Young Writers Society

Chapter 2: Dark Turns and Painful Twists

The figure he believed to be Markoff didn’t collapse or bleed. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even flinched or reacted when the knife hit him. Dera felt confusion worm its tendrils into his mind, followed shortly by an icy fear that seized his guts in its bladed grasp. The cloaked figure lifted its hands leisurely to grasp either side of the hood.

Almost carefree, it lifted the hood slowly and let it fall behind it. Dera’s eyes opened so wide he thought they might pop out if someone slapped his back.

Maybe it was a good thing everyone else was as preoccupied as he was.

The grotesque head was unlike anything Dera had ever seen in all his days, even when serving the Magi as a filthy tool. Above its mouth, where there should have been a face was a gaping pit of rolling darkness that devoured light. The depths stretched from ear to ear and all the way up where its hairline should have begun. The face seemed to grin in satisfaction as everyone able to see it screamed in horror at the sight of the strange monster.

Dera could feel his instincts telling him to run; to run and never look back. He wanted nothing more than to listen and put as much distance behind himself as he could, but it was no use. Even if the soldiers hadn’t been holding him captive in the same position as when he threw his dagger, there was still an impenetrable wall of bodies he would have to compete with.

All Dera could do now was wait for events to unfold.

And, he thought ruefully, regret that he hadn’t listened to his inner turmoil before it was far too late.

The men nearest the manifestation had already began the race for their lives; pushing as far as the mass of bodies would allow. All save the lone man who had had the unfortunate luck of being pinned to the monstrosity. He tugged at the blade to no avail as the blackness spread from the pit and consumed what was left of the decoy. The dark body within the cloak merged with the rest of the pitch-black robe, forming an independent shadow.

In the blink of the eye, the specter broke apart into a swirling cloud of dark particles and evil magic.

In the next blink, the storm condensed itself down to a tiny sphere of rolling darkness freely floating.

And, before there could be a third, it detonated in a deafening roar and dark flash that began consuming everything near it. It had plenty of victims, the courtyard wasn’t big to begin with, and what little space it had was packed to the brim with soldiers standing at attention.

Dera’s body quaked with fear, yet his heart was quiet with the cold acceptance of fate. Hopefully, if there were something more to all of this pathetic existence, he would find himself reunited with his family.

The swirling vortex of energy expanded; vaporizing all organic material it came across, yet leaving inert material untouched. Men were turning to dust before his eyes; their sooty armor falling to the ground in pieces without the bodies to bind it all. Their cries for mercy fell on deaf ears, snuffed out as the edge of the field overtook them, trapping all sound and light in its dark vacuum.

The field was mere inches from him when Dera took a deep breath and let the darkness in his mind fade into the corners of his consciousness where it belonged. He would face his doom as the man his family loved, not the man they should have been ashamed of.

He stood there, facing his quickly impending doom steadfast and hollow, regretting how things had turned out and wishing for things that could never be.

He wished he could kiss his wife once more.

Or fold his son one final time.

And tell them he loved them just one more time.

But, just as he was to be, his dreams and empty hopes crumbled to dust as the field reached him.

An involuntary scream tore itself from the depths of his being as the energy reached the tips of his outstretched fingers. Dera wished he could drop his arm, but the fools holding him were frozen in shock. The perimeter of energy pushed up past his hand and towards his elbow as his body twisted in agony and his arm turned to dust inside his armor. It wasn’t like being trapped in a whirlwind of razors as he thought it would be; it felt more like a cold fire was burning his arm away one thin layer at a time.

Dera was about to pull himself from his frozen captors and throw himself into the vortex; a quicker end than being devoured inch by inch by this all-consuming mass. He never got the chance, just as its grip reached the end of his forearm the field stopped expanding. Apparently its hunger had been sated.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. It sucked back in on itself, shrinking down to a tiny, single mote of darkness that vanished with a pop. A shockwave flew out in all directions; all the witnesses airborne and sending them rolling end over end as if they’d been caught in a tornado.

Dera fell flat on the ground clutching his stinging stump with his off hand while the guards regained a small amount of composure and scrambled away from the dust-covered scene like vermin into the woodworks.

He couldn’t believe it; talk about terrible timing.

Dera laid where he fell, his body had gone into a numbing shock from the intense pain. His mind, however, felt shattered and very much alert as hot tears streamed from his eyes to the ground. It happened again. He sucked in short, ragged breaths while he broke down. He had failed. It had happened again.

His tears quickly gave way to outrage as he slammed his fist through the downy soot into the hard ground hidden beneath. He failed to protect them, and now, he failed to avenge them. He screamed until his voice was raw, his primal cries of rage tearing his throat shreds and leaving his pained sobs hoarse. He laid there, defeated and screaming, until he heard a sound that froze his being solid.

