Victor of Tucson-12.28 Betrayals of the Mind
28 – Betrayals of the Mind
Victor roared with gleeful rage as Lifedrinker, limned in the glowing edge of the Paragon of the Axe, finally found her way past the spectral harvester’s guard and ripped his ghostly torso to tatters. He burst in an explosion of death-attuned Energy that geysered into the smoke-filled sky, dispersing through the veil. The spirit’s bonds were severed; his service to Vesavo ended. Victor held Lifedrinker aloft, and together they screamed their defiance, their vengeful desire for the glory of combat.
His fiery domain echoed with his roar—more than that, it responded to it. Geysers of lava erupted from the flows, the stony peak shook and rumbled, and a fresh plume of black smoke spewed into the hazy gray sky. Victor had truly awakened the earth, and he was feeding off its Energy just as much as it drew strength from him. The air was thick with it—fiery magma and hot rage.
With his veil walker’s senses, his attunement to the Energy in the world, he could see the broad rivers of crimson and ochre flowing around in a great web, pulled up and out of the pocket dimension’s depths. Vesavo’s dark blue-black streamers, his flimsy web, built from the geysers he’d sent skyward at the start of their contest, were gone, torn to shreds and burned away. But where was he?
With the skeletons and the specter gone, their spirits free—banished from the physical plane—Victor scanned his fiery realm. Even as he looked around, he inhaled, drawing the rich Energy into himself, replenishing his Core and even swelling his Breath Core, cultivating without any effort. His eyes drifted over the thick rivulets of Energy he’d pulled from the heart of the dungeon’s pocket dimension, and he wondered: how much was in there? How much could it give before it began to fall apart?
Dar seemed to think it could handle anything he threw at it. The place was designed for battles between veil walkers, after all. Still, as Victor had learned well, there were veil walkers and then there were veil walkers. Smirking at the thought, he followed the faint trail of blue, ethereal Energy along one of his magma rivers, and there he saw Vesavo, clad in his dark bone armor, constructing a formation out of skull-topped spears.
Victor frowned, a low growl rumbling in his throat. How had the man gotten those formation markers? Arona had warned him, but he’d thought he’d gotten lucky; the Death Caster wouldn’t be able to use them in the duel. Victor shook his head; they must have been made small by an enchantment—shrunk to the point where he could hold them in a pocket or wear them on his body. Hefting Lifedrinker, he resolved to put an end to the contest. He focused on an area near the Death Caster and cast Tactical Reposition.
One second, he was half a mile away; the next, he was looming over the tiny Death Caster. He lifted Lifedrinker’s gigantic blade and hacked her down, only for her to stop short. The air over Vesavo and his little formation shimmered with brilliant light that shot down into his skull-topped spears. They blazed with the transferred kinetic Energy and then, somehow, transformed it into death-attuned energy that streamed directly into Vesavo.
“Hah, fool. You thought I wouldn’t prepare for the likes of you?” Suddenly, the spears flared with bright light again, and Victor felt a tug on his Core. They were drawing Energy! Not just from him, but also from the environment. All around him, the hot crimson and ochre flows shifted, bleeding into the air, like water toward a drain—Vesavo’s formation.
Victor stared, at first dismissive of the tactic; his will was too strong. He was keeping his Energy in his Core, but… If Vesavo could drain the Energy from the environment and capture the Energy from Victor’s attacks, his strength would only mount with time. He took a gigantic step back, resting Lifedrinker on his shoulder as he stared at the bone-clad Death Caster. He could imagine at least one solution to his predicament, but it seemed almost too easy. There had to be a catch…
###
“Your boy looks stymied,” Lo’ro said, nudging Dar. Arona scowled, turning her attention back to the window. Victor did look stumped as he watched Vesavo gathering more and more Energy. Was he trying to decide what to do?
“He’s thinking,” Tes remarked almost lazily, reaching for one of the meat skewers Dar’s servants had recently served. “He sees the obvious; now he wonders what Vesavo hides.”
“You give him much credit,” Lo’ro replied. “Does he know the old Necromancer so well?”
Arona was quick to answer. “I know him better than anyone, and Victor knows what I told him.” Good! She’d made it clear: the responsibility for any failing would lie squarely on her shoulders.
“And what do you think is going on here?” Dar asked, turning his blazing gaze toward her.
