To Draw Out a Mage

Within this massive white tent, he had experienced many horrors. Only recently he’d been mentally assaulted by dozens of cursed Knights. Only recently watched a bloody ritual which left behind no corpses and no evidence of it having ever really happened. Only recently had it birthed Ophiella, a being with power beyond his comprehension.

As unbelievable as it all was, Matt didn’t doubt any of it. His world had been shattered long before he came here, all this nonsense fit perfectly in a world where sense came to die.

The large ritual tent was mostly the same as they’d left it, save for a few unnatural changes. The corpse was long gone, not even a spot of blood left in the tub that still sat untouched in the centre of the room. The shackles now rested on the ground having fallen from wrists that had disappeared from this world.

Finally, the woman who’d stood mourning her dead friend was long gone. Nothing left for her here with the corpse having faded into the nether.

Outside the rain pounded on the white cloth that formed the tent, it’d grown powerful on their way back here, soaking Lilith and Matt to the bone. Occasional roars of thunder cut through the beating rain, sounding almost like some massive, alien creature. He felt the sound running through his blood, tensing his muscles subconsciously, as he felt himself drowned by the sound.

Matt had never heard thunder so strong before, upon reflection the closest he’d heard was the crashing of a waterfall as it overflowed with a floods worth of water.

On his way through that heavy rain and thunderous storm, he’d seen people finally running for shelter. The emptiness in their eyes replaced by anger, and now desperation to see that anger satiated. Others, didn’t find that life inside of them, emotions too dead to be revived. These people rested their bodies in the thick mud, staring with empty eyes into the sky that stole the warmth from their bodies.

Matt felt no sympathy for these people, having faced many empty people, for most of his life. They were apathetic, feeling no pain, and no joy. There was nothing left to feel sympathetic for, walking corpses, robots without minds, System slaves; there were many names.

Returning to the present, Matt scanned the room, his eyes clinging to the chains that had held the full force of a demon in place.Their unnatural darkness cut through the room, denying the light its very existence. The light that washed close to it did not seem at war or battle, it didn’t fight the darkness; rather they danced with each other swaying and shifting hypnotically.

Lilith didn’t seem to mind them, though her stama gathered at her hands as she touched the metal chains, as if protecting her from the darkness. The shackles moved sluggishly as if they were being dragged through water, as if the light itself was a fluid dragging the chains.

The light continued to dance with the darkness in Lilith’s hands, before she walked the shackles back over to the small room where they’d been stored. Matt followed through, looking at the small chest that was painted in flowing black stama. In moments Lilith began drawing them out with the tip of her finger, her other hand still holding the chains tightly.

Making quick work of the curse on the box, Lilith opened it wide, letting the lid fall back onto its hinges. With little care for gentle motion, the chains were dumped into the large box, rattling against others like them within.

The box closed, and Lilith quickly reformed the stama curse on the chest. For some reason, Lilith’s curse seemed to be more chaotic than it had been before, tying itself in knots around and around. It appeared to him that the next Knight to open this chest might have a little difficulty.

Lilith glared at him in return of his curious gaze, forcing her way back into the main room of the tent. Her pace forced, steps less elegant than they had once been.

The clean room was void of anything but the sparkling tub. It was the scene of such a strange and horrific event, and yet it was almost as if it had never happened. Though the memories wouldn’t fade as quickly as the blood had, even as his eyes traced the outline of the bath, all that he could see was the blood filling it, and the dismembered head resting on the body of an innocent young girl.

Even though he was aware that things had turned out as well as they could have, the memories were filling his throat with bile, and his heart with pain.

Matt noticed Lilith’s hands stained with the darkness from the chains, playing with the light only fractionally as much as the metal had. Her stama racing around her skin, knots forming and releasing, twisting and straightening. It was the most chaotic pattern that he’d seen painted on her skin thus far.

From their bond, he could feel the upset emotions flowing together and changing, roiling pain, suffering, guilt, and compassion. Constantly igniting each other and cancelling each other out, the storm within raging, boiling and freezing, smashing against the beach that was his own mind and soul.

