I should really keep my mouth shut.
Mykel ran. He ran and he ran and he ran. The sound formed walls at every turn, forcing skittering feet to stop and twist and run at the slightest warning. The walls came quicker. It dissolved pieces of cloth not quick enough to pull away. When there was naught but one inch destroyed by the sound-spell fear took the librarian by the throat. I’m going to die.
But death did not come. Only Caryl’s laughter, whose malice pulled images of her normal self, the woman Mykel loved for years. Rage ignited, eating away the gentle kindness, making a hollow of desire that had to be filled. Vengeance.
“You’re only making it harder for yourself. You cannot run forever.”
Words were useless. They could not ever begin to describe the war his thoughts raged, the gaping void in his heart. He waited like the condemned before the headsman. Purple sparks glowed at Caryl’s hands, and cords of lightning shot forth in an ever-tight spire.
Forgive me Caryl. Mykel did not cower, did not shied in fear. Only at the last moment he acted, tears flying from him as he cursed himself for the act. Hands closed upon the small sprite of Wil and twisted him to meet the lightning.
Wil screamed as the lightning took him. Dead flesh sizzled in the sharp heat, dissolving the zombie piece by piece. Caryl’s howl ripped Mykel’s heart asunder. Don’t hear it just bury it come on come on come on! Using Wil as a shield, he crossed the divide. Ifirit sang, and Caryl’s head rolled off her shoulders. The lightning failed; all that remained of Wil was a pile of ashes.
“Forgive me Caryl. I’m sorry. Please. I love you.”
His eyes fell on Ifirit, and suddenly the librarian wanted to dash the damned thing against the wall. But the khatar would not budge. It was bonded to his skin. It was a part of him. The part that allowed him to kill Caryl.
The only woman he’d ever loved.
There was nothing left to do but cry.
XV
Mykel sobbed until the pain receded, leaving behind a hollow space where his heart once beat. From the cold that rimmed the metaphysical hole he gained the strength to rise. Images flashed before his eyes. The total sum was that he killed the only woman that loved him. Mykel pulled everything he could wring from the pain until he was chin-deep in the black rage, and he pulled more until he was sick with vengeance.
He took a step forward. Something was slick under his boot, forcing him to play a dance of frenzy limbs in a desperate attempt to catch his balance. He failed; winced at the thunderbolt of his collision. Fighting against the pain Mykel felt a liquid beneath his useless, dead fingers.
Blood.
The braziers were still lit, revealing heaps of broken creatures. Versi. The trail of human blood lay into the darkness in a blotch-like train; some miniaturized pools, some in thin straws. Glancing into the dark horizon Mykel felt a pang of fear. You better come back, old man. You just have to.
“I think you are looking for this.”
The voice came from everywhere, dark and soft as the shadows that hid it. Then there was the bouncing sound of something skipping past the stones and debris; once, twice, thrice before the object struck Mykel’s boot. He steeled himself against looking down. He didn’t want to look down.
He looked down.
Lazarus’ severed head was bleeding on his boots, his face caught up in a look of defiance. He would have wanted it that way. Strangely enough the librarian didn’t feel sick. He wondered if dying people felt this too in the seconds away from death’s sweet release.
“He died because of his damned stubbornness,” said the shadow-voice. “You can avoid that fate, if you will give up the khatar.”
Mykel’s world was spinning. “W-who are you? Show me your face!”
A moment, and then: “As you wish.”
The stones rang under three echoing steps; at the third the shadows peeled away from the manslayer they so carefully hid. One shadow for every step; the pealing and ringing, the ringing and pealing, one by one till the demon’s figure was bright as crystal to the librarian’s eyes.
It shared the shape of a man but nothing more. There was the helm, decorated with a black web of light-thin diamonds, and again with the gold V-ended W slanting back. It was a knight’s helm, but the T-shaped visor was filled not with cross-guard, not with the fragile flesh of a man. There was only darkness, enough to pierce the soul.
