Victor of Tucson-Chapter 16Book 10: : The Void

16 – The Void

Victor stood before his ready gate, fists clenched around Lifedrinker’s haft, leaning heavily on the mighty axe as he fought to push doubt from his mind and focus on a strategy. At the meeting to discuss terms, he’d been disappointed to find King Rogan Bayle there alone—no Loss Chenasta. So, despite his desire to get a look at the guy, he’d been left gnashing his teeth, staring into space while the monarchs hashed out terms.

He'd groused all night, ruining Arona’s celebration of her new vessel; she’d wanted to have a party but had relented, bowing to Victor’s stress about the upcoming duel and leaving him in peace, gamely suggesting she had new spell variants to study in any case. Thinking about it, Victor snorted, shaking his head. “Pendejo.” Even being self-critical, though, he couldn’t fault himself for being nervous. Why was King Bayle so eager for this duel? Why was Loss Chenasta such a mystery? He wished Tes were there.

He almost confided to Lifedrinker, but he knew what the axe would say. Imagining her words—something about showering Chenasta’s blood over the sands, no doubt—lifted his mood, though, and he was almost grinning when the signal came for him to enter the arena. Like last time, the stands were full of rowdy, vociferous spectators. As Victor made his way across the red sand, he glanced up to see Queen Kynna and her retinue watching him. Her guards and retainers were cheering, and he lifted Lifedrinker’s massive blade high in salute.

He was pleased to see Arona sitting close to Bryn. The former Death Caster waved, and Bryn leaned forward, shouting something like, “Fight well, Victor!” He couldn’t quite discern her voice among the clamor, but he could almost read her lips. Victor looked toward King Bayle’s box. The man was there with a retinue of nobles and guards, much like Kynna’s. He was a formidable figure—nearly as large as Victor in his non-berserk state. He carried a massive broadsword and wore gem-studded, flat, gray armor that looked like it would be difficult to pierce.

The king glowered at Victor from beneath his heavy golden crown but then looked away, dismissing him. Victor almost frowned but kept his face neutral as he finally forced himself to look across the sands to his opponent. His first view of Loss Chenasta didn’t exactly impress him, but it did nothing to assuage his doubt. The man was tall for a humanoid, but not giant-sized—maybe seven feet. He wore a black leather vest covered with straps and buckles as though he had to fight the material to stay bound to him. His arms and legs were wound with frayed, black, rope-like rags, and his feet and hands were bare.

Victor frowned at the man, irritated that he couldn’t see his face inside the black cowled hood. Darkness met his stare, so Victor looked down, examining the champion’s only exposed flesh—his hands and feet. They were longer than a human’s, gray-fleshed, and tipped in pointed black claws.

“Huh,” Victor grunted, then he realized Grand Judicator Lohanse had already begun his spiel and was asking the monarchs if they were in favor of the terms and whether they’d stand by the results of the duel. Bayle had been so arrogant during the negotiation that he’d allowed Kynna the opportunity for banishment while he’d agreed that he would give his life should his champion die. Victor had difficulty understanding such a risk, which said a lot, considering his own titanic pride.

“Champions! You will not be permitted to access storage devices or use potions, tinctures, salves, or other consumable aids during this duel. Are you each equipped to your satisfaction?”

Victor sighed at the same old warning and watched as Lohanse swooped over to Chenasta. “Champion of Alvessia?”

Victor held his breath, eager to hear the stranger’s voice. Chenasta disappointed him again, though, simply inclining his head and shoulders in a bow of acquiescence. Victor ground his teeth as Lohanse swooped toward him.

“Champion of Gloria?”

“I’m ready,” he grunted.

Lohanse locked eyes with him momentarily, and Victor remembered his softly-spoken warning after his previous battle. Was Loss Chenasta one of the champions he’d thought Victor should fear? Victor knew he was putting words in the Judicator’s mouth; he hadn’t said Victor should be afraid. What had he said? Victor wasn’t the only monster in this world? Something like that. Chenasta was a steel seeker. That was enough reason to take him seriously, so Victor flexed his hands on Lifedrinker, put himself into a fighting stance, and primed his Velocity Mantle spell. He wouldn’t be caught flat-footed when—

“Fight!” Lohanse screamed, and Victor cast his spell.

Like before, the world grew slow as he darted forward. The crowd’s roar became an incoherent wall of white noise, Lohanse swooping upward in a loop, slowed like a feather drifting through thick air. Loss Chenasta lifted one hand and, in slow motion, as Victor advanced, a length of black nothingness extended from that hand—a dark void shaped like a sword. Victor was there before he could bring that weird weapon into play, though, and he hacked Lifedrinker in a deadly cleave, one that would surely split the man in two.

