The Seven

by Robert J Power

  “They will not feast upon us both,” Iaculous said.

  “How do you know?”

  “They are difficult to control, but give them what they need, and I will sate them. They will listen further. They will bow to their pack leader easily enough,” Iaculous said.

  Denan felt the warmth emanating off the youth, yet it was nothing like before. It was as though the heat was from deep within. His fingers blazed brightly, and something laced his voice in a terrible darkness.

  “She gave it willingly,” Iaculous said and touched one of the brightly pulsing rocks upon his bandoleer.

  “Who did?”

  “She touched my mind and knew,” Iaculous said and placed his hand upon Denan’s chest for support.

  “Cherrie?”

  “A gifted soul is a fierce thing.”

  Denan felt a great weight fall upon his chest. He attempted to push the youth from him so that he might catch his breath, but all strength left him. He fell against the windowsill. Below him, he caught sight of the beasts as they fell unnaturally still, like a hound would during the trials of its early training, desperate to move but not until master allowed.

  “I’m not feeling myself,” Denan whispered, and the healer nodded in agreement through a veil of blue.

  “Let go, Denan,” Iaculous whispered.

  There was a dreadful pull from deep within. Horrific images flooded into Denan’s mind, and he gripped his chest, but Iaculous never let go. Instead, he held him down, and only then did Denan understand the depth of his betrayal.

  “I need it to kill him.” He struck Denan across the face.

  “Don’t do this.”

  Denan struck out with fist and foot and landed flush, but with almost all his energy diminished, the strikes felt feeble and futile. This was no way for a royal prince to die. Denan rolled away, but the healer held him, and Denan felt himself floating as though in a river.

  “No!” he screamed and twisted the youth’s hand as he remembered Heygar once showing him.

  “A fine twist of the wrists was all it took,” his friend had said of the benefits of weapon-less combat. Denan had countered that any blade was superior to fists and grips. They had only known each other a dozen hours at that point and been inseparable since.

  Denan twisted and snapped ligaments in the healer’s hand, and he heard a scream and earned a reprieve from the hold. Both Hounds fell to the ground. Suddenly, every beast howled in unison and went to war from far below. Denan rolled from his cursing comrade and searched the darkness for his sword. It didn’t matter what source energy the youth attacked with. His blade cut through anything of this world or the next.

  Iaculous hid in the darkness somewhere. “The soul is stronger from a living being.”

  “You have lost your thurken mind!” Denan cried and took hold of his fallen blade, resting on the bed. Below him, he heard the hammering of the front door to a hundred clawing paws.

  Not like this.

  “Please, Iaculous. We are brothers. We are comrades. Whatever you have done, it is the effect of Mallum!” he cried and stood to meet his comrade in battle. He held his blade out in front of him and felt strength returning to his body.

  An invisible hand took hold of him and swung him violently against the far wall. Then another phantom hand took hold of his sword-bearing arm and ripped it free from his body.

  “Please,” he gasped as shock took his pain.

  Without warning, the invisible hand threw him from the room, down to the street below.

  Falling. Landing. Darkness.

  He awoke paralysed and broken beyond most healers’ repair. He lay among his own blood and that of the beaten monster, and Iaculous stood over him. He looked twisted, like a wraith of the Rime marshes.

  “Why did you do this?” he gasped and felt the world slipping away.

  “You look exactly as Cherrie did.”

  “Do not do this,” Denan whimpered, knowing well his doom.

  “You won’t live long like this, and I can’t heal a soulless husk,” Iaculous said as though faced with a conundrum of choosing which crop of vegetable to purchase for the farming season ahead. “It would have been so much easier if you had let go.”

  Without warning, all the pain in the world flooded into Denan’s body. He screamed aloud.

  “I can make it end,” Iaculous whispered, and Denan cried out as a shard of flame penetrated his body. “I can numb it all, and you can give me your soul, and we can kill Mallum together,” he whispered, and then he reduced the pain to a mere mind-destroying throb. “Give me your soul, and I will ensure you spend eternity by Cherrie’s side.”

