by Reiter
“Well, I can’t get a read on them,” Cedric reported, looking at his computer.
“And I can’t get one from anyone at the Estate,” Kyle added. “We need to get to the ship!”
“There are faster means,” TrenGal declared. He started casting only to stagger to his left after his body shuddered from some unseen force.
“Your Majesty!” one of his Shatter Casters cried.
“I am alright,” he relayed. “I was blocked from reaching the grounds.”
Amidst the gasps of shock and horror, Pelania stepped toward her husband, a look of great concern on her face. “Is it the Vythe?”
“Worse. Demons!”
“Demons, shemons!” Sandra barked. “You got a ship that can gate?!”
It is said that ‘nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion’. Well what about the reality that killed it?
G. Russell Gaynor
(Rims Time: XI-4907.05)
Shonsatah was sitting with her feet on the sofa, her knees up to her chin as she clutched a large pillow to her chest. Every single time Evard Bruntelior had flexed his muscles or adjusted his helmet, she had shaken with fear. She now shuddered with every wall Evard drove her brother through, turning her head away before the third wall.
“Valian,” she whispered.
“Things are certainly not looking good for him,” Yorlson said, stepping closer to the view-port so he could get a better picture. “After so much posturing, and taking all of those easy events. To succumb to the skill and power of a true KnighT. It almost breaks the heart.”
“Shut up, Yorlson!” Shonsatah snapped. “Just shut up!”
“What is this? First I am denied the opportunity to witness this event first hand, and now I am denied to right to speak my mind?”
“Given that we’re talking about your mind, I’m surprised you have more than three words to offer,” Pirion sniped.
Yorlson stood up, glaring at his brother.
“What’s the matter, son?” Vaiyorl asked, allowing his voice to remind everyone that he was still in the room and they should act accordingly. “Can’t someone speak their mind about your mind?”
Father and son engaged in a stare, the latter glaring at the former with burning anger. Vaiyorl’s expression did not change, but his perspective did.
“What is this indeed?” Vaiyorl thought, looking at his first-born child. “He isn’t looking at me as a son looks at a father... even when the two are estranged, there is more of a sense of acknowledgement of relation. No, I am nothing more than an irritation to him, something that is in his way... and does not belong to be in that position.
“Perhaps you need to return your attentions to the event,” Vaiyorl suggested.
“I know the outcome of this already!” Yorlson exclaimed. “You are in denial. He isn’t a KnighT! The Empress might have knighted him, but just look at him now.” Turning to face the view-port, Yorlson stopped to see Valian tripping Evard, sending the larger man stumbling into the swamp. “Just... look... at... him.” Yorlson backed away when the Force Energy barrier prevented Evard’s black-light missiles from reaching their intended target.
“We are watching,” Pirion remarked. “You might want to note how clean our brother looks for one who has been driven through the walls of a ruined building. As if he had never gone through the walls at all. Don’t know how he managed to fool the viewing drones, though.”
“Oh, he’s had some practice at that, young Master Pirion.” Quybron offered. “He did that much on the Rammodior Platform... and that was nearly a year ago! I’m sure he’s improved since then.
“By all the glory of the gods!” Quybron yelled, getting up from his seat and spilling his bowl of snacks. “He took Evard’s charge!!! Took it... and held his ground!”
Everyone in the chamber gasped, watching Evard fall to the ground after being pushed back by Valian. Even Guysorla came away from her seat. With each landed blow, all but Yorlson cheered. The Duchess and her daughter both turned away from the viewing when they saw blood come from Evard’s back. The Duke grabbed his friend and Chief of Security.
“He ran him through!” Vaiyorl whispered in disbelief. “He ran Evard through!” The man gasped at the next action as Quybron folded his arms.
“I’d say he did a fair bit more than that, Your Grace.”
Pirion quickly moved to put his hand to the image. It did not close the view-port, but it blurred the images. He turned to face his family, a bright smile on his face. “He won. Father, did you see? Valian won!”
“He did indeed, son. And if I know him at all, he is now moving on Lusorra.”