A great cloak of smoke mantled him from shoulder to boot, closed in twin doors as if to bar away the gruesome sight of the flesh beneath. When he moved it was in sinuous grace, feet gliding instead of walking, and Mykel realized with a chill that while the cloak fluxed and churned with his step, flashing like dark mirrors, the edges remained still. Billowing, thrashing smoke, yet somehow restrained by invisible barriers. For a moment the librarian locked his glare only to be pulled away at a sudden chill. “Sutyr.”
“Ah. My reputation precedes me.” He stopped for a moment, looking Mykel up and down before settling on Mykel’s dead arm. “I remember you. You were at the funeral with the old man.” He gave a short laugh that sounded like the crackling murmur of a fire. “You have what is rightfully mine, librarian. I intend to take the khatar back.”
“Go to hell, you bastard.”
Irritability rippled across Sutyr’s shoulders; for all of that his voice still flowed from him like silk. “You play a dangerous game, boy.”
“Why?” It was an effort to keep the rage in check; thus the words came through gritted teeth. “Why?”
A creak on the stone saved him. The librarian hurled himself into an awkward roll just as razor steel filled the air where his neck had been. Mykel scrambled to his feet, fended himself with a khatar he hadn’t heard click into place. Thoughts spun together with blinding speed. Jekai. It could only be him.
The steel gave out a shrill wail upon the clashing. Only through the flash of sparks was the librarian able to see his opponent. He had black raiment beneath, which made the man naught but a head and hands hanging in the shadows, save for the katana that glittered like silver blood in sunlight. The deadlock waxed and waned, grinding sparks between silver and steel in a scream that ripped away any semblance of humanity.
“What are you doing?” Mykel said, then bit back a curse at his own stupidity. The Solvicar’s intent was clear; that much he made plain from the start. “Listen, there is no time for this.” In the back of his mind he feared the crashing steel would advent an ill fate, but he pushed that away. “Do you not understand, man? We have to fight him!”
A steel swath gave him answer. It crashed against his steel at the last moment, and Mykel held it barely. A chain of crashes followed the first, filled the air with a razor lace, the last locking the blades together. Mykel struggled to hold the khatar up under the strain. Gods. The books had made this dueling seem a great deal easier. His entire arm was numb up to the wrist. “Jekai... damn you! Can’t you hold off for one minute?” The warrior-priest did nothing to show an answer. “Not now, you damned fool! Leave off!”
“I...” The Vicar relented a bit. Mykel moved faster than he thought himself possible. Down and up at the wrist, lightning quick. The katana flew upward in an arc and clattered a few feet away. He stared at Ifirit in disbelief, but with no more awe than Jekai. “I...”
The struggle was plain on his face. His one eye, its usual loathing hate quivered as though lost. The crippled librarian must die, but the sheer intensity of the desire was not of his will. And Mykel didn’t need mystical instincts to know Sutyr’s hand twisting that will. “I...” Will or not the desire was the same, and the struggle wilted. “I will kill you.” His fingers flashed out in a commanding gesture, and suddenly Jekai’s right glove became gold and unnatural.
Shit. Mykel curse
d his faulty memory. He’s a Weirwynd! Idiot! Remember the creepers? The librarian started running like hell itself was his heels. Somehow, Mykel doubted the next spell would be minor.
It wasn’t.
Jekai filled the room with monstrous vines, great tree-thick roots whipping out of floor and wall and ceiling with the grandiose crushing sounds of great boulders heaving off their seats, all racing for him. Gods. The librarian threw himself every which way at the slightest hint of green, running, dodging. The vines were always close behind. Mykel moved, moved, moved, until he was almost blind by all the air rushing by him and the thorns that sprouted from the vines like fangs whenever they were inches away from their quarry. Then the rumbling suddenly ceased, there were no whips of razor-sharp air or glimpses of angry green filling his vision, and he turned and gaped. The massive vines had knotted themselves into a twisted net, bound so tight none of them could move. Mykel heaved a sigh of relief at his luck. He had defeated the spell without knowing it.
Then he remembered the spell-caster was still alive.