Something crackled, and weird sparkles devoid of color or light—the absence of light, perhaps—surrounded Chenasta. Then, he was gone, and Lifedrinker split the air and nothing more. Victor spun faster than thought and lifted Lifedrinker again, just in time to parry that flickering sword-shaped void. The impact hissed and sizzled, and Lifedrinker screamed through her connection to him—fury, pain, and a desperate desire for vengeance.

Victor spun away, using his speed to put some distance between himself and Loss. He glanced at Lifedrinker’s blade and was relieved to see only a faint discoloration—a streak of dark gray in her depthless black that was rapidly fading. He could feel the Energy pouring out of his Core to keep his Velocity Mantle running, so he canceled it, circling Loss warily. Was he fast, or was it only his ability to teleport that had allowed him to contend with Victor’s speed?

He still hadn’t seen the other man’s face. He hadn’t heard him make a sound. He still didn’t, as the strange champion began to stride toward him, unhurried, his sword held out to the side. “Can you take it if I get into a fight with that pendejo, chica?”

Fight, Battle-heart! Fight! I will have my vengeance! Every wound I take, every pain I feel, I will deliver back ten-fold with your brave, strong hands to guide me!

Victor nodded, growling, as he lifted her into a high guard, ready to lash out. He built his pattern for Velocity Mantle again but held it ready. He’d test this champion a bit. When the weird warrior approached, Victor used his much greater reach to begin pressing him with attacks. He hacked down, frowning as the swordsman slipped the first blow and swung that black sword toward his hands. Nodding, Victor showed him what an epic-tier master of the axe could do.

He wove Lifedrinker’s blade between those flickering, brain-twisting sword feints, pressing Loss into a steady retreat. He cut ever closer, learning the man’s patterns and growing accustomed to his uncanny slipperiness. Lifedrinker took several hits from the void-sword but didn’t scream again. She let her fury build, and she shared it with Victor, and he felt his Core responding, filling his pathways and lending speed and power to his strikes.

He was beginning to think he might be able to beat the other champion with simple, good, solid axe work, but then the air around the other champion flickered again, and that weird static-like sound of light and air being unmade crackled through Victor’s mind. Chenasta was gone, and before Victor could cast his Velocity Mantle, something smashed into his back, sending him stumbling forward.

He completed the spell and, with his enhanced speed, whirled around in time to parry another blow. He’d taken a full-on assault, but he wasn’t hurt—his aegis had turned the void-sword, or, at least, hadn’t been destroyed. He couldn’t see his back, so he wasn’t sure how well it was holding up. Growling, going for broke, Victor kept his Velocity Mantle up and pushed the attack, whipping Lifedrinker’s multi-ton blade faster than most people could see. She ripped the air with cracks that sounded like thunder, and Chenasta fell back, weaving, ducking, and even performing a backflip.

He was fast, but not as fast as Victor, and, to Victor’s great pleasure, Lifedrinker caught his shoulder—a glancing blow, but enough to darken her edge with purple-black blood. Victor bared his teeth in a savage grin as Lifedrinker howled her triumph, but then the world came apart around Chenasta again. The air crackled and complained, and Victor, sure he knew what was happening, whirled, hacking Lifedrinker downward in a deathblow—only to smash her into the sand, shaking the ground for a twenty-yard radius.

Chenasta wasn’t there, but as soon as Lifedrinker bit deep into the sand and Victor canceled his Velocity Mantle, afraid his Core would be drained, the other champion appeared again and drove his void-blade into his back. This time, Victor heard the enormously dense material of his aegis give way, parted by the anti-material of Chenasta’s weapon. As it happened, the breach in his armor pierced the air like a high-powered rifle round, and Victor stumbled, then rolled, barely keeping his grip on Lifedrinker. Despite his armor’s damage, he hadn’t been cut.

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Victor spat, holding Lifedrinker ready, keeping Loss in his sights. He glanced inward, measuring the Energy in his Core. It was doing better than he’d feared despite the hungry Velocity Mantle. He was sitting on more than two-thirds. He sniffed, slowly pacing to the side, watching the other champion. He wasn’t as fast as Victor when under his elder magic speed boost, but Loss was fast enough to defend, fast enough to cast his weird teleportation. Victor had to come up with a plan, and he thought he had one; he just needed to be sure his Energy was topped off for it.

