around him, bodies lay strewn. Most of them were Kastori, but a few were humans she did not recognize. Cyrus, Crystil and anyone else she knew had vanished.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she said, and his face slowly rose.
Her grip on her sword weakened as she trembled at the sight of his face.
“You’d be a fool not to,” he said with a weak laugh. She could see blood beneath his mask, trickling out. “For what I’ve done? I deserve death.”
“No, you deserve to make amends,” Celeste responded. “You’re the savior. You can bring these people back from the dead, can’t you?”
Typhos laughed, a kind of sad chuckle to cover the failure of… something she could not pinpoint. Something heavy and dark.
“I couldn’t back then, and I can’t now, and I won’t be able to in the future.”
“But you’re the—”
“Savior? There is no such thing, Celeste. The Kastori wanted to believe someone could give them eternal life, but the only thing eternal they will know is death. That is the only way in which I am a savior.”
He hacked up blood and groaned as he stood to his feet.
“Kill me, Celeste. You cannot let me live. If you let me live, you die.”
The words twisted her gut in a knot that seemed impossible to loosen. She raised her sword but could not kill him.
“There’s good in you, Typhos.”
“Maybe, but you will not live to see it if you do not strike me down.”
Celeste did not.
“I warned you.”
He punched her in the gut, causing her to drop her blade. She rose back up only to see Typhos bringing the blade back and lunging it forward through her.
She woke up just before the tip of the blade pierced her chest, in a cold sweat and with heavy gasps. To her right, Cyrus gently had his hand on her shoulder.
“You OK, sis? You didn’t sound or look like you were sleeping well.”
“I had a dream about Typhos. It’s weird, I could kill the representation of him in the cave. But when I saw him on his knees, at his usual size, in front of me, like a person…”
“Celeste,” Cyrus said. “You have to go into battle to kill Typhos. We’ll bring Crystil back if you’re not ready, but you have to go in.”
I… I could. I could, right?
But he didn’t kill you. Why? Because he’s not the sum of all evil.
“I can fight him,” she said, feeling confident in that answer. “But if we have him trapped with no way of fighting us…”
Cyrus sighed as he removed his hand, sitting down on the ground across from her. He raised his knees up and crossed his arms over them, burying his head between them.
“Typhos really did a number on you in there, huh?”
“I lost my sense of reality,” she said, not sure if he was asking rhetorically. “The void, Cyrus… he showed me our father and Calypsius. He placed me in the real world, but it wasn’t real. I am pretty sure this is real, but I can’t discount that this might be a trick of his. But there’s one thing he never did. He never came close to killing me.”
“Playing with you,” Cyrus said dismissively.
“I don’t see it like that,” Celeste retorted. “There’s a difference between keeping someone alive to torture them, and keeping someone alive because you see something in them you want. If he were playing with me, he would’ve killed me before he left for Nubia.”
“Nubia?”
“A world full of black energy. Typhos went there to claim it. I’m not sure if he succeeded before he tried to kill us.”
“Well if he did, it’s all a moot point.”
“He didn’t.”
Both siblings turned to Erda, who was slowly rising from her sleep. Somewhat near her, their father was also waking. The sun had not yet appeared above them, but the sky had turned a lighter shade of blue.
“I sense Nubia’s presence still. I sense death on the planet, but the planet’s energy itself is still intact.”
“Death…” Celeste said, her voice trailing off. “He killed the humans there.”
“Humans?” Cyrus said, shooting a glance at his father.
“Yes, and there is a time to discuss that,” Erda said. “Now is not that time, nor is today. All you need to know is the planet is safe for now, but if Typhos returns to that world without someone to stop him, he will obtain unlimited power.”
No he wouldn’t, Celeste thought. There are limits to all power. If we get the power of the other two planets, his black magic powers could be contained.
“Maybe you can help us, Erda,” Cyrus said. “Celeste thinks Typhos could be saved. Can he? And is it worth trying?”
An incredibly sad expression came across Erda’s face, one which made Celeste emotional just looking at it. Only years of crying, mourning and regret could allow her to make a face like that.
“I hope so,” she said, her voice weak. “I hope so.”
She quickly turned away, and the siblings exchanged a confused look but said nothing. Cyrus motioned for Celeste to join him, and the two walked to the base of the cliff.
“Do you still feel the way you did before, seeing Erda’s reaction?” Cyrus said.
Celeste nodded without any doubt.
&
nbsp; “She wouldn’t hope that if she didn’t think he could be saved.”
“Celeste… Crystil’s not here, so I’ll say it. Hope is not a course of action. If you give him a fraction of a second to recover by trying to win him over, he’s going to kill us both. So promise me if you get the chance, you’ll kill him.”
Celeste couldn’t remember ever lying to her brother. She always swore she would have no secrets and have no deceit with him.
Until now.
“I promise.”
72
Easy to say it now. Hope you don’t have to prove it in battle.
Cyrus, satisfied with his sister’s answer, went back to the peak of the mountain and walked to Erda. She still appeared shook and needed comforting.
“We will take care of this,” he said. “I promise. The threat will end for you.”
She turned to him, the dour expression on her face still present.
“It should never have been a threat,” she said.
Cyrus started to speak, but Erda gently put a hand on his shoulder, saying nothing more. Cyrus, too, went silent and after a few seconds, nodded to her and went to the edge. He took a seat and looked over the ocean, with nothing but dark blue for as far as the eye could see. Kinda wish we’d kept the ship intact to see what else lies out there. Or we should see what lies beneath.
Celeste sat next to him and hugged him tightly. The two siblings said nothing, enjoying their possibly last peaceful hours together.
At sunset, Cyrus slid his sword into his sheath and clipped it to his belt tightly. He looked at Celeste, who showed no fear and no hesitation as she equipped her sword. She took it out and swung it a couple of times for practice, and looked as ready and sharp as she ever had. He glanced at Erda, who had not said a word since that morning, but now slowly approached. Their father stood between them, willing to stay on Anatolus.
“I have sensed what lies ahead of us,” Erda said, and Cyrus thought her even weaker. “Typhos has assembled hundreds of Kastori around him. He stands at the entrance to the temple. He knows we are coming, and has prepared for this battle to be as much entertainment to his Kastori as it is a war. The three of us are in a fight to the death—either the death of us, or the death of them. I do not know where Crystil is because of the spell I cast, and I would not count on her to help in battle.”
Kastori Devastations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 2) Page 23
