Cure embarrassment - with a fic update
Aug. 28th, 2003 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessWell, yesterday was humiliating. My lack of control was utterly inexcusable, I apologise to anyone who read the post I made in the height of my ravings. Physical exertion, smooth drinks, mass music therapy and a b/f willing to quietly put up with the dramatics finally cut through it all. Now for rebuilding.
On the plus side, I did write fiction while in my hyper-fury state, fiction I've now deleted for being waaaaay over the top, but it did break my Spark in Darkness writers block. See, there is always a silver lining!
This is from Darren's POV, and continues from No.30, build up
I promise a Rick POV next though. Honest.
Rick wanted to come. Not an option. He wouldn’t listen, and I had no time to play games on this one. He’s stuck in the flat, the flat I’ve changed into an oubliette, an impenetrable prison of darkness, fear and nightmares. His face has branded itself onto my heart, the fear on those features which so often carry love, the hurt in his eyes that should burn with lust.
It was the only way. Ha! How hollow those words rang, and no matter how loudly I chanted them, they cannot mask Rick’s first panicked cries. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escaper the echoes. It‘s began. My slide into the pit has started, and the world should tremble. Ironic that those who would save the world from me drove me to it. I’d've laughed if my heart weren’t so heavy.
I organised a peace deal with them, a brief truce between kin so we might talk. I doubted if my messenger was well received, but the restless dead was the most benign entity at my command. They accepted, anything to reduce the fall out, I imagined, even if that includes treating with the height - or should that be the depth? - of evil.
They chose the place, a perhaps foolish gesture of goodwill on my part. Central Park, after dark. Less chance of observers or innocent casualties, I imagine.
She was stood in plane sight. Rhiannon notices me as I notice her, despite the concealing shadows that reached out and embraced me. I don’t have wards powerful enough to hide the pulse of my thoughts from her penetrating eye. For long moments we stared at each other, dark blue eyes stared into dark blue eyes. She stood even shorter than me, yet her presence, that aura of supreme self-confidence made her loom tall above the trees. I know the trick, a trick of thought and mind and power. I can play it well. My own power rushed through the night, something darker even than the shrouded moon and older than the space between the stars. We stared at each other, neither of us close to average height, yet we towered like giants over the city.
She broke eye contact first, but in perfect poise there was no suggestion of submission. She ducked into an elegant curtsy with wary eyes but perfect form. I bowed, never pausing my vigilance.
“It is good of you to meet me cousin.” Part of me wanted to scream the ridiculousness of this charade. They have come to kill me, they have forced me to imprison my lover in a hellish prison and we adhere to outdated modes of etiquette.
“I admit I was surprised to receive the missive, cousin.” Her voice was cold, precise and extremely English. “Yet, even though your messenger was grossly inappropriate, I was happy to hear from you. It gives me hope that perhaps there can be a peaceful resolution to our disagreement.”
“I hope so, but I would speak to all those I came here to meet. It has been long since I’ve seen my family, it would be rude not to greet them after so long an absence.”
Her smooth icy face delicately formed itself into a perfect mask of confusion, belied only by one tiny hand that toyed absently with one short lock of black hair. An old habit, one that screamed concealment to one who knew her. She had wanted me to believe her alone. I felt the subtle push of her thoughts against mine as she opened her mouth to spin her deceit. Her words were silenced by a louder voice cutting across them.
“Enough, Rhiannon, this dance gets us nowhere.” Rhiannon’s disapproval was an almost palpable force as a tall man in his mid-thirties strode out from among the trees. He felt it and turned sharply to face her, swinging his thin black braid over one shoulder, his pale blue eyes rebuked her. “You would play these games all night if I allowed it. Too much is at stake for empty formality.” He turned to face me, arms folded, body defensive, eyes bright with challenge. “You called us, so I’m guessing you have something to say, Darren. Say it and be done.”
So, this was the formulaic caster. My father’s cousin, Donald, a Rune Caster, with a secondary talent as an Enchanter. I’m impressed we gained as much information as we did, burrowing through his wards.
“Is your third companion content to let you speak for them?” Neither even twitched this time. Icy stares demanding speech. “Very well. I came to offer a proposition. Leave now and no-one need be hurt.”