He strode toward Chenasta, axe ready, and when he heard the air crackle and his mind bent around the strange sight of a void gobbling Chenasta out of existence, Victor dove forward, rolling. He’d learned that the champion didn’t have to appear immediately. He seemed able to lurk wherever he went between one point in space and another, so Victor didn’t try to time a strike or parry. He dove again, rolling, and then, just as he gained his feet, he used Titanic Leap—not wanting to give away his ability to fly—to send himself high into the air.

As he reached the apex of his jump, he scanned the arena, looking for a clue as to where Loss Chenasta might be lurking. The sands were empty, though—no sign of the other man. He braced himself for a landing, ready to dodge again, but the air crackled, and the light bent in weird refractions, and Loss appeared a dozen feet from where Victor would land. “Got you, pendejo.” It seemed the man’s ability to hide was limited; he couldn’t do it forever.

As he smashed into the sand, sending a force wave rippling through it, he charged for the other caster, and, this time, Chenasta didn’t disappear. Was there a cooldown for his teleport? He barely lifted his sword, and Victor was sure he was about to cleave the little bastard in half, but then a wave of rippling black—no, worse than black; it was the absence of light, of anything—poured outward from Chenasta and suddenly Victor was floating in a void.

He tried to breathe, but nothing came into his lungs. He tried to face Chenasta but had nothing to push off from—his movements only sent him spinning in that emptiness. He held his breath, and with no other means to directly his view, he craned his neck, straining to see where his enemy was. His heart hammered, his mind raced, and his face beaded with sweat, but it didn’t drip—it crystalized instantly. That’s when Victor noticed the cold. The void had no warmth, no Energy—absolute nothingness. It was a place where even time felt frozen.

If he weren’t a titan with a breath core of Blue Ice, he wondered if he’d be dead already. If his bloodline weren’t epic, would his flesh be dying? He could feel his skin prickling, a numbing chill sinking in like death’s blanket. He could hold his breath for a long time—an hour or more, but how long could he survive in a heatless void? Could he outlast the spell? Could he break it? Could he—

Something slapped his chest, and a blinding pain erupted there, right at the center of his sternum, despite his armor. A sibilant, raspy voice whispered, seemingly from everywhere, “Enjoy the Curse of the Void. You’re dead already.”

Suddenly, the void was gone, and Victor fell to his back, hot sand under his palms and against the back of his head. The crowd was roaring, screaming, and jeering, but Victor couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t even breathe. All he knew was pain, as something unmade him, something in his chest, something under his armor. In a panic, he slapped his hand to his chest, gripping his aegis where the high gorget collar came up around his neck. He pulled, and, of course, it did nothing. He was panicking, struggling to think through the blinding, burning, freezing, electric pain that rocked through him.

He tried to send the aegis into his ring, but Lohanse’s magic wouldn’t allow dimensional containers to work. Finally, something clicked in his brain, and he remembered how to open the seam on the side of the armor. He ran his hand over it, and when the tightness relented, he pulled the top half and rolled out of it, screaming as the pain continued in his chest, radiating through him. He heard footsteps as he flopped onto his back, and then he saw Loss Chenasta standing over him, arms folded.

Victor ignored him, scrabbling at the pain in his chest, trying to grab what hurt there and throw it off him. Pain ignited in his hand, and, with another scream, he held his hand up to see his fingers and thumb truncate, the tips simply gone! Even as he watched, his regeneration began to regrow them, and, seeing that, he realized what was happening in his chest.

Gasping with pain, he pushed himself up onto an elbow and looked down to see a ball of utter blackness slowly sinking into his chest. His shirt was destroyed. His skin near the void was gone. His sternum was tougher, dissolving more slowly, but the ball of—of nothing was slowly growing, slowly eating into him despite his regeneration.

Victor screamed again, panting, desperately looking around. He saw Lohanse floating above, watching, eyes sorrowful, head shaking. He saw his enemy, standing ten feet away, watching him. Why didn’t he finish him? Victor knew: he wanted to see him suffer, or maybe he’d been ordered to do it. This was a lesson. This was an example for other upstart kings and queens who might challenge a great house. The crowd’s noise, coupled with the pain as the void ball slowly ate him, was too much. Victor blocked them out, squeezing his eyes shut.

He turned his gaze inward, and, with every ounce of his prodigious will, he pushed the pain down so he could think. An idea immediately came to him: he was healing against the destruction, but too slowly. He had a way to heal faster, though. A way to make his flesh even more durable. If he used it, he’d burn Energy rapidly. Would it be enough for him to finish the fight? No, he needed something more. A refinement to his plan came to him, but it would drain him even more quickly. He’d have to be perfect.

