by T. A. Miles
Ashwin cast Fire at the demon, who tried to hold on through the white heat of the magic, but soon had to relinquish his hold. The horse staggered with the infection it had been given—the poison of demons, which Renmyr could apparently transfer by touch. His mass must have been largely comprised of them … or harboring them.
Dismounting, Ashwin quickly performed a Release. The worm-like forms of many minor Vadryn darted into the air, and were burned by Fire. The animal continued to list in confusion and pain. The animal was very old, and very inundated with magic that had prolonged its life. Ashwin put a Barrier up in the moments Renmyr was recovering from the spell that had burned away some of his unnatural arm. With the time allowed, he calmed his horse, and then he sent the animal back via Reach. The spell momentarily contradicted his reinforcement on the Barriers, and let him know that Eisleth was actively working to do the same.
I need more time, brother.
Whether or not Eisleth would allow it was left unstated. Ashwin turned back to his Barrier in the very moment Renmyr had punched through it. He leaned away from the reformed arm, then had to leap away from the other. The demon manifested several. The tendrils emerged from Renmyr’s back and shoulders and were thrust with the force of pikes in Ashwin’s direction. A combination of Blast and of his sword spared Ashwin making contact with any of them.
The beast withdrew the shadows, a savage grin on his face while he stalked forward, wrapping his shroud around him, obscuring his place and form.
Ashwin cast a Lantern bright enough to illuminate the very sky. The demon’s physical form was revealed, and Ashwin attempted another Release.
Renmyr was struck, but leaned into the force of the spell. After a moment of pause, he grinned wider, and began forward again. Somehow, the demon’s power was increasing, even as Ashwin actively worked spells against it. The body was yet only a material form, though. That had not changed. Ashwin put deliberate strength behind a Megrim.
The body of the demon staggered, but soon Renmyr shook the effect off and was moving forward again.
Ashwin cast a Barrier between them. The beast once again went to work assailing it with fist and claw. Ashwin took that time to summon more strength into his hands. He collected and manipulated threads of energy, weaving them by spell around his sword, weaving strands of Fire.
The demon broke through the Barrier, and Ashwin lunged forward, driving his blade toward it. Renmyr attempted to block with one arm, but the empowered weapon repelled the dark matter, breaking through flesh and bone, and enabling Ashwin to force the weapon further.
Bellowing with rage, the demon was helpless to the fall of its vessel. The body of Renmyr Camirey toppled to the ground with Ashwin’s sword lodged in its torso and engulfed in Fire. Before the man had fully felt the mortality of his wound, he was incinerating, robbing the demon of any further vitality from him.
The demon emerged, as black as its wall and taller than the body it had been inhabiting. With unexpected force, it thrust its many limbs out and dragged blood off the battlefield, toward it. The lesser demons that had been assimilating with the beast swam around its undecided shape, seeking to carry on as if they had not been disrupted from the vessel.
Ashwin cast Fire to hinder it, and watched the demon fold in on itself. The spell sailed over the field of corpses, illuminating the demons yet lingering, growing bolder now that the beast had been separated from its host. Had he assisted it in some way? Was that what it wanted, to be pried away from a body that had become more burden to it than strength? Had it grown so large that an earthbound vessel shackled it?
The dysmorphic cloud thrust itself in his direction and the demon’s arm swung out, its hand slick and solid, catching Ashwin across the face. He was thrown back several steps, but kept his balance.
With blood trailing across his jaw, he observed the erratic movement of the living shroud. Blood was yet streaming toward it, helping it to manifest a new form.
Shadow erupted from the main body of the darkness, tearing toward Ashwin. Knowing Barrier would not hold against the raw release of magic at this stage, he cast Mist with force again, pairing it with Wind. The energies collided once more. Ashwin put more strength into maintaining it.
“This was built for you, Ashwin,” came the graveled voice of the demon.
A fresh surge of power came from the shroud and immediately, both it and his own spell came back on him. The force was crushing. His feet left the ground and he rolled several times across the ground and the bodies strewn upon it. The forgotten sensation of tremendous physical pain threatened to break his focus. His Will prevailed and the Barriers protecting the Seminary and its inhabitants remained.
He had intended this to be over by now, even if he and the beast wound up destroying one another. Though that prospect brought distress to others, it was one of very few recourses they had to ensure that not only the Source remained protected, but all the magic at the Seminary; that of the lilies and of the mages themselves. One hundred years ago, the Vadryn had gorged on the blood of men and of mages. Driving the demons back out once they had gotten in was a worse task than this. No one was immune to the Vadryn’s poison. Once bodies began to be infected or fed from, it was as a plague sweeping over them.
Ashwin determined that it would not happen again. Once this beast fell, the others would be able to keep the remainder of the collective at bay. Without a Master to control them, they would fall into single-minded action, seeking only to feed. The others will have retained the majority of their strength, and the battle would be ended.
But this horror had to be brought down first. This creature of tragic parenting; fashioned after greed and envy on one side, and loathing and pride on the other.