For a brief moment I saw Rhiannon’s perfect facade crack, just a brief ripple that widened her eyes and dropped that delicate jaw. Donald’s heavy black brows looming down over those pale eyes, deepening them until they matched Rhiannon’s. His left hand spasmodically twitched towards a pouch at his belt, his right coming up before he could catch it.
“You threaten us? Or is this what counts as a joke among the damned? ‘No-one need be hurt‘?! Do you even realise who, what you are?”
I paused, allowing my power to flow outwards and tinge the night with a dark filigree. They both flinched as the night grew heavy and thick, pushing against them and soiling their perfect pale skin.
I unbuttoned my shirt, slowly exposing the long, thin line of white skin from neck to my trousers. I pushed the neckline back, so the vivid red and green tattoos that graced my neck were exposed, they were plainly visible even in the darkness, glowing with trapped fire as they fought my swelling power. The skin around them smoked softly, burning in agony. I gritted my teeth against the searing pain, and spread the cloth wider, revealing the captured star that was once the silver ward around my neck. You could hear the sizzling of melting flesh as the necklace was exposed. My relatives took an involuntary step back. I didn’t pause, just smoothly stripped off my gloves. The blackened skin on the backs of my hand was lost in the darkness of night. The wards, twins of the harsh glow around my neck, dangled from their chains around my wrists, their softer glows distracting the eyes from the colourful shine of my tight bracelets of jewel like tattoos. The pain was intense. But it was an old pain, one I'd grown up with, one I knew more intimately than any softer emotion.
I raised my gaze to my cousins, eyes flinching in torment, and let them absorb what they saw, let them see my suffering, let them see the tortures I willingly endured. Donald looked vaguely sick, he was a rune caster and had no trouble recognising what the wards were, or the effect they would have on me. Rhiannon’s eyes were held wide, and shone with liquid brightness in the scarce light.
“I know what I am. Every day I wake with the cold knowledge of who I am and what I am capable of. Every moment I spend fighting an endless war against a foe that coils in my heart and dances through my mind, perhaps my very soul. There is no surcease from this, no respite, no escape. This is the only way I can live, in eternal struggle and arduous conflict.”
“Let us release you from it, Darren. No-one should have to suffer this way.” The sincerity in her voice was enough to make me step forwards. The offer was resonant of every wish I possessed and filled with the promise of all I could want. I stopped, gritting my teeth, pulling the though of burning pain to the forefront of my mind. She staggered backwards, wincing and shaking. A faint tremble rocked my limbs at the strain.
“My offer ends if you try that again.” My voice was as cold and harsh as my power that still beat down upon them.
“Th-the pain...” she gasped and leaned heavily on Donald. “Why do you want to live so, if that is what life is for you?”
“It is all I know. This life, poor though it is at times, is all I have. I will not let you take it from me.” Their faces firmed, resolve apparently reached. I cut in before they could condemn me. “And I have found something. Something that makes even this shell of existence worth living for every second I can. I have found a light that can shine even in the darkest shadows. A spark the darkness cannot extinguish.”
Their faces screamed doubt. Rhiannon arched one perfect eyebrow in question, “what is this sublime power, that we, the Clan of Camaalis, the world’s greatest wielders of magick, could not, nor have ever been able to provide? You are deluded, there is not a mage the world over whose skill and power can match us. No organisation can rival our resources, no fellowship our variety, tradition or lore.” Donald nodded in fierce agreement.
“I found love, Rhiannon. And yes, it was a power greater than any we possess, and it was one that was never available to me from the Clan of Camaalis.”
“There is love in our family, Darren.”
“Perhaps. But never any for me.”
Rhiannon turned away, even Donald avoided my eyes. The silence stretched, long and awkward.
Eventually Donald cleared his throat roughly and forced himself to look at me. “I don’t dispute it. We... we all know what Alexei did. And... I suppose we weren’t much better. But you must know why! How could we love you? We knew what you were, knew what you’d become! Loving you would have only made it worse. It... it would only have made it hurt more than it already does. Can you imagine loving someone you are forced to kill?”
David flashed in front of my eyes, his last moments, his reaching hands and accusing, questioning eyes. For a moment the world swam in darkness and death, all sound was drowned by a dull roar and deep thunder, cut only by the sudden shocked screams of my kin.
“I know. I know better than you can possibly imagine.” I spat the words, my voice burned with emotions beyond knowing. The grass withered beneath my feet, the wood of a nearby tree began to char and rot. Rhiannon groaned and sank to her knees clutching her head. She gasped for breath and tried to force words through the whimpers she could not stifle.