Each comm-line device in the household signaled the receipt of a transmission. Quybron lifted his arm and started reading the scroll. His eyes lit up as his mouth gaped wide open.
“He’s moved on her alright!” Quybron huffed. “According to this affidavit, Lusorra Necaltiere is responsible for having the War Tower fire on the Styrke Skiff. She collected the crew for the ship and they fired on her order!”
Vaiyorl took in what his Security Chief said, placing his hands behind his back. “Well, that settles a few accounts, doesn’t it? We lost some good people that night. At least now they will have justice.”
Yorlson started laughing. More of a giggle in the beginning, as if he had been mildly amused by something. But, as the laughter intensified, a sudden feel swept over the room.
“Children, to your mother!” Vaiyorl commanded, not wanting to believe what he was feeling. The sudden chill, the nausea, the twinge of fear starting in his stomach but moving slowly over his spine... he had felt it before, long before he received his ducal promotion... before he was even called a True Lord.
Suddenly, the Lord of the House Jhormynn was once again Phytos Vaiyorl, under the tutelage of Tolljynn J’Gayda, learning the ways of the SorceroR. He had been called a prodigy in the craft and had even managed to weave two enchantments of his own design while still in the Novice stage.
It had been his attempts at composing a third that had brought about a lesson Vaiyorl had hoped he would never have to revisit. For in an attempt to amplify the yield of Portal Smoke found in many SorceroR Bags, Vaiyorl had succeeded not in improving the distance one could teleport, but in breaching the barrier between the mortal and demon dimensions. One moment he had stood in his master’s casting chamber and the next he was in the Upper Reaches of MoGo. He had stumbled upon a very old breach, a secret passageway of sorts, and he had opened the door which, as it had turned out, had a very soft latch from the mortal-realm side.
Three creatures had seen the arrival of the student and his master; Imps, Vaiyorl had later learned they were called. Acting quickly, mostly out of a certain sense of desperation, Vaiyorl had enchanted a length of chain, hurling it at the Imps, managing to entangle and bind two together. With the abundance of Portal Smoke still in the air, Tolljynn had teleported the third Imp into a nearby cave wall, instantly killing it. He then told his student to reverse his composition – something the old man had insisted upon from all of his students; “... before attempting the forward path, have some idea as to how you can backtrack.” Returning to the casting chamber, Vaiyorl had been praised on his quick-thinking and warned never to attempt that enchantment again. The student had made it a point to study as much as he could find on MoGo and demons, placing in his mind the promise that he would never forget the events of that day. How it felt... how it smelt... and what the presence of so much darkened KaA had registered on his mind and body. Those characteristics he was feeling again... and they were coming from his son.
“It would seem that I am bound to be in the man’s debt,” Yorlson chuckled. “I suspected the Countess was a useless wretch, but I hadn’t given her credit for being the one who had made that day possible.”
“Vaiyorl, what’s happened to our son?” Guysorla asked as tears welled up in her eyes. She shivered in the cold that penetrated her skin as she took up a post in front of Shonsatah and Pirion.
/> “Apparently two of my sons have been to the loft where I keep my old things,” Vaiyorl concluded. “And where one found my old spell notes... the other found my memory crystals.”
“Correction, Father!” Yorlson snapped. “Your sons were together when we found your cache. Since most of it dealt with sorcery, I discarded the notes and books. But the memory crystal... the third woven enchantment. Imagine my surprise when I found it.”
“Yorlson!” Vaiyorl shouted, signaling Quybron to move to his flank and therefore closer to his wife. “What have you done to yourself?”
“What would you say, loving Father, if I were to tell you the demons assaulted that day have had their revenge? That they have infested and stolen away my soul?!”
“I would call you a liar,” Vaiyorl said softly, motioning for the others to move back as he activated his War Garb charm. “Imps do not have that capability.”