Those emotions, that storm, was familiar to him. It called out to him as an old friend, an old enemy. He refused to recall the emotion, or the memories that came with it. Denying the suffering that was filling his soul.

“What… what should I do?” His voice slipped from his lips, the thought a desperate attempt to find a direction he was quickly losing. The events around him flowing too quickly for him to keep up, the reality of this world too alien for him to comprehend.

Fighting for a goal that he wasn’t sure of, Save them. What was it supposed to mean?

“Whatever you want.” Lilith replied, forcefully lifting the large metal tub, and carrying it over to a far side of the tent. He could barely manage to make sense of the thoughts as they made their way to him, her mind too scattered to be able to translate with any clarity.

“It would be best to give her some time,” Grikith spoke from within the eye of the storm, “Her heart is still deciding what to feel about this.”

“What do you mean, deciding what to feel?”

“Part of her wants to save the King, and save the people that want him dead. Another part of her wants to stay true to her oaths and see the King put to death. The contradictions are confusing her.” The creature spoke as if it knew everything about her.

“How do you know all this?” Matt asked, the creature still unnoticed by Lilith as she strode back to the centre of the room.

“We share the same body and heart,” It spoke with such disjointed thoughts as to unsettle him, “It is only the soul that remains separate.”

Matt could feel the creature fading away as he distanced himself from it. Gradually feeling fear at this creature which claimed such absurd things.

In short order, Lilith had cleaned away all signs of the ritual having taken place, there were not even any bodies left to burn. She looked anxious as she finally fell to her knees in her formal seated position, her heart fluttering madly as she scanned the room seeking something to distract her from the thunderous storm raging within.

Soon her eyes fell upon him, sparking discomfort in his heart, as he realized that he was about to serve as that very distraction. Looking over at him, as if trying to find something to fault. Her eyes swirling with mixed emotions while her face was frozen still to cover up those same feelings. Slowly she opened her mouth.

“Why are you here?” She asked him blatantly, her mind making clear that she wasn’t speaking about this tent.

“I need to find those people stranded here.” He replied, telling her again of the lost people that no one else was looking for.

“Why? You turned against your own people to stay here, even if you find them you can’t take them back.” She continued to press him, her voice forceful as her mind sharpened, focusing on him.

“I… I don’t want to take them back… I just have to… to… save them.” He whispered, trying to focus on the task that he’d been letting slip by in the last few days. He realized that he’d done all that he’d done so that he could get a greater chance of saving them when he found them, but was that really true? Or was this just a distraction from his responsibilities? A way to run from his past?

“You just have to save them?” She snorted, “What are you, a child? How are you going to save them? You think that just by finding them and offering a hand, you can take them away from the injustices of both worlds? Come on now, you know that isn’t true.”

“I… I…” he lost his words, searching for the answer, what was he going to do when he found them? What was he going to do when he could barely save himself?

“How did a Krilm like you, ever get the thought in your head to try something as stupid as this? You aren’t some hero from a fairy-tale and no matter how hard you try you can’t save anybody.” The words struck him through the heart, and he curled up a little looking down at his hands which had unknowingly taken the gem hairpin from his head.

Save them.

The words were a part of him, something that resounded in his skull over and over.

Save them. Save them. Save them. Save them.

A face formed of flickering flames fading away, but burning its image into his eyes. Her voice calling to him, save them.

In his mind, he could see the many faces of those he called family, all dead. All because he hadn’t acted, all because he hadn’t the strength to act.

“It was something someone I cared about once said.” He let the words flow out from his mouth moving slowly, “Back then I did something… something horrible… I… I can’t make that same mistake again. I have to save them.”

He could feel Lilith rifling through his mind, but all he could see was darkness. All that he could feel was the waters current dragging him down as he clutched to a small cold body, all that he could hear was the rushing of water crushing his ears.

She breathed heavily from experiencing that past that he’d locked himself into, the fast-flowing waters of regret. Trapped by that hopeless darkness, they stared into one another’s eyes, seeing nothing but their own reflections.