“I feel your pain... I can almost see your thoughts without trying, they are so loud and strong! Again you have suffered, and again I ask, let us end it! Let us end it before it happens again.”
I froze... my power faltered. With those words she had hit truer than any blow. She rose to her feet, tear stained face fixed and determined. “You know it. You fear it! I can feel it. You fear it will happen again, you know it will. Does your loved one deserve a sorcerous death? Let her grieve your death and move on. You owe her that much, at least.”
For a long moment I stood, gritting my teeth and ignoring the thoughts that rose unbidden. She had said nothing that I had not already thought. No. I knew the light was stronger than that, it could survive this. We could survive this. We would survive this!
“No, cousin, I will not give him a quiet grave to cry over and call it a gift. He knows what I am, he knows the risk he takes. I will not loose the one piece of happiness I have in this world to your paranoia!”
“But, the stories! We know what happens to sor-”
“WHAT HAPPENS TO SORCERERS!?” My voice thundered through the night, knocked them both flat to the floor with hammer blows of rage. “The stories of sorcerers centuries, if not, millennia dead! I am past tired of being judged by the actions of my forbearers! You say what I will or won’t do, you talk of the atrocities you are so sure I will commit, and you know nothing about me! You have not seen me for four years, and before that neither of you would stand in the same room as me if you could help it, let alone talk to me! And you think you can judge me? You think you know my heart and mind!
“Curse you both, I’ll accept this persecution no longer!“ I lashed out, throwing both of their prone forms several feet across the land. The darkness roared, the dead clamoured for orders and daemons strained against the flimsy wall that held them.
Donald staggered to his feet, eyes narrowed and fear plain to see. “I hoped you’d see reason, but you leave us no choice.” His left hand came up, tracing a rune in the air that glowed and hovered before him. His right hand plunged into his pouch, drawing forth several small stones that he threw to the ground before me. The earth buckled and heaved, mounded upwards so high they blocked my view of their creator. The pillars shattered leaving three huge, humanoid stone statutes, fully twelve feet high. Their eyes were slits of red fire and the rune-stones were embedded into their foreheads. With glacial strides they closed the short distance to me.
I drew upon my power, fighting against the wards that contained me. I wrapped myself in an armour of darkness, a palpable shield of shadows. The first golem reached me, bringing one hammer like fist down in an unstoppable arc, smashing into my chest with the force of falling mountains. I staggered back, knees buckling under the weight as the second blow fell, a brutal uppercut that caught me squarely on the chin, sending me soaring into the air. I landed heavily to see my third attacker bring his foot down on top of me. I called power to my armour, pure entropy to wrap around the dark shield. The foot shattered, crushed by destruction itself. The towering construct wavered, before falling full length on top of me. For the briefest of seconds I felt crushing weight, before an explosion of dust and debris sent razor sharp shrapnel scything through the foliage. I was on my feet, the movement like oiled water with the darkness thrumming through my limbs. I turned, throwing a bolt of dark energy at a second assailant. Again the night resounds with an explosion. Dust and shrapnel again filled the air, but it never land. Frozen in mid flight, they turned, force redoubled by Rhiannon’s mind, to smash into my entropy field.
The third golem grabbed me from behind, lifting me in a crushing grip. I felt the weakened entropy field reach out to destroy it. I held back, grinning madly, and placed one hand on the rune-stone set in its forehead. I chanted wildly in a language that made the nearby tree creak and groan. The rune morphed under my hand, on the edge of hearing I heard unearthly laughter of a fiend let loose. The golem dropped me, its eyes gone from glowing scarlet to a dark blood red. It opened a newly formed mouth and laughed, a sound that hurt, but felt so good I couldn’t help but send my own laughter chasing it through the night. Small animals fell from the trees, dead from the sound of our mirth. The golem turned, new horns sprouting from its brow, and a tail slowly coalescing from its back as it charged into the wilderness. I heard Rhiannon’s scream just before the golem was raised into the air by an invisible force and sent clean through the still creaking tree, wood splinters replaced stone in filling the air, again they flew against me, guided by her mind. Again my entropy field flared and weakened.