Ashwin pushed himself to a stand, casting Fire and directing it at the demon stalking toward him, its shroud of power and assimilating Vadryn trailing off every limb. The beast was halted and curled against the burning spell, only to all too quickly throw the magic off itself. Some of its horde had been lost, but not enough.
A Barrier redirected the errant Fire away from Ashwin, and he set about another casting, one which was interrupted by the demon snatching across the distance between them, hooking its substantial form around Ashwin’s body, and drawing him swiftly toward its growing frame. The contact felt as if it was draining him, just with that little effort. His Will pushed the sensation back, summoning more strength to the surface. The soulless eyes of the demon met his gaze for an instant, during which Ashwin drew energy from the very foundation of his being, pulling every thread of it forward, and thrusting it all at the beast.
In the process, Ashwin let go his hold on the Barriers behind him. He let go of everything, save for the confrontation before him.
Korsten had never felt more helpless, not even in his own dealings with Renmyr in his unnatural state. Left to watch the battle between Ashwin and the demon, he struggled to fully process most of what happened. Not even the destruction of Renmyr’s body could shake Korsten from his fear for Ashwin. If someone of his ancientness and skill struggled against whatever Renmyr had become….
Snatches of conversation on the wall had let him know that Ceth and others were working at taking down what apparently Ashwin had done upon leaving, which was to virtually seal them inside Vassenleigh. He’d meant to do this and it was unfair of him. It was unfair of him to try to prevent any of them from making such sacrifices, only so that he could turn around and do the very same thing. He may not have been inspired by recklessness or panic, but it was still the same thing.
Ashwin, why would you do this alone?
He ignored that the answer came back to him immediately with his own recent decisions. He didn’t want Ashwin to protect them like this. No one did. No one expected him to atone for past decisions with his own life.
“We have to get outside,” Korsten said, not for the first time.
And not for the first tim
e, Merran countered with, “We can’t.”
Below, Ashwin had been thrown physically by spell cast by both himself and the demon. It had hold of Ashwin. Korsten’s fear had begun to stir the hidden beasts tucked within his presence. They were not riling themselves for a frenzy in his fear, or in the chaos below. They were bristling, as they had done against Serawe. He felt them trying to climb upward through his being, out of the depths of his soul, and with them was one larger … .one he believed had faded in the arms of the sea.
Below Korsten, a tremendous and near blinding light erupted, engulfing the entirety of the field and dousing the sky. It was then that the Barriers shuddered, whether through the efforts of other mages, or through Ashwin’s releasing them. And it was then that Korsten leapt from the wall, Merran’s voice trailing after him.
In flight, Serawe and her former ranks unfurled from hiding within Korsten’s soul. They fountained from him, circling back around, Serawe herself attaching to his back, clinging as she had in the water far out to sea. She extended her form to carry him through the radiating current of magic that should have burned her. The tension of her form digging into him communicated that it did hurt her, but Korsten found it an unconscious response to let her feed. At first, she began to siphon from his magic, testing whether or not she could dip her fingers into his very soul. The answer was no, delivered purely by the sensation he transferred through an instinctive response. She carried them low, scraping some of the essence of life energy from corpses, and then retreated, near dropping him onto the ground.
She remained attached to him, as did the others, who had circled out in hopes of snatching blood or soul from one of the fallen. He commanded them back without word, and they rejoined, falling out of view or notice.
Korsten had only one concern.
As the light Ashwin had cast dissipated, the field became cast in a natural darkness. Renmyr … the demon, had gone.
Ashwin remained. He lay on his side not far from where Korsten stood, and he rushed to him, too startled by where everything had gone to respond beyond getting to him.
“Ashwin.” He dropped down beside his mentor, laying a hand on his shoulder. He looked to his face first for a response, but Ashwin’s eyes were closed. Korsten’s gaze travelled over the Mage-Superior’s body, looking for injury. If there was any, Eisleth would be able to cast a Healing.
Eisleth arrived in that very moment by Reach. He knelt beside his twin immediately. His magic radiated visibly over his hands and arms, illuminating symbols upon his skin while he began to cast a Healing.
It brought Ashwin to consciousness, enough that he opened his eyes and cast their luminous green onto his twin, and then to Korsten. Korsten felt assured that he would survive. Even if his body had been badly broken … Korsten had been Healed after his dealings with Renmyr, and Ashwin could be also.
It occurred to Korsten afterward that he had not dealt with that. The colossal amalgamation of Vadryn into a form that could construct a vessel for itself … Korsten had not been witness to that before it emerged before Ashwin.
“It’s finished, Ashwin,” Korsten said to him. That had to be true. The demon had gone, presumably having been eradicated by Ashwin’s spell. It wasn’t a spell that he recognized, but he assumed it was among the exclusive catalog accessed by the Superiors.
“Demartas?” Ashwin asked, the murmuring of a single word illustrating his exhaustion.
Eisleth continued to work a Healing. “He survives. Barely, I think.”
Ashwin closed his eyes without expression.
Korsten felt a small needle of panic in his chest. Partly for Eisleth’s answer, and partly for the level of Ashwin’s weariness. He found his mentor’s hand, and continued to feel his panic rising while he observed Ashwin’s white clothes taking on color. Red seeped over silver-white threads somehow in defiance of Eisleth’s spell. He looked to Eisleth, and saw his features strained.