Yorlson snapped his fingers. “Forgot I was dealing with an intellect.” When he turned to face his family, all but Vaiyorl withdrew several steps, but even his eyes squinted at what they saw. Yorlson’s fine brown skin had grayed, taking on the appearance of living ash. His teeth and nails were blackened, sharp at the ends, and his eyes were solid red, with no pupils, crying with blood. “Using wizardry, I perfected your enchantment, Father... turned your teleportation spell into a window through which I could communicate to my brothers and sisters in MoGo.”
“You did nothing of the sort,” Vaiyorl argued. “You’ve been fooled into thinking that, Yorlson!”
“That is not my name!” the young man snapped in a low, echoing, growling voice. “I am no longer Yorlson Jhormynn... I am the Adparitor!”
Vaiyorl frowned, mouthing the word his son had just said. After listening to the inflection his son had used, Vaiyorl repeated the word in his mind, making only a couple of changes before it came to him. “No!” he cried, stepping for, pleading with his son. “Whatever you’ve been told to do, hold off until you’ve heard me out!”
“Too late, Duke Vaiyorl,” Yorlson laughed. “Allow me to introduce you to my new family!”
Thunder rolled on a day when there was not a cloud in the sky. Still the sunlight dimmed. Vaiyorl looked up and then out of the closest window.
“Quybron!”
The Chief of Security moved quickly, running to the terrace doors and opening the curtains. “Mother of love, deliver us!” he whispered looking out over the grounds and the seas, seeing a black sun forming over the ocean. “I’ve never seen such a thing. What can it be?”
“An aperture,” Vaiyorl explained. “One anchored in both realms!”
“Duke, turn to your left!” Travis shouted as he got up out of his chair.
“And now another vision becomes clear,” Travis thought, concluding how ‘cutting water’ could wash over a man.
A wave of black water hammered into the side of the Estate House. The terrace doors and walls held, but the glass shattered. Quybron’s forming armour spared him from any injury. Vaiyorl, following the instructions that had been shouted to him, was kept from being blinded. The witnessed vision had now been altered, and Travis knew he could not rely on the rest of what he had seen.
“Yorlson’s become a Daemonite,” Vaiyorl declared.
“The word isn’t ad-PAR-i-tor, as Yorlson said it,” Vaiyorl thought. “... it’s ad-pa-REE-tor, the Old Earth Latin word for lackey! It’s through him that this side of the portal is anchored. If he won’t relinquish it, he will have to be destroyed!”
“Husband, you know more of these creatures than most Priests!” Guysorla cried out against the howling winds. “You will do what you must!”
“He will try, bitch of a mother!” Yorlson spat as he rose up from the floor. “Feel now the power I wield!”
With a simple gesture, Yorlson summoned and hurled five MannA Bolts at his mother. Stepping toward the coming missiles, the Duchess sent out a wave of Force Energy, causing them to explode before they could draw close. She took another step forward, hurling electricity at her son.
“Guy, no!” Vaiyorl shouted, but it was too late.
Yorlson smiled, receiving the burst of EnerJa that did him absolutely no harm. His left hand guided a wave of psychokinetic energy that threw his father and the Chief of Security across the room. “Not bad, Duchess. But I wonder if you enjoy the same immunity to electricity that I do!” A lightning bolt, three times the power of what Guysorla had hurled, fired back at the Duchess. Her force shield took the brunt of the burst, but she screamed in pain as her body was thrown back to the double doors of the chamber. “Apparently not. Here, let’s change expressions, shall we? Burn, Mother!”
A column of flame fired from Yorlson’s hand and arched toward the stunned woman. A hoop of Portal Smoke formed in-between the head of the column and Guysorla’s body. It was so close that she felt the heat and was slightly singed, but none of the direct flame touched her. The column fell from the ceiling just over Yorlson’s head, slamming him down to the floor. Pirion fell to his left knee, dizzy from exerting himself with the Sorceror’s Bag component. He wiped his upper lip clean of the blood that had dropped from his nose and stood up, allowing his anger to fuel his movements.
“Seems he’s not immune to fire,” the young man whispered. “Computer, sound the alarm and summon the Guard! We’re going to need all the help we can get with this.”
