255. Of power, flight and a little truce

Cassandra Pendragon

"You harmed her," I whispered, my voice carrying the weight of aeons. "But still," I quickly looked around, taking in the devastation. Ever since I had dealt with my past, the influx of knowledge, I had experienced sporadically, had become much more predicable and when I watched the unleashed magic, I understood most of it. "I can't hurt you without burning what you stole. Hiding… always hiding… What do you want?"

The greenish miasma flickered, and slowly melted away to reveal the silhouette of a man, clad in flowing, shadowy robes. He smirked. "Your life, your strength, to rule over all things… so much, but for now, I want you to let me go. I'm surprised you can see what I've done, but then again, I'd be wasting my time, if you couldn't and it makes everything so much easier." He raised his hand, dark energies pooling within. They swirled and danced and finally formed several abstract bodies, one of them a dark furred kitsune. "I'll leave and set them free in a day or two. You attack and I'll burn their souls to escape across the waves." My eyes narrowed and my fingers tightened around my spear, its flames slowly expanding, mirroring the silver fires dancing along the pentagram.

Below us, the dwarfs were slowly struggling to their feet and Viyara stared at us, her eyes wide as saucers. Aurelia had already regained her composure and was standing vigilantly above Erya, Morgan, Layla, Reia, Archy, Estrella and Liz. My mom, though, wasn't at her side. The silver vixen was nuzzling her son, a heap of lifeless flesh and unmoving tails on the ground, mewling softly. He wasn't dead, but his soul had been ripped out of his body. The same fate had befallen the mercenaries, soldiers, pirates and vampires and while the former might recover, should they regain what had been taken, the latter had already turned to dust, the magic that kept them alive crumbling without an anchor. Only Alassara, who had been close enough to my mom and Aurelia, had been spared. I gritted my teeth, Ahri's wounds flashing before my eyes.

A day ago, I would have attacked. I would have raged and lashed out and accepted the consequences, unable to weather the tremendous storm of anger in my chest, a perfect reflection of the furious heavens above us. Not anymore. I hadn't changed, the burning wrath and unbridled fury were still very much present, but I could choose to push them aside, just like I had always managed to ignore my fear. They were a part of me, but they didn't dictate my actions anymore. I hadn't forgotten my trip down memory lane. I wasn't a slave, neither to my past, nor to my desires. They were mine to wield, not the other way around.

"No," I breathed, a soft smile playing around my lips, contradicting the luminous tears, that slowly rolled down my cheeks. Born from anger and pain, they were the one thing I couldn't suppress. Silence descended, absolute and heavy.

"You've always used the people around me. No more." My eyes flared brightly, dispersing the shadows he was trying to hide behind. "I'll take them back and then you will die," I added, almost wistfully. My wings flickered and I glided forwards. "You can't hurt them. They aren't yours, anymore." I raised my spear, a shimmering lance of light, burning with its own power, a cold, blue fire. "Your curse set me free and now, you'll reap, what you have sowed." Lightning flashed, tearing through the frozen scene. Thunder rumbled and a glowing, crackling bridge appeared between me and the raging heavens. My tails fanned out of their own accord, each one attracting yet another deadly torrent, until I resembled nothing more than lightning incarnate, gleaming silver and blue. 

Our eyes met and I saw right through him. He was caught, his own ingenuity a deadly trap. He was here, his soul inhabiting the poor girl before me. Everything had worked, he had used Ahri's essence to bind a shard of a god to his vessel, burning its power to allow him to manifest. Once here, he had used the waning spell to harvest every soul he could reach, a safeguard and an almost infinite well of energy. Except… despite the colossal scale and the complex incantations, it was still a summoning spell at its very core and I was in the middle of it. Without him even realising, I had taken over, I had made the spell mine and now, I could do whatever the hell I wanted to, without fear. My power would be contained by my own strength and prevent anything from escaping. Unless he entirely destroyed the souls he held, I could bring them back.

His confident smirk crumbled, just as my mother screamed: "kill him! By the Great Fox, end this, now!" I didn't turn around, but I was well aware of everything going on within the confines of the spell. On the ground, my friends were huddled together, their eyes filled with hatred. Viyara had wrapped her coils around them, a living fortress, but they weren't in danger. Not anymore. With a snarl on his face, the Emperor closed his fist, dark energies dancing between his fingers. 

"No," my mom howled, as the outline of her son vanished in an iron grip.

