“I said you need to kill me.”

Leo looks at Reud, horror on his face. “I heard what you said. Are you insane?”

Reud shakes his head. “No, I’m completely serious. I’ll be fine, even after you kill me. But I can’t do it on my own, and without someone’s help in ending my life we are going to be stuck in here forever.”

Leo stares at him. “Look, I know it feels awful to be disconnected from mana. We all feel it. But that doesn’t mean you should give up.” He reaches out to pat Reud on the shoulder. “It’s not actually that bad here, once you get used to it. At least it’s an improvement on the cells they had us in when I first arrived here. Now we have proper beds, and a little common area we can sit in. If you give it a chance, you’ll find that it’s actually quite comfortable.”

Reud sighs, rubbing his forehead. He was feeling the lack of mana keenly, a pounding headache slowly building. “You don’t understand Leo, we are getting out of here. Things are already in motion, I just need to die to get to the next step.” Turning, Reud gestures to the woman sat by his side. “Jessabelle, you tell him, I’ll be fine.”

Jessabelle looks unconvinced but reluctantly nods. “Lord Reud did walk out of a deadly inferno, after fighting and killing a Seeker. If he says that’s what you need to do, then I trust him.”

Leo looks from Reud to Jessabelle. “You’re with him on this? The both of you are completely insane.”

A faint noise sounds from outside the room. Then another.

“Was that a scream?” Asks Aleida. She stands and walks over to the wall, pressing her ear against the cold stone. Suddenly, she steps away, turning towards them. “There’s something going on out there!”

Leo looks to Reud sharply. “Your…?”

Reud nods. “Yes, the plan I was talking about. Now, please. Help me.”

Leo shakes his head, muttering under his breath. Finally, he looks up at Reud, sighing deeply. “Fine. How do you want it done.”

“I’ve already tied together a length of bedsheet, I just need you to strangle me with it.” Reud says. “And hold it tight long after I go unconscious. That’s the part I can’t do myself.”

“You’re mad. This is insane. Completely insane.” Leo mutters.

Despite his complaints, he follows Reud into his room. Even though the task was necessary, there was no sense in traumatizing the children by seeing Leo kill someone. They were likely going to have enough trouble dealing with what they were going to see once they escaped this room.

Lifting the knotted bedsheet, Reud wraps it around his throat and hands the ends to Leo. “Just remember, keep holding it until my body crumbles.”

“Until your body what?” Leo asks, confusion on his face.

Reud glares at him. “I don’t have time to explain, just trust me. I’ll see you soon.”

“Fine, fine.” Leo grumbles, setting his knee against Reud’s back and wrapping the ends of the sheet around his fists. “Ready?”

“Do it.” Reud grunts.

With a yank, Reud’s airflow is cut off. Immediately, his body starts to panic. Even though his mind knew it was necessary, and it wasn’t permanent, the threat of death still triggered his survival instincts. Reud struggles to keep his hands by his sides, to stop them scrabbling to try to pull the sheet from his throat.

Slowly, the world starts to go fuzzy, blackness encroaching in at the edges. The thoughts slow, his mind being starved of the air vital to keeping it going. Then, blackness.

A moment later, his soul breaks free of his mortal shell. For any other person, this would be when the ether reaches out to swallow him, pulling the soul out to fade back into the infinite energy in that ethereal realm. But Reud was different. His soul was bound here, to the phylactery buried deep beneath Srinaber.

The spell link pulses out a surge of mana, travelling instantly across the vast distance to slam into his soul, pushing it back down into the body it just vacated. Normally this would allow him to regenerate where he lies, returning as if he was never harmed in the first place.

This time, however, Reud resists. Gathering the mana sent by the link, he holds it within his soul, luxuriating in holding some mana once again, before feeling out for another part of his body. His severed finger, buried deep within the body of the Seeker soldier he ambushed earlier today.

There it was, just outside the building. Latching onto that resonance, Reud pushes, forcing his soul over to sink into that sliver of his being. As he touches it, he releases the mana, letting the spell activate. It binds him to that tiny piece, and begins rebuilding his body from it, turning his old body to dust in the process.

The pain is excruciating, his body slowly reforming. First his skeleton, stretching out from that single piece. Then his organs and flesh, bringing with them all the pain that a flayed man feels. Luckily, by the time Reud is able to scream his skin has returned, taking with it the agony. Then it is done.

Reud stands back up, goosebumps running down his arms as the cold night air washes over his bare skin. A zombie lies to his side, its body torn apart from where he burst out of it. The slimy feel of its remains slide down Reud’s back, much to his disgust. If he knew he was going to need to regenerate himself in this sliver, he wouldn’t have buried it so deep into the soldier’s back.

Another, more intact, zombie shambles to the side, clad in the clothing of a Seeker soldier. With a thought, Reud calls it over, ordering it to strip off its clothes to hand over to him. The mail is useless to him, so Reud tosses that aside, before pulling on the trousers and undershirt.

