Alec Ironhands

Dignity and the courage to see it through. The only two things I had left in the world that might make me look like a human, like a man. Through everything, over all the years, those were the only values I had preserved. Love? I had turned my family and my so called friend into the same amalgamation of stolen dreams I had become without a second thought. Loyalty? Even them I would sell if the prize was right. Honour? A welcomed weakness to be exploited. Everything was just another tool to be used but I had honestly believed that I’d uphold my dignity and my focus until the very end. Oh, how wrong I had been.

As soon as I had heard of the so called gathering I had known our time was up. Free Land had always been an appropriate hunting ground, even though the competition was high, but time had run out. If servants of the gods had come here personally we wouldn’t survive. Still, we hadn’t been able to leave, just yet. Too much had hinged on the few days or hours I’d have still needed to complete the last transfer. The thorn had done its work, despite the meddlesome vixen. She might have removed it, but she had been too late. Why the girl hadn’t died I couldn’t fathom but it didn’t matter, either way. The next gate would break and if not for me, then for my sons. Or so I had thought. Maybe the gods were a bit more resourceful than I hade given them credit for.

When one of the kitsune, the second of the apostles no less, had knocked on our door, I had made a decision. Abandon ship, run and never look back. While my servants squirmed and moved I had retreated to my chambers, sealed the door and begun the last ritual. Slowly, the pristine statue of living wood, depicting an orphan girl in her teens, utterly unremarkable except for the calming, profound aura I had been able to feel even through the artificial connection I had created, was turning grey and cracks appeared along her body, radiating out from her thigh. Not too long and she would decay, forcing her essence through the link and into my waiting hands. I took a deep breath. A few minutes. They only had to stall the apostle for a few minutes.

And then my magic withered. From one second to the next the intricate spells, half of which I didn’t understand but had memorised, were torn apart as if… as if they had never existed. The backlash thundered through my meridians and would have killed me, if not for the pulsing bead in my chest. A life taken, a life preserved. The outer layer went up in smoke and I felt a short jolt of the pain I had inflicted to extract that precious keepsake but by now it wasn’t more than a single drop in a sea of misery. My concentration wavered and I slowly got to my feet. With a sharp command I emitted another wave of mana that spread out like ripples in a pond, until it crashed into something… terrifying.

For the first time in decades my heartbeat turned into a reverberating drum roll, a sheen of sweat glistened on my brow and my knees shook. I fell, a silent scream of fear tearing from my convulsing lips. Outside my door chaos reigned. My magic hadn’t been destroyed, it had been devoured, but before the connection had failed I had seen it. A creature of light, brighter than the sun, with tails of molten silver had laid in ambush, waiting like a cat in front of a mouse hole. When our eyes had met she had bared her fangs and her gaze had fallen upon me like a death sentence, crushing my courage, annihilating my dignity. She hadn’t spoken but I had still heard her command. Pay your dues.

I thrashed around on the cold, uncaring stone floor while my eyes burned, the memory of what I had seen a white hot spike of undiluted terror that dug its tendrils ever deeper into my mind. Scenes and images of times long gone mixed with the feeling of blood on my hands from only an hour ago. I ran across a silent meadow, the hounds of my master hot on my heels, only to stumble and find myself at the bottom of a well, filled with the still bleeding heads of the people I had slain. Their empty eyes stared at me accusingly and from their rigid throats whispers flowed like a silent choir of the damned. The sun rose, golden and warm, but as my memories turned to ash a bright moon devoured the sky to feed the hunger of a ravenous beast. Burning eyes, a sleek body, covered in gleaming, silvery scales, soft like molten light, slashing, voluptuous tails and infinite wings that seemed to cover my whole world appeared before me. I lost myself, I was carried away and I was forced to watch as even the foundations of who I was shook and crumbled. I cried and I whimpered while the fruits of my labours became engulfed in searing light.

“Are you sure my liege,” Cadmus asked respectfully. “Why can’t we just take her like all the others?’