Thunder rocked the tent, the sound bringing them both back to their senses. The pounding rain filling the space that had been filled with their growingly loud voices. Outside the world had grown completely dark, the sun having fallen beneath the horizon, hidden by thick clouds.

Neither felt like talking in the silence that prevailed, both of them filled with unstable emotions, and thoughts that made no sense. They could hardly understand themselves let alone understand one another, but even then, their eyes did not waver from one another.

After a while of the unchanging situation, the pelting rain outside as their constant companion, the tent door opened. Another Knight returned to the room where they were resting, the woman’s metal plated boots coated in mud. She didn’t care in the least about the dirt tracks that she led into the room.

The woman who hesitantly walked into their awkward silence was none other than the friend of the sacrifice, the last woman to leave this room after Matt himself.

So much rain was wetting her face and body that Matt couldn’t be sure whether or not she’d been crying. When her eyes gazed around the room she seemed surprised, “It’s gone.” She mumbled walking over to where blood should have stained the wood.

“I cleaned up, sorry.” Lilith murmured under her breath, “I hadn’t thought that you were still here.”

“Don’t be bothered by it.” The woman replied to her, lowering herself to the ground in the same position as Lilith.

Her eyes were locked on the floor where it should have been stained in blood, “I… I just… wish she were still here.”

There was little they could say or do for the woman, death was a part of this life that they had all come to understand. Yet none of them had found a good way to cope with the pain of being left behind.

Silence filled the room once more, as they listened to the falling rain and distant thunder. “What’s your name?” Matt soon asked, relying on his unnatural sense of language, bringing a spike of pain to his head; though this time without the bloodied nose.

“I… I am called Malece.” She replied, her voice low, mind distant, “I thought of the name from my demon, Malace.” The word meaning, to lack in empathy in their tongue.

“Retil,” She spoke of the friend that was taken as sacrifice, “You know, she… wasn’t like the others. She…” A few tears fell from her eyes as she stared down at her hands, looking for blood that wasn’t there.

“She used to talk about how things would change one day, that we should try and make this world as a whole better.” Her voice was gentle as if speaking to herself but she was still projecting so that they might hear.

“She couldn’t accept the world the way it is, she always thought that we should try harder to make it better. Even… even at the end that’s all she was thinking about, hoping that she might help to make things better for everyone.” Malese, let her voice fade away as the rain pelted down around them. “Maybe she did.”

Outside the thunder growled louder, the lightning flashing brightly, painting the tent with light. The room housed five people, two of them demons, and yet none of them with voice to speak. There was no attempt to fill the emptiness with lies or small talk, they sat, honest to the emotions that were raging within them.

For a moment, Matt could hear something other than rain and thunder; the sound of boots splashing in water. They hurriedly cleaned the tears from the faces, standing up to welcome the others as they returned.

The cloth parted ways, revealing a great many Knights silhouetted by the lightning striking in the distance. Cassielle was the first to step inside, her wet hair sticking to her scalp and grim face. It looked as though she was thinking over something distasteful.

Next, followed Myra and Ophiella, Myra just as serious as Cassielle, her eyes glowing with a deadly passion. Bloodlust flowing from every stama in her body and every shifting darkness in her armour.

Ophiella didn’t seem to share their same concerns, her eyes following Myra closely while they strode in. She was holding onto Myra’s arm as if hoping to drag her back from the edge of this emotion threatening to take control of her.

Other Knights followed, most dressed in misery and concern, the rain didn’t seem to bother them much but it helped to make them appear that much wearier. They were incredibly silent as they filed into the room, the mud on their boots soon layering on top of the wooden floorboards. Lightning struck nearby lighting up the room momentarily before fading away.

The darkness seeming to soak into their flesh, and spirits. Strangely they brought the darkness in with them, their armour and sheathed blades eating away at the shallow light inside.

As the others were still filing into the room, Cassielle strode to a side room. Just by stepping into the room, the many Knights filled the silence with the sounds of life, the quiet clinking of metal blades and sighs of their armour as they shifted and walked. A few coughs and whispers underlie the strange atmosphere that had formed inside the tent.