“One shot,” he hissed, pulling blue-ice-attuned Energy out of his Breath Core and rage from his Energy Core. He wound them into a perfect pattern, and when he opened his eyes, he cast Glacial Wrath. The void had consumed his sternum. It was eating into his innards, dangerously close to his heart, but then Victor’s body exploded with power and size. His bones and flesh reknit, and the pain of the void curse became a minor irritation.

He clambered to his hands and knees, enormous now, towering over Loss Chenasta even in that position. Chenasta didn’t stand still. He darted forward, slashing his wicked sword-shaped void at Victor’s neck. Victor put an arm in the way and grunted as the blade stung his dense, thick flesh, but nothing more. He swiped at the Void Caster, but the air crackled and warped, and his enormous hand hit nothing. Victor stood, stepped toward his fallen axe, scooped her up, and then, as cold fury radiated from his bloodshot, icy eyes, he scanned for his foe. He was hiding.

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Victor almost didn’t care. He had so much hate—so many things that deserved his cold, calculated destruction. Still, he supposed the foe at hand should suffer first—time to plan the ruination of his many foes after Loss had been dealt with. With the patient, frozen fury of a glacier, he reviewed his earlier plan and modified it. This would be better. He gathered the bright, clever Energy from his Spirit Core and bent it into shape with a tiny flex of his will, casting Spirit Domain.

In his persistent rage, Victor couldn’t appreciate how the arena changed. A wall of shimmering white-gold Energy expanded outward from him, encompassing it from wall to wall. Overhead, the Energy arched into a dome, and within that space, the sand bubbled as tiny crystalline prisms floated up, creating a shimmering rainbow-filled field of pebbles that danced with light and color. More important than its beauty and brightness, the space had become Victor’s domain.

As the master of a domain of inspiration, Victor could feel the tiniest change in that space. He could contemplate his options and plans, running through them by the hundred in the time a person might blink. He hefted Lifedrinker, the mighty weapon light in his enormous, thick fist, and as soon as he felt the air change, as soon as the first crackle of Loss Chenasta’s void magic tickled the hairs on his eardrums, he whirled and whipped her like a tomahawk—a tomahawk that weighed tens of thousands of pounds.

Chenasta appeared and managed to throw up his arms and take a half step before Lifedrinker smashed into him and then tore through the air like a cruise missile, crashing into the arena wall and reducing Victor’s foe to a black and purple smear of paste. The impact sounded like a bomb; the facia of the magically reinforced wall shattered into rubble, and even the thick stones behind it cracked and crumbled, sending a dangerous quake through the high arena stands.

As stone dust exploded into the air and the concussion of the impact faded, Victor delighted in the sounds of screaming. His cold heart couldn’t rejoice, but it could take wicked pleasure at the idea that the amoral spectators who fed on his bloodsport had felt a bit of the danger they so loved to see inflicted on others. He strode toward the ruined wall, Lifedrinker in his sights. He’d need her in hand as his frozen deliberations devised a plan to deliver his wrath.

He took four long strides, but then, to his initial dismay, he felt an aching pull in his Core, and he realized his Energy had run dry. Without the rage from his Spirit Core, his blue ice Energy could no longer sustain his transformation. Victor shrank into himself, even as his glittering domain of inspiration flickered and faded away. When he shook his head and looked around at the chaos he’d unleashed, his lips spread into a stupid grin.

Everywhere was pandemonium—people were streaming away from the damaged portion of the stadium. Others, in the more stable sections, were cheering or howling or cussing—Victor couldn’t be sure in the riot of noise. He wondered why Lohanse hadn’t restored order, but then his gaze drifted toward a flash of light above and to the right, and he realized the veil walker was caught in a battle with King Bayle and the guards he’d brought to the duel. They were trying to kill the veil walker!

Victor stomped over to his aegis and slapped his hand on it, sending it into his new storage ring, and then he jogged toward Lifedrinker. He intended to aid the veil walker and wanted her in his hands. As he stooped to pull her from the pile of rubble where she’d been buried, though, he felt a twinge of pain at the center of his chest. He slapped his hand to his sternum but quickly pulled it away when he felt the sting transfer to his finger. Looking down, to his horror, he saw a tiny mote of swirling nothingness slowly eating his skin. It didn’t go far before he regenerated, but it only started eating again in a cycle that was none too pleasant.

As a cataclysmic bolt of lightning ripped through the bright sky—some spell of Lohanse’s, no doubt—Victor groaned. “What the hell, chica? How do I get rid of a curse when I already killed the asshole who cast it?”