But I had not stood idle. A circle was carved deep into the earth, filled with blood opened from my veins, it thrummed with death. With a flourish I finished the spell, the gateway was opened, and the dead came through. I called them and commanded them, sent them howling into the night, again Rhiannon’s screams sounded as her incorporeal foes closed. “Nikolai, where are you?! Help us!” Nikolai? Seemed, my words had reached at least one of my kin, if the old shaman had refused to aid them in the battle.
Fire roared around me, an imprisoning circle that drove me back and down, licking hungrily at my clothes and hair. Through the dancing flames I saw the rippling figure of a salamander, orange scales seemingly crafted from the fire itself. Behind, almost lost in the rippling shadows, Donald ,knelt one hand held out towards the daemonic golem, holding it back by the power of the rune that created it. The other was frantically drawing symbols into the mud. The trees seemed to move behind him, risen themselves from their long vigil by the sounds of combat. Symbols danced around Donald, runes of all shapes and sizes forming an ever moving cloak of magickal protections.
The salamander’s fiery claw reached through my flaming prison, parting my weakened entropy field, cutting through my armour to pierce a long cut down my side. I cry out and fall back, holding the instantly cauterised wound. Through gritted teeth I muttered more words of darkness, and a new fire burns. Fire is an element of purity, renewal and cleansing, I have no power over such things. But fire is also hungry destruction in its rawest form, a thing that brings pain and fear to thousands of creatures. This is it’s dark side, and it’s mine to control.
Black fire enveloped me, battling the purer flames. In seconds the balefire had pushed its natural counterpart back on an equal setting. I leapt through them, throwing my arms wide, throwing the dark fire at the light. The prison buckled and split. I was through facing the long scaly form of the salamander, it’s disturbingly intelligent yellow eyes focused on me from that orange, reptilian face. I gave it no chance to think and gripped that head with both balefire encased hands. Touching a salamander is normally a quick, painful way to commit a fiery suicide. But it was not my screams that cut the night. No, a reptilian roar of agony and despair ripped through the city. I smiled maliciously as the balefire ran fiercely over those gleaming scales. I forced the head down and met that unearthly gaze. I forced my power through that eye-link, the power of darkness and corruption that rested in my heart flowed down its gaze into its soul. Three short, sharp unutterable words and it was done. It pulled away, a last roar of defiance and pain emerging from its scaly jaws as I fell to my knees.
I was in agony. The sheer sustained might of dark magick through me had overwhelmed the wards. Their fiery rage at being defeated inflicted itself upon me in burning torment. I could feel the drip of molten metal as the silver wards were pushed beyond even their reinforced endurance. Then my screams did cut the night, the tattoos had flared so brightly they cast coloured shadows around me.
The pain didn’t fade, I knew it wouldn’t, but I drew on that sustaining energy of sweet darkness and native stubbornness to force myself upwards, dripping liquid silver. Only the tattoos held me now. I could endure. I would endure.
Through blurred eyes I took in the scene of battle. The salamander, loomed next to me, but no longer was it a threat, not to me anyway. It bright orange scales were now a deep, dark crimson. It’s gleaming yellow eyes had turned a sickly green and shone with dark cunning and gleeful malevolence. Balefire danced across its claws and scales, joyous in their corruption. The new dire salamander saw me and bowed to its master.
The golem strode towards me. Its rocky skin looked carved from a single seamless piece of jet. Vast, bat like wings arced from its back, tipped with cruel claws that dripped evil green poison. Fangs extended from its jaw, long curving horns from its brow. A long, barbed tail coiled around it’s hoofed feet as it too bowed. Its voice was sibilant and heavy.
“Master, they have fled the field.”
I saw neither kinsman. The only sign of their passing were runes Donald had carved into the trees and ground, something to delay us while he fled? Some of those trees were lurching towards us, slow and awkward, but massively strong. The dire salamander saw them and smiled.
“No, they have not fled. They have re-grouped.” My eyes narrowed, the daemonic golem flinched, “we do not leave this place until I am sure they no longer pose a threat.”
The hunt was on, and I refused to be the quarry any longer.
On the plus side, I did write fiction while in my hyper-fury state, fiction I've now deleted for being waaaaay over the top, but it did break my Spark in Darkness writers block. See, there is always a silver lining!
This is from Darren's POV, and continues from No.30, build up
I promise a Rick POV next though. Honest.
Rick wanted to come. Not an option. He wouldn’t listen, and I had no time to play games on this one. He’s stuck in the flat, the flat I’ve changed into an oubliette, an impenetrable prison of darkness, fear and nightmares. His face has branded itself onto my heart, the fear on those features which so often carry love, the hurt in his eyes that should burn with lust.