“Because some creatures need the light to grow. If we try to harvest her now, the spark will never bloom. Trust me, I haven’t worked this long to watch it fall apart at the last moment. When the time has come, we will plant a seed, but until then…”

“Understood. I’ll keep an eye on her.” He saluted and left while I stared after him, contemplating my luck. After years I had finally found a trace, a glowing speck of living divinity in a swamp like Free Land. Luckily nobody had realised what the girl was. She was still living on the streets with a few other children for company and not a single coin to her name. Not even the vampires had stumbled across the truth, but I wouldn’t complain. Captain Dawn and his sister were the only two beings I had to fear after all. For now, all I had to do was to ensure she wouldn’t be snatched away by a slaver or killed in the dark alleys.

Years later I knelt in my chambers, the gleaming, living tree in front of me trembling under the pressure of my spells. Slowly it transformed, its lustre developed an eerie glow and the dark scent of death rose from the bark, only to be replaced by a fresh, invigorating smell. A grin spread across my face. I had succeed. Her lineage would be mine, mine alone. Now all I had to do was plant a single sliver in her body and make sure it’d stay there for a few days. And luck was on my side again.

Free Land became engulfed in the flames of war, the winds of terror blew across our island as the remnants of a sorcerer, far above my own skills, descended on us. As much as I feared the end of my endeavours, it still gave me a chance to act unopposed. The vampires had retreated into the shadows, the Captains were busy with their own internal struggles and I was free to do as I pleased. Until the gods themselves made an appearance.

Seemingly out of nowhere a bunch of kitsune had arrived but how anyone could mistake their intervention for a coincidence was beyond me. At least two of them didn’t even look… mortal, not to mention that they commanded a dragon and a fey as if they were their toys and had turned a living, breathing being into a wave of magic. There was only one explanation. My meddling had been detected and the gods had acted, sending their puppets, their apostles, to thwart me. But they wouldn’t succeed. I had come too far, I had done too much to allow fate to snatch my ambitions form my clutches. I was just too close. Only a few more days…

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And time passed. Our family laid low, we allowed events to unfold as they might. The few drones I had placed with a handful of the more influential people kept me in the loop and when the tides of foreign might dispersed against a bastion of divine will in a single night I rejoiced. Admittedly, I was concerned with the frightening display. Should the apostles ever get wind of my machinations it’d be my head, the heads of all of us, on the chopping block, but soon we’d be gone, we’d vanish like footprints in the sand and we’d be all the stronger for it. For now, we couldn’t rival their power but once the girl was mine, we might return. Even a servant of the gods had to tremble before the real thing and my ascension was nigh. The thorn had almost done its work and the statue was growing, changing to mimic the source. Once the process was done she’d be mine. But those few days, those meagre hours I’d have needed…

Free Land changed over night. Freedom, the rule of the strong and the servitude of the meek, were toppled, slaves were freed and my resources dwindled. I had to act, I had to make sure my legacy would survive, even if our work was eradicated under the thumb of divine oppression. Grudgingly I gave the order: “convert them all. Squeeze our stock dry and run, my wife and I will stay behind and see it through.”

A night and a day we toiled, breaking our cattle, siphoning off every last drop of energy we could squeeze from their fragile forms. Most died immediately, the pain, the despair, too much for them to cope but the ones who endured… they were true gems, valuable enough that I even ordered Cadmus to take the strongest four away with them. I had enough reserves to fulfil my own role and whatever happened afterwards was none of my concern. Once the statue would break I’d have done my part. Death and retribution could come, I didn’t care.

“There is one at our door,” my wife called out to me. “What should we do?”

“Keep it busy. A few more minutes. Tell Cadmus to move the donors. Our sons will assimilate the rest. It won’t be deterred for long. It’ll be up to you to keep it occupied while I pass on our heritage. Tonight… we can’t afford to fail or our dreams will turn to ash.”

“Can’t we try to kill it? Imagine the power we could tear from it, once it’s been secured to a rack.”

“No! Haven’t you watched? We can’t match it. Not yet. Do as I say.”

“I’ll send Aaron then. He always had a way with words. He’ll be able to buy us a few more minutes. But husband… hurry.”

“I will. The best of luck. We will need it. Dearly.” Alas, luck could only get you so far and that night, I finally found out how gravely I had misjudged our opponents. They weren’t servants to a deity, nor were they gods themselves. The glowing, feline creature, whose mere gaze had burned me within an inch of my life, defied descriptions. Not even in the old legends had I come across something comparable. All my power, all my safeguards, amounted to naught as my world was consumed by silvery flames and my aspirations turned to dust.