A loud scratching sound emanated from the room where Cassielle had headed towards, preceding her return. The curtains spread wide, a massive metal bowl dragged out from behind the tall Sasahara Knight.

Before he could get a good look at it the bowl had been set up in the centre of the room, a few logs of wood thrown inside. The bowl was around a metre across, and made from some sort of metal. It’d been stained black from years of burns and heavy use.

Cassielle drew her blade, the darkness shivering with excitement as her stama focused on her hand, glowing red. In a moment flames spat out from the length of the sword, flowing down to the wood, setting it alight with a powerful rush of heat. The blade itself was still blacker than night but at the edges where it danced with the light, fire spawned in yellows and reds, a hint of blue closest to the darkness.

The fire radiated warmth into the room, Matt hadn’t noticed how cold he’d been getting until he was offered the warmth before him. None of the Knights seemed to be concerned with the cold, their eyes reflecting the flickering flames as they all stared into the fire.

Light filled the room far more than he’d expected, something about it making it twice as bright as any fire of similar size that he’d ever made. Perhaps it was the wood here, or perhaps it was the curse that gave the fire life.

Cassielle’s voice split the thick air between them, “So, what are we going to do?” She asked loudly, her voice booming. “You’ve all seen what this city is hiding in its castles and streets. So, what are we going to do?”

A deep silence replied to her words, no one willing to even speak lest they gain the attention of the crowd. Even the sounds of shifting weapons and armour silenced as they froze in place, thinking quietly to themselves.

“We kill the mages!” Myra eventually replied forcefully, “We kill them all!” Ophiella seemed slightly uncomfortable at the force in Myra’s voice, gently stroking at her arm to try and calm her down.

After a while of stillness in response to her words, Lilith spoke up with a question of her own, “What happened with the riots afterwards?”

Myra was the one to answer her question stepping forwards, towards the centre of the room where the fire was burning bright. The flames danced in her eyes as she spoke, an excitement to her voice that was concerning, “They quieted down after the rain grew heavy. The damn mages never did show themselves, but I think the King’s guard know something. Even during the riots, they were staring straight at us.”

Her voice was growing more eager as she spoke of the mages, even though she was a little downcast about their lack of presence. Ophiella behind her, seemed anxious not expressing the same bloodlust as her ‘sister’. Her hand reaching out to her elder as if trying to call her back from the fire where she was standing.

Meanwhile, Lilith let out a sigh of relief at hearing that the riots had died down. “Tomorrow everything will have calmed down a little, Aruldas isn’t that great a King, but Okiniu Jahred and… Okiniu Lorek… they’ll have everything ready by morning.” She cringed as she spoke the second man’s name. “The people trust them.”

Okiniu being a form of rank that Matt had already been exposed to, and the name Lorek something foreign to him.

Okiniu Lorek

“Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.”

The chant from Theresa’s dream came to mind, drifting in from the ocean. Anger clawed its way into his heart, flowing in from those bubbling waters.

“Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.”

He once again saw that girl kneeling at the executioner’s block, neck resting in the blood of the criminals that came before. Her eyes distant as she repeatedly relived a past that she couldn’t escape. Chanting to be taken away. To be saved.

“Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.”

The girl continued to chant in the back of his mind, merging with the name Lorek. For some reason, he felt as if this man he’d never known had born the blame for the death of a girl that he’d seen only in a dream.

Okiniu Lorek, digging deeper into the twisted memories, Matt found his answer. He found the reason for her bloodlust, the reason for the girl’s untimely death.

The charge for the girl had been, ‘false accusations’ against a high ranking official in their nation. These charges were against Okiniu Lorek who was, she later discovered the same man who had her imprisoned and put into place in front of Theresa. The reason innocent blood spilt on her hands.

Her voice sounded empty as she kept speaking, “They’ll be recruiting labour workers tomorrow to start the reconstruction, storm or not.” She tried to let go of the anger in her mind, trying to distract herself from bitter memories. Eyes locked onto the clean hands that were resting in her lap.

“What’ll happen then?” Myra asked her digging for answers.