Jekai was already preparing his next spell. A bracelet on his right hand flared gray, and a blob of cold gray grease flew from his fingertips. Mykel was already moving at that point, so the spell struck the vines instead. The librarian skidded to a halt and watched in horror as the gray blob hit the vines, sunk into them. A moment of peace, and then the vines writhed and quailed as their green forms thickened with creepers of stone, veins of bloated gray that grew and wound themselves together into a wave of iron that flooded them from roots to tips. Their thrashing abruptly ceased as the wave overtook them; by the time the spell overtook the tip the vines were frozen in a seizure of defiance, as if mere denial could shake away the stone prison that had been cast upon them.
Stone. Frozen in stone. The words rang hollow in Mykel’s mind; legends of old monsters doing the same things echoing in his thoughts. If that thing touched him... he shuddered involuntarily. If that thing touched him, it was over. And eventually, one of those spells would touch him.
There was only one thing to do, then.
The next stone-spell flew at him like an arrow. Mykel charged screaming, hoping to distract him, hoping that the spell’s flight was connected to the caster, hoping for anything... and somehow he charged past the spell without touching it and brought his khatar down with all of the strength his good arm had.
Jekai’s face was a picture of surprise, but his free hand flew like quicksilver to grab his own blade from the stone floor, bring it around and up in an arc, just in time to block his opponent’s attack with a gut-wrenching crash of metal and sparks. For a moment the two gazed at each other, amazed they were still alive, amazed the other wasn’t dead, amazed they were fighting like this.
And then the assault began anew.
Jekai did not move; rather the sword moved of its own accord. Mykel jumped back to avoid it but the steel kept on coming, whipping back and forth in a blur of gray so quick it almost seemed fluid. He dodged a swipe that would have taken his head clear off the shoulders a moment before—and a scarlet boot came instead, driving all the air from his lungs with all the force of a cart wagon.
“This is pathetic.” Jekai said mockingly, stepping in and out of shadow. “I was expecting better of you.”
Angrily Mykel scrambled to his feet and returned the attack. Ancient tomes told him of the dueling style of combat, and now he put to use everything the yellowed pages bequeathed to him. A chain of katas flew from his wrist’s weaving.
Raging Candle Flame. Dying Embers. Falling Zenith. The combinations rattled on Jekai’s blade as Mykel wove the forms, chiming a string of clashes that echoed across the length of the monstrous cavern.
Tomes were the only instructor Mykel had, and tomes paled to the wisdom of flesh and blood. The blur of Jekai’s blade became faster, matching every strike even before they were complete with his own katas.
Snowflake Falling from Icy Air. Mirror Reflects Light. Sun Bleeding a Crimson Sky. They went so fast that Mykel barely recognized one kata from the next, and then pain stabbed his wrist, and again when the katana hilt pounded into his face hard enough to rattle all his teeth. The following sweep slammed his back to the floor. Before the librarian could think of moving his skin grew cold at the edge of steel poised an inch away. The blade quivered with the pretense of movement.
Instinct made Mykel move with a speed he knew not to possess. He slapped the blade away and, jumping up to his feet, charged. Somehow Ifirit twisted around the katana, flipping it from Jekai’s hands to disappear into the dark.
“No matter.” The world went crazy with a hollow crack. “There are other ways to take care of vermin.”
Pebbles began to dance upon the cobblestones. Slowly Jekai rose, hanging in the air by while dark luminescence exuding from his frame. Cracks ran cragged through the floor. Everywhere green exploded into view; grass and flowers that bloomed and died only to be replaced by new shoots. Lazarus’ words came to him like a hammer. The human frame is far too fragile to serve as a vessel of manna. Jekai was literally burning himself to death. “Stop! Stop it you fool! You’ll kill us all!”
Jekai was beyond hearing, beyond reason. His body quivered as the radiance intensified, hotter and hotter, until the Solvicar became a sun in human form. Through the haze Mykel could see Jekai locking gazes with him. Wild and primal, but there was still enough intellect to recognize an enemy. One arm, sheathed in obsidian stone, lifted. A spark buzzed upon his fingertip, growing larger by the second. Shit!
Jekai screamed. It was not of victory or arrogant; no it was too high, too piercing, too much of a wail. Jekai writhed in agony as the energy he exuded drained from him. Cold stone snapped into place over the golden manna, fear at the realization of his own spells rebounded upon him. The stone was molding to his skin, becoming him.