While everyone else was running away, someone was slowly walking towards him through the aftermath.

Laughing.

Dera slowly looked up and couldn’t believe what his sight was telling him. Standing a short distance away, where that awful confusing magic had appeared, was Jeric.

And another cloaked man.

Dera’s body trembled in the grips of rage, it was enough to force him out of shock and give him control again. He pushed himself up onto his shins, and willed what he saw to be a mirage. He couldn’t believe what his eyes showed him. Or maybe it was that he simply didn’t want it to be true.

He was right, he had overlooked something. He had missed the traitor at his side the whole time.

The serpent in the garden.

His mouth bit at the air slowly; attempting to make words but failing. At last he managed to whisper a single hoarse word.

“You.”

Jeric just kept crowing at him.

He never realized how cruel his laugh sounded until now.

“That’s it? After all we’ve been through?” Jeric walked towards him, an evil grin twisting his face as he continued to mock him, “Not how could you, or why? Just ‘you,’ huh?”

Jeric was close to him now, close enough that he was able to kick Dera brutally in his stomach, forcing blood out of his mouth and tossing him flat on his back in a fresh daze.

Dera heard the crack of his ribs, but he barely felt it. He was so cold now.

“But of course not, why would you want to know the reasons?” Jeric looked at the nails of his folded hand, eyeing their immaculate edges for dirt, “You were always so single-minded, my friend. Poor, poor Dera. Always missing the big picture.”

Jeric’s eyes bore into Dera’s, “Always the last to laugh at the joke.”

He bent towards the prone man, close enough the heat from his breath was uncomfortable on Dera’s clammy skin.

“Well, I’ll try to explain why to you in simple terms,” He cupped his hand and whispered into Dera’s ear as if telling a secret, “If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.”

Dera rolled over and was trying to lift himself off the ground with his trembling hand. He refused to let this traitor talk down to him like he was an animal.

For his troubles he received a swift kick to his chest that left him crumpled and wheezing in the dust.

Jeric tutted and wagged a finger at him, “It’s rude to interrupt, you know. Anyways, as I was saying. You just don’t get how this all works, do you? No, of course you don’t. You’re the bent gear in the clockwork. Don’t you get what the world does to people who are different like you? It grinds them up, spits them out, and replaces them.”

He bent down next to Dera while insulting him and began unfastening the hollow arm from his armor. Dera reached for it as he pulled away, but his trembling hand collapsed onto his chest.

“Sorry, just figured you wouldn’t be needing this anymore. And, well, you know how nice mementos are, right?”

Dera tried again to muster the breath to speak, but it took all his focus to keep his mind afloat in the quiet darkness eating at the edges of his consciousness. He simply didn’t have the strength to do both.

It didn’t matter, he could tell Jeric was content to do enough talking for both of them.

“Seriously though. What could possibly delude you into thinking you’re on the same level as a Magus? What? Because you used to be their mutt, you thought you knew where to bite?” Jeric detached his own vambrace and replaced it with the dark armor after shaking it free of the dust that had once been Dera’s arm.

Dera couldn’t tell if it was internal bleeding or the dusty cascade, but his stomach turned and he nearly vomited.

He turned and faced Dera, wiggling his fingers into place and grinning with glee.

“Look! A perfect fit if I do say so myself. Thanks for the upgrade, I doubt I’d be in a position like this if you hadn’t gotten too big for your britches. Seize the day and such.”

The figure behind Jeric cleared his throat impatiently; growing as weary of Jeric’s reveling as Dera was.

“Like I said. Your mistake, my friend, was forgetting your place in this world. The strong will always rule the weak. You were a fool to think one man could change that.”

With a sarcastic bow, he backed away and fell silent immediately. A well trained hound if Dera had ever seen one, or maybe a cowering rat was more accurate. A hound would have ripped his throat out himself

If he could have found the strength, Dera wasn’t sure which of the bastards standing before him he would strike first. It wouldn’t even be an issue if he still had both hands; he’d run them through at the same time. Another fit of bloody coughs wracked his weak body and interrupted his murderous pondering. He was in no position for thoughts like that.

Between his annihilated arm and the broken ribs, he was a battered shell of himself. A squashed pest awaiting his bleak end miserably. His vision was shaky and continued growing dimmer around the edges. He could see a fuzzy darkness eating at the edges of his sight and was content to allow the blissful sleep to take him.

He could barely see the hooded man approaching him; methodically and with the confidant stride of a cat watching a trapped mouse. At first Dera thought it was the dark ring extending to blot out his vision and snuff his life, but he realized quickly that it was the silent man.

