Chapter Twenty #2
Tattered, ceremonial garb emblazoned with the crest of Goddess Tiagon.
Even undead, he would know her anywhere.
Through the pain, Sikras forced a weak smile. “Hello, darling. Wondered when you’d sh—show up.”
Darkness swallowed him.
Dead. Again.
As Sikras concentrated on retrieving his soul from Enos and returning to his body, Death’s word echoed through the planes: “Four to go.”
There. Back in his body. Unable to reach back and remove the blade himself, Sikras hunched over on the ground and flexed his fingers. “Exspyra’vaeit mahnus.”
A spectral hand manifested before him, seized the blade’s handle, abandoned by Imri after Sikras’s death, and pulled the sword from his torso.
As the Cat’s Eye sealed the wound shut, Sikras staggered to his feet, glowering.
“You made my wife kill me. Twice. Do you have any idea how detrimental that is to my mental health?”
“Back from the dead again. Then, it really isn’t a parlor trick,” a new voice called out, a booming yet feminine resonance that ricochet off nearby tree trunks.
From atop a tall branch, a being leaped.
Pointed wings of thin stretched skin softened her landing as she struck the snow-covered ground.
Unfurling to her full height to tower over Vessik and Sikras by several feet, the quad-horned beast summoned a smile, multiple rows of pointed teeth shining through her lips.
“I could scarcely believe it myself when I witnessed it the first time, particularly after beholding your embarrassing lack of power during the last four years, but here you are. Not an undead, not a talented sorcerer with an aptitude for escaping death, but the Glowing Cat’s Eye in Death’s Darkness itself. ”
Sikras blinked, gaze raking from her feet, which were somehow hooved and clawed, to her tail, to the tips of her spiraled set of horns.
He knew they occasionally filtered in and out of Chthonia, knew Helspira had even consorted with one to arrange her escape from that nightmarish landscape, but he never thought he would see one in person: a diavolos, the soul-eating spawn of a god and a mortal.
“Vessik, I can’t help but notice your taste in company has shifted since last we hung out. ”
“Ignore Vessik, dear. I only brought him here because I’d heard you had a penchant for making bargains.” The diavolos hummed, a sultry purr to her voice. “And what better bargaining chip than the soul of your dear friend?”
Sikras snapped his head toward Vessik with a chastising glare. “What’s this woman on about?”
“Please, call me Ithusa.” She smirked and patted Vessik’s head. “As you know, your friend’s skill with magic is limited at best, but even so, he’s been quite the little helper over the years; haven’t you, Vessik?”
Blank faced, Vessik nodded.
“Unfortunately,” Ithusa continued, “despite how well necromancers and diavoli pair, our little symbiotic relationship is flawed.”
Symbiotic relationship? Despite his best efforts, the sudden revelation tightened Sikras’s chest. The cursory knowledge he had on diavoli brought no comfort.
A necromancer and a diavolos working together had diabolical potential.
As the byproduct of a god and a mortal, diavoli brimmed with power but were barred by the gods from using magic against mankind, living or dead.
They could, however, channel their power through a human host, not unlike the Cat’s Eye’s relationship with Sikras, or a god’s relationship with a cleric.
But that involved consent. That involved an exchange.
And Sikras could think of only one thing a diavolos would ask for in exchange for its power.
“You sold your soul to a diavolos?” Disappointment marinated Sikras’s words as he tried to find Vessik’s vacant stare. “How could you do that? We were supposed to go wherever the godless heathens went when we died. Dammit, Vessik, now you won’t even know peace in death!”
“Yes, a pity,” Ithusa said with a tone containing nothing remotely close to pity.
“And while it’s been great having a human puppet who knows a thing or two about necromancy to bypass divine law, Vessik’s shortcomings have made progress slow.
That stutter of his wreaks havoc on the success of his spellcasting, and for every handful of souls whom he resurrects and relinquishes to me, I need to convert over half of them into raw energy that he must absorb to manage spells of this potency.
It’s always two steps forward, one step back with us.
But with you ... with the Cat’s Eye ... you wouldn’t even need my power.
You could slaughter and relinquish an entire kingdom of souls unto me.