“He knows he could utterly destroy the earth on which that formation is planted. He could create a fissure or even, I suppose, raise another mountain.”
“My thoughts precisely,” Dar agreed.
“But,” Arona said, holding up a finger, “I told him that Vesavo is a master at collecting Energy. I told him, ‘If he has time to establish a foothold, he can draw Energy from the air, the earth, the water, even from his foes. He can take any type of Energy and transform it into a miasmic flow.’ So, Victor, having seen him establish this formation, is being cautious; if he attempts to sunder the earth, Vesavo might be able to draw the Energy away, becoming stronger for Victor’s efforts.”
“Did he have a plan for such an occasion?” Dar asked, concern entering his tone; perhaps this was the first time he wondered if Victor might lose, spoiling their little plan.
Arona shrugged, a little spiteful spike of pleasure tickling her heart at the creases on the Great Master’s forehead. “I imagine so. In any case, I’m still betting on him.”
###
Vesavo couldn’t contain a chortle as he saw the titanic figure step away, eyeing him and his formation with evident wariness. “Good,” he hissed, knowing his Gravebone Armor would keep his voice from emanating—not unless he wanted it to. At a thought, the bone plates shifted, lengthening to enhance his height and reach. He stood at the center of his formation and continued to fortify it with a weave of Energy—layer after layer—a repetition of his many subjugation spells.
He’d conquered worlds with this magic, turning the very fabric of the soil and air against his foes, twisting it with death Energy and his clever aura infiltrations. Victor had withstood a direct assault—oh, he’d done more than that! Vesavo chuckled, shaking his head. What violent Energy! Still, he had plans within plans, and the brute was falling right into them.
His thoughts were confirmed as he felt a dark tide of Energy—a torrent that made the hot, angry swell that had raised the damnable mountain from the ground seem small. “Good,” he grunted again, finishing another weave of Energy, tying his skull totems into their Energy-gathering mesh. Vesavo had captured the Energy of entire armies. He’d turned continents black with death using his foes’ power against them. “Give me more, you bastard, and rest assured your spirit will replace one of those you cost me!”
Torrents of black Energy swirled around the titan, but he didn’t throw it out at Vesavo; he gathered it close to himself, encasing his gigantic frame with it. Vesavo frowned. Another transformation? He’d seen the fool destroy Arona’s band of bullies in the Iron Prison; did the boy think he’d startle Vesavo into abandoning his formation? “You waste your efforts, boy,” he taunted, allowing his voice to project from his bony helmet.
A terrible shriek split the… night? Had the boy’s volcano blotted out the sun? Vesavo peered into the darkness, but it didn’t seem like smoke; there was no orange haze where the sun would be hiding. No, it was utterly dark out there. He jerked his gaze to his skull totems and smiled when he saw the tendrils of shadowy, purple-black Energy drifting into them. So the lad had done more than encase himself in shadow; he’d cast some sort of area spell.
Stolen story; please report.
“No matter,” he said, grinning inside his bony encasement, watching as his totems slowly gobbled the dark stuff. Soon enough, he’d build up a pool large enough to summon Saghar the World Eater—an undead champion so mighty that it took three times Vesavo’s entire pool of Energy to bring him out of his slumber. Vesavo stepped closer to one of his totems, pressing a bone-covered hand against the skull. It was working—slower than in a true world, but it was working. Saghar would come, and he would destroy the upstart—at the very least, he’d weaken him enough for Vesavo to finish the job.
Suddenly, a delicate, pale hand with lilac-painted nails slipped out of the shadowy dark to gently touch Vesavo’s. He blinked. Where was his armor? The touch was hauntingly familiar. The hand—those nails—even more so. A voice from his youth echoed out of the darkness as the soft, warm fingers curled around his palm. “Vesavo? Have you come at last?”
If Vesavo’s heart still pumped blood, it would have frozen in his chest. It didn’t matter that his heart had long succumbed to the rituals of his undeath, turning to black sludge in his chest; his mind was stunned in any case. “Impossible.” It was! It had to be Lo’ro. Somehow, that bastard had gotten his construct into the dungeon. Somehow, he’d violated the rules. Hadn’t he spurned Lo’ro’s vile creation? It had been nothing like Reeva! There was no— 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
A pale face drifted out of the shadows, and somehow, the woman was there, striding right through his formation. “Vesavo. There’s a rip in the veil. We’ve found each other!”