“I guess it depends. The monsters might attack us again and we die. The city might get reconstructed, the people gradually getting used to their new king, before the monsters attack them and we die. They might revolt against the King, try and replace him with someone else, then get attacked by the monsters and we die.” The fire hissed loudly as she spoke, the flames reflected in her glazed eyes.

“Enough.” Cassielle broke in, stopping Lilith from continuing her depressing speech. Lilith’s eyes stared down at the ground at her feet, loosing hope in the face of all that evil. She was staring into her own open hands, continuing their search for the evil staining her skin. “We’re still dealing with that, or have you forgotten that duty of yours?”

“I haven’t forgotten.” The helmet he’d offered her earlier was still tightly jammed into her small waist-pack. Lilith instinctively reached back to rest her hand on it, making sure that it was still there.

“Though you do bring up a good point, did anyone find anything in the forest? Any sign of this ‘rift’ this door?” In the heavy rain pounding down around them, there were a few weak voices speaking.

“Nothing? Nobody saw anything?” Cassielle asked, her voice growing louder as she forced more exasperation in her voice.

A weak voice spoke up above the sound of the rain, “I… I think I saw something.”

“What did you see?” Cassielle drew the girl out of the crowd. The Knight who’d spoken was taller than most but her face was apprehensive, as she looked out over the others now staring at her.

“I think I saw a flying machine, but it didn’t seem to act like the others. It was distant, so it was hard to tell, but I think it was following me… without shooting at me.” She looked to the ground hesitantly, “I could be wrong.”

“If you saw it, it was there.” Cassielle replied, facing Matt after hearing about this strange behaviour. “What do you think?”

“I…” He paused thinking it over, why wouldn’t it kill her? They’d been more than willing to kill anyone here in the city so why let her live now? “What would happen if she’d died? What would you do?” He used Lilith to translate his words, neither of them were prepared for the stress of him speaking on his own right now.

“He asked what we’d do if she died out there?” Lilith’s voice was lacking in emotion, cold and desolate, she didn’t think about the words as she spoke them.

“We’d go out there and look for her… and we’d find something they don’t want us to find… So, that’s the reason they didn’t do anything. Probably thought we wouldn’t see the drone, and come back.” Cassielle postulated, thoughtfully snatching up the girl who was trying to blend back into the crowd. “Where?”

“I… Uh, out to the… south-west… -ish.” She whispered, her voice anxious.

“Gather some others, scout out that area.” She waved her hands over them, pointing out a few she had in mind.

Lilith spoke up, waking from her reverie, “They can see us clearly because of our temperature. We glow like small suns in their eyes.”

Cassielle looked thoughtful for a few moments, “Can we… perhaps do something about that?” The scouts that had been scouted out, paused to listen to the conversation, fear in their eyes at the prospect of facing the drones again.

Malece, still seated in a neat position, spoke up, “I will, Ritel… she taught me how to meditate. Malace thinks we can balance our body temperature to that of a normal human. Hide in plain sight, but it won’t work often.” She closed her eyes focusing her mind.

Lilith didn’t need to be told what to do, already taking the helmet from her backpack. With a moment’s hesitation, she lowered the helmet to balance on her head. Her horns keeping the helmet from a comfortable fit.

“It’s looking like normal.” She murmured to herself, having forgotten that she had changed its settings last time she’d experimented with it.

She looked to Matt but he had nothing more to offer her, the rest was up to her to figure out.

With a sigh she looked back through the visor, looking over the room while her stama glowed purple. Suddenly her stama straightened out into sharp lines, before fading back to swirls. He noticed that she’d started to look around the room again curiously, likely having succeeded in changing the helmets visor settings.

A few more times Lilith completed this process, her stama reacting every time she switched the settings. Stama glowing and fading, straightening and swirling, as she learned how to communicate with the computer chip.

Ophiella’s voice cut through the tense air that had been forming, “Why do we care if they know that it’s us?” She asked, staring at Lilith as she toyed with the helmet.