Finally clothed once again, Reud takes a moment to inspect the second zombie. It definitely wasn’t the original, which meant the spell had spread just as intended. With a smile Reud casts out his sense, feeling for all the others the spell had spread to. It had worked just as he had hoped, just as he had theorized. An undead that created more of its kind, as long as the spell had mana and raw materials were available, without any need for a necromancer.

A little surge of elation flows through Reud. It seems that this time, the spell worked perfectly. None of the out-of-control amalgamation he had experienced with the… mistake. No, that thing would have to stay sealed beneath Srinaber. He had charged the spell with enough mana to spread between forty and sixty times, more than enough to take over the vast proportion of this Seeker garrison but no further. It would be unfortunate if a spell like this spread to the city unchecked.

Now, for the next step. Moving slowly, sticking to the shadows, Reud makes his way across the compound towards the large building housing Jessabelle and the mages. Ideally, they would slip out during the commotion.

The compound is devoid of people, all the screams still contained within the surrounding buildings The moon peeking through the clouds overhead just barely casting enough light for him to see by. Reud makes it to the heavy door of the magic restricted building without incident. Trying the door, however, reveals a problem. It’s locked.

Reud commands the zombies following behind him to step forward and try to wrench the door open. They wrap their dead hands around the handle and pull, but to no avail. Whatever the strange stone this building is constructed of, it was far stronger than Reud expected.

No matter, he would just need to break his way in. Doing that, however, would require more bodies than he had with him right now. Casting around, Reud feels for the greatest concentration of the undead.

There. In a building across the way. A mass of undead, crowded around something sending out short, sharp pulses of mana. That casting style was consistent with a mind-mage’s casting style. The Seeker was likely conjuring illusions and bolstering the courage of his men. Not that such an affinity was much use in a direct fight.

Smiling, Reud changes course, walking over towards the source of the magic. The Seeker had done some despicable things during his time in Rudase and received no punishment for them. Today Reud was going to act as judge, jury, and of course the most important.

Executioner.

***

The sound of fighting gets louder as Reud stalks through the corridors of the building. It seemed to be some sort of barracks, he’d passed a number of open doors to bedchambers, likely for more important personnel. A large bunk room had stood empty, the beds in disarray as if the occupants had left in a hurry. Evidently, someone had managed to organize a defence.

Ahead Reud can sense a mass of his zombies, nearly twenty resonances. There must be quite the fight raging. Quickening his steps, Reud heads towards it, pulsing his mana through him. He’d only been cut off from it for a few hours, but that felt like a lifetime. It was impressive how Lightire had managed to construct something that restricted mana in such a way, something he hadn’t considered trying before. No matter, it did nothing to stop him accessing magic prepared outside the field. Now his mana was running through him again, making him feel truly alive. It was intoxicating, exhilarating. Filling him with so much power he feels he can stand toe to toe with Vistol herself, and win. This is what it meant to be a mage.

Bursting through one final door, he enters what seems to be a mess hall, large enough for a hundred people. On the far side, some twenty soldiers face down an equal number of zombies, fending off the horde from behind a makeshift barricade of overturned tables. At their back stands a familiar man, his eyes blazing with purple light. Dain.

The Seeker stands at the centre of a maelstrom of mana, flares shooting out constantly to envelop one zombie after another, sending them stumbling into one another, their minds responding to the illusions created by the mage. The soldiers around him take advantage of the openings to strike out, dealing wound after grievous wound to the undead. But it makes little difference, the zombies just shrug off the injuries and return to the fight.

To the Seekers side stands another mage, on his belt a number of vials of liquid. As Reud watches he pushes mana into one, before pouring it over a deep wound on the arm of a soldier. Within moments, the wound heals. An alchemancer. Reud smiles, the pair of them would make very valuable greater undead once their corpses are reanimated.

A cry comes from the Seekers as they finally spot Reud stalking across the room, the men pointing and shouting to draw the attention of the mages behind them.

“You! How did you get free!?” Dain shouts.

Reud spreads his arms wide, walking towards the Seeker. “I have my ways. You didn’t really expect to be able to keep me, now did you?”

“I should have killed you immediately you filthy free mage!” Dain spits.

Reud nods. “Yes, you should have done. And for that mistake-”

A knife tears through his shoulder, thrown by one of the soldiers taking advantage of Reud’s distraction. Reud stumbles, but catches himself, gritting his teeth to ignore the pain. It wasn’t a severe enough wound to warrant restoring away. Looking up, he glares in the direction of the Seeker group. Enough talk, it was time to finish them.

Reud orders the undead to close ranks, hiding him from the Seeker’s sight. Stepping forward he calls a zombie to him, placing a hand on its clammy flesh. With a thought, he pumps it full of mana, bolstering the spell animating the corpse until the entire body is limned in a faint green light. Then, with another thought, he sends the undead sprinting forward.

At the last moment, the zombie wall opens to allow their comrade through. Dain turns, spotting the creature barrelling towards him. His eyes blaze with light as he reaches out to disrupt its advance.

