140. Of sentences, bad ideas and a little bit of good news

Cassandra Pendragon

"This isn't justice, it's a demonstration of power, a cowardly and misguided one at that, for power that needs to be demonstrated isn't power at all now, is it," I added. "But you're right, I want to know who they'll turn into."

"Why?" Erya asked, distraught, her eyes still clinging to the scene before us. "You can't… Those are my children and while some of the crowd are… were my friends, even though I hardly recognise them anymore, I'm not going to undermine what my kids have built. And neither are you. Justice… injustice, I don't care, they're alive, they have their home and if anything, I'll help them, not subvert their decisions."

"I don't want to challenge them in any way, Erya, and I'm certainly not going to get involved with the politics of the fey," I replied quietly, "but this… did you not listen? What do you expect me to do? Ignore them when they need a hand to survive and we can help? If we can find them, I think we should. They won't last long without their powers otherwise, and that might even become dangerous for your children. What do you think the secrets of an exiled fey are worth around here? Besides… Watch… is this really what you want your legacy to become, the world you want to live in?" Before our eyes, Lancelot was slowly descending from his throne. With each step he took, his sceptre began to glow more brightly until it resemble a ray of solid light in his hand. Even through the mirrors I could feel its strength and when I focused on it, my tails curled up from the cruel intent that radiated off the thing. An executioner's axe over your head wouldn't feel more threatening.

With the most tender expression I had ever seen on his face, he touched the quivering form of Morgan and with a brilliant flash of power, tendrils of energy ripped through her body and burned away her meridians. A heart wrenching scream filled the clearing we were in and when I could see through the glare again, a sobbing girl writhed on the floor, her face hidden beneath flowing, emerald hair. "What have you done," she groaned. "No… I feel… the pain, it's so much worse… kill me, please… I can't… why does it hurt so much?"

His voice was icy when he answered: "no, this is our mercy, child. Be grateful for what you have."

"What's happening to her," I whispered, while I anxiously watched the drama unfold.

"Their emotions are different from creatures purely born of flesh," Mephisto replied. "They don't experience pain, especially the emotional kind, the same way others do. And now everything is catching up to her. Just imagine how you'd feel right now, if you didn't have uncounted millennia flowing through your subconsciousness to deal with the loss of your home and the death of people close to you. You'd be a wreck, a crying child hardly able to think straight and I imagine that's where she's at." I shuddered. I wouldn't be a wreck, I would most probably be dead.

"Doesn't change a thing," Erya interjected coldly while she took a step away from me. "If you help those two, they'll sooner or later want revenge or at least return home. I can't allow that. Besides, none of us have the right to judge, we don't know what's going on, or if the sentence isn't justified. All we have are the ramblings of a tree, for crying out loud, and your bleeding heart as soon as you see someone in need. You can't save the whole world, Cassandra!"

"No, I can't, but I can certainly try. And as much as I understand where you're coming from, don't roll your eyes, I do. I might never be a parent, but there are more than enough people I'd protect with my life, you included, that it doesn't make a difference. But I don't think it even matters. They won't need us. Look at the treant. He's… smiling. He expected this. I don't think I'm the one you or your children should be worried about…" the moment I said it, I knew I was right. Fladrif wasn't afraid when Lancelot approached him, he was excited. Maybe it was my connection to the magic or a side effect of the runes, but somehow I could tell that he was eager for the transformation. Whatever was going on there, I wasn't that convinced anymore that Erya's children were the ones in control. No, the gnarly tree had a plan, I just didn't know what it could possibly be.

When the silvery fey reached him, it seems like the magic was willingly rushing form within the ancient wood and toward the sceptre. Again, I couldn't say how I knew, but it wasn't absorbed and changed like Morgan's had been. It remained within the sceptre, a pulsing, brown haze that appeared to slumber but hadn't died, ready to awaken at any moment.

Outwardly, Fladrif was collapsing and shivering while his body transformed, accompanied by pained grunts and plenty of thrashing, but inwardly, I would have bet that he was cheering, as his bark turned into skin and blood rushed through his veins for the first time. A moment later, a painting, elderly man laid on the floor, thinning, brown grey hair plastered to his sweaty head. He wasn't tall and when he raised his head I saw a pair of olive coloured eyes, gleaming with curiosity. He blinked, once and slowly got his bearings. With a grunt he got to his feet and appraisingly studied the still crying girl at his side. His skin was a soft, light brown, wrinkled and worn like his bark had been, but he stood upright and proud before his judges, a faint smile hidden in the creases around his eyes.

