Chapter 92

The Pen is Mightier Than a Sword

“AAAAAGGHHHH!” Tebek screamed in horror and agony as a knife found its way into his gut.

Sylas twisted it abruptly, causing yet another rollout of wails and howls rooted in infernal misery. He held it tightly with one hand while using the other to grab Tebek by his hair and yank the man’s head up, forcing the latter to look Sylas directly in the eyes. There seemed to be undisguised panic in that gaze, but Sylas hardly softened at the image--if anything, it was the opposite.

“Who are you?” Sylas asked.

“I--I--I told, told y--AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!” when he saw that Tebek would give the same answer once more, Sylas slammed the man’s head back into the stone wall, causing yet another set of teeth to roll out and blood to begin pouring once again.

“You may think I’ll eventually take it a step too far and end up killing you,” Sylas mumbled in a tone and voice void of emotions. “And that you will be freed. But... you won’t. Every time, I get better at this. Better at stabbing you without killing you. Better at twisting the knife until your insides are burning. The first few times we did this dance, you never survived the first stab. Now... now I can keep you alive, little worm. For a long time. And that time will continue to grow longer. Eventually, I will become a proper torturer, and will make your life a living hell for so long you will have felt an eternity has passed.”

“...” Tebek continued to shake and tremble, irises dancing about wildly.

“Fine,” Sylas cracked a devious smile, one that appeared abominable under the faint light of the torch. “I’ve already made a choice. May as well kill what’s left of that voice in me, no?”

“Ugh,” Sylas twisted the knife harder, killing the horrified man. A few moments later, he pulled the same knife across his throat.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

Sylas sat in front of the shaky body of Tebek, feasting on some ribs, while the latter stared in terror. Blood decorated the entire cell, walls, chains, and all, with the crackling of fire of the torch acting as the background ambiance to the horror it was witnessing.

Tebek’s arms were bent backward, unnaturally, bones in them broken beyond healing. Both his feet were twisted the wrong way, and his legs seemed to have been made of clay in the way they were shaped. His entire body was full of holes, and there appeared to be no untouched part on it. And yet... he was breathing. He was alive.

“I gotta give it to you,” Sylas said, still chewing. “You ain’t loose-tongued. No, fuck. This shit goes well beyond not being a snitch. You’re a fucking psycho, man.”

“I--I--”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sylas interrupted. “Spare me ‘uuuuhhh, I dunno nothin’ I swear’ horseshit. You know. And boy, ain’t you good at keeping it close to your heart, huh? But I’ll get there,” Sylas finished off the piece, wiping his lips and cracking a menacing smile. “I’ll break you. Or, perhaps, are you playing the role to see how much I know? Are you disposable? I dunno. Maybe? Haah, the cult-cockers are woo-woo, so who the fuck knows what they’ll think, eh?”

“...”

“I never got it,” Sylas continued. “The entire cult business. I mean, I get the part of wanting to worship something greater than you. The comfort. It’s like the hands of a god wrap around you and warm you up. But... I wonder just how miserable and fucked-up you gotta be to keel over to the ilk that sends the dead after the living. I mean, I am fucked-up myself--as evidenced by, well, you--but man. The cult-cucks take the cake. The lot that desperate for attention... I don’t advocate suicide, but you should have all just killed yourselves. The world would have been better off without you.”

“...”

"Hoh? Was the answer not the fists but the words?" Sylas chuckled, walking up in front of the broken body of Tebek and crouching. Within the eyes of horror, for a brief moment, Sylas saw the fire. "They do say that the pen is mightier than the sword. What? You disagree with me? You think that the Shadows--ugh, I cringe every time I hear the name--are remarkable? Incredible? You think that you are on a plane above the rest of us? Let me tell you what you are," Sylas leaned in closer and yanked Tebek's head by his hair, grinning. "You are footprints in the history. Just like everyone else. You are nothing. A fart in the cosmic cycle of misery. You’ll have your flash of glory, and a moment for which the world may fear you. And after... puff. Nothing.

“You’ll become the boogeyman of children’s stories, the ones they’ll make fun of to feel all grown-up. They’ll say, ‘Shadows? Pfft, I’m a big girl! I don’t fear stupid-named Shadows! Shadows? More like Shad-up, right?’, and they’ll sing ‘Shadows, Shadows, the lamest name since--nothing, it’s just the lamest name!’. And then, when they do grow up... they’ll forget. The word shadow will mean just one thing--the demon that follows us all, writing down our sins. You... will be inconsequential.”

“... wry-tongued messiah,” Tebek growled, the look of horror in his eyes vanishing, replaced by cold indifference. “You have just marked yourself for death.”

