“Easy there,” Simon said, holding Nick down by the shoulders. “Deep breaths. Relax.”
Nick closed his eyes and fought against the constant urge to cough and clear his throat. He breathed through his nose as he’d been taught, growing more aware of the oxygen tube attached to his nostrils. That sensation was dwarfed by the pounding headache holding the entire front of his head in a vise grip of pain.
“What…?” he asked, managing only that one word before he had to stop. An urge to vomit had come, and talking made it worse.
“What you’re feeling is a feeding tube down the back of your throat.”
Another long, deep breath. All right, he could handle this.
“Why?” he asked, keeping his eyes closed. The lights were off in his room, but the glow of the various instruments, as well as his brother’s laptop, was like a knife into his cerebral cortex.
“Why? Because you’ve been sleeping for days at a time now, that’s why.”
Nick risked sitting up and immediately regretted it. He felt a strange pull on his crotch when he moved and grimaced.
“That’s a catheter, isn’t it?” he asked, each word slow and careful.
“Yeah, it is.” Simon squeezed his shoulder. “Would you prefer we put you in diapers?”
Nick forced his eyes open.
“I need back in,” he said, his memories growing sharper. “My friends, they’re in danger.”
Simon took a step back, and the comfort he’d been showing vanished behind a cold mask.
“Nick, you’re in terrible shape. How about you take a break for a bit? I’ll remove the gastro tube, and you can eat something real, maybe even walk around a bit to stretch your muscles.”
“No,” Nick said, remembering the panic on Violette’s face when Gareth stabbed him. He’d shouted for her to flee. Had she listened? “No, I need to get back there now.”
He lay on his back and closed his eyes. Sleep had come easy to him lately, but not now. His heart felt like it was trying to escape his rib cage. Knowing that it was a tube in the back of his throat helped, but it still triggered his gag reflex every time he breathed. The beep of his heart monitor was like a trumpet in his ear, and it was so fast, so urgent. Why couldn’t he relax, damn it, why couldn’t he fade away…?
“Nick,” Simon said. He grabbed Nick’s wrist. “Please, don’t you see what this is doing to you? I think we…I think we need to discuss ways to separate you from the Artifact.”
Any hope of sleeping vanished in a panic. Nick looked to his brother, and he saw the dark circles beneath his eyes. There was no hiding his worry. But Violette, and Frost…
“That place, Yensere,” he said, wishing his voice didn’t sound so hoarse and pathetic. “It means something. To me. To those in there. And the friends I’ve made, they’re real, too, and they’re in danger.”
“Don’t you understand?” Simon asked, his voice lowering. “You’re in danger, too.”
“I know.” He tried to smile. “But when has that ever stopped either of us?”
Simon crossed his arms, his entire body rigid as he bit the nail of his right thumb. Nick waited for the silent debate to end, too tired to think of what he’d do if Simon refused.
“What is it you need from me?” his brother suddenly asked. Nick sank into the bed with relief.
“Give me something to knock me out,” he said. “A sedative, a tranquilizer, whatever it takes. I need back in.”
“This will take a moment,” Simon said after glancing around. “Sit tight.”
Nick lay on the bed, trying to relax while his brother left the room. Perhaps if he could close his eyes and drift off, he wouldn’t need any help…but his damn heart would not slow. He felt exhausted yet awake, his mind like a ragged sponge wrung dry and then set on fire. His imagination refused to play nicely. He kept seeing Gareth stomping his foot on Frost’s head, and he imagined the bloodshed he could be causing, the deaths of the Remembrance, perhaps killing Frost a second time, or worse, Violette. There’d be no coming back for her, not for anyone…
The door opened, and Simon returned with the head of the med ward, Dr. Haley, at his side. She held a little portable carrying case of medicine and supplies, tightly zipped in case of gravity-failure incidents. She approached stiffly as she unzipped the case.
“Before I do this, I would like to make it clear I am worried about the effects of a tranquilizer on a body so stressed,” she said.
