Gareth stepped protectively in front of Orenda and eyed the strange creature up and down. He knew him- of course he knew him. Orenda knew that Gareth was a mage too, he had to see the evil magic flowing around him, and she felt horrible that she was a healthy young mage now standing behind a broken old man. It should be the other way round and she knew it.

“What are you?” Gareth asked.

The demon tilted his head studying Gareth, and took long strides toward them, crossing the platform between them.

“You don’t recognize me?” He asked. “What happened, Ronnie?”

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Gareth said.

“Oh,” The demon stopped on the other side of the hole that once held the sacred flame and stared at them both. “That makes sense. When they told me they were going after the Emerald Knight I knew neither of them would survive. He spoke of a brother. That must be you. Gareth Firefist. I suppose… you’re the last of the fire priests, aren’t you? The last of the believers chasing your false god?”

“What did you do to my brother?” Gareth asked, “He was different when he came back. I didn’t believe his stories. I thought he had gone mad.”

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Morgani said as he walked around the platform. Gareth stepped back, but Orenda would not move, even as he tugged on her shoulder.

“Rendy,” He said, “We have to go. We have to go. Ronnie come on!”

She shrugged him off and turned to face the demon.

“You knew my parents,” She said.

“Where did you get that staff?” Morgani asked.

“I pulled it from the sacred flame,” Orenda answered, standing her ground, “I am the Chosen One, the Avatar of Thesis on Xren. Do not come any closer.”

“Chosen One?” Morgani asked as if the concept angered him, “Where are you people getting that? There is no Chosen One! Thesis didn’t make that staff, I did! And I put it where it was for a reason!”

You must slay the demon Magnus, master! The staff said in a panic. He will try to get inside your head!

“Shut up you useless hunk of sterilite!” Morgan snapped, “I’m not letting another one of you out!”

“Another one?” Orenda asked, and the pieces clicked into place instantly, “The sword. The sacred sword in the capital.”

“No!” Morgani said, “Orenda, listen to me! Do not seek that sword! Do not fight the Emerald Knight! You can’t defeat him! Klin is the only one who can defeat the Emerald Knight! I don’t have time for this. I have to get back, I have to prevent a fool from destroying the world. Put the staff back. The wards will spring back into place. I don’t know how you got it out. I should be the only one able to touch it.”

He took a step towards her and Orenda raised her useless staff.

“Oh please,” Morgan huffed, “You can’t even use it. Don’t take up arms against me child, I have outlived more brazen little mages than you can imagine. I am the Fallen, the first true Elven Warrior, the child born of no mortal woman, but of the beating heart of Xren herself! I am the demon who stalks Xren, Morgani Magnus! Give me the staff!”

Orenda heard a loud bang right beside her head and grabbed her ear on that side. She flinched, but when she looked up she saw the hole in Magnus’s head. His blood was black and viscous, and Orenda had thought that it had done nothing, because she didn’t realize that in her fear her brain had slowed down her perception. The truth was that the bullet Gareth had fired had the same velocity it always had, and like every time before it, it knocked the victim backwards. Orenda watched the demon in slow motion as it carried him off his feet, as he threw out both hands in an attempt to catch himself on thin air, but it was no use. He went flying over the side of the narrow platform.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“I panicked,” Gareth admitted. “I panicked. I panicked. We should leave. There’s a devil in the church. We should go. Now. Come on.”

“Yes,” Orenda agreed, and they set off at a sprint down the walkway.

“Firefist!”

The voice boomed behind them, and Orenda looked over her shoulder to see the demon rise from where he had fallen. His cape and hair fluttered out behind him, his eyes glowed with the strange dark light, and the wound on his head was gone.

“Shit!” She surmised, and cursed the exercises she had never taken. Gareth, however, had spent his life in survival mode, and outpaced her quickly. When he reached the entryway he skidded to a halt and realized that Orenda would never be able to outrun the demon.

Magnus hit the ground hard, reached into the either, and pulled out a whip in a puff of smoke. Orenda glanced back over her shoulder and felt her fear turn to rage. The staff did nothing. Her parents were dead, and this demon had had something to do with it. Gareth had spent his entire life running, and what had it gotten him? Depression and madness. Orenda was not going to spend her life running. When she stopped it seemed to confuse the demon, but she had already heard the crack of his whip, and it wrapped around the staff in her hands.

Slay the demon, master! The staff begged.

“How!?” Orenda asked.

The staff was silent, and Orenda suspected that it didn’t know.

“Listen to me, Orenda,” Morgani pulled from his end and Orenda from hers like some sort of life-or-death mockery of a children’s game of tug-of-war, “That thing will lie to you. You can’t trust it. It will tell you whatever you want to hear. In fact, I can guess what it’s told you. It said that you were special, that you were meant for greatness, that it will give you whatever you want if you only do what it says. It’s using you. Give it to me! I don’t have time for this! The Emerald Knight is approaching the air temple as we speak!”

“Are you really a demon?” Orenda asked.

“I am Morgani Magnus,” Morgani said, “The Fallen. I have been labeled a demon by the followers of your false god. But I am trying to help you!”