Silvery light exploded outwards, tearing through the spectral presence like a rabid animal. "They're mine," I thundered, "mine!" I swung my spear, its tip leaving behind a bluish, glowing cut in reality. My wings flickered and pierced the weakened veil, appearing out of nowhere around the Emperor. Form one heartbeat to the next, he was shackled by forces, strong enough to kill immortals. "Return," I commanded, shattering his hold and allowing the souls to pass along my wings. A whispered chorus filled my ears for the fraction of a moment, before I was surrounded by wisp like apparitions, glowing orbs, dancing between the torrents of my power. I waved my tails and threads of liquid light appeared, bridges to the empty bodies below. Like falling stars, the souls sped back to where they belonged and when I saw the last spark vanish behind Mordred's lips, I raised my spear again. 

The silver flames around us reacted, heeding my call. They flared and hissed before they suddenly seemed to collapse, shrinking, until they formed an impenetrable, roaring cocoon around us. He wouldn't get away and he wouldn't harm my people. Not this time.

"Your leverage is gone," I stated, taking a small step in his direction, as if I was walking on thin air. "Your magic is mine, your power spent. So… what's the contingency? Have your priests summon the Broken Wheel again? I doubt he'll listen, even if they aren't soulless husks, by now. Not after what you did." Slowly, gently, I extended my spear. A deep wound appeared on his chest, the lattice of energies, forming his body, ripped apart by the lightest touch. "Cry for you demon? He won't help. You were never meant to be anything more than an object lesson. One I've managed to grasp. Or will you beg for mercy?" I fell silent, my spear only a hair's width away from his chest. And despite his chains, the bastard had the audacity to smirk in my face.

"A contingency will only work, if it can't be stopped in the same place, at the same time. Do you know how many islands Free Land has subjugated? The slaves have always outnumbered the masters. And they're mine. Kill me, burn me, I'll return. I've already spread my seed. You think this is me? This is just a small part of a bigger whole. I wasn't stupid enough to stick around." Slowly, carefully, he raised his hands and his body became transparent, showing the outline of the girl, underneath. The soul I had seen was actually hers, mutilated and warped to fit in an artificial cage. A cage that had been wrought with a spark of his essence. "Before you arrived, I was long gone. You were quite fast, though. How did you manage? I was certain, you'd be stuck for at least a couple of days, I even told you as much, when last we met. I had hoped, you'd return to nothing but corpses and despair. A pity I couldn't deliver." 

My smile didn't waver. I hadn't expected to be able to end it then and there, but he himself obviously didn't know, what I could see, clear as day. He wasn't alone. Deep down, the very glue of what kept this vile construct alive was still a raging, burning spark of a god. From where I was standing, the black priests had called upon their deity and the Emperor had used his corrupted arts and Ahri's power to make it his, a medium for his own arrival. It hadn't vanished, though. It was still there, bound to his imitation of a soul and while I might not be able to freely follow the invisible link between this… thing and its master, a deity surely could.

I raised my spear again, its weight more comforting than I could have imagined. When I had first made contact with Viyara, I had, for the first time, experienced the consequences of my ordeal. I had understood what was happening to them, what magic was at work and what I would have been able to do, if I had been there. Information from my past was easily accessible and one of the perks came in an unexpected way, my spear. I had known how to repair it and it didn't even take much effort. The ritual, Mephisto had been going on about, would have allowed me to circumvent the gaps in my knowledge, but as it stood now, all I had had to do was ask. 

A silver spark ignited in my eyes, the flames crackled and hissed and I moved. Like a striking snake, a surge of ice cold light shot forth and my wings flared. The tightly woven net crumbled until all that remained was the pulsing, deformed cage, hovering between my wings. Disgusted, I scrutinised the mutilated soul, he had forced to mimic his own, the powerful strands of magic that kept it in place and the dark, almost invisible shadow, that allowed the whole thing to even exist.

"Grow," I breathed, my wing with the crimson core slithering closer until it touched the glowing orb. Energy flooded my veins and I carefully coaxed the lingering spark to the front, feeding it with ever so tiny amounts of power. It quivered and warped, but it flourished, slowly expanding, until it pressed against the confines of the cage. To my surprise, it didn't touch the remains of the girl, on the contrary, while I watched it began knitting tears back together and closing wounds, healing whatever the Emperor had done.