“Noted,” Simon said. “Consider it an acceptable risk of our research.”
Haley withdrew a syringe and a clear bottle. “As you wish, Director. May the Guidance show kindness to you both.”
Nick breathed out a sigh of relief. Good. He didn’t know how much time passed within Yensere compared to outside, but from what he’d gathered, it was roughly one to one. These few minutes…they wouldn’t be too long. There was hope still, hope he could cling to. Eyes closed, he prepared himself for the battle ahead.
“Injecting the solution now,” Haley said. “Nick, I want you to do me a favor. Please count backward from ten, all right?”
“Sure,” he said, still not feeling anything. “Ten. Nine…”
*
Returning visitor cataloged
Level: 10
Agility: 6
Physicality: 5
Endurance: 6
Focus: 8
Archetype: Adventurer
Special Classification: Lightning Caster
Mana: 49
Welcome back, Nick
The ring of stones surrounded him. Nick breathed in the cool country air, and it felt like a tremendous weight had lifted off him. The ache in his forehead was gone. No tubes in his throat, no IV, and no catheter. He felt strong. He felt alive.
“Where are you, Gareth?” he asked, looking about. He hadn’t known where the nearest ring of stones would be in relation to the field where they’d held the mourning song ritual. The landscape was still unknown to him, but the thick plume of smoke from the extinguished pyre was enough to orient himself.
Nick sprinted in that direction, doing his best to ignore the rapid depletion of green from his stamina bar. As he ran, he brushed his hand against Sorrow, still strapped to his hip. He decided he wasn’t ready to think about what happened to Sorrow’s consciousness during Nick’s departures from Yensere.
Will you still not aid me? he silently asked, remembering the sword’s strange revulsion to Sir Gareth’s new magic.
The foul knight is unworthy of my power, Sorrow responded. That does not mean you suddenly are, pillager.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Cataloger, can you tell me if Frost returned to Yensere?”
For privacy concerns, I cannot share such information
Damn it.
Nick slowed to a walk upon reaching the field outside the maple trees. The members of Majere’s Remembrance were gone. He saw no sign of Violette or Frost.
Sir Gareth stood before the dormant pyre, his hands at his sides, palms upward as if in prayer. A crimson glow shimmered across his body, tainting the golden sheen. When Nick checked his health, he saw it was almost entirely full. It seemed Eiman’s blessing was also rapidly healing him.
“I wondered who would return first, you or the woman,” Gareth said as he drew his sword. “I should have known it would be you. You’ve ever been tenacious, haven’t you, Nick?”
“Where are the worshipers?” Nick asked as he readied Sorrow.
The knight lifted his free hand. A deep black orb rimmed with red light shimmered into existence.
“My hate is not for them,” he said. “Only you.”
Nick dove aside as the
“The feeling’s mutual.”
A
“You’ll need to do better,” he said, stalking closer. He held his sword out wide. Black flame wreathed about it, wrapping the sword in Eiman’s power.
Spell: Black Flame Blade
Nick had no desire to see if his smaller health pool and weaker armor could withstand such an empowered hit. The gap in their levels threatened to unnerve him. The disparity in their training tried to frighten him. He gave in to neither.
Gareth swung, wide and strong. Nick dropped to one knee, felt the swish of air above his head, felt the dark energy crackling across the blade, and then came up swinging. Sorrow struck Gareth’s arm, denting the armor.
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Keep it steady, Nick thought as he danced away to avoid Gareth’s retaliatory strike. He grinned despite his nervousness. Step by step, we climb the mountain.
“Are you afraid to battle true?” Gareth asked, chasing after Nick. Two more swings hit air, but the third was much too close. Nick risked blocking. Their weapons collided with a shower of sparks and a loud screech of metal. The black flame swirled around Sorrow. The obsidian groaned, and Nick feared the blade would break from the impact.
No Eiman magic will defeat me, Sorrow seethed inside Nick’s mind. Your death will be on you, pillager.
