With incredible agility, Nox dodged and sidestepped each swing and slash of the blade, but he was too focussed to mount a counterattack. Instead, he leapt into the air, blasting himself off the ground and into the sky and once again showed off his skill as an elemental. Nox was flying. He had only made it a few yards off the ground when Thorne’s vampiric wings once again broke forth from his spine and he flew to meet the Archmage. Nox flew high into the sky, hoping that he would have an advantage in aerial combat; Thorne had been a master of flight long before him, however. Thorne glided and moved about the currents like they were his to command, with movements so graceful they would have impressed even the Dragons of old. Thorne was faster as well and was closing the distance between them as they shot across the sky. As Nox turned briefly to meet the attack, Thorne wrapped his leathery wings around him and began to spiral, hitting Nox like a bullet.
They continued to travel through the air, but they were slowly losing altitude. As Thorne slashed and cut at Nox with his black nails, the Archmage pressed the sigils on his hands with his fingers and held them against Thorne’s head. Thorne tried to maintain the attack- Nox held. As he held, his hands began to glow red, and they heated to a blistering crimson. Thorne had no choice but to withdraw and spread his wings out wide, catching the air and releasing his grip. As Thorne hung in the air, Nox hit the ground hard, the ash rising in a cloud where he lay.
He recovered in an instant, tapping sigils to reinvigorate his body and regain his strength. Before Thorne could descend on him again, he was launching an attack of his own. He raised his hands and hot fissures erupted in the earth, spewing lava which the Archmage sent towards Thorne. Thorne weaved and dodged to avoid the strikes of rock and lava and eventually landed on the ground. Nox tried to redirect the attack but Thorne was already on him. He pinned his hands to the rock so he could not activate any sigils. Thorne was kneeing him in the stomach, winding him and setting his lungs alight with pain. Thorne’s incredible physique prevented Nox from rising by strength alone, but when Thorne attempted to bite into his neck, he let out another breath of flame, catching Thorne in the side of his neck.
Thorne reeled away screaming and Nox took a moment to recover from the beating. The magic was draining from his skin with the extensive use of his sigils which meant he could not heal himself the same way he had before. While Thorne drew water from the moisture in the air to douse his neck and stop the flame, Nox breathed hard and noticed one of his ribs was broken. Pain flared in him, but his resilience allowed him to continue the fight. Aim for the wound, he thought as Thorne recovered, leaving a blistered wound across the right side of his neck. This time Thorne drew the magic in from around them and took the heat from the volcanic air: ice began to form on the surface of the volcano. Nox was vaguely aware of a tingling in his veins before he was forced to his knees, screaming. Thorne had decided to use another of his vicious inventions: as a skilled elemental himself, Thorne was manipulating the water in Nox’s blood. Separating it from the plasma and cells, leaving his body dry and without oxygen.
While Nox was a more powerful elemental, his powers were naturally inclined towards heat and fire, meaning that he was barely able to keep himself alive under Thorne’s horrifying attack. In a desperate attempt to even the odds, Nox delved into the fourth plain of magic, taking Thorne with him.
Nox heard the sound of Thorne’s unmistakably arrogant laugh as he surveyed the amalgamation of their minds. It bore Thorne’s signature, he had led himself into a trap. “You think you can beat me here?” The laughter echoed throughout the black fields, littered with misshapen trees and grotesque stalagmites. “I am more powerful than you in the real world, but here you are an ant under my heel.” Nox looked up to see an enormous armoured boot crashing down on him from the sky. He tried to dive away but it crushed him into the dirt, and sent him falling further into Thorne’s beautifully orchestrated trap. The laughter swelled as he fell. Nox was powerless; Thorne had been fully prepared to enter the Plain of the Mind and before the duel he had created this labyrinth of torture. Nox could barely feel his own personality in the presence of Thorne’s majestic mind. Nox looked down to see a mirror before smashing into it, shards of red glass tearing into his body. The sight was fake, but the pain was real and Nox reeled and gasped as he felt glass plunge into his organs, breaking bones. Before he could take a breath, he saw a horde of bats flying at him. They began to bite at his eyes and tear apart his limbs. Nox’s broken body lay scattered about the magical plain as he tried to remember that it was not real. He was on Embaris, this was all an illusion.
