Chapter 75

“Hello old friends,” Evrain greeted the group kindly, and to Kestrel’s shock, he believed the words. He was greeting an old friend.

He had known Evrain his whole life.

Evrain had been there in the streets with him.

He had taken him in and taught him how to navigate the streets when nobody else had been there for him. He had protected him from the violence that killed or prostituted so many others consigned to that life.

Kestrel saw Evrain as a young man. He recalled the hundreds of times they walked the streets together. The millions of late night conversations as they huddled together for warmth during the biting winter nights in the backstreets of Fiell.

Why was he here with a blade in hand trying to kill the man? What sort of insanity did it take to drive him to attempt to murder his best friend?

*****

Aris’ eyes knit at the Emperor’s words. He suddenly recalled the countless days spent trudging through the mountains together in service with the man. Evrain had been there right beside him as he’d fought the Wendig tribe in the Mountain Campaigns all those years ago. He couldn’t count how many times Evrain’s steady hand and sharp blade had saved the lives of him and their company. Without the man, no the hero, they would all have been dead by now.

It was due to him that he and his brother had survived the endless hours of climbing steep slopes and sleeping in the middle of blizzards only to find themselves attacked by monster that could tear a man’s head off of its shoulders without a second thought.

He owed his life to the man standing in front of him.

He would have died a score or more times had he not had Evrain by his side as a companion. Why was he trying to fight the man that had sacrificed so much for him? What madness could have brought him here?

*****

Wallace nearly cried at the sound of that voice. He remembered the solace he’d sought and found in Evrain’s company. He was the one that he would run to after his mother had beat him. Evrain had been the one to apply the salve to the bruises and cuts that his mother’s heavy leather belt had striped across his body.

The man standing before him was a lifelong friend. He had been the only person he had ever confided his mother’s abuse of him to. It was Evrain’s intervention that had stopped the whippings and starvings.

His eyes watered at the thought of all that the man standing in front of him had sacrificed for him. Evrain was more precious than a chest of gold to him. He was a lifelong friend and he would never betray the man.

He would kill any who ever tried to harm his old comrade.

He would kill them.

*****

Sephira’s eyes immediately found those of her mother’s. She didn’t return her gaze. She was looking past her. Staring through her. It was as if she didn’t see her full-grown daughter in front of her, rather a mirror that reflected her history and she was absorbed in the autobiography playing in front of her eyes.

It unsettled Sephira. What was happening to Corrine?

Her eyes slid over to the rest of the coterie of would-be assassins that had been forced into the occultic chamber at point of the short bladed swords of the company of guards standing in attention behind them.

It was Kestrel that she noticed first. His hand had gone slack on the blade it carried. There was a strange look in his eyes. One that she had noticed when he spoke of the young girl Cillia who she realized by his description was laying there, nearly bare, covered in just a thin shift, in front of her in the middle of the tower room, comatose and unaware of the world surrounding her and how the actions taken now might shift the course of the world forever.

That look was one that she knew. It was the look in Kestrel’s eyes of love. A look that she was stunned to realize she saw reflected in his eyes when they fell upon her.

He loved her. It wasn’t the familial love she saw in his eyes now, but something deeper. More spiritual.

He truly loved her. He was devoted to her.

He loved her and he was looking at that horrid monster, Emperor Evrain, with eyes filled with that same loyalty and love too.

He was looking at the man who had taken everything from him with eyes filled with devotion!

It physically pained her to watch and she turned her gaze away from him.

Sephira’s eyes next went to those of Aris, her uncle. They too were filled with a perverse adoration. It was as if he worshiped the man standing before him.

He looked at him like she imagined that he had looked at her father, his brother, Van when he’d filled his mind with stories of noble knights and ancient heroes who’s mighty hands had won battles and changed the courses of nations as they hid from the drunken brutality of an alcoholic father who’d never learned to cope with the death of the woman he’d loved more than life itself and had taken out all his anger and disappointment out on his sons.

Her eyes shifted to Wallace. She already knew what she would see in the eyes of her mentor in Memory Magic, but still it hurt to see even him, one of the few memory mages who had survived Evrain’s first rain of destruction on their small empire fawning over the monster standing there, bare before them, chanting as the hot air swelled around the room and caused lines of sweat to bead down her body.

“What’s happening to them? How can they stand in front of a monster like him and look at him with such admiration and love!?” She asked herself.

She already knew the answer before her thought had finished forming in her mind.

She could feel the power of the Emperor’s magic.

