On a Knife’s Edge: Chapter Eight – How the Mighty Fall
===== (Deepmines)
[Obviously very powerful,] Fen’rir noted as Azu approached confidently, [to walk without fear among the Kha’rall. Either that, or he is simply unintelligent.]
Aa’une answered, [See how the Kha’rall avoid his gaze? The reason he doesn’t fear the Kha’rall is because they fear him.]
Azu smiled and greeted Aa’une casually. “Why, hello! I don’t believe we’ve personally met!”
Aa’une narrowed his eyes. “I am Aa’une the Oligarch. You will not use such an informal tone with me.”
Azu smirked. “Really, now? So you’re right up there with royalty, aren’t you? I think that, as fellow members of the high class, our manner of speech might be a tad bit more relaxed.”
“What do you mean, ‘members of the high class’?” Aa’une scoffed. “Are you suggesting that you are on the same level as me?”
Azu merely widened his grin. Fen’rir responded silently to Aa’une, [I think he is. Did you pay any attention to the back of the human’s hand?]
Aa’une quickly glanced at Azu’s hands. “That mark…. You think that mark qualifies you? You hold no throne. Neither do your son or grandchildren.”
Azu looked surprised. “So you’ve met them.” Then his cheerful face reappeared. “But wouldn’t you agree that having power is what grants class? Surely, as an Oligarch, you can appreciate the wisdom behind that.”
[So, that is the reason the Kha’rall fear him,] Fen’rir mused. [Peer into their minds, my son.]
[A ruthless display of mental ability,] Aa’une confirmed. [It seems similar to Walter’s power.]
[THAT is the point I’m trying to make,] Fen’rir added. [It IS Walter’s power, simply in a refined and unlimited form.]
Azu raised an eyebrow. “Just who are you thinking to? ‘It seems similar to Walter’s power’?” When Aa’une didn’t seem affected by Azu’s mind reading, Azu continued in a threatening voice, “Am I going to have to wrestle that information out of your mind?”
[Stand aside, Aa’une,] Fen’rir ordered. [The human must be taught respect.]
Azu was growing impatient. “Is anyone in there? I really don’t like being ignAHH!” Azu’s body suddenly lifted several feet off of the ground.
Aa’une’s mouth opened, but a deeper, ground-shaking voice came out instead. “Do not trivialize an encounter with a M’arrillian, human. By treading into this place with a display of mental power, you have issued a challenge. This may not have been your intent, but as the strongest M’arrillian in the Deepmines, I accept this challenge.”
Azu laughed. “Does the challenge involve a wager? No, wait. Don’t tell me. The winner confiscates the powers of the ***. Am I right?”
“Indeed.”
Azu bragged, “Then prepare to hand it over! Down, dog!”
Absolutely nothing happened. Azu repeated, “I said DOWN!”
Fen’rir grinned. “With pleasure.”
Azu’s body was suddenly thrown to the ground. His fall ended mere inches from the ground. Azu began to breathe heavily from the effort of catching himself suspended in mid-air.
Fen’rir chuckled, “Do you want to know how to REALLY do it? DOWN!!!”
Azu fell the rest of the way to the ground and landed spread-eagled on his back. Lifting up his head to scowl at Fen’rir, Azu snapped his fingers, causing electricity to arc between his hands. Azu rolled to his feet and threw several crackling bolts at the M’arrillian.
Fen’rir yawned and casually batted Azu’s attack aside, where it dissipated harmlessly on the wall. “Could you possibly be any more boring?”
Azu’s face blazed with viciousness. Reaching his hands towards Fen’rir in a grabbing motion, he shrieked, “Give me your SOUL!!!”
Fen’rir’s breathing seized up, and an angry violet light began to pour from his mouth like syrup. Even then, Fen’rir managed to smile. “You think your Silver-voice can do anything. But you’ve lived a short time; not nearly long to master the ways of the Silvertongue.”
The violet light now stretched halfway to Azu’s hands. Azu laughed, “How would you know what power I can wield? Last time I checked, I was the longest lived Silvertongue on Earth!”
Another stream of violet light erupted from Fen’rir chest when the original light reached Azu’s hand, these traveling faster. Fen’rir agreed, “Yes, on Earth you are longest lived. But are all Silvertongues human?”
It dawned on Azu what Fen’rir was talking about. “You aren’t a mere psychic, are you?” Then he laughed again. “But I’ve already beaten you!”
“Really?” Fen’rir muttered. “Can the power of your soul overcome mine?”
Several streams of violet light burst out of Fen’rir and lashed out at Azu. One hit the human in the face, knocking him off his feet. Azu’s cry of pain was cut short as that stream of light forced itself down his open throat.