It was the only way. Ha! How hollow those words rang, and no matter how loudly I chanted them, they cannot mask Rick’s first panicked cries. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escaper the echoes. It‘s began. My slide into the pit has started, and the world should tremble. Ironic that those who would save the world from me drove me to it. I’d've laughed if my heart weren’t so heavy.
I organised a peace deal with them, a brief truce between kin so we might talk. I doubted if my messenger was well received, but the restless dead was the most benign entity at my command. They accepted, anything to reduce the fall out, I imagined, even if that includes treating with the height - or should that be the depth? - of evil.
They chose the place, a perhaps foolish gesture of goodwill on my part. Central Park, after dark. Less chance of observers or innocent casualties, I imagine.
She was stood in plane sight. Rhiannon notices me as I notice her, despite the concealing shadows that reached out and embraced me. I don’t have wards powerful enough to hide the pulse of my thoughts from her penetrating eye. For long moments we stared at each other, dark blue eyes stared into dark blue eyes. She stood even shorter than me, yet her presence, that aura of supreme self-confidence made her loom tall above the trees. I know the trick, a trick of thought and mind and power. I can play it well. My own power rushed through the night, something darker even than the shrouded moon and older than the space between the stars. We stared at each other, neither of us close to average height, yet we towered like giants over the city.
She broke eye contact first, but in perfect poise there was no suggestion of submission. She ducked into an elegant curtsy with wary eyes but perfect form. I bowed, never pausing my vigilance.
“It is good of you to meet me cousin.” Part of me wanted to scream the ridiculousness of this charade. They have come to kill me, they have forced me to imprison my lover in a hellish prison and we adhere to outdated modes of etiquette.
“I admit I was surprised to receive the missive, cousin.” Her voice was cold, precise and extremely English. “Yet, even though your messenger was grossly inappropriate, I was happy to hear from you. It gives me hope that perhaps there can be a peaceful resolution to our disagreement.”
“I hope so, but I would speak to all those I came here to meet. It has been long since I’ve seen my family, it would be rude not to greet them after so long an absence.”
Her smooth icy face delicately formed itself into a perfect mask of confusion, belied only by one tiny hand that toyed absently with one short lock of black hair. An old habit, one that screamed concealment to one who knew her. She had wanted me to believe her alone. I felt the subtle push of her thoughts against mine as she opened her mouth to spin her deceit. Her words were silenced by a louder voice cutting across them.
“Enough, Rhiannon, this dance gets us nowhere.” Rhiannon’s disapproval was an almost palpable force as a tall man in his mid-thirties strode out from among the trees. He felt it and turned sharply to face her, swinging his thin black braid over one shoulder, his pale blue eyes rebuked her. “You would play these games all night if I allowed it. Too much is at stake for empty formality.” He turned to face me, arms folded, body defensive, eyes bright with challenge. “You called us, so I’m guessing you have something to say, Darren. Say it and be done.”
So, this was the formulaic caster. My father’s cousin, Donald, a Rune Caster, with a secondary talent as an Enchanter. I’m impressed we gained as much information as we did, burrowing through his wards.
“Is your third companion content to let you speak for them?” Neither even twitched this time. Icy stares demanding speech. “Very well. I came to offer a proposition. Leave now and no-one need be hurt.”
For a brief moment I saw Rhiannon’s perfect facade crack, just a brief ripple that widened her eyes and dropped that delicate jaw. Donald’s heavy black brows looming down over those pale eyes, deepening them until they matched Rhiannon’s. His left hand spasmodically twitched towards a pouch at his belt, his right coming up before he could catch it.
“You threaten us? Or is this what counts as a joke among the damned? ‘No-one need be hurt‘?! Do you even realise who, what you are?”
I paused, allowing my power to flow outwards and tinge the night with a dark filigree. They both flinched as the night grew heavy and thick, pushing against them and soiling their perfect pale skin.