Yorlson screamed, getting up from the floor, covered in burns. He summoned raw MannA and allowed it to flow in a stream toward his brother.
“No!” Shonsatah cried, stepping into the path of the stream. A small field of her own MannA formed in front of her hands and it caught the stream. Almost immediately, the directed MannA started to form around her, but it did not reach her skin. Glaring at her brother, the anger on her face subsided and she closed her eyes, calling upon the lessons she had learned. The MannA – which had begun to take on sentience and the yearning to be malignant and destructive – received Shonsatah’s MannA and her skill for weaving it. Like one of her paintings, she used a combination of brushstrokes, yielding to the feeling of the creation, removing her perspective and embracing that of the MannA surrounding her.
The bronze, electric fire that was raw MannA suddenly turned crystal white and flared out in all directions. Whatever damage that had been done to Quybron and Vaiyorl was removed from their bodies and minds. Guysorla gasped at the level of EnerJa she received to her stores, and an evil smile formed on Pirion’s face.
Yorlson was struck by the burst of light. Another cry of pain was ripped from him as his body was hurled through the wall. When the light subsided, Shonsatah dropped to her knees. She was not tired. The light had replenished her power before anyone else. It was the bridge her light had made with everyone it had touched.
“I don’t believe it,” Shonsatah whispered as members of the Estate Guard entered the room. “He knew what he was doing when he took the power from the demons. I can feel it in him. He wants to be a Daemonite!”
“Which only means he will be of the more powerful variety,” Vaiyorl concluded as he helped his wife to her feet.
“The first pass goes to you, my family,” Yorlson said, his voice echoing throughout the entire Estate. “But remember, my family is coming now. The tide is changing.”
“He’s not kidding,” Quybron remarked. “They’re coming through the portal now!”
“By the gods, it’s a demon army!” Vaiyorl said just before the all the lights went out.
“And he just took out the power!” Quybron exclaimed. “So much for the house defenses.”
“We will have to be the defenses,” Vaiyorl stated, looking at his wife.
“The demons are coming after the lot of you!” Tacita’s synthesized voice stated as signaled. “Thomas can feel the connection between them and you.”
“We need to get you to safety,” Quybron stated.
“The power is out, Quybron,” Vaiyorl reminded the man. “... we can’t launch any of our ships... my enchanted
flight might be able to edge out the slower forms, but not for as long as we would need it to. And where would we run? The demons will feed on any souls they come across in their pursuit of us! No, we have to destroy the anchor, which means we have to stop Yorlson.”
“We have to kill Yorlson,” Pirion corrected. “He’s not going to give up his power willingly.”
Vaiyorl nodded. “Guysorla, can you do it?”
“I lost my son when he embraced the demons!” the Duchess declared.
“Good, you take Shonsatah, Pirion, and as many guards as you can find. Tend to Yorlson. We will buy you as much time as we can.”
“Something else is coming,” Tacita warned, receiving another whispered messaged from Thomas. “Look to the lawn just off the terrace.”
All eyes turned to the grounds where a flash of light showed Valian leading his retainers and most of his equipment onto the property. The last to come though the portal was Dyrvassa who stumbled to a stop and put her hands on her knees, panting for air.
The young KnighT looked around and stopped when he saw the breach-hole. “Why does that look familiar?”
“No,” Annodia whispered, coming to the realization that the attempt to discredit the House Jhormynn had just been a preamble to this event. “Looks like we missed a gateyan!”
“A plan within a plan,” Valian concluded. “Yorlson’s outdone himself this time.”
“Son!” Vaiyorl called from the balcony before he projected what had happened to Valian’s mind.
“Do you trust me?” Valian projected.
“What I have for you is more than trust,” Vaiyorl replied.
“Then do as I tell you, Father. If the demons are after you, we will use that to our advantage.
“Alright, we have three jobs ahead of us,” Valian announced. “We’ve got an anchor on this side of that breach. Kethgeegan, Champanna, and Quilori, you three will need to take care of Yorlson. Kethgeegan, do not let my relation to Yorlson stay your hand!”