  In that moment, Denan felt her presence. He felt her torment, and it was something terrible. He reached for one of the glowing orbs with his one remaining hand, and Iaculous knocked it away dismissively. With his last efforts, he spat into the healer’s face. Iaculous nodded and wiped it away, then he returned the offending sputum of blood and spittle across Denan’s forehead.

  “No matter at all,” he said.

  Iaculous took hold of Denan’s chest, and all the pain disappeared. A great tiredness overcame him. He felt himself floating. His vision darkened until all he could see was a pulsing piece of rock upon his vanquisher’s chest. He cursed aloud, and then he felt nothing at all.

  43

  Anguished

  Denan’s hand fell loosely to the ground, and he exhaled one last time. Iaculous cursed under his breath. The surrounding animals snarled, hissed, growled, and salivated, and he willed them to fall silent. This they did swiftly enough, and why wouldn’t they? He was their master and had been for quite a time.

  “What a thurken waste,” the weaver known as Iaculous whispered aloud in his shadowed voice.

  Sometimes it spoke in his mind, deep within the source where devils tread freely, and sometimes, when it felt stronger, it crept into his words, and he allowed it. And why wouldn’t he? It was no phantom whisper in the back of his mind like it had been to Eralorien. It was something far more potent and mutually beneficial. Or at least that is what both he and it had agreed.

  It called itself Silencio, the seventh demon of the source.

  One of the larger Venandi challenged its mental leash and neared the weaver. It sniffed the ground around him, but Iaculous was untroubled. He felt the hold upon the creature, and he met its eyes and saw the thin veil of blue shimmering within them. He held all beasts in this region of Venistra. He allowed this beast to nudge the dead body and lick at the limbless hole slowly draining the last few drops of crimson onto the ground.

  Without the benefit of a beating heart to drive the blood, Denan appeared more of a leaking water pouch strewn aside than the warrior of countless legends. For that's all bodies were—weak vessels destined to tear and empty. Probably not a fitting end to a comrade, but most mercenaries ended their days in a pool of their flowing blood, urine, and faeces.

  Iaculous reached out and slid his grubby fingers along the defiant beast’s leathery back. He sensed the incredible will fighting his hold, and it amused him so. These beauties didn’t mind how famous their prey was. There still lay within the unquenchable instinct to feed upon an easy meal. He closed his eyes and willed himself to feel what the creature felt. Though he thought it distasteful, he embraced it and the disgusting craving to feed upon flesh.

  Playing within their mind was becoming easier, just as Silencio had whispered it would. And the easier it became, the stronger he grew. In his mind, he tasted Denan’s blood, and his mouth watered for its savoury taste. He placed his hand upon the chest of his murdered companion one last time, as he had with Cherrie, and whispered the mercenary’s prayer of the dead.

  “Steal into the night, comrade,” he whispered, and the beasts listened. “Keep your wits and sword sharp. Find your way in this final night. May you find the gold where you seek,” he whispered and left him where he lay.

  That Denan had died was a terrible waste altogether. A living soul trapped was tenfo
ld the power of the souls he already possessed, and a battalion of ready warriors would have been a fine thing for killing Mallum. But Iaculous was philosophical if nothing else. He matched Mallum as it was, and an army would not be difficult to assemble. He only needed a little more power surging through him, and that would come soon enough.

  He waved his hand, and a thin shield covered each of his wondrous beasts. Such a use of energy immediately struck him, and he wavered as his vision blurred. A week before, a thin shield held for a few breaths upon one man would have left him gasping for air and life itself—not to mention the swift ageing of his body. But he had come so far since then and still only taken a few steps. He held his fingers over the shield and felt its potency.

  “Can’t have you hiding in a cave all day while I walk into a pit.”

  If his beauties understood, he imagined them nodding in agreement.

  “Can’t have you burning up in the daylight though, can we?”