“Shit.” Mykel muttered. He charged at the Vicar. Thoughts and instincts since time primordial screeched at him. He ignored it, as he ignored the searing hiss of Geo manna, tasting the librarian as he forced his way forward. With each taste a strip of flesh peeled away, revealing strips of blood instantly cauterized by the heat that created them. He ignored the agony. All his focus was on Jekai. No man deserves to die like this. No one. The librarian crossed the last few feet with a hurdle; forward like an arrow his steel went snicker-snap.
Jekai grunted as Ifirit spiked through his spine. Strange there was no blood. For one last time the pair looked upon the other. A bubble of blood popped as Jekai put all his strength into a whisper. “Thank you.”
Then Jekai’s body became stone.
Another man dead. Shock quivered his knees to water, and his stomach felt as though twisted in reverse. Cayokite vomited at every kill. Somehow the thought did not help; all the words he’d read of this were flat and lifeless. “I’m sorry...” Even as he said the words there was an undercut of stark hunger, overlapping and consuming the dread. The emotional wound closed with a surprising coldness. Mykel guessed this was the ease of murder, first horrible, then seductive. There was no more nausea.
All it took was the death of a crazed zealot mage to make it so.
Slowly Mykel raised his head to meet Sutyr’s gaze. “You want this damn thing so bad... then you come get it.”
XVI
For a moment, blackness rippled across the T-visor, a black darker than black, so deep it turned all other shades pale against it. Then Sutyr came for him, almost gliding across the floor. Mykel started towards the demon knight, and in a second was running. Ifirit moaned in delicious rapture, anticipating the kill. Vertigo howled in Mykel’s gut in one short screech—and then Sutyr was there, barely inches away when a heartbeat ago he was but a foot. How...
Sutyr’s hands suddenly became full with a pair of grotesque blades. Only a sliv
er could be called steel, curved in a backwards crescent. The rest was undeniable meat. The intestines and muscle, laced with bone, glowing in the haze of blood, merged with the steel. Unlike common swords Sutyr gripped each by the cross-guard, effectively making each arm an instrument of death. The brimstone knight laughed as he whipped the steel in elaborate patterns; each spin of the blade whimpered with what could only be the moans of the damned.
“Ah. My beautiful Rekka. You want to join with your brother, don’t you? Do not worry. The time of reunion is close at hand.”
Then there was no time to think, as the air was filled with bladed steel.
There was no chance. None. With Jekai the tomes gave barely a chance, if any. Now the withered rules of yellowed pages paled completely aside the demon knight’s skill. Sutyr’s blades darted past his every defense, slipping in like serpents to kiss cheek or chin or brow, trailing light red gashes in their wake. Damn it all. Rage flared but to no avail. Arrogance lilted the demon’s every motion, so thick it was almost mocking. Even the eyes, shrouded in the void as they were, smiled in dark domination. Mykel recoiled from the last, a quick flailing blow that nearly laid three bloody lines across his cheek, and landed halfway into an awkward roll that nearly wrenched his kneecap from the leg. It was all Mykel could do not to scream.
Vertigo almost blacked him out; before he could move a knee pinned him to the floor. Fingers closed about the arms and pulled them back, back almost to the point of snapping. “You are pathetic, boy.” Mykel managed to turn his head slightly. Sutyr leered down on him, his helmed head cocked to the side, obviously in contempt. “It is a wonder the gauntlet has served you this long. You are unworthy.”
The stink of fear-sweat prickled the dead arm with needles of heat, rolling heat, thrashing heat. “Get... off... of me!” He whipped his head back to crash into Sutyr’s. Vertigo exploded into a universe of pain behind his eyes, and for a moment the world swam in horrible nausea, but the blow rocked the demon away, if for a moment. Mykel twisted and tucked his knees in one motion, then thrust forward. Sutyr stumbled back a few steps; affording more than enough time for Mykel to scramble to his feet, just enough to suck in a hot rasp of air, just enough to see the blurred crimson haze speed towards him like a comet—
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