Nox escaped from the darkness into his physical form and plunged a dagger into Thorne’s eye, leaving him collapsed on the ashy ground- dead… No. That had not happened, he was still on the floor, bleeding out as the glass remained in him. No… that was not real either. There was no glass, no dagger, no Thorne. Where was he? Was this… the Aether? Had he died? No- this was too familiar… Thorne? Who was Thorne? What did that name mean? Why was it so important? If he could only remember where he was, he might understand how to escape. He looked down at his bloodied, limbless corpse. No, it was not a corpse- was it? Nox screamed as maggots started eating away at his rotting flesh and crawling into his mouth and eyes, hollowing them out. Now there was only darkness, but it was not real. He was somewhere. Somewhere he knew. There was laughter… whose laughter- where was he? A figure emerged out of the dark clad in black armour, with a pale face and merciless, black eyes. “Hush now, Syras. Death calls you home.”
Thorne drew them out of the physical world and Nox screamed as he watched Thorne plunge a newly forged shadow-blade deep into his heart. He felt the muscle tear, and the explosion of blood as his heart and arteries ruptured. It was like no pain he had ever endured. Black tendrils rippled from the dagger and coursed through his veins, replacing the blood. His face turned pale, and his eyes turned from their shining golden gleam to a pale, soulless grey. Before Thorne let him die, he bared his unnatural fangs and bit into Nox’s neck. He had changed his mind: instead of damning his enemy to total oblivion, he would attempt to turn his first vampire. Previously, he had always killed the people whose blood he drank, and never used his supernatural venom. Nox was a worthy candidate for the experiment, he had decided.
As Thorne pulled away, he watched Nox’s veins turn black and his skin drain completely of colour. His body began to convulse as the venom coursed in the mixture of shadow and blood that filled his body. His heart began to repair itself as the venom healed and killed him simultaneously. Then something else kicked in, part of Thorne’s toxins that he could not describe. Hellfire exploded from Nox’s undead body, blasting out from his eyes and mouth until the stream settled and he was left as a corpse with burning eyes. The corpse rose, walking towards Thorne slowly. “Stop!” Commanded Thorne with all the power and might of the Damned King. The corpse obeyed. It kneeled when Thorne ordered it to. It did not speak. The Archmage was dead. This was a rare version of Thorne’s own unique species. While Thorne was the son of a demon and a vampire, it seemed Nox had been transformed into a mixture of the same, but tainted and corrupt.
Thorne found his weapons and put his iconic black armour back on. He took the Grand Sceptre from where Nox had placed it beside the bow and sword. Thorne placed the sword in its sheath behind his back, and took the bow in his hand. He drew from the quiver still on the floor, and shot a single arrow into the sky that exploded into a small, silver firework. With Nox dead, Varrasia was now his. But there were more than just Nox who needed to die, and the Hun’thai had been summoned to take care of the rest…
***
Thesa moved through the dark in perfect silence, leaving no trace, almost invisible in the Varrasian night. Her sisters followed her commands as leader of the Hun’thai, as she followed Thorne’s. Giving the bow to an outsider had been a rare moment in Arrachsian history, but they respected Thorne’s ambition and his promise to their Queen. With the legion of master assassins combined with their
immense spy-network, Thorne’s request had been simple, but it required incredible skill even so. At this exact moment, her sisters were in position, each focused on a target that posed a threat to Thorne during his ascension to Archmage: people who were loyal to Nox, who would protest against further wars; people who could band together to try and stop Thorne; people who had ambitions of their own that went against his own. There was no denying it. This was pure, cold-blooded murder on a grand scale. Thesa may have been used to it, but Thorne normally used the guise of war, self-defence, or battle to hide the murderous nature of his life. This time, there was no veil, no façade to hide behind. Tonight, fourteen Grandmages would be killed, three of them on the Mages’ Council itself. It was a night of betrayal and assassination. With her target in sight, Thesa moved with the shadows as their friend, allowing her to get within breathing distance of him. She did not know him, if he had a family, if he was a kind man; she brushed past him casually, pretending to be in a hurry. He did not even register the poison feather that she had left in his side. She left him in the dark and soon his body collapsed in the Varrasian street, his veins turning green as he died.