  After a little time, the drain upon his reserves maintaining the shield faded and disappeared altogether. He was getting stronger with every enchantment weaved, just as Silencio promised.

  “Feed.”

  All those closest leapt upon the royal’s body, tearing and ripping. The rest fell upon the fallen crustacuus. Iaculous, meanwhile, found a barrel to bathe the blood and ruin from his body. With the scent of Denan washed from his hands, he felt better. Killing was getting easier. He had never expected it to.

  He found the ruined settlement of the Hundred Houses to be strangely beautiful. Its architecture matched the age of anything Dellerin offered, and perhaps it was this pride in their history, which suggested Venistra’s historic distaste for the king. It was an old land with old values. Perhaps, had there been richness in its soil or wealth in the mines of below, it may have been a force. Still, though he didn’t know why, he loved this place and the Hundred Houses most of all. All men desired to be king of whatever rock they stood upon, and Venistra was no different.

  As dawn emerged from behind the night, Iaculous sat upon an abandoned throne of silver and gold. He wondered what it would be like to sit upon this throne and know full dominion over all man and beast, and he wondered if this thinking brought Mallum to the point of madness.

  He watched the dawn through the gaping hole in the throne room where a beast, infused and changed by the spilling of dark energies from a failing monolith, had ruined and slain an army promised to him by a foolish prince of nothing. He watched the stirring burning of amber and red in the sky and almost fell asleep as it turned to blue, but he held off the exhaustion. He enjoyed the chorus of birds incited to frenzy with the discovery of fresh, delicious carrion waiting for them.

  He thought he would be a fine king without a queen at his side. This thought soured his mood, for it led to Arielle and her unfaithfulness. She had behaved as a whore would. Rape would have been an honourable end to her, but Mallum had not even needed to sway her thoughts or lure her to his manhood. She had willingly given that cur everything without a thought for her true love, and Iaculous would spend the rest of his days lamenting such an act.

  He took his time and did not feel bad for rummaging through the kingdom of the dead until—with clothing of silk and decorated in garish jewels—he garbed himself as a king should. Eyeing himself in a slightly cracked mirror as tall as any man, he thought himself impressive. The demon agreed and whispered as much. Iaculous enjoyed the compliments for a few moments before severing the connection of their mind, much to the irritation of Silencio.

  Perhaps the demon was unimpressed or even wary of his aptitude in swiftly learning the darker weavings of the source. Throughout his life, it had never taken long for any of his instructors to become wary of his ability to learn. Silencio was now his only instructor, and he had come so far since he’d been that charred husk of a boy lying dead atop the barge’s deck.

  “It is not too far now, my beauties.” He left the throne behind. It was a comfortable seat, and perhaps he would rest upon it on his return.

  Iaculous walked fast and held tightly his cloak in his crossed arms as it whipped out behind him, caught in the early morning wind. He marched forward, and one by one, the beasts marched with him. Some led, others on each side kept watch for threats against master, and finally, the older more reluctant alphas begrudgingly accepted his will and trudged along behind. He respected these most of all. They still had fight. They still had pride.

  He did not eat, rest, or even take in the world around him or the decisions he had made to take him to this place. Instead, he calmed his mind and weaved invisible enchantments all around him, all the while making himself stronger and stronger. He immolated trees in an unforgiving flame every now and then before pulling all heat from them, leaving a charred crust in their wake. He elevated boulders from one side of the path to the other as he came upon them. Just enough to practice and improve. Just enough to make impossible weavings second nature to him. Eralorien would have been proud, but when he tipped the bandoleer, all he felt was the old man’s senseless grief.

  He walked for many hours, from day until night, and he did so with no sleep. He allowed the lure to tease his desire, for he thought it a pleasurable thing. He could shatter the enchantment into nothing, like a twig in a giant’s grasp if needed, yet he never did. It made each mile more enjoyable, each hour passed more exciting. He kept that nastiness swirling in his thoughts and in his soul, for it was a welcomed reassurance.