The sword held. Nick didn’t dare try to engage Gareth in a battle of strength, and so he immediately retreated. His feet danced underneath him as he spun away. Lightning crackled, and he flung another
A third
Another clash of their blades. Sparks showered, and amid their light, Nick slipped forward, mimicking one of the stances Frost had taught him. Hips sliding. Legs bracing. Sword curling low, underneath a block. As he’d hoped, Gareth rushed Nick, trying to overwhelm him with his superior strength and inadvertently stepping into the hit. Sorrow struck his armor, and though it was thick, Nick was stronger than he’d been back in Meadowtint, and Sorrow’s edge was ever keen.
You know only the faintest shred of my power, pillager.
Perhaps he did, but it was enough. Blood splashed as the armor gave way, another sliver sliced off the knight’s health bar. He roared, and Nick dared not face the retaliatory swing. He retreated, then had to dodge again to avoid a massive overhead strike that pounded an indent into the grass.
Nick set his feet, falling back into one of Frost’s stances, beyond grateful for her lessons. Gareth glared at Nick, a wounded, hulking monster of metal and bloodshot eyes. So close. He was so close to breaking.
“I’m tired of being chased,” Nick said, tensing his legs. An idea came to him, brought on by the remaining fragment of his mana bar. He hopped backward, twice avoiding Gareth’s swings, and then sprinted past him while attempting a slash at his side. Gareth expertly blocked the blow, but it kept him turning on his feet, and when he swung again, Nick was already out of reach. The black fire surrounding his sword flickered away into nothing. Exhaustion was clearly setting in. Just a little further.
“I’m tired of you hurting my friends.”
Nick twisted, narrowly avoiding being impaled, and then smacked the sword aside in another shower of sparks. Gasping for air, he retreated, needing space. Gareth lumbered after, sweat and blood mixed upon his face, his own breathing ragged.
“I’m tired of you,” Nick said, lifting his left arm. Lightning sparked about it. Gareth tensed, but this was no singular bolt.
Frost had made it clear that there were countless manifestations of each element, and he’d seen a half dozen versions of her ice alone. Nick knew there had to be more to his lightning, and for once, he held faith in himself. No rules. No lessons. This magic belonged to him, and so it would obey. Nick clenched his left fist, and instead of flinging lightning out, he imagined it encompassing his wrist in a wide circle. Vicious. Brilliant. A way to protect instead of attack.
The magic obeyed.
Spell Unlocked: Lightning Shield
Cost: 12 mana
Attributes: Lightning, Retaliation
Forms a weightless defensive shield around the caster’s arm
A ring of brilliant blue lightning swirled around his left forearm, forming the outline of a perfectly circular shield. Nick lifted it, braced his legs, and readied Sorrow.
“This ends now,” he said.
Sir Gareth eyed the shield warily as he clutched his sword in both hands for a thrust.
“And how will you end it, demon?”
In came Gareth’s blade. Though the interior circle of the shield was empty, Nick positioned it in the way, trusting the spell to protect him nonetheless. The moment the blade broke the center, lightning sparked from all about the ring, jolting inward to slam the thrust to a halt. Nick gasped, feeling his mana drain by an additional 5, and seeing a frightening amount of his stamina fade away.
His strain was nothing compared to what Gareth endured. Lightning crackled all the way up his blade and into his hands. From there it leaped across his body, burning into his skin. Smoke wafted up from a vicious sear along his cheek.
“I will not be beaten by your devilry,” Gareth said, and swung again. Nick shifted his arm, positioning the shield in the way despite Gareth’s subtle attempt to curl underneath. The sword hit the ring, and again it slammed to a halt. Nick’s feet slid backward, carving a groove into the soft earth as he held his ground. Nick clenched his teeth and screamed, surging power into the shield. The last of his 14 mana vanished, but the retaliation was worth it. A much stronger beam lashed out, swirling up Gareth’s sword like a snake to plunge into his chest.
