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sparkindarknessSee? Prolific
For the record I'm not sure what happened to Kyernath and I'm not sure I like it. The alien deformed and monstrous creature is what I envisaged - not this. I'm not sure I like what it has become. I'm also pretty certain it's not only been done before, but it's been done so often to the point of being tiresome.
But, I also know I don't care because it is now WRITTEN and I can now IGNORE it. And yes, I know this is why i could never be a professional writer
I followed them, only half aware as I gathered my power. If we were fighting Kyernath, it would be my magic that carried the day, my magic that matched his. All the powers, skills and ancient enchantments of my family could not match the sheer destruction of Sorcery. My power flowed through me, my long extinguished wards burned fitfully, their colours dulled, their powers long since spent. I rode the power, controlling it, separating it from my mind, thoughts coming clear despite the wash of euphoria, despite the desperate dark urges surging forwards begging, demanding to be released, demanding to be unleashed, raging against the fragile constraints of will I had erected to hold back its corrupting force. It waxed forth - strong and dark and...
“Get out of my kitchen!” Someone hit me, hard. I staggered back, grabbing my arm. I could feel the bruise starting to form. My power swelled threateningly. “And no magic either! You should all know better.” I blinked and focused on Cook angrily waving a wooden spoon and her accent thickening with anger. I took two hurried steps back behind the elders, clinging desperately to hold my magic.
“You should know better, Doyle Camaalis, yes you should!” The large woman advanced menacingly on the much shorter Elder. “Bringing this crowd into my kitchen, and with magic besides! A child of 6 knows better!”
“Cook, we...” Doyle began.
“OUT!” Cook roared jabbing her spoon towards our feet like a spear. Ahrimadan hissed, his ears flattening. “For the thousandth time! No familiars, demons, spirits, mythical creatures or slimy things with tentacles in my kitchen. It is not hygienic, Doyle, and it makes it impossible to cook besides. Especially that fish stealing menace.”
I rather thought that the kitchen staff were considerably lucky that he was only stealing fish, but consider it wiser to remain silent on the point.
“Cook! This important!” Doyle said, sounding uncharacteristically ruffled. I felt a spark of wry amusement - mighty Camaalis may be, but in Cook’s kitchen there was never any question of who was in charge.
“Aye, it usually is.” She folded her large arms and sternly stared at Doyle. I was impressed - he didn’t wilt even slightly under her eyes. Behind him I could see other Camaalis arriving, called by Prisa.
My gut clenched. Something screamed - incredibly loud yet just on the edge of hearing. The power roiling through me rocked and raged. Instinctively I reached out to Ahrimadan, down the connection we had forged. I sank into confusion for a long moment, unable to reconcile my human brain with the Infernal and feline senses Ahrimadan fed me and my own Sorcerous vision. Slowly I regained my balance, mastered all my powers together and opened my Sight.
The kitchen was huge, so huge you rarely noticed just how many people scurried between the counters and ovens. Cook presided over a relative army of undercooks and scullions. And all of them were cursed. It lay on them thick and heavy and unbelievably powerful. When they were all together it was magnified several hundred fold - all linked together... rising up, reaching for -
“Doyle!” I spun round to the elders - to see the curse stop, held back by a shimmering wall of scintillating, brilliant white.
“They are safe, Darren, but I cannot hold it forever.” Caoimhe’s cool, steady voice came from behind the barrier of light
“Caoimhe?”
“Prisa called me. The Elder Prophets are rarely unprepared and never surprised.”
My Sight screamed as the curse rose behind me. It was Sorcery and I smiled as I pushed it away from me. It lashed out, forcing me to jump backwards, rolling over a counter out of it’s reach. I felt the threads of Infernalism guiding the curse with a demonic intelligence and intent and the cold chill of Necromancy giving it death’s inevitable hunger. I countered power with power. Sorcery to master destruction, Infernalism to command the demonic, Necromancy to imitate the cold of the grave and demand death’s obedience.
It stopped, a scarce few feet away... but didn’t turn back. I pulled up more power, channelled all the magic I had ever called my own into the thing. Every ounce of Sorcery, Infernalism and Necromancy I had ever know I pulled together, concentrated and forced into the roiling curse. It moved... a few inches, a foot... a yard... it’s edges weakened, became fuzzier. It shrank and broke up in places, fading and attenuating.