Tears brought a painful warmth to his eyes. His hand flexed and then closed around Ashwin’s. This was not true. It wasn’t possible, and therefore it couldn’t be true.
Merran arrived and crouched down beside Korsten, laying a hand over Ashwin’s side, where a wet stain appeared to be pooling as the fabric became saturated.
Korsten struggled not to shake in his fear over what he might have been witnessing.
“You shed my tears,” Ashwin said quietly, and it was almost too much that he formed the vaguest of smiles. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“You’re not,” Korsten told him. He leaned closer to him, and kissed the side of his face, then brushed his blonde hair back from his brow. Korsten knew in that moment, as his spirit caressed Ashwin’s, that he was leaving. He struggled with himself, not to break. “You’ll come back, Ashwin … I’ll be waiting for you.”
“You would….” Ashwin began to say.
“I will,” Korsten insisted, if for nothing else but to keep him with them for a few moments longer. On the chance that Eisleth and Merran could catch up with the damage, and turn it around.
I think I’ve finally lost the strength to argue with you.
Korsten began to cry helplessly when the words entered his mind rather than coming from Ashwin’s mouth.
Tell me you love me.
“I love you, Ashwin,” Korsten whispered tremulously, shutting his eyes against the sight of Eisleth withdrawing his Healing.
Tell me again.
Korsten bent over Ashwin’s body, curling his arm around his head. I love you.
Now … let me go, Korsten….
A breath kissed against his skin. Immediately following, he felt another brushing against his skin. He lifted his head, looking through wavering vision at Ashwin’s Nera on his hand. He raised it, strands of Ashwin’s hair trailing, tangled around his fingers. The dragonfly shifted its delicate wings, the motion seeming a blink. And then she rose, taking flight from Korsten’s hand, toward the walls of Vassenleigh.
Eisleth rose to his feet, drawing Korsten’s attention. The elder’s face was unreadable as he stood over his sibling’s body, eyes closed. He stood like that, silently, for several moments, moments that enabled Korsten’s tears to dry. The moment became unreal once again while he contemplated Eisleth’s loss.
He looked down at Ashwin’s form slowly, numbing to the tragedy while he became aware of the lingering presence of the lesser Vadryn Ashwin had pushed back after the mass Release.
Korsten stood, looking across the scarred and littered battlefield. He could see the demons loitering in the darkness, contemplating whether or not Ashwin’s final spell had passed, whether or not they could scavenge the remains of blood and life left behind by Renmyr.
Not by Renmyr, Korsten realized, his gaze finding the ash and bone that represented the body of a man he had barely known.
Korsten turned, and walked gradually across the field, scarcely hearing Merran’s voice behind him. He looked over the bodies, and the demons, who took his inaction for permission to draw nearer. Their wispy forms began to drift, and Korsten watched.
A part of him thought to let them feed, to let them gain the strength to carry themselves to their Master and bring him down, except they wouldn’t. They would be assimilated into his wounded mass.
Korsten decided then that they wouldn’t.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
Each of the vagrant demons withdrew from the bodies they were approaching.
“Korsten!” Merran’s voice could not break his concentration on the spell he was casting.
“Come to me,” he said softly to the demons.
Through the haze of lingering conflict, the Vadryn swam to him in their insubstantial forms. They swarmed around him, gathering swiftly, feasting not upon him, but on what he fed to them through Song. The magic extended to and through them, enveloping them, as they sought to envelop him. They quickly excited to a n
ear frenzied level, beginning to become agitated with the presence of one another as their instincts veered toward competition. Such a state could have turned them against him as well. They would bite the hand of their Master, if allowed.
“No!” Korsten commanded them. Some of them shrunk back, accustomed to the cruelty of another demon. Korsten was not another demon.
Related, but different.
Siren caressed them, drawing them in again, and gently, Korsten gave them purpose. “Carry me.”
The Vadryn obeyed. They took in the magic, as if it were blood, giving them substance. Korsten inspired them to form, allowing Serawe and the others to surface again. The arms of the larger Vadryn wrapped around his shoulders, extending from his back while the lesser demons collected, clinging one to the next until their gathered mass and shape enabled them to lift Korsten from the battlefield. Their combined focus was on Renmyr.
Merran watched demons once again take Korsten from him. This time it was not by Reach, but by some manifestation of Siren that almost defied his ability to rationalize it. In spite of the surreal calm of the way in which a horde of demons had flocked to him and then almost literally become his wings, he feared for Korsten’s response to Ashwin’s passing.
“Follow him,” Eisleth said.
Merran turned back to him, looking into his mentor’s eyes, which showed traces of moisture glinting in the light from Vassenleigh. “Where has he gone?”
“To the Old Capital, where the beast will try to lay claim to the Source.”
Merran felt a pang of grief with the mention of the last topic he and Ashwin had discussed. He pushed his thoughts around recent events, focusing on the people who would be unprepared for what Ashwin had uncovered when he began to break down Renmyr.
“Others will follow,” Eisleth assured.