The waves pounded the room like a Tsunami and with each cry of terror and each death scream who’s tiny rattle made their way up to the tower from the battle’s and fires spreading below them the tide of Memory Magic had a stronger pull echoing from the man standing in front of them.

She could feel his power emanating from him, but couldn’t feel its touch.

It was just like every time she'd trained with Wallace and the others. She could feel its tickle, feel the tendrils of it whipping at her mind and trying to caress their way into her memories, but they never entered.

They had never entered her mind sense that day. The day her father had been ripped from her memories. She had shut everything out then.

Was she immune the to the Emperor’s touch?

No, she could feel the echoes of memories of times spent with him, but she knew they weren’t real. She recognized his heavy hand in the fuzzy recollections. She knew what she was recalling through the nebulous haze wasn’t real. It was an echo of a magic that entranced everyone it touched. Entranced everyone but her.

But why?

She cried in alarm when Wallace turned on Aris and Kestrel and raised his sword. His eyes were filled with poisonous hatred and his blade poised with deadly intent. She saw his wrist turning. She knew what was about to happen. He was going to ram his blade through the heart of Aris who stood entranced in front of him.

In that moment she knew that his was the final death required in whatever hellish ritual the demonic Emperor was performing in front of them. Whatever he needed would be fulfilled with the death of Aris who had been such a perfect foil for him, giving Evrain the final fuel he needed.

She saw it even as she found her feet propelling herself forward. She saw Evrain’s plans as she shoved her uncle from the path of the oncoming blade and as it tore through the flesh of her bicep that stood where Aris’ heart had been but a blink ago.

The scream that echoed in the chamber and fueled the swelling power from whatever entity that had attached itself to Evrain overwhelmed everything else.

Wallace’s eyes cleared in an instant and were filled with horror at what he’d done. He saw her blood joining that of the men he had killed. He turned his sword towards the guards who’d also been standing at rapt attention and waded into them with a terrible ferocity.

He screamed a feral cry that shuddered through the room. He would make them pay for having him almost kill the daughter of Van, whom he’d sworn his life to protect.

They couldn’t get away with what they’d done and live.

Kestrel stepped into action at the same time. His eyes had focused on Cillia upon hearing Sephira’s wail of pain and he knew that every memory he’d held upon hearing the voice of the man who was trailing black smoke in front of him was a lie.

She was the one that he loved. Cillia was the one he’d found on the streets and saved. She was the one that he wanted nothing more in the world than to protect, and he, Evrain, had taken her from him!

He had taken Cillia, who was practically his daughter, from him.

It was because of him that the young girl was laying there, unconscious in front of him about to be taken, her soul raped as the monster Evrain prepared to take over her body and force his consciousness into her and violate her in the worst possible way.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

He rushed at Evrain, swatting aside the crushing memories of brotherhood the man slammed into him like a stone fist.

He slashed at Evrain with his blade. The man danced out of the way with ease.

Kestrel danced back for half a second before rushed in again and unleashed a vicious combination of blows that barely fazed the man.

Evrain laughed as he walked into a spinning back kick from Kestrel that would surely have snapped the ribs of a lesser man. The fog surrounding him rose each time Kestrel’s fist or blade found the man.

*****

Aris rushed to his wife. Her eyes snapped to his and were filled with relief.

She KNEW he would come.

There was such a look of belief in them that he nearly broke down crying right there in the midst of all the chaos. He heard Wallace’s ringing steel. He caught Kestrel fighting for his life as he fought the Evrain whom the shadows that leaked from him, grew with each attempted strike.

“I knew you would come,” Corrine croaked.

Then the tears came.

His eyes blurred as he broke the bindings holding her and took her in a rapturous embrace before she shoved him away saying “Go. Stop the bastard. Kill him.”

He hardened and nodded.

His blade joined together with Wallace’s and found its home in one of the guard’s stomachs before quickly retreating then slamming into the unguarded neck of another who hadn’t tucked his helmeted chin quite enough to deflect the blow.

Time slowed as blades traveled through the air at a snails pace. Aris had entered his battle mind. He saw everything. He saw the slight twisting of the calf that indicated an oncoming blow and slammed the tip of the his sword through the unguarded foot. He saw the blade slashing at his back and twisted so instead of it cleaving him open, it left just a small gash.

Aris knew Wallace was in that same crystalized state.

He had fought by his side enough that they were the perfect partners in this dance of death.

They fought and they killed and then, when there were none left to taste their blades, they returned their focus to the man who they had come to kill.

Kestrel was fighting admirably, but he was no match for the Emperor, who had proved himself to be anything but the soft man that his age and body-swapping may have made him.