As Azu struggled against Fen’rir’s soul, he heard Fen’rir sigh. “Ah, I see it all. Your past. Your memories.”
One stream of light burrowed through Azu’s shirt and plastered itself to his chest. Fen’rir muttered, “Hopes, dreams, fears.” Fen’rir’s soul continued to shread clothing and to attach itself to Azu’s skin.
A minute later, Fen’rir’s smile faltered. “You aren’t complete, Azu. I cannot find a drop of real emotion in your soul. True, the body still reacts with fear and anger, but your mind and spirit remain emotionally absent.” After another moment, Fen’rir’s eyes widened. “Your memories show that you were tortured in your early adult life: beaten and taken advantage of by a person long dead. So THERE is the reason for your ruthlessness…”
----- (???)
“Wake up…”
Blade opened her eyes. She wished she hadn’t. She laid on a cold stone floor littered with corpses.
“Stand…”
Blade stood. There was no way to disobey the voice.
“Look…”
Blade immediately gazed around at the dead bodies. All of them felt somehow familiar.
The voice spoke again, “Every creature, be they from Perim or Earth, expects proper treatment of his or her body after they no longer reside in it. To some, that means burning the body after death. To others, it is a burial, with or without possessions. Still others choose to nourish the living when they pass away. And still others give their bodies to those who can save other lives…
“You have gone beyond the crimes of simple grave robbers. Your actions even exceed the sins of necromancers. You have taken bodies to use as if they were your own…
“Look around. Here are all that you have desecrated…”
Blade immediately remembered each and every face she saw. Bodies she’d possessed for days, and bodies she used for mere seconds, they were all there, exactly the way they were when she had first touched them.
“Turn around, and see your foulest acts…” the voice ordered.
Blade turned, and she shrank back from the sight she saw. Her own dead body, the first she’d possessed when she died, was lying on its side, face to face with another body, the second she’d possessed: Raquez’s. Unlike the other bodies, their positions had changed.
Raquez’s armor had shattered, and its remnants trailed behind him. Blade’s clothing had been torn to shreds as well, its pieces mirroring Raquez’s armor. Raquez’s and Blade’s unclothed bodies were holding each other tightly with their arms and legs, and their faces were both cold and expressionless.
“Disgusting…” the voice spat. “You stayed in the realm of the living to finally live out your goal with Raquez’s deceased body. But you couldn’t be satisfied. You chased his descendants across five hundred years, eventually across an ocean, and finally to a completely different world to slake you thirst for him…”
Blade spun around, trying to find the source of the voice. “Who are you? Show yourself!”
“I’m right behind you,” the voice said clearly, without a disguise.
Blade froze. She hadn’t heard that voice in five centuries. She slowly turned, trembling.
A second Raquez had appeared, this time in his true appearance, rather than the on he had on Earth. The silver marks on his chest and the backs of his hands sparkled despite the lack of a source of light. He wore the clothing he would have worn as a king in Perim, but with a distinct difference: his crown now carried six symbols, five for the tribes of Perim, and a gray hand as the sixth.
Upon seeing Blade shrink away from him, Raquez said, “I have no desire to harm you. I am a simple spirit among many, waiting for the time when all worlds finally enter paradise.” Raquez turned and began to fade away. “However, though our spirits wait in peace, our bodies may still want revenge…”
Blade screamed as a corpse’s hand suddenly latched around her ankle. She looked down and saw that a skeleton had grabbed her. The skeleton’s mouth opened, and a furious voice issued out of it: “My children never saw me. I died fifteen years ago in a car crash. Then you came and used my body to chase them.”
Other corpses were crawling towards Blade now, but only the first continued to talk. “Do you know who I am? I am Jennifer Evangel, wife of Seth Grey. I am the mother of Adam and Walter. I was the only human who ever called my youngest by his true name. My eldest son had to destroy my body beyond recognition to save my family from you.”
Blade tried to escape from the approaching corpses, but everywhere she turned there was another one.
Jennifer continued, “I am going to make you pay. We ALL will make you pay.”
“All except one,” Raquez’s corpse clarified, holding up the head of another corpse. Raquez had torn Blade’s corpse to pieces. “Hammer did warn you, you know. Even if I had agreed, it would be so easy for me to break you by mistake.” Raquez emphasized his point by crushing Blade’s corpse’s head with a single hand. Tossing the gory mess aside, he advanced on Blade’s spirit, saying, “And I think I’m about to make a LOT of mistakes right now.”
Blade screamed with pain and dread as she became buried in bodies, all swearing revenge…
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