At the same time, thirteen others fell dead with tiny wounds in their throats or their backs, poisoned by drink, dart, or cloth. Thirteen of the most powerful mages in Varrasia, killed within a second of each other. It was merciless, and Thesa wondered if it truly was necessary. If Thorne wanted to fulfil his promise to Sylestra, there could be no issues back in his home country. He needed his Kingdoms to be utterly loyal or risk losing what he was working so hard to create. As the leader of a world-shaping assassin’s guild, Thesa understood the responsibilities of power, and the necessity of loyalty. There were sixteen assassins in the Hun’thai, and each one of them had sworn a blood-oath to Sylestra. By herself, Thesa had killed nearly a hundred politicians, mages, or persons of power. She told herself it was necessary; she wondered if she could do that this time.
Chapter 15
Caecilius Thar was hauntingly impressed, having just witnessed three members of the council collapse onto the table with steaming holes burning through their throats. He inspected his drink carefully before summising what had happened; Arrachsian spider-venom was deadly even to the strongest Grandmage, but only became corrosive after ingestion, hence the dead bodies sprawled across the Mages’ Table with gaping holes in their tracheas. Well done, my boy, he thought as he saw the Nexus once again emmerge from the Tyra Arcana in the distance, the black and purple fire of Thorne’s soul pouring out from it, signalling to the world that he was now Archmage. Thirty-eight years old and Thorne was in control of the Mages’ Council and by extension Varrasia, having already conquered Arkathor. He was the youngest Archmage in history- no one below forty had ever taken up the Sceptre, and their would be… wariness, about his recent acension. But finally! At last, they had a leader with vision, purpose, who understood the necessity of a united Visyria and with enough power to bring it about.
Wondering at what Thorne’s first move as Archmage would be, he realised that Thorne had just assassinated the only three members of the council who would have dared oppose him, and assumed the Hun’thai had dispatched others across the country. With an uncontested command of Varrasia, Thorne could conscript mages and soldiers to join his conquest of Chrone, although it seemed that he did not need it. Thar marvelled at what great heights Thorne could achieve with two entire Kingdoms backing him; the others would surely fall into his grasp in time, and harmony would finally be established.
There was the slight issue of Thorne’s vampirism to be addressed: while the Mages’ Council would almost certainly press for him to seek a cure, the ancient myths were lost and no cure was known. As well as this, Thorne would never risk losing any aspect of himself or the possibility of his Power diminishing. Whatever hybrid creature Thorne was, for there was obvioulsy more than vampire alone, the combination had made him the world’s most powerful sorcerer in half the time it had taken even the most natural progidies. Even with Thar’s backing, it would be difficult to contain the information within the Council and even harder to convince them that having a vampire in charge would serve their purpose. Even if a vote of excommunication was called for it would never pass- Thorne’s fear and power had now doubled in their eyes, and no one would dare oppose him.
Suddenly a gold light materialised in the Council Chamber and a scroll dropped to the table, bearing Nox’s seal. As the most senior member of the Coucnil besides Thorne, Thar took it upon himself to read it aloud. “ ‘The last declaration of Syras Nox, to be read in the event of my death. As I am sure you have worked out, Thorne is a vampire. While some of you may have come to the belief that his unfathomable power comes from his Vampiric side however, you are mistaken. In my reseach at the librbary- which remains there now- I have discovered the true horror of Thorne’s heritage. There is a propechy from an Ancient Sorcerer called Jonas Zebediah: it speaks of a Harbinger. A terrible hybrid creature of death and hellfire that will bring about the end of Visyria. Find the scrolls, the propechy. It will tell you all you need to do. With me dead, none of you can stand against Thorne single-handedly. I beg you, work together now while you still have the chance to overthrow him.’ The letter bears Nox’s signature, and the seal is legitimate.” Silence hung in the air like a bat, terrifying and unmoving.