Another gloating asshole here to pay his respects. Wonderful.

He stopped a few feet from Dera’s head; just far enough away to leave Dera straining see his face from his battered position on the ground. The man dropped his hood, a mirror of the walking bomb’s movements, and finally revealed his face. Rather than a black pit resting above the slight smirk and goatee, there was a sharp nose that gave way to sinister, scarlet eyes.

Dera couldn’t pull his vision away. There was something about those blood-red eyes that made his subconscious cringe. Every Magi he had had the displeasure of meeting had similar eyes, but these were something else altogether. They were unnatural, a physical mark of someone that regularly pulled power from ley lines. They were murky, like coagulated blood, and behind them lay abilities far beyond Dera’s comprehension. They were windows into the framework that held the mind of a Magus; a man who could bend the energy of the world to his whim.

The eyes of a true demon.

The man’s face was neutral and silent. There was no need to reveal his name to Dera. After the disastrous turn of events that had occurred today; it was more than obvious.

Markoff.

“I’ve heard you seek an audience.”

The plain tone startled Dera as much as the inaccuracy of the words spoken; he didn’t seek an audience, he sought blood. It wasn’t the voice of a man who was speaking to his would-be assassin.

It was the voice of a man forced to deal with problems far beneath him, yet could be overlooked no further.

Dera said nothing, refusing to give him the satisfaction of watching him struggle to speak, choosing instead to fill his eye’s with enough hate to match the intensity of Markoff’s own eyes.

Markoff allowed him a moment to speak. It passed by slowly; crawling by just as victims recovering from the horrifying spell were all around them. When it was clear Dera had nothing to say, or lacked the ability to speak, he let out a bored sigh.

“Well, this isn’t working,” he said with disinterest, “Up.”

Markoff lazily stretched his hand out towards Dera, seizing the invisible forces of the world to lift Dera up slowly. Dera gasped for air and grasped at his constricted throat. The intense force of the hold was focused there, giving him the sensation of a victim seized by a noose. It continued lifting until his body began to straighten, bringing new waves of pain from his ribs. All the while his feet scuffled in the dirt, seeking purchase and stability.

Once he was upright and able to meagerly support himself with his feet the pressure lessened considerably, but could still be felt like a collar pulled tight on a frenzied beast. He took a deep, wheezing breath that eased his burning lungs immensely.

Dera was still unsteady and on the brink of unconsciousness. It irritated him beyond belief that he wouldn’t be able to stand if it wasn’t for the support Markoff’s spell offered. Now, instead of lying in the dirt broken and beaten, he was forced to stand in agony; still broken and still beaten.

Dera tried to speak, but all he managed to do was bring about a fresh set of body-wracking coughs that splashed blood into the dust. He swore he could hear his snapped bones clacking together in his belly.

Markoff nodded with silent understanding as Dera regained a small amount of composure, “Here, allow me.”

With a wave of his other hand, Dera’s body felt a flame alight within him. His hands shot from his neck to his abdomen, clutching at its origin as the fire spread throughout his body. It felt like torture, but Dera could feel something else behind the intense burn that took hold of him.

He could feel his bones returning to their natural position. Dera felt a few snaps and a deep itch as the shattered ribs meshed their splintered ends back together and fused into whole pieces once more.

Almost instantaneously, finished with his bones, the fire flowed into his lungs and esophagus where it burned out slowly. As it left his body, it eased the damage he had inflicted upon himself by screaming. That, and the damage done from inhaling the mixture of dirt and corpse dust that hung in the air like fog. This appeared to be the extent of his miraculous recovery.

Dera’s dominant arm still culminated with a throbbing stump; his entire body still ached and groaned for rest. The waves of pain rushing up his crippled arm from the darkened stump showed no signs of backwashing into the ocean of agony. At least it no longer hurt him to breathe; he’d have to accept that as a small mercy from fate. Not much of a break, in his opinion, but beggars hardly had the right to be proud.

Now that he wasn’t lying at death’s door awaiting its chilly embrace, Dera took a look around the chaotic courtyard. Strewn about were piles of now vacant armor; at least forty spare sets of it. He couldn’t believe it. The bomb was meant to kill him, yet it left him alive and instead consumed a third of the soldiers in the basilica. Every single one of which had been a subject of the cruel Magi’s rule.

While one end of the black bubble had pushed harmlessly towards the center of the field, the opposite side had reached one wall and managed to engulf about half of it clear up to the walkway. The wall itself looked fine; the only sign of the madness was a fine dusting coating it like everything else the vortex had touched.

Dera had a sinking feeling that the men caught in the middle of it and the wall didn’t hold up as well. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place; he couldn’t think of a better example of the old adage.