He slowly, deliberately extended his hand and pulled Morgan up into a crouch before he helped her stand.

"It is done, begone now and don't return, if you value your life. You are no longer welcome in the Silent Glade." With a twirl of his sceptre, Lancelot conjured a portal and I blurted out:

"Can you hijack the portal, Mephisto? Bind it to our location? I don't care how much blood you need to change the runes, if you can, please, just hurry!" Both of them stared at me, eyes wide in surprise.

"I… what the hell, gimme your arm. It might not work, though. Those are your runes, not mine. And just so you know, should I burn to a crisp in the fires of your power, I'm going to haunt you until the end of time, mark my words! Not giving a damn was so much easier…" I extended my hand and felt a sharp sting when he sliced into my forearm. It wasn't a drop, he was taking everything my heart could pump through my veins. My knees became wobbly almost immediately but there was nothing to lean against and I feared I'd fall until small but strong hands pushed against my back and the fragrance of wild flowers enveloped me.

"What are you doing," Erya hissed. "Didn't I tell you to stay out of it?"

"Sorry, I've never been good at listening. Forgive me?" I replied, more weakly than I would have liked. I was already starting to feel dizzy.

"I don't know, yet. But I can hardly remain angry with you when you're bleeding like that. Tell me, do you enjoy getting hurt that much? Are you masochistic by any chance?"

"Maybe, but I'm still not going to let you spank me… haven't you asked before," I slurred. Damn it, it felt like Mephisto was actively pulling more and more of my blood from my body and I couldn't produce enough to fill the void, not even with the energy I was channeling from my core. The slow, hot flow on my skin, the fluttering in my chest as my heart beat faster and faster and the dripping sound when singular drops escaped his grasp to fall to the ground was lulling me gradually into apathy. Cold was rising from my feet and I leaned heavily on Erya to remain upright.

I wouldn't be able to keep this up for long, but I would rather pass out than give up, an attitude that had yielded mixed results in the past. "Thank you, you didn't have to catch me," I murmured.

"I will always try to catch you," she sighed. "One way or the other. I don't agree with what you're doing and should this go the way I expect it to, we'll have some beautiful shouting matches in the future, but I'll never let you fall. Cassy… you do know who I was talking about when I said that I'm beginning to live again, right?"

"Afraid so. And I'm sorry, I truly am."

"Don't be, chasing after stars and dreams, even if you can't reach them, is living, isn't it? Just… take a little more care of yourself and stop throwing your blood and tears at every problem you encounter. I'm not the only one who fears for you and all of us are fed up with scraping you off the ground."

"I'm not," Mephisto interjected. "I think she looks much better pale and unconscious, but I'm done, incidentally. Enough of the mushy stuff, we have work to do and some laws of magic to break. You can heal yourself and I… I'm either going to burn or prove, once again, that I'm the greatest friggin mage who walks the cosmos. Eat that, Amazeroth, there's no kind of magic I can't control," he added quietly, more to himself than us, before he released my wrist and confidently strode towards the still active mirrors, a sphere of blood floating through the air at his side.

My skin resealed and while I brushed the steaks of crimson and silver from my arm with the corner of my shirt, I already felt warmth and life return to my body. Now, that I wasn't losing more than I could cope with, my energy swiftly replaced what I had lost.

"I'd advise you to manifest your wings and shield Erya and yourself. I don't know what's going to happen and that, more often than not, means an explosion. Considering what I'm trying to do, it might turn out to be a big one," Mephisto said.

"What about you?"

"Oh, how sweet, are you worried about the big bad demon? There's no point, if I fuck up, there's nothing you'll be able to do. You can't protect me from spells I'm working myself. Not yet, at any rate. But don't fret, worst case scenario, I'm thrown back into the coin without a body. I'll survive, but trust me, I'm going to be pissed and you'll better work your ass off to get me out of there, should it come to that. Alright, here goes nothing." I did as he had told me, my wings came to life and turned into a shimmering sphere of power around us, a sizzling curtain that would shield us from any form of magic but I didn't know how much good it'd do against flying debris shrapnel.