Gareth retreated and gasped for air. His breathing was wet, and his shoulders sagged underneath his armor.
“I will not falter,” he said, a bit of blood dribbling down his chin from a cut somewhere inside his mouth. “For all the people you have wronged, the innocents you have murdered, I must prevail.”
He lifted his sword above his head. Black fire wreathed about it as he reactivated
“You will die, Nick, again and again, until we are free of you!”
Trust my blade if you wish to live, Sorrow suddenly screamed inside Nick’s mind. He had a split second to debate, and then he disbanded the shield. His mana was already spent, and Gareth’s fire was so bright. So frightening. Instead, he lifted Sorrow high, and with every tired muscle in his body tensed, he met his foe’s strike.
The blades collided, and this time there were no sparks, but instead a massive crackle of black lightning. The spell—it had shifted. Gareth’s fire swirled outward like an uncoiling snake, and Nick realized it was about to retaliate against him similar to the way his
Item: Sorrow
Special Attribute Unlocked: Absorption (Deific)
The fire surged into the open space in the center of the twisted, curling obsidian near Sorrow’s hilt. It compressed within it, vibrating with power as it was consumed. No harm came to Nick. He never even felt its heat.
Now strike back!
Nick swung his sword overhead. The impulse came naturally, and it did not matter that Sorrow would not hit Gareth directly. Fire burst across the blade, and its length stretched farther, and farther, until it seemed eager to reach the stars themselves. One swing, and the fire slashed across Gareth’s center. A black line burned across his body, melted through his armor, and then struck him with incredible force. Amid his scream, Nick saw the knight’s health bar blast away to nearly nothing.
Sir Gareth collapsed to his hands and knees, a pool of blood building beneath him. His health bar pulsed red, barely a percentage point remaining. The knight certainly looked like it. His voice was hoarse, his chest a mess, and the burns from Nick’s lightning were vicious across his neck and face.
“Are you so vile even death refuses you?” he asked, then coughed up a mixture of phlegm and blood to spit upon the grass.
“You’re the one hunting me,” Nick said, overcome with a rush of anger. He couldn’t shake the image of Frost lying on her side, bleeding out in pain. Couldn’t shake the memory of the way Gareth had crushed her skull beneath his heel before she disappeared in a puff of smoke. “I’ve only defended myself.”
“Defense?” Gareth coughed and laughed simultaneously. “Is that what you call murdering the people of Meadowtint in cold blood? Was it self-defense when you killed old Julie in her rocking chair? Self-defense when you smashed Iver’s head with a stone? Poor farmers, suffering under the weight of the blight, and you couldn’t leave them be.” His voice rose. “Day after night after day, as they worked, as they slept, you butchered them, and I don’t even know why.”
He jammed his sword into the earth and used it to support his weight. His shaking fingers clutched the hilt as if it was all that kept him breathing.
“What of the baron? You didn’t just kill him and his guards, but his servants, too. I saw their bodies. You murdered them, murdered them all, and with glee.”
Nick listened to the outrage, an icy calm settling over his thoughts. Try as he might, he could not dismiss the memories of his first days spent in Yensere. He wanted to shout that they’d attacked him first, but it would be a shallow argument of semantics. He remembered the thrill he’d felt when he gained his first level. He remembered the savage pleasure that had filled his breast while cutting the farmers down, knowing he would come back and they would not.
All protests died on his lips, and instead he saw this terrifying knight who had tormented him in a new light. A man bound by duty. A hero chasing a demon who left brutally murdered corpses in his wake.
“Why?” Gareth asked when Nick offered only silence. He leaned more of his weight against his sword, his forehead resting upon the tip of its hilt. His eyes closed. “Farmers. Servants. The guards in Greenborough. What drives you to commit such sins? Have you a heart in that body of yours, or are you as soulless as the stories claim?”
Nick lowered to his haunches so that he was at eye level with the knight. His thoughts jumbled about, and he struggled to organize them into something both honest and coherent. What could he tell this knight that would make sense? What words could he offer that would not sound insane to a man born and raised in Yensere, who knew nothing of the world outside the mysterious Artifact?