“If they know we’ve figured something out about the rift then there is a good chance that they’ll silence us. At least that’s how many militaries would work.” Cassielle responded quickly, revealing her tactical thoughts on their coming war.

“If we look like a human, at least a little, they might hesitate to think that it was the same person twice. Thereby hesitating to attack us outright just yet.” As she spoke her mind, the others became silent attempting to keep up with the horrifying reality that the people they were at war with, were far more powerful than themselves.

Malece had been sitting still for some time, her stama now barely moving at all. Lilith looked over to the woman finally allowing the colour to fade from her skin, satisfied with the current device settings. Carefully she swapped between looking at Matt and Malece.

“She’s ready as she’s likely to get.” Lilith finally analysed taking off the helmet and replacing it in her bag.

Before anyone else could interfere, Malece quickly left, with the words, “Leave it to me.”

No one followed her into the dark stormy night, thunder hiding the sound of her footsteps.

She wasn’t gone for a moment before they started to converse again. “So, what do we do about the King?” Cassielle asked, refocused on their original task.

Myra, reinvigorated by the conversation at hand, threw out a suggestion immediately, “Why don’t we make them sweat, see if one of those mages makes a slip up.”

“No, if we push too hard, they’ll scatter and we’ll lose them, we can’t chance it, especially not now.” Cassielle was almost as intense as Myra on the topic of the mages.

“They continue to fight amongst themselves like fools.” Grikith’s voice spawned in the back of his mind, leading him on with thoughts of superiority.

“Why do they hate the mages?” Matt asked the demon, cautious of what answer it might give him.

“Because their ancestors did, and their ancestors before them. It has gone on for so long that they know not the reason why. They only offer weak excuses.” Listening to the demon Matt made a mental note to ask Lilith later if he had the opportunity. He wasn’t ready to trust a demon explicitly just yet.

“And what would you do?” He asked the creature trying to understand it, hoping to understand this creature’s intentions.

“What would I do? I haven’t ever been asked such a question by a mortal being. Most already assume to know what I would do, the rest would not believe me, for good reason.” He continued to speak, voice still grating against Matt’s sanity.

“What would you do?” He persisted, even though the demon was avoiding the answer.

“And if you do not like how I answer?” It asked in return sending a chill down his spine.

“What. Would. You. Do.?” He asked forcefully, he knew the creature wouldn’t be threatened by him, but he tried his best to show it some strength of will.

“Very well, what I would do, is anything necessary to smash apart your systems. Your government, your cities and your ego.” The voice spoke with passion and power, it sought destruction.

“The destruction of my worlds society?” He asked, anxiously.

“The destruction of all society. Return this world to chaos.” It’s thoughts simple and precise left him with no more questions.

Strangely he didn’t feel any particular fear at the thought, every scar he’d earnt in his life had been made by societies flaws. He was still ignorant to the possibilities of chaos, of anarchy. If anything, he held some hope that it might be better than the world that he’d left.

Even so, the desire for death and destruction that he could feel radiating from the creature made him hesitate. What would that future really look like? He wondered.

He returned to the conversation going on around him, letting Grikith fade into the ocean where it lived.

“Then what should we do?” One Knight asked, their voice anxious.

“If we can get someone on the inside to gather evidence of magic, everything else will fall into place. If we get a single mage in our custody the rest will fall.” Cassielle spoke as if she was familiar with the technique.

“Someone on the inside? Who? How?” that same woman asked, her silver hair flowing from side to side as she shook her head over and again.

“Most people here in Valkel are highly respectful of our order, many would be willing to offer us what they know.” She spoke frankly, “I’ve been to this city plenty of times before, we’ll have to start asking around I suppose.”

She paused for a breath, hardly long enough to be noticeable, “The only issue would be how well we can trust that they aren’t possessed by the mages.” Her hand instinctively gripped her sword as the stama on her skin began twisting around her wrist.

“Possessed by the mages? You mean…” Another voice rose from the ranks of women, concern filling the room at her mention of possession.

“Yes, I mean under their influence, like that of a demonic possession. The mages here are stronger than those any of you will have ever met before. We cannot trust that our witness won’t be affected by such magic.” At this line the many Knights suddenly burst out into conversation.