My breath came raggedly as I let down every barrier I’d ever had. Years of repressing my power was stripped away. Every mental barrier, every moment of reticence was stripped away. I stood there, a gleaming avatar of my power, surging as I bathed in the triple magics I held. Again the curse stuttered, shrank, was weakened... and again, it wasn’t enough. I had the power, but the curse moved and shifted, twisted in ways I couldn’t follow, forming spells I didn’t know.
I had the power, but not the skill or knowledge to match this.
“Ahrimadan!” I gasped.
Then I heard the laughter behind me. It was low but echoed unnaturally. “Ah, little Sorcerer, thou didst not think it wouldst be so simple?”
I jerked round, fury finding pushing my magic even further. Ahrimadan grinned at me. “Ahrimadan?”
“Didst thou think thou wouldst master me forever... Darren? Thou art powerful, little Sorcerer, very powerful. But there are powers still greater than thee. In thy folly, thou hast forgotten what I am!” He threw back his head and yowled. A simple feline yowl but from it emerged a scream that defied the ears to hear. Nothing of this world could make such a sound - and precious few could hear it and hold on to sanity.
I was one of them.
I pulled all my power back into myself and focused on my familiar. “I forget nothing, daemon.” I threw my power into him, rough and undirected, a pure hammer blow of force. He screamed again and I felt his vast power rise in answer. The power of a Daemon lord, a duke. A greater Daemon and one of the greatest of the hellish powers.
“No.” I said. One word, firm and quiet, but my power was not quiet. My Infernalism wrapped around the daemon demanded and commanded. Perhaps I would not have been strong enough to contain him, perhaps, on his own, he would have been able to overwhelm me. I felt his power swell above mine, many orders greater and mightier than I had ever imagined. But he was my familiar and he had accepted the familiar bond - a bond forged through my Infernal power and his acceptance.
I was an Infernalist, not a Daemon Sworn. We ruled Daemons, they did not rule us.
His power fell back, not forced to retreat, but commanded to do so. He screamed again, but in that unholy sound I heard his rage and frustration.
“I haven’t forgotten who I am. I am an Infernalist. I am your master. You are my familiar, mine to command, mine to control!” I lashed out with my Sorcery, pain and destruction to make even a Daemon tremble. All rage and anger left Ahrimadan’s scream, scourged away by agony and unprecedented fear. Yowling, all trace of the daemonic fading, the cat skittered from the room.
Then the curse engulfed me from behind.
I couldn’t stop it, I only had a second to raise a shield of Sorcery, a mastery of destruction to ward destruction while I sank into the deep, cold heart of Necromancy. Life leeched from me, frustrating the curse’s hunger. Daemonic intelligence tried to guide it but was deflected by my Infernalism.
I waited for it to press, to overcome my defences, to show the skill of its crafting... but we remained locked in an oddly quiet stalemate.
“So, you are Camaalis’ pet Sorcerer?” A voice spoke, quiet but rich and deep. Almost the voice of a classically trained actor. It had a perfect, formal, slightly dated aristocratic English accent. A Camaalis accent. “What a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Kyernath, at your service.”
How very civilised. I replied in kind. “Darren, of House Camaalis. Though we haven’t met you have sent us some rather tasteless gifts. Some of them are still staining my living room carpet.”
“Camaalis? Upon my word! Are they experimenting again? Trying to rehabilitate another naughty Sorcerer? They tried that with me as well. And there were three, no four before. All quite quite appalling failures. You have to admire Camaalis’ persistence.” He exclaimed.
“Camaalis did not become the greatest magical force in the world by accepting failure.” I said, strangely calm yet surrounded by the curse.
“Quite so. And yet, without you I might have brought this great force down by now. I don’t suppose you would consider joining me?” he asked, his tone making it clear he didn’t expect me to.
“No, I think not.”
“No, I didn’t think so. One has to ask, of course. Very tiresome. Of course, it’s probably for the best. Sorcerers rarely play nicely together. But still, you are a Sorcerer, Infernalist and Necromancer. That is a good deal too close to my powers to have you playing with Camaalis. You have already quite annoying ruined some of my better plans. Perhaps you can be encouraged to step aside?”
