Iaculous hated them both for their crimes. For their immediate bond, which he took a lifetime trying to attain. He heard her screaming from far away, and a hunger to punish overcame him.
“You think she is worth saving?” Iaculous cried out.
The imprisoned souls, stirred by his confusion, fought his intentions fiercely and lost. They knew his actions before he knew them himself. With a whispered enchantment under his breath, he silenced them completely as he had done before. He still felt their raging power but none of their protests.
“My life for hers.” It was a strange thing to see a man so dominant, beg so pathetically.
“I am anguished,” Iaculous hissed in a voice less his own and more that of deity whose primal desire for power rose. For what was greater than five souls to command for an eternity?
Seven.
Iaculous lifted her body into the air with an invisible hand and walked upon Mallum, who clawed desperately for her floating body. Without using Arielle’s soul, it limited Mallum. Invading Iaculous’s mind had taken its toll. He was beaten, pathetic, and no manner of nobility or goodness would ever change the outcome.
Iaculous opened his palm flat and entwined her in a weaved grip. He willed her body to mimic his hand’s movements, and she lay flat in the air. He snapped his hand shut as though catching an irritating, invading insect and her body mirrored the action with dreadful consequences. In one horrific moment, she was no longer the beautiful creature he had spent his adult life desiring. No longer the whimsical girl with a warm heart. No longer anything.
He heard Mallum wailing as her mashed body fell to the floor in a pool of liquefied ruination. No healer could recover her heartbeat. No undertaker could ever place her in a coffin of weeping oak. She was gone. Gone. Murdered.
Iaculous brought the fallen amulet with her screaming soul across from where it lay. He held it to his forehead and heard her agony but felt little. Mallum’s suffering pierced his ears, and he barely noticed the weaver climb to his feet and leap upon him.
“No,” The Dark One said as his body surged from the spinning of a lure and the torment of the souls. He caught the third fiercest weaver ever to live in the air and held him for a moment.
“You thurken monst—”
The anguished Iaculous placed his hand upon his chest and wrenched his soul from him before he could say any meaningful last words. As an afterthought, he flicked a spark upon the broken body and threw it across the room to burn away to ash.
“Soulmates,” he cursed and placed the little bright sphere of a soul upon the amulet, which held the tormented Arielle.
He felt the souls converge in the little stone crystal within. He felt them entwine. Bonded in misery. And love? He flipped the lid in the last jar in his bandoleer, removed the stone and replaced it with the little rock. As he did, he felt all seven souls, lured and twisted, surge through him. He felt the lure eviscerate as the body of Mallum burned away to nothing, yet still, he felt little relief. He fell into a blissful unconsciousness.
After a time, Iaculous felt his body return to him and with it, a tremendous wellness. It was dawn, and a new day was upon him. The deed was done, and he had attained the seven souls, as he had desired. What demon, weaver, or god could claim to hold such a thing, he wondered and stirred himself to rise.
The world would know his power. The world would know his name. The world would know a strong leader.
He was The Dark One, and Dellerin was his.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My name is Bereziel. I greet you possibly from the grave, for I do not yet know my fate. Regardless, to those in the world of the living, this is my last will and testament, my revelations upon the sins I have committed and gifted to the world.
As I write these last few words, it is late and I am almost spent. My soul is ripped, and my will has left me. For too long now, I have cowered in my sanctuary as The Dark One has searched for me. Every year that passes, I sense his strength increase. Soon enough, he will find me, no matter how many enchantments I cover myself and my sanctuaries in. I hope this same enchantment has sought and called one worthy of its need, for he does not know you, and as long as you hold this book, he cannot find you.
I have tried—the demons know how hard—to undo my mistakes. A wretched act has doomed all of us, for I did not know well enough the darkness of the source. That thurken lure has been the shadowing of the world, and I have lost everything because of it. Yet, I have cast one more lure to this book itself, and I pray as you read now, you know The Anguished Dark One as Iaculous of The Seven, and you understand the source that little better.
Within these pages is the key to his creation and to his downfall. This is no tale from the mind of a broken man, aged many years more than he should be. This is my account with my own eyes. For a soul stone is an eternal glimpse into the living, and I had them all. I have weaved the source to my will, and it has gifted me their last day. I have felt everything; I have died with every one of them a hundred times over. I have been each of The Seven, and I am greater and poorer for the experience. They were magnificent. They were heroic, and I loved them. And though they are dead, their fight is not yet done. I know this, for if this is their end, there is no hope at all.