“You may never believe me,” he said, deciding the best tactic would be the simplest and most forthright. Perhaps, if he was completely honest, Gareth might sense that and be willing to listen. It had to be worth a try.
“When I first arrived here, in Yensere, I was confused. I was scared. The people of Meadowtint called me a demon, and they attacked me before I even knew what was happening. And so I…I thought they weren’t real. The gray skin. Their tongues. The blight. I thought they were signs of artificial life. So I fought them. I killed them. It made me stronger, faster. And then when you showed up, well…” He shrugged. “By then, you were just a defender of monsters.”
Gareth’s jaw clenched so tightly his words spat out like a curse between his teeth.
“Monsters? You’d call them monsters?”
Nick put his hand atop Gareth’s gauntlets. The knight flinched, but he did not pull away, nor did he attack like Nick feared he might. Their eyes met, and Nick endured the seething rage and countered it with his own.
“But Baron Hulh?” he said. “He invited me in as his guest, poisoned me, and bound me in a prison. He tortured me, Gareth. He carved my skin, and he enjoyed each and every cut. He was not a good man. Good men don’t find pleasure in inflicting pain.”
“Just as you took pleasure in killing the villagers of Meadowtint?”
Nick flinched. He had no answer for that.
“I’m sorry about the baron’s servants,” he said. “I was reckless. I was heartless. But listen to me, please. I am begging you, Gareth, for your own sake. I see now what this world is, and I will not treat it the same. The people of Yensere have no reason to fear me. The life here is sacred, I get that, I do. Listen to my regret. Believe me when I promise to be better. Give up this chase, and just let me be, and no one will have to get hurt again.”
The knight’s blue eyes bored into Nick’s.
“You lie,” he said, but there was no venom in his words, no conviction.
“It’s the truth,” Nick said. “And I’ll prove it by starting with you. Go. Live. I hold no hate against you, nor blame for your hunt. Consider it finished, and your oath fulfilled. The monster you chased no longer exists.”
Sir Gareth forced himself to his feet, and he pulled his hands away from Nick’s grasp. A tug, and his sword ripped free of the earth. His stance was unsteady, his breathing heavy, but he still looked willing to battle.
“Bastard,” he said. “One day you will know true death, and I pray it is at the edge of my blade.”
“Perhaps.” A faint smile tugged at the side of Nick’s face. “But if it’s by you, then at least I’ll know I deserve it.”
Gareth departed for the meadows beyond the maple trees, and Nick watched him go in silence. Once the knight vanished into the starlit night, Nick lifted his sword. The last of the unholy fire had burned away with the hollow sphere near the hilt. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the runes carved into its side seemed to glow brighter.
“Why did you help me?” he asked.
It was a good long while before Sorrow answered.
My reasons are my own. If it will cease further questioning, know that I prefer you wielding me over that knight.
Nick walked the grass, returning to the smoldering remains of the mourning pyre. He stood before it, trying to remember the somber wonder he’d felt in listening to the song. Ranu’s body lay nearby, and so far as Nick could tell, the leader was the only casualty.
“You died trying to protect us,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You could have left us to our deaths—we’d have returned in time, but you didn’t know that, did you?”
We were once enemies, Sinifel and Majere, Sorrow said, his voice so soft it felt like a whisper. And now we are dead. Only the Alder remain. The voice dropped further. What a waste.
Nick looked to the forest. Would the people return to bury their former leader, or would they flee into hiding? He didn’t know, but it seemed they would not be coming back, at least not tonight. After a bit of searching, he gave up trying to find any wrappings and instead lifted the body by the arms. He suppressed his shudders at holding a corpse, and for once, he wished he could go back to believing all of this was a ridiculous, unimportant world of data and numbers.
Once he deposited Ranu’s body in the center of the dormant mourning pyre, he breathed out a long sigh.
“We need a fire.”