I unbuttoned my shirt, slowly exposing the long, thin line of white skin from neck to my trousers. I pushed the neckline back, so the vivid red and green tattoos that graced my neck were exposed, they were plainly visible even in the darkness, glowing with trapped fire as they fought my swelling power. The skin around them smoked softly, burning in agony. I gritted my teeth against the searing pain, and spread the cloth wider, revealing the captured star that was once the silver ward around my neck. You could hear the sizzling of melting flesh as the necklace was exposed. My relatives took an involuntary step back. I didn’t pause, just smoothly stripped off my gloves. The blackened skin on the backs of my hand was lost in the darkness of night. The wards, twins of the harsh glow around my neck, dangled from their chains around my wrists, their softer glows distracting the eyes from the colourful shine of my tight bracelets of jewel like tattoos. The pain was intense. But it was an old pain, one I'd grown up with, one I knew more intimately than any softer emotion.
I raised my gaze to my cousins, eyes flinching in torment, and let them absorb what they saw, let them see my suffering, let them see the tortures I willingly endured. Donald looked vaguely sick, he was a rune caster and had no trouble recognising what the wards were, or the effect they would have on me. Rhiannon’s eyes were held wide, and shone with liquid brightness in the scarce light.
“I know what I am. Every day I wake with the cold knowledge of who I am and what I am capable of. Every moment I spend fighting an endless war against a foe that coils in my heart and dances through my mind, perhaps my very soul. There is no surcease from this, no respite, no escape. This is the only way I can live, in eternal struggle and arduous conflict.”
“Let us release you from it, Darren. No-one should have to suffer this way.” The sincerity in her voice was enough to make me step forwards. The offer was resonant of every wish I possessed and filled with the promise of all I could want. I stopped, gritting my teeth, pulling the though of burning pain to the forefront of my mind. She staggered backwards, wincing and shaking. A faint tremble rocked my limbs at the strain.
“My offer ends if you try that again.” My voice was as cold and harsh as my power that still beat down upon them.
“Th-the pain...” she gasped and leaned heavily on Donald. “Why do you want to live so, if that is what life is for you?”
“It is all I know. This life, poor though it is at times, is all I have. I will not let you take it from me.” Their faces firmed, resolve apparently reached. I cut in before they could condemn me. “And I have found something. Something that makes even this shell of existence worth living for every second I can. I have found a light that can shine even in the darkest shadows. A spark the darkness cannot extinguish.”
Their faces screamed doubt. Rhiannon arched one perfect eyebrow in question, “what is this sublime power, that we, the Clan of Camaalis, the world’s greatest wielders of magick, could not, nor have ever been able to provide? You are deluded, there is not a mage the world over whose skill and power can match us. No organisation can rival our resources, no fellowship our variety, tradition or lore.” Donald nodded in fierce agreement.
“I found love, Rhiannon. And yes, it was a power greater than any we possess, and it was one that was never available to me from the Clan of Camaalis.”
“There is love in our family, Darren.”
“Perhaps. But never any for me.”
Rhiannon turned away, even Donald avoided my eyes. The silence stretched, long and awkward.
Eventually Donald cleared his throat roughly and forced himself to look at me. “I don’t dispute it. We... we all know what Alexei did. And... I suppose we weren’t much better. But you must know why! How could we love you? We knew what you were, knew what you’d become! Loving you would have only made it worse. It... it would only have made it hurt more than it already does. Can you imagine loving someone you are forced to kill?”
David flashed in front of my eyes, his last moments, his reaching hands and accusing, questioning eyes. For a moment the world swam in darkness and death, all sound was drowned by a dull roar and deep thunder, cut only by the sudden shocked screams of my kin.
“I know. I know better than you can possibly imagine.” I spat the words, my voice burned with emotions beyond knowing. The grass withered beneath my feet, the wood of a nearby tree began to char and rot. Rhiannon groaned and sank to her knees clutching her head. She gasped for breath and tried to force words through the whimpers she could not stifle.
“I feel your pain... I can almost see your thoughts without trying, they are so loud and strong! Again you have suffered, and again I ask, let us end it! Let us end it before it happens again.”
I froze... my power faltered. With those words she had hit truer than any blow. She rose to her feet, tear stained face fixed and determined. “You know it. You fear it! I can feel it. You fear it will happen again, you know it will. Does your loved one deserve a sorcerous death? Let her grieve your death and move on. You owe her that much, at least.”
For a long moment I stood, gritting my teeth and ignoring the thoughts that rose unbidden. She had said nothing that I had not already thought. No. I knew the light was stronger than that, it could survive this. We could survive this. We would survive this!