A few seconds later, the body I had destroyed flickered back into existence. It had changed fundamentally, the regal man turned into a skeleton like husk with burning, black eyes. He… it didn't struggle against my grip, but hung there lifelessly, only the spark in its eyes hinting at the alien presence behind the construct. Until it suddenly erupted:

"You!" A wave of force slammed into me, carrying with it the stench of death and decay, the weight of the end and the coldness of eternity. For a moment, the inside of the fiery prison was swamped by darkness, a ravenous vortex, hungry for life, but I remained untouched. The crashing wave parted around me, like water around an unbreakable bastion, and harmlessly dispersed against my flames. A crooked smile formed on my face and just as my brother struggled upright, my mom a bundle of disbelieve and happiness at his side, I laughed. I hadn't been too late.

"Me. Long time no see." I retracted my wings and allowed my spear to vanish. "Are you still grumpy? I didn't even do that much. From the looks of it, you've just been humiliated much more thoroughly." I didn't have the faintest idea how I was supposed to talk to a speck of an already abstract presence and since I was entirely fed up with saying yes and please, I opted for honesty. Unfortunately, it didn't appreciate my words. As soon as it wasn't bound anymore, it resumed its antics with renewed vigour. In a way, it reminded me of a child, throwing a tantrum. Utterly pointless, but still quite impressive, as the swirling mists and whispered promises around me showed. I didn't flinch and simply waited, curious when it'd realise the futility of its efforts. Every onslaught consumed just a little bit more of the energy I had shared and since we were sealed in hermetically, there was no way for it to recharge its batteries.

It didn't take too long for the raging storm to turn into a mild breeze and the overwhelming blackness to recede. Just when the mountainous clouds above us were cleaved apart by another lightning strike and heavy raindrops began to fall, did the chaos in my bubble subside.

"What do you want," a disembodied, cold voice reverberated through the small space, but it had lost most of its eerie power. 

"Not much, actually. We have a mutual enemy, don't we and whatever offence I might have caused, I'm convinced it's nothing compare to what he did. I was simply wondering, if there's a chance, that we might help each other, instead of fighting. You swore revenge, the last time we met, but I thought we could, maybe, leave the past behind us. The enemy of my enemy…" my words trailed off. His futile attacks had consumed much. I wasn't speaking to a body anymore, whether constructed or real. By now, it was just a glowing orb, different colours rising from and sinking back down into its unfathomable depths, like sparks above a campfire.

"What do you propose? Most of my servants are dead, spent to fuel a treacherous spell. I am but a husk, clinging to the soul of this girl, kept alive by your power. The second either vanishes, I'll lose my influence here. My cults are far away… and no match for a sorcerer of his prowess."

At least he was responding. For a glorified fraction of Gaya's presence, brought to life through the faith of thousands, he was surprisingly rational. After everything Mephisto had hinted at, I hadn't been sure, whether it was even possible for this existence to move past our earlier confrontation and I had half expected to hear some misguided claim, that the Emperor would spread death and destruction, thus strengthening him. It surely seemed like he had understood, that he wouldn't be gaining much from someone, who enslaved his people, even after their demise.

"Before you smothered his will, he let slip a part of his plans. The subjugated islands around Free Land are one of his targets. I imagine, a deity of death has quite the following amongst slaves. Am I wrong?"

"No. When life's cold, death becomes warm. But I can't intervene, unless summoned and none of the malnourished creatures he's been charming for years now is able or willing to do so. I can't act."

"You don't have to. But they're still praying, are they not? Wouldn't you be the perfect spy?"

A tremor raced along the intricately woven matrices, that kept him anchored, indignant as he was. My proposal had hurt his sensibilities. Poor guy. A mighty deity reduced to a glorified drone. No wonder he was bristling. I had to bite back another wave of laughter. Ever since I had felt my family and friends hearty and whole below me, I had been hard pressed to keep a straight face. 

"That… spark you're still hosting," I continued mercilessly, "it's a connection you can use to find the source. From there, it shouldn't be too difficult to keep an eye on him, should it?"

"Provided some of my followers are around," he admitted grudgingly, "I'll be able to watch through their eyes. Every death will even give me the chance to do more than just watch, but I won't be able to challenge someone, who can control souls to almost the same the degree as me." Almost… probably a euphemism for much better than. 

"That's a problem for another time. For now, it'll be more than enough to know, what he's planning." It was still something we had to deal with, I had no idea how we were supposed to catch or kill someone, who could apparently move his soul freely, abandoning every endangered vessel. But preventing him from spreading his influence was more important, at the moment. "Do you think you can work with me? I'm not mortal and probably an existence that contradicts everything you stand for, but I'm not an abomination. He is."