“No…” he managed to say, choking out the word. He moved to lift his visor, but his bone armor was already gone. How?
“Yes! At last, we are together again. At last, you can explain everything to me!”
“Ex-explain?” Vesavo took a step back, but she moved with him—ghostly, but whole. Her eyes were the same as he remembered—far too perfect to be Lo’ro’s shoddy imitation. Lavender irises, flecked with silver—they stared into his eyes as tears pooled in those moon-shaped orbs.
“Why, Vesavo? Why did you agree? Why did you let my father sell—”
“No! No, I didn’t, Reeva! I didn’t! I swear! It was my father! My father made me! He threatened to disinherit, to—”
“Was my life worth so little? My love? Could we not have fled? Could you not have stood for me?” Her pale fingers grasped the back of his neck, gentle at first, but as he tried to step back, he found them firm as iron. She pressed against him, and as she spoke again, he realized her lips weren’t moving. “My death wasn’t easy. I was used for vile studies. Can you make it better? Can you help me now, my love?”
Suddenly, her smooth, pale skin fell away, replaced by red, pus-oozing boils. Her lips parted at last, revealing gums populated with rusty iron nails. She extended a tongue reminiscent of a squid’s tentacle, and as it slithered over his chin, prying at his lips, Vesavo’s last shred of sanity fled. In his haste to escape, he stumbled, and she clung to him like a shadow, sliding her awful tongue into his mouth.
Vesavo’s thrashed, pulling at her, screaming soundlessly as the appendage wormed its way into him. He could hear wailing all around him. In his panic, he looked past her, desperate for help. Where was his father? At the thought, he saw the old man, huge and corpulent, with burgundy lips moist from his wine. He stared, watching, a hand on his belly, as Reeva took her vengeance. How? How?
###
Victor, wearing the guise of his Abyssal Tyrant, slowly circled the Death Caster—a vulture watching its prey expire. He was a nightmare incarnate, a thing of black feathers, scales, and shadow. His talons gleamed darkly in his gray-tinted vision, the absence of light irrelevant. Energy flowed everywhere; his prey shone with it. The brightness of its spirit was tantalizing, but the terror bleeding off it was yet thin—and then there was the matter of the barrier.
It drew in the nightmare Energy of his realm. It drank the crimson Energy from the hot rivers. Its hunger was waning, though, and Victor’s was endless. As its prey squirmed in its bony case, contending with the torments of its own mind, Victor watched, circling ever closer, waiting for it to slip past that invisible barrier—any small part.
“Come,” he hissed, watching the thing kick its legs, wriggling on its back. Its bony head was close to one of the spears. Victor’s long black tongue slithered along his razored beak, saliva dripping in anticipation. The currents of terror bleeding away from the spirit were growing thicker. It screamed and choked; it gagged and kicked; its arms slammed the ground, slammed itself, as it tried to throw some nightmare off—but nightmares were a thing of the mind and spirit.
Finally, it wriggled past that totem-spear, and Victor descended—a mercury-quick shadow that fell like an avalanche of scales, feathers, and talons. His mighty claw—made dense and devilishly sharp by the incorporation of Lifedrinker into his form—hooked that bony head, punching through the bony armor, and Victor yanked Vesavo from his sanctuary. He threw the tiny figure against the rocky soil and squatted upon it, driving his talons through the armor, just enough to puncture the soft flesh within, but not sufficient to kill the thing—not until he’d drunk his fill.
###
Everyone in Dar’s Pavilion was on their feet, close to the viewing window, staring into the swirling, grasping shadows as the enchanted eye searched through them, trying to find a clear image of the battle. Finally, near the ground, it rotated, and there they saw a thing of horror—a great, shadow-clad thing of black scales and feathers, part serpent, part bird of prey, part otherworldly terror. It squatted over Vesavo’s bone-clad form, mighty, obsidian talons puncturing and cracking his shell as the gleaming black beak and the depthless eyes peered into Vesavo’s shattered helmet.
“Dead Gods,” Lo’ro whispered. “How did he get through his barrier—his formation?”
Dar pointed to the swirling shadows where a totem still glimmered, drawing wisps of smoke and shadow into the skull atop it. “He didn’t.”
“He drove him out,” Tes said, moving close to rest a delicate hand on Arona’s shoulder.