“We have to! We have t-“
“Have to what, Grandmage Altyar?” No one had noticed Thorne enter the chamber, or knew how much of the letter he had heard. Venus Altyar went pale when she saw the new Archmage, his apoplectic power on quiet, calm display.
“I- nothing, Archmage.” She stuttered fearfully, trying not to sweat.
“I hope you’re not lying to me, Venus.”
“I would not dream of it, Arch- chhhhh” Her hands wrapped themselves curiously around her throat as she felt it constrict. Thorne was pointing his snow-white hands at her, lifting her off her feet.
“You see, I can tell when a person is lying you know. There are little flashes of their mind that I can see without even using magic. You know what I just witnessed? Hmm? A liar.” He released her, letting her collapse to the ground coughing and breathing hard. “Tell them. Tell them what you were going to suggest.”
“I- Thorne- I-“ She had no choice, Thorne could easily invade her mind to see what she was hiding anyway, and if she refused he could kill her in an instant. “I was going to suggest- the possibilty of taking Nox’s advice into account.” A tenuous ploy at best.
“And how would you do that, Venus?”
Another hesitation. “By researching the scrolls he told us about, seeing if there is any truth to this absurd prophecy.”
“And if there is?”
She was desperate, fearful, pathetic. “Either by curing you or-…” There was no interruption. “By removing you from your position.”
Thorne’s malevolent laughter filled the room. “Oh that is good, ‘remove you from your positon’, you did do a good job. Didn’t she, everyone?” Unsettled, fearful eyes looked to each other. “The next time someone proposes either disfiguring me, or deposing me, I will remove their head from its position. Am I clear?” This was monstrous, even for Thorne. Such terror. It was unlike him, and Thar tried to intervene before it became too great a problem.
“My dear boy,” Thar began, it the wise tones of a mentor and father. Thorne did not interrupt. “I believe that all this may likely be a result of the certain bloodlust that comes with Proelus Vai. Grandmages, if you would please excuse our Archmage’s temporary episode?” Thorne felt a strange combination of rage, gratitude and admiration for his former master. He would have liked to give him the Sceptre in the past, while he was off on his grand conquest. As the Grandmages had no choice but to nod and accept, Thorne thought he would use the opportunity he had been given.
Feigning remorse, Thorne spoke to the Council in a strained, compassionate tone. “Of course, Grandmage Thar. I am sorry, Venus. But nevertheless, any talk of ‘revolution’ will not
be appreciated. I understand the issue of my… heritage, will have to be discussed. For now, however, I think we all need rest. I just killed a man for whom I had great respect, I feel I deserve a moment to come to terms with this.” An impressive lie, but undeniably a lie. The Council knew Thorne had no inhibitions when it came to murder. Still, the offer to discuss the issue of his vampirism would be foolish to turn down, and the Council agreed to adjourn for the time being. Archmage Thorne took the letter from Caecilius and went to the Library, wondering what fictitious lies Nox had forged about his past. In all his time as a Grandmage, Thorne had never encounted the prophecies Nox had described. Perhaps they had been in the section restricted purely for the Archmage, but there were few books or scrolls there, and no mage had ever talked of anything like the Revelations of Jonas Zebediah- they sounded almost laughably fake.
Even so, there was some truth to Nox’s words: Thorne was almost certainly a hybrid and not merely a pure vampire. That would explain his magical abilities and his immense power, and the vision Illyra had of the spirit and the vampiress. Perhaps Thorne’s father really was some sort of Demon-King, and the source of Thorne’s power stemmed from Hell. Perhaps his father was simply some powerful spirit that had been exiled to the ice with his mother. Either way, Thorne would have time to discover all this after he had finished exterminating what remained of the Chronian people. Winter was almost over, and Thorne had two wars of extermination to win: one against Helsifer, the other against the barbaric, void-spirits that roamed the Chronian magical plains. He would have time to research his unique heritage when the war was won…
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