“And when you defeat Camaalis or Camaalis defeats you the winner gets the special prize of tearing me apart? Somehow that fails to appeal.” I couldn’t quite believe I was having a polite conversation with Kyernath...
“I could promise to leave you alone, though I suspect it may be a waste of time.” He mused thoughtfully.
“You’re not such a fool. You said it yourself, Sorcerer’s rarely play nicely together. Are you really going to let a Magician live free who has nearly identical powers to your own? I find it implausible.” I replied.
“Succinctly put. Can we taken it as given that I threatened you most horrifically and you were unmoved by such blandishments? It would rather speed things along.” He asked in a most civilised tones.
“Of course,” I replied “so long as we assume I said something defiant and terribly witty in response.”
“Naturally, wouldn’t dream of it being otherwise.” He continued. “Now, to the business at hand. I could just kill you here.”
“I thought we had already covered pointless threats?”
“You are surrounded by my magic, Darren. What’s to stop me just ending this rivalry right now?”
For a moment I felt a chill of fear, but I refused to let doubt creep in. I was a mage, doubt was fatal. “Don’t be tiresome, Kyernath. You may be better than me, maybe even stronger - I certainly can’t co-opt or claim your magic, or even easily dispel it but you have sent this curse across the Atlantic. That’s a long way.”
“Even from here it could kill you.”
I snorted. “If I let it. Sorcerer’s are not easily killed.”
“And Necromancers rarely allow death to inconvenience them. Yes, I know. How irritating when immortals fight. You do realise that if I were standing right there you would be dead now?”
I made an exasperated sound. “Of course. And you would be dead, incapacitated or imprisoned. This is Camaalis castle.” I pitched my voice at its most condescending - Rick has given me a lot of practice. “Must we have such grandstanding?”
“It is rather expected of one, when one is a supervillain. Still, I am glad we had this opportunity to talk. It helps us... clarify things. I will now bid you farewell.”
I opened my mouth to reply and gasped. All air was torn out of my lungs. I felt the curse surge in and locked my shields in place as the last of my breath left me - consciousness following soon after.
For the record I'm not sure what happened to Kyernath and I'm not sure I like it. The alien deformed and monstrous creature is what I envisaged - not this. I'm not sure I like what it has become. I'm also pretty certain it's not only been done before, but it's been done so often to the point of being tiresome.
But, I also know I don't care because it is now WRITTEN and I can now IGNORE it. And yes, I know this is why i could never be a professional writer
I followed them, only half aware as I gathered my power. If we were fighting Kyernath, it would be my magic that carried the day, my magic that matched his. All the powers, skills and ancient enchantments of my family could not match the sheer destruction of Sorcery. My power flowed through me, my long extinguished wards burned fitfully, their colours dulled, their powers long since spent. I rode the power, controlling it, separating it from my mind, thoughts coming clear despite the wash of euphoria, despite the desperate dark urges surging forwards begging, demanding to be released, demanding to be unleashed, raging against the fragile constraints of will I had erected to hold back its corrupting force. It waxed forth - strong and dark and...
“Get out of my kitchen!” Someone hit me, hard. I staggered back, grabbing my arm. I could feel the bruise starting to form. My power swelled threateningly. “And no magic either! You should all know better.” I blinked and focused on Cook angrily waving a wooden spoon and her accent thickening with anger. I took two hurried steps back behind the elders, clinging desperately to hold my magic.
“You should know better, Doyle Camaalis, yes you should!” The large woman advanced menacingly on the much shorter Elder. “Bringing this crowd into my kitchen, and with magic besides! A child of 6 knows better!”
“Cook, we...” Doyle began.
“OUT!” Cook roared jabbing her spoon towards our feet like a spear. Ahrimadan hissed, his ears flattening. “For the thousandth time! No familiars, demons, spirits, mythical creatures or slimy things with tentacles in my kitchen. It is not hygienic, Doyle, and it makes it impossible to cook besides. Especially that fish stealing menace.”
I rather thought that the kitchen staff were considerably lucky that he was only stealing fish, but consider it wiser to remain silent on the point.