When Aris had peered into his memories, he’d seen his lust for perfection. His avarice and goal to be the perfect human specimen.

He desired to be the pinnacle of Magic.

He had gained that desire. He’d lived for all Aris knew of history for at least five hundred years, and the memories he had seen indicated his years surpassed that estimation.

Evrain was the closest thing to the physical presence of a deity walking among men.

Or a demonic lord.

Evil oozed from his skin in a black fog that had only thickened with each death that Aris and Wallace had wrought.

Every drop of blood just fed his power more.

Kestrel slashed at the Emperor again with his blade.

Evrain didn’t step aside from the blow. He stepped into it and caught the short sword against his side. His blood sizzled where the skin had opened up and filled the room with a sulfurous stench. Kestrel tried to yank the blade free from the Emperor’s naked skin but Evrain moved with inhuman speed and his palm slammed into Kestrel’s nose with such force that the whiplash seemed as if it might have snapped the vertebra in his neck.

Blood exploded from Kestrel’s shattered nose and he fell to his knees, eyes open but blind to the world around him.

Wallace moved to intercept the possessed Emperor but the wounds he’d gathered over the last two days hampered his movement. He couldn’t get there in time to stop the heavy kick that slammed into Kestrel’s side and snapped ribs from its heavy impact.

He did prevent a second kick from caving in the younger man’s bones though and took the blow that had been meant for Kestrel and fell to his knees from the force. His battle instinct took over and despite being grounded he stabbed the tip of the short sword he’d been using through the Emperors foot.

He tore it back, slicing the foot into halves from the pinnacle of its arch down to its toes. Evrian’s scream tore through the air, nearly shattering the eardrums of all who remained in the room.

Wallace’s sword raised to slam its way through the Emperors face.

A kick from the tattered leg intercepted him and a shattered bone fragment that had been sticking out of what remained of Evrain’s mangled foot slammed into Wallace’s left eye, squashing it with a sickening wet crunch.

Wallace fell backwards with a scream, clutching the bloodied socket.

Aris, who’d been trying to find a home for his blade stepped in closer as the battered Evrian tried to stand up and regain his footing, using his only good foot for balance.

A wave of memories hit Aris. He watched Evrain standing alongside him, crying along with him as they watched his brother die, executed. Evrain had been there for his wedding. He’d smiled and sang praises of he and his wife Corrine.

But he’d been the one who’d ordered his brother’s execution!

These memories of him WEREN’T real. They were the desperate attempts of a man soon to die to save himself.

Aris still hesitated though. It had been for less than the blink of an eye, but that gave Evrain enough time to send the dirk that Aris hadn’t known he’d been hiding flying into his chest.

Aris didn’t bother trying to yank the knife free. He stepped forward again, but a second knife found its way into his flesh right beside its brother, the first missile.

Still he pressed forward.

A third found its home in his flesh. The blades were too small to pierce his internal organs, but he could feel where they chipped bone off of his ribs.

He tried to push forward, but his footing failed him. The loss of blood from the multiple slashes he had gained fighting the plethora of guards and Inquisitors were adding up.

His body was failing him now, right when he needed it most. Aris screamed in fury.

Evrain hopped forward. The violence inflicted on his own body seemed to be enough for the final offering. The darkness that had been leaking off of him and growing like a fog now radiated from him in waves.

It was as if he were summoning the vast inky blackness of the universe and condensing it down into one tiny focal point.

He regained his footing. Ignoring or not feeling the pain of his foot who’s halves flopped and spurted blood with each step forward to the center of the room where Cillia, little Cillia, lay defenseless, her tiny body ripe for the monster to enter and destroy as his consciousness and memories seeped into every pore of her body, violating it with Evrain's, or whoever in hell he—it— was, presence.

Evrain was an infection. A terminal disease, and he was about to enter Cillia’s body.

Aris looked over to Kestrel and Wallace. They were regaining their footing but they wouldn’t make it in time and Sephira was on the other side of the chamber, curled up trying to staunch the blood that oozed from the giant gash that had torn through her bicep.

He forced himself to stand.

He would die to stop Evrain from taking another host, from infecting another country, from destroying again and again and again in his obsessive compulsion for more power and more control of Magic.

He would stop him.

He would. He just had to make it there in time. He just had to force his body forward. Just a few more steps.

He could do it. He could make it to Cillia before Evrain’s corrupting touch fell upon her.

Evrain stepped forward.

It was too late. Aris couldn’t make it in time.

Evrain’s hands reached for Cillia. They strained to touch her tiny body.

They were only inches from her..and then they weren’t.