"... pfft, ha ha ha ha ha," Sylas burst out in laughter, letting go of the man's hair and walking back to his chair. "This really was the answer? Shit. Childish insults and taunts? I must have stabbed your tiny peck at least a few hundred times by now, but calling you names is what gets to you? Goddamn,” he sat down, still laughing, and looked at Tebek with a dismissive grin. “I can’t be certain whether you’re the idiot... or me. No, I definitely am an idiot. After all, I pissed off one of the ye' mighty Shadows! And the big, bad, oh-just-awful shadow is gonna come and kill me now!"

“...”

“At least... I can let go of my anger, now,” he added, sighing. “You weren’t just a coward seduced by words of the morons. You were... always just a moron. A wolf disguised as sheep. No, fuck, did I just call your weak ass a wolf? Uuh,” he forced a shudder. “I’m slipping.”

“You won’t survive this winter,” Tebek said. “So, please, do laugh as much as you can.”

"... I've survived much worse than you and your petty, power-hungry cult," Sylas replied indifferently. "Grown men calling themselves Shadows and going about the Kingdom, setting it on fire. What's the endgame there, huh? Domination? Extinction? Will you lock us all up in your sex dungeons and whip us while your masters wank themselves off at the sight? You know, a long, long, long time ago, I once theorized that you lot--at least in part--were remnants of the fallen Empire. Oh?” though brief, Sylas saw it--the reaction. Even if he didn’t hit the point directly, he was within the immediate vicinity of it. “Well, who woulda thought, huh? Empire... strikes... back... pfft, ha ha ha ha,” Sylas fell into yet another bout of laughter, though for reasons only understood by him between the two.

“... we should have killed you the moment you fell into our sight,” Tebek said.

“Oh, you have,” Sylas replied, calming himself down. “Quite a few times, actually. This--this conversation we’re having, the circumstances, you can’t even chalk it up to you guys being incompetent. On the contrary--if I couldn’t just ignore every mistake I make, you’d have buried this castle a long, long, long time ago. Between me and you lot, I’m by far the stupider one. It’s not even a competition, not really. I mean, it took me over eighty--eighty fucking years--to figure you out. You. You were always there, in front of my nose. And it took me eighty years and a tragedy I’ll never live down to get here. I’m sure that whatever god up there who made me what I am has been banging his head against the wall all this time. Haah...”

“... you’re mad,” Tebek said. “Completely mad.”

“Perhaps,” Sylas said, sighing and stretching. “But... you are evil.”

“Hah. You think this isn’t evil?”

“No,” Sylas replied. “Because you are not human.”

“Justify yourself--”

“Why would I need to justify myself for what I do to you?” Sylas said, walking up to him once again. “Trust me, there are many things in my life that I could justify myself for... but you ain't one of them son. In fact, what I've been doing to you these past couple of years... is as good a deed as feeding a starving child or two. Acts of cruelty can be good, just as acts of kindness can be evil. For instance, I am kindly letting you live, instead of ending your misery. Now, man, that is evil, my little marionette. So, how about you quicken your end and finally answer my question: who are you?”

“... hah. You are a dead man walking--may as well tell you,” Tebek said. “I am someone who you can never touch, fake messiah. A star shining more brightly than anything you’ve ever seen. And I have marked you for death.”

“... when I asked ‘who are you’, I meant your name. Your fucking name.”

“You aren’t worthy of my name.”

“Haah,” Sylas sighed, lowering his head for a moment. “Fine, whatever. What’s your purpose in coming here?”

“To purify this filthy place.”

“And that means... what exactly?”

“Raze it to the ground--just like we shall do to the rest of the Kingdom. I shall arrive in this forsaken place in seven days, with a personal Legion of Knights, and we shall bury you all so deep the Gods themselves will forget you ever existed!”

“Hm? What do you mean you’ll come here in seven days? Don’t tell me this is one of those fancy 'this is just one of my clones' twist? Hoh. Looks like I'm right," Sylas said. "Unfortunate. So, if I'm picking up on everything--your goal was to usher the army of the Dead and, after stirring the Well's awakening--or, at least, knowing when it would awaken--broker a deal with that Merchant dude to usher even more dead into the Kingdom’s borders.”

“...”

"I don't get it, though," Sylas said, ignoring Tebek's shocked expression. "Even if you increased the number of dead by tenfold, they'd never make it. What was the plan? Use them as a distraction or something? Probably. Hah. You must be severely happy I'm going to die without being able to share this info, eh? Tsk, tsk, I'll have to do it at least once," Sylas chuckled. "Just come straight here and unload all this shit on you just to see your expression. Alright. Let's keep the conversation going. If the dead were the distraction... what was the main attack? No, wait, before that--how'd you know about the Well? How are you controlling the dead? Who's the Broker? Start spitting it out and I just might end your misery! No, wait, are you even miserable? Do clones even feel pain? Is it like a twin thing, maybe? Where some people swear up and down it's real but most just go 'go fuck yourself, why did you break into my room to tell me that?!'? I'm very interested in learning!"