“No, cousin, I will not give him a quiet grave to cry over and call it a gift. He knows what I am, he knows the risk he takes. I will not loose the one piece of happiness I have in this world to your paranoia!”
“But, the stories! We know what happens to sor-”
“WHAT HAPPENS TO SORCERERS!?” My voice thundered through the night, knocked them both flat to the floor with hammer blows of rage. “The stories of sorcerers centuries, if not, millennia dead! I am past tired of being judged by the actions of my forbearers! You say what I will or won’t do, you talk of the atrocities you are so sure I will commit, and you know nothing about me! You have not seen me for four years, and before that neither of you would stand in the same room as me if you could help it, let alone talk to me! And you think you can judge me? You think you know my heart and mind!
“Curse you both, I’ll accept this persecution no longer!“ I lashed out, throwing both of their prone forms several feet across the land. The darkness roared, the dead clamoured for orders and daemons strained against the flimsy wall that held them.
Donald staggered to his feet, eyes narrowed and fear plain to see. “I hoped you’d see reason, but you leave us no choice.” His left hand came up, tracing a rune in the air that glowed and hovered before him. His right hand plunged into his pouch, drawing forth several small stones that he threw to the ground before me. The earth buckled and heaved, mounded upwards so high they blocked my view of their creator. The pillars shattered leaving three huge, humanoid stone statutes, fully twelve feet high. Their eyes were slits of red fire and the rune-stones were embedded into their foreheads. With glacial strides they closed the short distance to me.
I drew upon my power, fighting against the wards that contained me. I wrapped myself in an armour of darkness, a palpable shield of shadows. The first golem reached me, bringing one hammer like fist down in an unstoppable arc, smashing into my chest with the force of falling mountains. I staggered back, knees buckling under the weight as the second blow fell, a brutal uppercut that caught me squarely on the chin, sending me soaring into the air. I landed heavily to see my third attacker bring his foot down on top of me. I called power to my armour, pure entropy to wrap around the dark shield. The foot shattered, crushed by destruction itself. The towering construct wavered, before falling full length on top of me. For the briefest of seconds I felt crushing weight, before an explosion of dust and debris sent razor sharp shrapnel scything through the foliage. I was on my feet, the movement like oiled water with the darkness thrumming through my limbs. I turned, throwing a bolt of dark energy at a second assailant. Again the night resounds with an explosion. Dust and shrapnel again filled the air, but it never land. Frozen in mid flight, they turned, force redoubled by Rhiannon’s mind, to smash into my entropy field.
The third golem grabbed me from behind, lifting me in a crushing grip. I felt the weakened entropy field reach out to destroy it. I held back, grinning madly, and placed one hand on the rune-stone set in its forehead. I chanted wildly in a language that made the nearby tree creak and groan. The rune morphed under my hand, on the edge of hearing I heard unearthly laughter of a fiend let loose. The golem dropped me, its eyes gone from glowing scarlet to a dark blood red. It opened a newly formed mouth and laughed, a sound that hurt, but felt so good I couldn’t help but send my own laughter chasing it through the night. Small animals fell from the trees, dead from the sound of our mirth. The golem turned, new horns sprouting from its brow, and a tail slowly coalescing from its back as it charged into the wilderness. I heard Rhiannon’s scream just before the golem was raised into the air by an invisible force and sent clean through the still creaking tree, wood splinters replaced stone in filling the air, again they flew against me, guided by her mind. Again my entropy field flared and weakened.
But I had not stood idle. A circle was carved deep into the earth, filled with blood opened from my veins, it thrummed with death. With a flourish I finished the spell, the gateway was opened, and the dead came through. I called them and commanded them, sent them howling into the night, again Rhiannon’s screams sounded as her incorporeal foes closed. “Nikolai, where are you?! Help us!” Nikolai? Seemed, my words had reached at least one of my kin, if the old shaman had refused to aid them in the battle.
Fire roared around me, an imprisoning circle that drove me back and down, licking hungrily at my clothes and hair. Through the dancing flames I saw the rippling figure of a salamander, orange scales seemingly crafted from the fire itself. Behind, almost lost in the rippling shadows, Donald ,knelt one hand held out towards the daemonic golem, holding it back by the power of the rune that created it. The other was frantically drawing symbols into the mud. The trees seemed to move behind him, risen themselves from their long vigil by the sounds of combat. Symbols danced around Donald, runes of all shapes and sizes forming an ever moving cloak of magickal protections.