I would never feel the agony of hunger again. ”
“Hypothetically, yes,” Sikras said through grinding teeth. “There’s just one teensy problem with that. You allowed my dear albeit na?ve friend here to sell you his soul, and now I want to brutally murder you, so favors are off the table.”
“Allowed him? Darling, he practically begged me. All sweet Vessik wanted was the power to help others, and I’ve given him that. Granted”—she laughed, flipping her large, clawed hand—“I’m the one he’s helping, but that’s neither here nor there, is it?”
As overwhelming as the revelation was, something still wasn’t right. Sikras writhed where he stood, mind grasping for whatever he was missing.
“There’s no escaping the contract,” Ithusa said, “but—”
“Look, lady, I know how contracts work. I’ve got enough of them on my kitchen floor to wallpaper a room.”
“But,” she continued through the interruption, “I will free him from it. You need only take his place.”
Sikras studied Vessik, searching, scouring for any sign of .
.. anything, really. So, the man sold his soul.
Foolish but well intentioned. Classic Vessik.
Still, change of ownership did not strip a person of their self, and the blank slate Sikras stared at was anything but the man he knew.
Why wasn’t he himself? Years of coercion?
Diavoli could leverage their physical strength against humans to attack them, to hurt them, to intimidate them, yet Vessik showed no scars, no signs of bodily abuse.
And then it struck him.
Magical coercion.
Given that the gods prohibited diavoli to use their magic on mankind without consent, it hadn’t occurred to Sikras as a possibility.
But a diavolos did not require consent to manipulate their own property.
And whether Vessik liked it or not, when he signed his soul away, he became Ithusa’s property.
Sikras rounded on Ithusa, a muscle twitching beneath his eye. “You’re manipulating his mind.”
“I know what you’re thinking, and no, this violates nothing.” She smirked. “He was of his own mind when he signed his soul away. Anything I did to him after was well within my right.”
Sikras sneered, his focus jumping from one thought to the next.
Everything made far more sense now. A mind manipulation spell was so potent, so profane, the magical backlash it promised was crippling if not fatal.
But diavoli could consume souls like they were energy, like they were lives; if Ithusa perished, as a half-god, she needed only to eat another soul to find herself alive once more.
And with four years’ worth of souls, even considering those she had sacrificed to power Vessik’s abilities, she would still have plenty of chances to pull off a mind manipulation spell.
But, at the end of the day, a spell was a spell. Granted, a half-god of insurmountable power had casted this one, but it was a spell nevertheless. If he couldn’t reverse it, he could at least counter it. Maybe. So long as that was his only focus.
Helspira could handle the horde. In her, Sikras had every confidence in the world.
With a swipe of his hand, Sikras severed all concentration on his undead. Chin high, shoulders back, fingers positioned, he faced Ithusa and whispered, “Empodio.”
Ithusa hissed when a shimmering translucent dome molded over her. The glassy barrier muffled her voice—perhaps for the best, as it appeared she mouthed some rather colorful phrases while she hurled her body against the rounded walls and clawed at the sides.
Every hammer of her fist against the dome rattled Sikras’s skull.
Blood and bone, she was stronger than he had thought.
His chest tightened as he forced his gaze toward Vessik, straining, searching for any signs of his old friend.
If he had done it right, the dome wouldn’t just contain Ithusa; it would contain the effects of any spells she had casted within the cage as well.
Staggering forward, Vessik dropped his short sword and clutched his head in both hands.
He raked his fingers into his scalp and gasped.
“Blessed night.” Wheezing, he relinquished his grip, peering through the long brown strands of hair.
Of all the emotions he wore—horror, confusion, the weight of disgust—one dominated the others.
Shock.
“Sikras. How are you—?” Mouth agape, he glimpsed Ithusa and shook his head. “Y—You countered her spell.”
“I can’t hold it for long.” Not against a diavolos. Not forever. Gods, it hurt. Like the pressure was ripping his brain into tiny pieces. Through the pain, Sikras forced a shaky grin. “A real shame, given how much we have to catch up on.”
All Vessik could do was shake his head, starting and stopping several half-spoken thoughts, before he finally said, “A counterspell to match a half-god? How? Even with the power of the Cat’s Eye, we were both terrible wizards.”