Too little, too late.

The zombie throws itself forward, bouncing over the wall of tables and slamming into the soldiers behind. Panicked screams fill the air as the soldiers hack at the creature that appeared in their midst. The rest of the zombies follow, charging into the breach in the defensive line, clawing at the soldiers trying to block it back up.

A memory surfaces in Reud as he watches the melee. A similar situation, a long time ago. The battle when he lost Lilia, deep in the depths of the East Rudean Dungeon. He’d used the same tactics then too, though it hadn’t ended up so well...

No! Focus!

Reud turns his attention back to the fight, just in time to spot a vial sailing through the air towards his head. Reflexively, he dodges to one side, barely avoiding being hit. The vial shatters on the ground behind him and immediately begins to sizzle, filling the air with acrid smoke. Reud looks back to the Seekers, spotting the alchemancer readying another vial.

Raising his hand, Reud takes control of the zombie closest to the Seeker, flooding it with his mana. With a shove, the undead pushes the soldier beside it back, taking the man’s sword in its chest for its efforts. The wound does nothing to slow the creature. Spinning it throws itself towards the alchemancer, ignoring the attacks from the surrounding soldiers.

The Seeker throws his vial at the charging undead, fumbling it slightly as he stumbles back away from the oncoming creature. His throw goes wide, glancing off the zombie’s arm and breaking onto one of the soldiers. The poor man drops to the floor, shrieking as his face bubbles and melts.

Then everything around Reud shifts, the ground vanishing into a blinding white glow. He raises an arm to cover his eyes, stumbling to one side as the walls warp around him. What was going on? Had he been hit by some space shifting spell? Was there another mage? What was-

Of course. The mind-mage.

Pressing his eyes shut, Reud ignores the messages from his physical senses. Dain must be forcing false sensations onto him with his magic. Instead, Reud pulses mana through his affinity, opening his soul sense. Around him, figures burst into glowing light, just barely visible through the shifting background hue of ambient mana. A swarm of darker shapes, resonating with his own mana, flicker against a wall of white souls of the living. Behind them, the deep purple of mages glow, the mana in the air warping around them.

Reud smiles. As he thought, Dain couldn’t fool these senses.

Reaching out to the darker shapes, his zombies, he floods them with even more mana, pushing them to greater heights. In the back, one of the purple glows snuffs out, finally ended by the darker shape on top of it. One Seeker down.

One by one the soldiers start to fall. With each death, the others become more desperate, fighting more recklessly as their morale crumbles. Reud reaches out with his mana, raising the fallen as more of his undead servants. It wouldn’t be long now.

Suddenly, the mana flooding from Dain towards him ceases. Opening his eyes, Reud finds the illusions gone. Why had Dain given up trying to control him? With a thought, Reud commands the zombies to open a path from him to the Seeker.

Then, it became completely clear what the man was doing.

Dain had pulled a pendant from his shirt and was fumbling with the clasp. It pops open, to reveal a pale blue crystal, shimmering with some internal light. Reud’s eyes widen as he recognizes it. The same thing that Sar had used to create that explosion of fire.

Springing into a run, Reud charges towards the Seeker. There was no way he was letting the man escape using that spell. He would not let another Seeker get away!

Dain raises his eyes to meet Reud’s, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Next time we meet, mage, you will be mine.” He takes the crystal in his hands. “Do your best to survive this.” He snarls.

Then he crushes the crystal. Immediately, the blue light spreads from that point to cover his skin, the spell flooding out to fill the air with pulsing mana.

Reud raises an arm towards the activating spell, throwing out every scrap of mana he can summon. It slams into the spell, weaving through the delicate whorls and spirals of the magic, threading itself deep within.

The blue glow encompasses Dain completely, the spell component related to movement activating. Reud pushes harder, forcing his own mana into every part of the magic. The spell was too complex for him to unravel with such little time, but that didn’t mean he was helpless against it.

After all, if you can’t pick a lock, you can always kick the door down.

Reud wrenches his mana back through the spell, tearing the delicate magic to shreds in the process. The fragile patterns of the spell shatter, blasting apart into tattered chunks of blazing mana.

The blue glow fades, revealing Dain’s face for a moment. “What have you-” He exclaims, his face filled with horror.

Then, the spell tatters recombine. Reud hadn’t dispelled the magic, just disrupted it. The mana was still primed, yearning to activate the spell they had been bound to. The scattered spell chunks connect to their neighbours randomly, creating something unknown. Something chaotic.

Something deadly for everyone in the room.

With a flash of light, Dain is torn to pieces, his body fragmented to a red paste that splatters across the wall behind him. The zombies and soldiers around him suffer a similar fate, coating the walls and floor. The magic surges out from the former Seeker in a wave, everything within its bubble liquified.

Reud watches the upcoming death with grim fascination. Wild magic was truly an unpredictable, deadly, beautiful thing. Maybe he should study it more, it would-

Then the wave hits him, sending him back into the blackness of death.