At first, it didn't look like much was happening, the mirrors vanished and the orb of blood began to pulse with silvery light, interspersed with streaks of iridescent blue. Everything remained calm and I thought the magic had fizzled out, but only for a moment. The next second, a wave of pure energy raced through the clearing. It wasn't corporeal and didn't cause any physical damage, but everything that contained an activated form of magic exploded and I had just enough time to reach out and get a hold of Shassa and the small statuette, protecting them behind my wings.

The runes on the tree, the formations Mephisto had drawn on the ground, even the knife we had used to fill the vials with our blood, all of it was annihilated in a blinding maelstrom of sound and light. I was thrown backwards, my wings easily withstanding the mounting pressure but the shockwaves were enough to throw me around like a puppet. Reflexively I tightened my grip around Erya and pulled her close to my chest as we were flung across the clearing and away from the creaking and tilting tree. A good half of its trunk was gone and before the glare of the spreading fires forced me to close my eyes, I thought I saw Mephisto's silhouette, illuminated by the inferno.

After what felt like half an eternity I crashed into another tree, my spine and rips groaning under the impact. When Erya slammed into me, the fraction of a second later, I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. My breath exploded from my lungs and I was certain I'd find a Cassandra shaped dent in the hard wood behind me, should I ever manage to unscrew my eyes again. Luckily this wasn't the first time I had made close contact with a hard surface and, for the record, it wasn't even the worst instance, not by a long shot. Less lucky, I had somehow entangled two of my tails behind me and they hadn't fared well. Judging from the pulsing pain that raged through them, I had managed to break them in several places.

"Ouch," I complained as I slid to the ground, Erya a dishevelled and squirming bundle of hair, leafs and twigs on my lap. Of course I promptly landed on my damaged tails and another spike of red hot fire raced through me. At least I wasn't impaled on her horns.

"You don't say," the fey groaned. "Are you still in one piece?"

"I'm not sure, but I've been worse. Give me moment and I'll be up."

"No worries, I'm comfortable enough. And I guess you have a few minutes before we get roasted. Not so sure about Mephisto though. On second thought, maybe you should hurry up."

"Huh," I responded eloquently and tried to concentrate despite the ringing in my head.

The first thing that got through to me was the smell. It reminded me of a smoker but when I tried to inhale more deeply, my lungs started to ache and I had to cough violently. Yep, definitely smoke, smoke and ozone. The next thing was the sound, a crackling, similar to distant gunfire, or a forest set ablaze. Everything seemed muted, but I could still easily pinpoint each eruption, with which superheated sap exploded from the plants, interrupted by loud thunder claps once in a while. When I finally managed to open my eyes, it took me a second to understand what I saw.

The clearing looked like a battlefield. Craters and fissures had turned it into something resembling the surface of the moon more than a forest, except that the dominant colour wasn't silver, but the dark, smeary black of soot mixed with specks of orange and yellow where small fires were eating into the tree line. The huge forest elder at the centre had fallen, its trunk reduced to so much as ash where the runes had been engraved. Of the complex arrays and herbs, nothing remained but a few smouldering specks that were buried deep in the ground.

Mephisto, well, he had turned into the reason Erya was fearing a fate as a well cooked fey. Swaths of silvery fire interspersed with bluish flames circled around him fast enough, that he looked like a whirlwind from hell, ignited by sparks of transcendent energy, more than anything else. To my surprise, he wasn't flailing or screaming and even had a modicum of control over the raging forces, gradually dispersing them. Streams of light and heat roared through the air and struck the earth around him like the harbingers of doom manifested, obliterating everything they touched. Only two spots remained unscathed: the tree under which I was frantically trying to get to my feet and a small, seemingly untouched area close to where the mirrors had been.

Within a circle of maybe 2 metres, the grass was still green and alive, the ground was still intact and two highly confused humans stared wide eyed at the living inferno only a few metres away. Naked as the day they had been born, which, technically, was today, now that I came to think about it, Fladrif and Morgan were experiencing first hand the meaning of: out of the frying pan and into the fire. While the former treant had seemed confident during the trial, he was now reduced to a heap of fear and confusion while the emerald haired girl at his side apparently had done with life. Her eyes remained vacant while her gaze meandered across the clearing. She took in the destruction and the living torch Mephisto had turned into, the shivering man at her side and the chaos all around her without any from of reaction until she saw Erya.

"Grandmother?" She gasped.