  To anyone else, it might have driven them mad, as it had with Eralorien, or sapped all bravery, as it had done to Denan. He knew this because he had felt both men’s minds. He should have felt more for them now, but each had forsaken their comrades, all in the name of a whore. Again, he thought of Arielle thurking a man out of spite, and then he thought of the repercussions with the lure.

  Iaculous spat into the dirt at his feet and spat Bereziel’s name a second time. That foolish old man had doomed the great Hounds, for there was no other weaver skilled enough, reckless enough, or even stupid enough to cast a lure using soul stones as their binding enchantment. It didn’t matter that Bereziel was unaware of the potency of such things, but Silencio was aware and had taken its demonic opportunity where it could. When this mission finished, Iaculous would meet Bereziel one last time and repay upon him his sins.

  “That thurken lure.”

  He felt no need to shatter it, for he had need of it too. The lure had bound all their souls together, and when Heygar had died, his desire to complete the mission had been shared out among them all. He knew the rodenerack had passed into the darkness. He would unknowingly have felt it when it happened, yet only now recognised why. So too, had that little beast’s yearning joined their collective desires, and Arielle’s after Mallum had taken her soul. On and on, they had fallen like flies in a thresher, and with each of their passing, the cruellest of all lures had grown stronger upon those still enchanted by it and oh, Silencio had loved this ever so.

  He felt a different presence beside him, yet distant, from across a void, in another world, in another time. Another time.

  “I will repay what you have done, Bereziel, seven times over,” he said aloud, and the unnatural presence of Bereziel dissipated completely.

  Iaculous knew the truth. It was another trick by the demon to unsettle him. He ran his fingers along the blade, but the sound of music shattered his thoughts, distant and melodic. He listened and wondered how far he had walked without respite. The sun had set upon this open land, and his beasts were itching for meat.

  “What day is it anyway?” he said to the wind.

  He smelled the air as they did and sensed many flavours of man, woman, and child. With a delicate wave of the hand, he released the enchantment and freed the Venandi night hunters of their shield.

  He expected to feel a surge of relief at the release of such power, but there was nothing. Maintaining so many shields for an entire day against relentless assault should have drained so much of him, yet it felt as little
as stretching after a night’s rest. He remembered sensing the ferocious power in Mallum, but it was nothing compared to what he felt now. Mallum had reached his pinnacle and would fall well short of Iaculous’s will.

  He felt the hour change and a new day begin. The music was no farther away than a hill beyond, and somewhere beyond that, he could sense his quarry. “It is time to end this all,” he whispered to the demon Silencio and allowed it to touch his mind once more. It was like opening a fist in a stream and allowing the current to pass between each finger. Who knew opening the mind could be so easy?

  44

  Silencio

  He could remember the burns well enough, and not just for the pain. He remembered the potency of the fire as he released each volley into the ocean. He had tasted power as it consumed him, and in that moment, the demon named Silencio had come to him. It had felt every strike and instilled in him the unbridled energies of the source. It must have taken pleasure in his aggression, for he had tasted its hopeful delight as he had lost the run of himself.

  He knew well it had influenced his recklessness, causing his doom, and what a fine doom it should have been. He had felt his breath disappear, yet still, the unrivalled hate drove him forward. Each strike was fiercer than the last, and it was intoxicating. It was only after he threw the last strike and fell to the unsteady deck of the Celeste that he realised his folly. That was the moment Silencio had begun instruction.

  With all his will drained and excruciating pain consuming him all the way to his broken soul, he had attempted to heal himself, knowing he was lost. He remembered her sweet aroma above his own charred skin, and he had tried to tell her he was sorry for killing himself in such a way, but his tongue had burned like a steak left too long upon a cooking spit. He had tried to look to her one last time, but his eyes had melted away like snow after a wave of warmth. But he still had ears to listen, and they heard much beyond her delicate lamenting. He heard Silencio from a great distance, and the demon had laughed riotously at his actions.