“Why should I believe you?” Orenda asked. He was stronger than her, and he was going to take the staff. She knew that she couldn’t hold on much longer as she felt her feet sliding across the platform, slowly closing the distance between them.

“I have been nothing but kind to you!” Morgani said, pulling the whip, “And you shot me in my face! How did you even do that? What even is that?”

“Let go!” Orenda demanded.

“You let go!” Morgan countered, “That thing will bring you nothing but pain! I sealed it away for a reason!”

Master, please. The staff begged. The demon Magnus wants you to fail. He stands against everything Thesis stands for. He caused the fall of the elves. He tried to kill me and all of my kind.

“You deserved it!” Morgani snapped, “I’ll do it, one day! I’ll destroy all of you! And Thesis! After what you did to us! Maybe I should just throw you in the lava. No one would ever find you then!”

He gave you paradise. Your father loved you. You disobeyed him.

“It was never about me!” Morgan pleaded, looking not at the staff but at Orenda, “It was never about me. You have to believe me. We don’t belong here. Not me, not you, not Gareth. It isn’t about us!”

Master. The staff begged Slay the demon Magnus!

Orenda hugged the staff to her chest, but Morgan was stronger, and he was pulling her closer, wrapping the whip around his arm, and she was losing ground.

“Orenda, give him the fucking staff!” Gareth called, “It doesn’t even work!”

“But it will!” Orenda called, “It has to! It’ll work! I’m the chosen one!”

She tried to pull back, but her feet slid, and she knew she was running out of time.

For the second time in her life, she began to pray the kind of prayer born of feverish devotion in times of crisis. There had to be something she could do, some source she could pull from. She was not going to die here, on this ledge, not after she had come so far and done so much.

In the bathhouse, as a child, Orenda had heated so quickly it had caused an explosion. She thought that she would never feel that kind of raw, unexplainable emotion again. That day, she had looked death in the eyes, and she had survived. And now, she gazed into those dark pools in Morgani’s face, and she saw her death staring back at her.

Magnus had pulled her close enough to reach out for the staff, but he didn’t get to touch it.

The magma below them billowed and boiled as Orenda gave up and gave in to the magic surrounding her. She felt the sacred flame in the doorway, the fire in Gareth’s heart, the soul of the demon, but more than all that, she felt the heat of the very living planet below her. Morgani stood almost exactly in the center of the platform, and Orenda made a decision on the advice of a force that she did not understand. She acted on instinct when she threw all of her weight into him, and sent them both into the hole where the sacred flame had been until she had removed the staff.

It started again instantly, and Orenda did not know what to expect. It came up all at once with great fervor, and she could not hear Gareth calling out her name over the sound of the flames. She did, however, feel Magnus clawing at her, and heard his shrieking as the flames overtook him. They were both inside of it now, but Orenda was still clutching the staff, and she was not burning. It floated where it had before she had taken it, and she clung to it for dear life as the sacred flames carried the screams of the demon away. She did not hear him hit the ceiling, but she knew he had.

Inside the flame everything was as it had been when she walked through the door. She saw into eternity and lost herself in it. She thought that she would have been content to stay there, forever, one with everything and nothing, but she made the mistake of opening her eyes. Gareth was on his knees beside the flame, crying and staring at her, moving his mouth, trying to shout over the flames, and Orenda remembered that she was a mortal person with a purpose, a goal. She reached out with her free hand, and he grasped it eagerly in both of his. She felt his fresh wound and the grinding gears turning under his glove, and she allowed him to pull her from the flames.

When they extinguished this time, Gareth jerked Orenda to his side, to safety.

The corpse of the demon, burned black, hit the platform with a crunch.

They both stared at it, in each other’s arms, and Orenda realized that this kind of embrace was exactly what she had always thought it would be like to hug a father. It was protective without being overbearing, and it radiated a kind of love that was innocent and familial. She realized, in that moment, that Gareth was not, and never had been, the evil man she had taken him for. She knew that she could never forgive him, not fully, for the life he had caused her- but she also knew that none of it was his fault, not really. He had done the best he could, and she could not fault him for that.

Parents are not perfect, and are not meant to be perfect. They are flawed, frightened people who, even when they want the best for their children, cannot always provide it. Gareth had always wanted the best for her, he just hadn’t had it to give.

“Are you alright?” he asked her.

“I… I slayed a demon,” She said.

“Yes,” he said. “I don’t… like looking at it. Can we leave? I would like to leave. I’ve been wanting to leave since we got here.”

“Yes,” Orenda said, staring at the corpse. “Yes, let’s go.”

He pulled away and began to tug her in the direction of the exit.

“Uncle Gareth?” Orenda asked.

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” she said, “For bringing me here, for… everything. I know you… tried.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t…” He said, but he trailed off. “You’re… you’re all I have left, Orenda. I… I tried.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

He paused at the archway and motioned to it.

“I’m sure you can go through without me,” he said. “You’re the Chosen One.”

Orenda took his hand and they walked through the sacred flame together.