They were growingly concerned about this city, but Myra’s voice was filled with mirth more than concern, “First of all, we face off against an unknown force that we’re told we can’t beat, then we discover an association of mages working together unlike anything we’ve ever come across before.” She paused, “I’m starting to like this city.” Matt couldn’t be sure whether or not she was joking.

“Back to the issue at hand, we need to get some information and evidence of the mages before we continue. Does anyone have any ideas other than interrogating the citizens?” Cassielle refocused the group, trying to press some ideas out of them.

“What are they wanting to do?” Matt asked Lilith who, had sat on the side lines until now. Though she seemed invested in the conversation, she didn’t speak up, and no one pushed her for an opinion.

She looked at him, a hint of hostility in her eyes, “They’re trying to find someone to spy for them, someone who won’t be affected by the mages.” Lilith’s voice was largely disinterested as she spoke.

“Spy for them?” he asked, unfamiliar with the very idea that was forced into his mind.

“Yes, look out for mages and come back to us with evidence of the use of magic.” She murmured focusing on the distance unseen.

Myra looked over to him, the spark of an idea igniting in her eyes, “I know what we can do.” She said, her voice breaking through the dozen other conversations. “Matt, how would you like a job?”

“A job? I would earn some money, and pay back to society?” he asked carefully, thoughtfully. Lilith didn’t translate his words, her irritation growing as she continued to stare out into nothingness. Finishing in their tongue, he replied to her, “I guess so. If that will help me to find my people.”

“It will.” She spoke up to the Knights gathered, “I have our spy!” Her arm waving to Matt, “And he’s not going to be affected by the mages.” Her voice was confident as she spoke.

“Him?” Ophiella asked confused, “But how would he find the mages? He doesn’t look like he can walk right into the castle and ask about them.”

Myra smiled in reply, “Do you really think that the King is going to rebuild the city with manual labour and the hard work of men. If he wants to build a wall that cannot be broken, a city that will not fall… would it not make sense for him to use magic?”

“And make this city another Bethlimar?” Cassielle asked loudly, her voice filled with disbelief. Many other Knights were equally shocked as they stared at Myra with horror reflected in their eyes.

“We took a massive risk today, and from it, Ophiella was born. The King may not lead his people well, but he’s already taking the risk of using magic. I don’t think he’ll stop there.”

The idea sent voices flowing from the many others, before Cassielle broke through, “If that’s the case, then we have that much more reason to step in now. Matt, would you be willing to assist us in this?”

Hesitating at the question, Matt turned to Lilith who was still quietly meditating. “Is this… okay?” She seemed to be in emotional turmoil from the situation at hand, there was obviously more going on than he could guess.

“Do as you please.” She replied, “I am not some Okiniu.” She used the term again, her frustration growing.

“Do it.” Grikith demanded, “If you wish to find your friends, the mages will know something. If you wish to stop this war, the mages strength is needed.” The creature again offered more to him than any of the Knights that spoke with him.

“I… I will do it.” He finally let out, “What should I do?”

“Join with the labourers fixing the city and find out what the mages are doing. Find evidence that they’re using magic and bring it back to us.” Cassielle ordered him, her words tense.

“Feel free to kill any mages that get in your way.” Myra added, rather seriously.

“I suppose, that I can’t bring this with me.” He rested the gun on his knees feeling his heart begin to leap in his chest.

Even with so many telling him it was the right choice, he hesitated, waiting for the input from a voice that meant the most to him. Finally, the voice spoke.

Save them.

The voice unreal, and distant, yet also so close he could almost feel her warm breath on his cheek.

Lifting the rifle’s sling from his shoulders and holding it out to Lilith, he offered his strongest weapon, “I guess I’ll be trusting you to take care of this.” He finally said, unstrapping the magazines from under his clothes and offering them as well.

He knew that chances were high that he’d die without that rifle but he couldn’t turn down the words that he could hear in his mind.

Save them.

His one greatest weakness.

His one greatest strength.

Ren.