Chapter 14 #2
When Clive Bane came to, he discovered he was bound in ropes. His quarterstaff was lying across the floor. He could not move, which brought forth a second realization. It wasn’t just the ropes binding him. Someone had done a binding spell upon him. He looked up to see Elias standing there.
“You fool, you’ll doom us all,” Clive said. The back of his head throbbed painfully. He could feel sticky blood clinging to the back of his neck.
“Maybe,” Elias said, strapping his gauntlets tight, taking out his spellblade and holding it up against the sun, imbuing it with the father of Sol. “Maybe I’ll put an end to this nonsense once and for all today.”
“You can’t do that by yourself,” Clive said. “You can’t kill a man who keeps coming back from the dead.”
“Oh, I don’t plan to kill him,” Elias said. “I just want to rip him to pieces so that it’s exceedingly difficult for him to come back whole. It’s a working theory. What do you think? If I take his head off, will he still be a powerful necromancer?”
“This is the Grath Nomad we’re talking about. Mortandagh himself. He’s killed mages more powerful than you by merely looking at them.”
“I have Sol on my side,” Elias said, his skin burning, his eyes like two miniature suns in their sockets, radiant, rabid. “He will not let harm come to me. I am his champion.”
“You’re a deluded fuck,” Clive said. “Where’s your friend?”
“Off planting charges. He’s the distraction.”
“You sent him off to his death,” Clive said hopelessly.
“Yes. Wasn’t it you who said war asks for sacrifice from us all?”
“Elias, please. See reason.”
“I am seeing reason. It’s why you’re still alive,” Elias said coolly. “Now wait here.” He laughed at Clive. “Get it? Wait here. It’s not like you can do much.”
“Your father would be ashamed of you,” Clive said.
“What the fuck did you say to me?!” Elias roared and fell upon Clive, punching him, kicking him, slashing at him with his spellblade.
The bait had worked. Elias’s binding spell didn’t hold anymore, and his slashes broke Clive free from the ropes. He immediately tackled Elias and pinned him against the ground, punching him across the face.
One punch was all it took, and Elias was knocked out.
“Fucking liability,” Clive said, getting up. He picked up his staff and healed himself. He was about to cast a binding spell on Elias and take him back to the manor when a deafening explosion sent tremors running through the ground.
“Fuck,” Clive said. That’d be the distraction set off by Theo.
Dozens of Deathless stormed out of the town hall and headed toward the source of the explosion.
Clive could not, in good conscience, leave Theo to a fate of death. He raced toward the explosion, hoping that his experience as a Vanguard officer would help him locate Theo and rescue him before the Deathless got to him.
He placed a binding spell upon Elias and raced off toward the north district. This was supposed to be a very secretive recon mission. Now, it looked like he had to call in reinforcements. If that were to happen, Wilted Hamlet would become ground zero for an all-out war.
* * *
Wake up, my child.
Elias stirred to life in the resplendent hall of the Sol-Father.
Golden and white, this hall, and at its head, on the sun-chariot throne, sat Sol in his elegant robes, crown on his head, his majestic beard flowing past his neck, his long hair coming to rest on his shoulders.
He held in one hand his staff, and with the other beckoned Elias to come close.
The hall was lined with tall glass windows on either side. Elias could see constellations, planets, and the cosmos stretching out in all directions from the windows.
“Sol-Father,” Elias said, getting up slowly. “The Grath Nomad. The girl—she’s an Aeternumancer. They’re working together!”
“Steady there, Champion,” Sol said, smiling. “I know you are brave, but at this moment, you are alone.”
“I’m never alone. I have you with me all the time,” Elias said, walking up to the Sol-Father.
He’d been having these dreams ever since he was a kid.
Later, his grandfather had studied these dreams and had verified them to be bona fide.
It was true, his grandfather proclaimed to everyone.
Sol had chosen a new champion, and it was Elias.
News of this traveled far and wide, and the people of Aladria finally had some hope.
Sol had not forsaken them. Sol still watched over them.
“That is true, my child, but that false goddess Aeterna doesn’t appear to those who follow her.
Likewise, I cannot descend to earth and fight alongside you.
As a god, it is not fitting for me to tip the scales in such a fashion,” Sol said.
“But I can lend you some of my strength. I am lending it to you now, as you lay there in the ruins. That much I can do for my champion. But I didn’t call you here to tell you what I can do for you.
I asked you here, Elias, so that I may know what my champion will do for me? ”
The shimmering image of his parents came into focus, both of them standing on either side of Sol.
“If you do right by me, I will do right by you, my child,” Sol said.
Elias’s eyes welled up with tears at the image of his parents. He wanted nothing more than to be reunited with them. Sol had promised him that he could do it if Elias fulfilled his duties as champion.
“Sol-Father,” Elias said, bowing and kneeling in reverence. “What do you need me to do?
“Kill the prophetess of the false god,” Sol said. “Do what you haven’t been able to do so far.”
Elias was thrown rather roughly out of the dream. When he woke up, his body felt sore, but the binding spell upon him was gone.
He could hear chaos ensuing toward the north. He spied at the town hall’s entrance. There were guards stationed there. Nevertheless, he crawled out from the school’s ruins and headed toward the town hall, thinking about breaking in through the roof.