“Cook! This important!” Doyle said, sounding uncharacteristically ruffled. I felt a spark of wry amusement - mighty Camaalis may be, but in Cook’s kitchen there was never any question of who was in charge.
“Aye, it usually is.” She folded her large arms and sternly stared at Doyle. I was impressed - he didn’t wilt even slightly under her eyes. Behind him I could see other Camaalis arriving, called by Prisa.
My gut clenched. Something screamed - incredibly loud yet just on the edge of hearing. The power roiling through me rocked and raged. Instinctively I reached out to Ahrimadan, down the connection we had forged. I sank into confusion for a long moment, unable to reconcile my human brain with the Infernal and feline senses Ahrimadan fed me and my own Sorcerous vision. Slowly I regained my balance, mastered all my powers together and opened my Sight.
The kitchen was huge, so huge you rarely noticed just how many people scurried between the counters and ovens. Cook presided over a relative army of undercooks and scullions. And all of them were cursed. It lay on them thick and heavy and unbelievably powerful. When they were all together it was magnified several hundred fold - all linked together... rising up, reaching for -
“Doyle!” I spun round to the elders - to see the curse stop, held back by a shimmering wall of scintillating, brilliant white.
“They are safe, Darren, but I cannot hold it forever.” Caoimhe’s cool, steady voice came from behind the barrier of light
“Caoimhe?”
“Prisa called me. The Elder Prophets are rarely unprepared and never surprised.”
My Sight screamed as the curse rose behind me. It was Sorcery and I smiled as I pushed it away from me. It lashed out, forcing me to jump backwards, rolling over a counter out of it’s reach. I felt the threads of Infernalism guiding the curse with a demonic intelligence and intent and the cold chill of Necromancy giving it death’s inevitable hunger. I countered power with power. Sorcery to master destruction, Infernalism to command the demonic, Necromancy to imitate the cold of the grave and demand death’s obedience.
It stopped, a scarce few feet away... but didn’t turn back. I pulled up more power, channelled all the magic I had ever called my own into the thing. Every ounce of Sorcery, Infernalism and Necromancy I had ever know I pulled together, concentrated and forced into the roiling curse. It moved... a few inches, a foot... a yard... it’s edges weakened, became fuzzier. It shrank and broke up in places, fading and attenuating.
My breath came raggedly as I let down every barrier I’d ever had. Years of repressing my power was stripped away. Every mental barrier, every moment of reticence was stripped away. I stood there, a gleaming avatar of my power, surging as I bathed in the triple magics I held. Again the curse stuttered, shrank, was weakened... and again, it wasn’t enough. I had the power, but the curse moved and shifted, twisted in ways I couldn’t follow, forming spells I didn’t know.
I had the power, but not the skill or knowledge to match this.
“Ahrimadan!” I gasped.
Then I heard the laughter behind me. It was low but echoed unnaturally. “Ah, little Sorcerer, thou didst not think it wouldst be so simple?”
I jerked round, fury finding pushing my magic even further. Ahrimadan grinned at me. “Ahrimadan?”
“Didst thou think thou wouldst master me forever... Darren? Thou art powerful, little Sorcerer, very powerful. But there are powers still greater than thee. In thy folly, thou hast forgotten what I am!” He threw back his head and yowled. A simple feline yowl but from it emerged a scream that defied the ears to hear. Nothing of this world could make such a sound - and precious few could hear it and hold on to sanity.
I was one of them.
I pulled all my power back into myself and focused on my familiar. “I forget nothing, daemon.” I threw my power into him, rough and undirected, a pure hammer blow of force. He screamed again and I felt his vast power rise in answer. The power of a Daemon lord, a duke. A greater Daemon and one of the greatest of the hellish powers.
“No.” I said. One word, firm and quiet, but my power was not quiet. My Infernalism wrapped around the daemon demanded and commanded. Perhaps I would not have been strong enough to contain him, perhaps, on his own, he would have been able to overwhelm me. I felt his power swell above mine, many orders greater and mightier than I had ever imagined. But he was my familiar and he had accepted the familiar bond - a bond forged through my Infernal power and his acceptance.
I was an Infernalist, not a Daemon Sworn. We ruled Daemons, they did not rule us.
His power fell back, not forced to retreat, but commanded to do so. He screamed again, but in that unholy sound I heard his rage and frustration.