“Mind magic?” Lo’ro guessed. “I had no idea he—”
“Not exactly,” Arona said, unable to hide the judgment in her voice. “He’s a pure Spirit Caster, the bane of a withered old Death Caster.”
“Spirit… right,” Lo’ro said, ignoring or utterly oblivious to her clumsily veiled insult. “I recall now: the geists I helped him collect—fear and rage.”
“Look at Vesavo squirm,” Dar said, pride evident in his voice. “Victor’s feeding on his fear.”
“A feedback loop. The more he feeds, the greater Vesavo’s fear, and the more Victor feeds—” Lo’ro chuckled, clapping Dar on the shoulder. “And so on.”
“It’s worse than you think,” Tes remarked, pointing to Victor’s talons embedded in Vesavo’s bony armor.
“What do you see?” Dar asked, leaning close.
“His talons; they’re not his flesh. They’re made up of his axe, and she has a thirst of her own.”
“Lifedrinker!” Dar laughed, clapping his hands with a sound like a boulder cracking. “Such a perfect union those two have…”
He continued speaking, but Arona had stopped listening. She was looking back at the couch, suddenly aware of Cora’s absence. She still sat there, her eyes closed, hands clenched into fists. “Excuse me,” she whispered, pulling away from Tes. She moved to sit beside Cora and took one of her white-knuckled fists in her hand. “Hey.”
Cora looked up. Her eyes, drops of chocolate under her heavy dark brows, were filled with tears. She blinked them away, sniffing. “Sorry.”
“Whatever for? Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a whisper as she leaned close to Arona, though there wasn’t any need for secrecy—not with Dar and Lo’ro carrying on. “I couldn’t watch. Everyone thought my father was winning…until he wasn’t. Is it over?”
Arona looked over her shoulder. Tes was still watching the screen closely, but she seemed relaxed. She knew, and Arona was inclined to agree. “Yes, it’s over. I’ve seen Victor take a foe like this before; there’s no escaping at this point.” She could see Cora wasn’t convinced, so she added, “I know Vesavo, sweet girl. He doesn’t have an answer for this. Victor woke something in his mind—overcame his will. Vesavo is defeating himself even as Victor and Lifedrinker drain his Energy. It’s over.”
She stood and tugged on Cora’s hand, helping her to her feet. “Come. Let’s get some air. Victor will emerge soon.” It was strange to Arona, taking on that role—the comforting older—what? Sister? Aunt? Great-grandmother? She snorted, shaking her head as they stepped out of the pavilion into the bright blue sky and the gusting wind. After watching Victor’s nightmare realm, it was positively soul-cleansing. “You know, you remind me a little of myself.”
“I do?” Cora asked, squinting in the bright light as they walked toward the boulevard-like lane that led up to the mountain between the more prominent pavilions.
“Yes, we’re both marked by tragedy. I like to imagine I would have been like you—good—if someone had gotten me away from Vesavo when I was just a little girl.”
Cora looked at her sideways. “You’re one of the nicest people I know.”
“That’s because my soul is scarred with dark deeds, sweetheart. I’m trying to make amends. It’s not really my nature—it’s an effort.” As she said the words, Arona’s eyes filled with moisture, and she looked away, furious at the dark thoughts that clamored for attention. To keep them at bay, to quiet the voices, she focused on Cora. “Talk to me. Tell me something you’re excited about.”
“I’m excited to see Victor walk down those steps!”
Arona managed a hoarse laugh. “Me as well! Something else, though—something I don’t know.”
“I’m eager to go back to Iron Mountain. I’m eager for Victor to be done with his war… and whatever he’s got going on with those two.” She pointed toward Dar’s pavilion.
“Yes, me as well, Cora, me as well. Don’t worry, however. Victor’s part is mostly done on Sojourn. He might have to speak to someone—convince him to… focus his anger on the right people. Other than that, I believe we’ll be going to Dark Ember soon. Now, that will be interesting for you. Wait until you see the citadel we’ve been building there.”
“We?”
“Our army. Well, Victor’s army. Lesh will be there, and Edeya, Lam, even Darren.”
“Are you sure Victor will bring me?”
“Yes, I believe so.” Arona sighed, relieved that the voices had faded, taking with them the dark images. She put an arm over Cora’s shoulders and pulled her close. Pointing toward the distant stone stairs. “Watch now. He’ll come down any minute.”