I have shattered the soul stones to almost nothing, and I have ground and mixed them down to the ink I have written these words upon. What you hold in your hand is the last of them. What you hold is the last link to the goodness and perhaps even the sanity of Iaculous the Innocent. It is the last link to the lure that binds them together, even now. When this book is destroyed, so must begin the final attack upon him.
These years have been cruel, but they have taught me far more of the dark world than I have ever imagined. I have achieved things within that unforgiving realm that Iaculous can only dream to desire, yet I am no match for him and his many ethereal allies. I tell you now, the stories of Iaculous’s wrath and Silencio’s brutality are true. He walks with many demons, and yes, he has granted them steps upon this world. I have tasted the future, the past, the now, and though I sense I am still to play a part, I am tired. I am old. I am without allies. I am without hope, and I am so very, very scared.
As I write these words, it is near midnight. I prepare to step into the darkness one last time with both soul and body, leaving nothing of me behind. I seek others who cower in the deepest darkness from The Dark One and his fury—I seek those who outlived the dead gods. I seek their help.
Know this: as long as I still live, the enchantments remain. If I return, I will not be the weakened man I was, and I will not be alone.
The Last Weaver of Dellerin,
Bereziel of The Seven.
EPILOGUE
Erin closed the last page and left the book sitting on her lap. She felt deflated and sad, but she also felt something she hadn’t felt in many a year. She felt hope.
The room was falling dark as the day neared its end and the night closed in with promises of shadows and concealment. She knew the time was nearing to slip away and regroup with any of her comrades who still lived, or any who still had a fight in them.
“So, that’s that, then?” Rhendell asked and stared at the book upon her lap. His colour had returned to its fullness. He resembled more the fierce fighter she knew him to be and less the beaten leader who’d watched his platoon scattered and slaughtered beneath demonic horrors. He looked like she felt. Better.
“A good tale,” she whispered. She ran her fingers across the cover and thought of Bereziel’s final words.
“But it’s just a tale.”
She nodded in agreement. Just a tale.
“It’s a heavy book, and we have little space within our packs,” she said and lifted the book back onto its place among the others. She felt a terrible sadness as she did, like saying goodbye to a friend.
She’d had enough practice with emotions like this. Still, she ran her fingers one last time along its spine and climbed to her feet. With th
e darkness and luck at their backs, they could get out of the ruined city of Dellerin without notice, and who knew what would come thereafter? He had destroyed the rebellion, and the people would suffer further misery for their unsuccessful insurgence. It would be a time before their forces could recover, let alone consider marching once again. Her heart was heavy, but still, looking upon this book gave her strength.
“It was just a tale. Bereziel is a myth, lost for thirty years or more. If he lived, he is dead now,” Rhendell said. He touched the book once more before strapping his pack upon his back and testing the weight on his leg. An injury like his should have taken more movement than it did, but he grinned as his knee bent fully with very little tearing. “It’ll last until we get back to camp,” he whispered and smiled to himself. It was the little things any warrior accepted as good fortune, as was thieving something forbidden.
“If The Dark One wants none of The Seven’s tales told, perhaps this is a reason to make allowances,” she said, fearing that she sounded like a child in front of a superior officer. Or worse, in front of a friend.
Rhendell exhaled. “It is just a tale, but … perhaps we would be fools to leave such a tale to die alone in a hovel like this.” He sounded like a man bitten by the savageness of hope, for any hope could rebuild anew. Any hope could light a spark to the fires of a new rebellion.
Smiling, Erin pulled the book from its place and emptied her supplies before slipping the book into her satchel Seeing this, Rhendell nodded in agreement. Both warriors gathered their wits and slipped from Bereziel’s study, in search of escape from the ruins of Dellerin and its immortal leader, Iaculous the Anguished of The Seven.
THE END
Erin’s story is not done…
Thank you for reading The Seven
Thank you for reading The Seven.
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Also by Robert J Power
The Dellerin Tales
The Seven: The Lost Tale of Dellerin
The Crimson Hunters: The Crimson Collection vol I
The Crimson Hunters: The Crimson Collection vol II
The Spark City Cycle
Spark City: Book One in the Spark City Cycle
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