My life waned away, the hot puddle of blood around me the only sensation I could focus on for my world had been consumed by darkness. Pain, the pain of my victims, the desperation of their plight, the inconsequential sparks of power I had chased after futilely, it all came crushing down. I lost control, the statue I had been kneeling in front of shook, the magic I had channeled into it withered and my silent screams of terror turned into the wail of the vanquished. It was over.

And then the door cracked open, allowing two creatures of light to pass through. I couldn’t see them, they had already taken my eyes, but I could still feel their presence like the looming shadow of the executioner’s axe, caressing the back of my neck. I wanted to get to my knees, to at least face death with the few shreds of dignity I had left, but I couldn’t. I felt like a mountain was bearing down on me, its weight crushing my will, my thoughts, but somehow I could still hear them.

“Take him,” one said icily. “Take them both to the Garden. I’ll… clean up here and follow you shortly. That statue and the ones who are still breathing…” I couldn’t follow, the tides surged in my ears and I lost track of their conversation. Only when I was engulfed by a searing heat, seemingly ravaging my body through tendrils of pure agony without ever leaving a mark, did I manage to push back the encroaching darkness. I shouldn’t have.

My wife and I weren’t bound but we could as well have been for all the good it did us. Wisps of crimson flames held us in their unyielding embrace, burning brightly enough to even illuminate the eternal darkness I had been thrown into, but the glare didn’t warm me. Instead it felt… cold, like the soft touch of death, sucking everything I was from my very bones. My fingertips were tingling, my legs were numb and while blood gushed form my destroyed eyes I felt my body shutting down. It wasn’t terrifying but rather a form of kindness, a way out before the charade could continued. More of a mercy than I had ever shown my victims for sure, but still a last humiliation. At the end I hadn’t been strong enough to meet my doom on my feet and now I didn’t even have the strength left to see it through. I would fade away, unsung and unnoticed, a speck of misery before a canvas of uncaring stars.

My wife reached out to me, her shaking fingers closing around my wrist but there was no consolation to be found in her touch. I didn’t love her, I didn’t love anyone but my precious ambitions and once they had turned to dust… but no. I had laid the foundation, hadn’t I? The spells had been cast and whether that… monster had destroyed the statue or not mattered very little. The spark of divinity I had stumbled across all those years ago would be tin form the unworthy vessel it inhabited and once free… maybe someone else would finish what I had started.

Of course I would have loved for my own flesh and blood to harvest the fruits of my labours, but if not us, then someone else surely would take up the mantel. As for the so called vixen that was still rampaging through my home… she wouldn’t, she couldn’t see it. What was a well of unending strength to us was just another morsel to her, barely worth the effort. She’d have to look, she’d have to care, and why would anyone like her even bother with us mere mortals?

A content smile crept across my mutilated face. Yes, this wasn’t the end, we could still…

“You’re wrong,” a velvety voice thundered through my mind like a burning whip. “Just so you realise that all that will be left of you and yours will be salted earth, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The girl didn’t die because that monster, as you call her, carried her in her arms and nursed her back to health. We know her and your little experiment is over. You can’t see it, not with your meridians burned up like they are, but right now your… home is turning into a vortex of forgotten dreams and crushed memories. The spells you cast… she’ll devour them until nothing is left, until they won’t matter. It’ll be like they never even existed. Can’t you feel it? Somewhere in the depths of your mind you should sense her as she tears through what you wrought. Once she’s done… only this husk of a life will remain and before the night runs its course even that will cease to exist. Your end, the end of all you achieved, is nigh and it will be… eternal.”

Her last words were accompanied by a flood of images from times long gone, almost forgotten but for a scarce few creatures who still remembered. It was… torment, exquisite, unending torment that showed me how inconsequential, how shortsighted all my aspirations had been. There would be no legacy, no achievements to remember. For the second time in a single night I broke, but as if it had been a signal the creature carrying us had waited for, the assault on my mind stopped, just as I gave in to desperation. I felt her flames peter out, her thoughts, more powerful than before, raced through the aether, vanished and then… we fell.

Like abandoned birds, thrown from the nest, we hurtled through the air, its cold touch a welcome caress on my blistered skin. My wife’s screams echoed in my ears, drowning out even the thunderous wind, her hot tears wetted my face and I felt her press her body against mine but before I could react, darkness finally came… only to be replaced by silvery, ravenous light.