“I haven’t forgotten who I am. I am an Infernalist. I am your master. You are my familiar, mine to command, mine to control!” I lashed out with my Sorcery, pain and destruction to make even a Daemon tremble. All rage and anger left Ahrimadan’s scream, scourged away by agony and unprecedented fear. Yowling, all trace of the daemonic fading, the cat skittered from the room.
Then the curse engulfed me from behind.
I couldn’t stop it, I only had a second to raise a shield of Sorcery, a mastery of destruction to ward destruction while I sank into the deep, cold heart of Necromancy. Life leeched from me, frustrating the curse’s hunger. Daemonic intelligence tried to guide it but was deflected by my Infernalism.
I waited for it to press, to overcome my defences, to show the skill of its crafting... but we remained locked in an oddly quiet stalemate.
“So, you are Camaalis’ pet Sorcerer?” A voice spoke, quiet but rich and deep. Almost the voice of a classically trained actor. It had a perfect, formal, slightly dated aristocratic English accent. A Camaalis accent. “What a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Kyernath, at your service.”
How very civilised. I replied in kind. “Darren, of House Camaalis. Though we haven’t met you have sent us some rather tasteless gifts. Some of them are still staining my living room carpet.”
“Camaalis? Upon my word! Are they experimenting again? Trying to rehabilitate another naughty Sorcerer? They tried that with me as well. And there were three, no four before. All quite quite appalling failures. You have to admire Camaalis’ persistence.” He exclaimed.
“Camaalis did not become the greatest magical force in the world by accepting failure.” I said, strangely calm yet surrounded by the curse.
“Quite so. And yet, without you I might have brought this great force down by now. I don’t suppose you would consider joining me?” he asked, his tone making it clear he didn’t expect me to.
“No, I think not.”
“No, I didn’t think so. One has to ask, of course. Very tiresome. Of course, it’s probably for the best. Sorcerers rarely play nicely together. But still, you are a Sorcerer, Infernalist and Necromancer. That is a good deal too close to my powers to have you playing with Camaalis. You have already quite annoying ruined some of my better plans. Perhaps you can be encouraged to step aside?”
“And when you defeat Camaalis or Camaalis defeats you the winner gets the special prize of tearing me apart? Somehow that fails to appeal.” I couldn’t quite believe I was having a polite conversation with Kyernath...
“I could promise to leave you alone, though I suspect it may be a waste of time.” He mused thoughtfully.
“You’re not such a fool. You said it yourself, Sorcerer’s rarely play nicely together. Are you really going to let a Magician live free who has nearly identical powers to your own? I find it implausible.” I replied.
“Succinctly put. Can we taken it as given that I threatened you most horrifically and you were unmoved by such blandishments? It would rather speed things along.” He asked in a most civilised tones.
“Of course,” I replied “so long as we assume I said something defiant and terribly witty in response.”
“Naturally, wouldn’t dream of it being otherwise.” He continued. “Now, to the business at hand. I could just kill you here.”
“I thought we had already covered pointless threats?”
“You are surrounded by my magic, Darren. What’s to stop me just ending this rivalry right now?”
For a moment I felt a chill of fear, but I refused to let doubt creep in. I was a mage, doubt was fatal. “Don’t be tiresome, Kyernath. You may be better than me, maybe even stronger - I certainly can’t co-opt or claim your magic, or even easily dispel it but you have sent this curse across the Atlantic. That’s a long way.”
“Even from here it could kill you.”
I snorted. “If I let it. Sorcerer’s are not easily killed.”
“And Necromancers rarely allow death to inconvenience them. Yes, I know. How irritating when immortals fight. You do realise that if I were standing right there you would be dead now?”
I made an exasperated sound. “Of course. And you would be dead, incapacitated or imprisoned. This is Camaalis castle.” I pitched my voice at its most condescending - Rick has given me a lot of practice. “Must we have such grandstanding?”
“It is rather expected of one, when one is a supervillain. Still, I am glad we had this opportunity to talk. It helps us... clarify things. I will now bid you farewell.”
I opened my mouth to reply and gasped. All air was torn out of my lungs. I felt the curse surge in and locked my shields in place as the last of my breath left me - consciousness following soon after.