The salamander’s fiery claw reached through my flaming prison, parting my weakened entropy field, cutting through my armour to pierce a long cut down my side. I cry out and fall back, holding the instantly cauterised wound. Through gritted teeth I muttered more words of darkness, and a new fire burns. Fire is an element of purity, renewal and cleansing, I have no power over such things. But fire is also hungry destruction in its rawest form, a thing that brings pain and fear to thousands of creatures. This is it’s dark side, and it’s mine to control.
Black fire enveloped me, battling the purer flames. In seconds the balefire had pushed its natural counterpart back on an equal setting. I leapt through them, throwing my arms wide, throwing the dark fire at the light. The prison buckled and split. I was through facing the long scaly form of the salamander, it’s disturbingly intelligent yellow eyes focused on me from that orange, reptilian face. I gave it no chance to think and gripped that head with both balefire encased hands. Touching a salamander is normally a quick, painful way to commit a fiery suicide. But it was not my screams that cut the night. No, a reptilian roar of agony and despair ripped through the city. I smiled maliciously as the balefire ran fiercely over those gleaming scales. I forced the head down and met that unearthly gaze. I forced my power through that eye-link, the power of darkness and corruption that rested in my heart flowed down its gaze into its soul. Three short, sharp unutterable words and it was done. It pulled away, a last roar of defiance and pain emerging from its scaly jaws as I fell to my knees.
I was in agony. The sheer sustained might of dark magick through me had overwhelmed the wards. Their fiery rage at being defeated inflicted itself upon me in burning torment. I could feel the drip of molten metal as the silver wards were pushed beyond even their reinforced endurance. Then my screams did cut the night, the tattoos had flared so brightly they cast coloured shadows around me.
The pain didn’t fade, I knew it wouldn’t, but I drew on that sustaining energy of sweet darkness and native stubbornness to force myself upwards, dripping liquid silver. Only the tattoos held me now. I could endure. I would endure.
Through blurred eyes I took in the scene of battle. The salamander, loomed next to me, but no longer was it a threat, not to me anyway. It bright orange scales were now a deep, dark crimson. It’s gleaming yellow eyes had turned a sickly green and shone with dark cunning and gleeful malevolence. Balefire danced across its claws and scales, joyous in their corruption. The new dire salamander saw me and bowed to its master.
The golem strode towards me. Its rocky skin looked carved from a single seamless piece of jet. Vast, bat like wings arced from its back, tipped with cruel claws that dripped evil green poison. Fangs extended from its jaw, long curving horns from its brow. A long, barbed tail coiled around it’s hoofed feet as it too bowed. Its voice was sibilant and heavy.
“Master, they have fled the field.”
I saw neither kinsman. The only sign of their passing were runes Donald had carved into the trees and ground, something to delay us while he fled? Some of those trees were lurching towards us, slow and awkward, but massively strong. The dire salamander saw them and smiled.
“No, they have not fled. They have re-grouped.” My eyes narrowed, the daemonic golem flinched, “we do not leave this place until I am sure they no longer pose a threat.”
The hunt was on, and I refused to be the quarry any longer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-20 12:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-20 02:00 pm (UTC)The other was good and lasted years though, by the end it was unbelievable "there are hardly any master mages left on earth after the reckoning... ummm, except you five." I played Verbena, we had a Cult of Ecstasy, a Euthanatos, a Virtual Adept and a Dreamspeaker. We were activists, environmental and civil liberties, we even had some allies in the technocracy (who had learnt to leave us alone - don't attack 5 master mages in a house that has become a sanctum for them).
I've actually got fic based on that game. And some others on a pair of mages working together (Euthanatos and Cult of Ecstasy)
LOL
Date: 2003-09-20 07:09 pm (UTC)Oh! and BTW I am also a very sporadic poster. pt 3 of the fic I'm working on probabaly won't be finished for quite a while.
thanx for the great read.
hope to talk to ya on AIM, MSN or ICQ some time. If nagged enough i might be tempted to show off a few more chats before they get posted as stories. ;)
Re: LOL
Date: 2003-09-21 12:25 pm (UTC)While the CoE is a happy, punky, pink, perky girl who drives him mad and won't go away (which is good because she's the only thing stopping him entering full blow quiet)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-22 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-23 03:09 pm (UTC)Ah: I think I need to go into more detail on another post, since this got quite long.