When all of those necessary conversations were done, Benjamin spent most of the rest of the day on his war turtle, lumbering slowly south with his friends. It was done as much to relax and because he wanted to appreciate their time together, as because he wanted to avoid the final conversation of the day.
So, he shot the shit with Raja, treaded barbs with Emma, and discussed strategy with Matt as the sun moved inexorably across the sky. There were no surprises or attacks. Honestly, as long as they stayed on the right side of the Throne, Benjamin really wasn’t expecting any. It wasn’t until after dinner that he finally excused himself to go to the small guarded wagon where their prisoner was being kept.
“You want me to go with you?” Emma asked, but Benjamin shook his head.
“For now, we still need him alive. The minute that changes, you can have the conversation you’ve been waiting for,” Benjamin said as he walked into the night. He was certain that made her smile, but he had no desire to see such an unnerving, blood-chilling grin on such an otherwise beautiful face.
Benjamin couldn’t blame her for wanting Ethan dead, of course. He kind of did, too, but not enough to actually kill the guy. It was the demoness that possessed him that he really wanted to kill, but somehow, he didn’t think he was going to get his way on that either.
He found the pale scared man just where he should be, but before Benjamin had even ordered the gag to be loosened and the guards sent away, the illusion of Ethan as he’d once been was summoned into being.
“Stop that,” Benjamin said. “I want to talk to the man first Miku, you and I can talk after that.”
His friends healthy face pouted for a moment just like Miku might before it sloughed off and vanished to reveal the tormented soul beneath. Despite having seen it before, Benjamin was once again stung by not just the evidence of the wounds and the suffering but by the haunted look in Ethan’s eyes.
“Sh-she torments me even more now that you’ve captured her,” Ethan whispered. “You could have stopped that. Why didn’t you stop that at least?”
“Because the last time you had the chance, you tried to kill me,” Benjamin said matter-of-factly as he sat down on the edge of the wagon and looked away from his old friend’s unnerving gaze and back toward the stars. “I think after you try to kill or brainwash your friends more than once, you lose any rights toward merciful treatment.”
“I… it was her, she did it,” Ethan whined.
Benjamin didn’t know if it was true or not, but it broke his heart either way as he thought back to that night so long ago when they were reunited. Ethan had bragged then about how Kitsune Miku could do things no real could, but until Benjamin had been sucked into her heart of the void, he’d had no idea what his friend was referring to.
No one could survive that sort of temptation with their moral compass intact. Benjamin was certain that she was just as good at seduction as she was at torture, and for as long as Ethan had been in charge of her, she’d been nothing but affectionate. Once he’d made the mistake of summoning her from the phone and inviting her into his own body, though… He’d never seen it coming.
“It must have been a tough winter,” Benjamin said instead of rehashing any of that. “Despite what you’ve done, I’m still sorry it happened to you.”
“When the snows got deep, and I couldn’t find anything to kill, she made me summon monsters from the depths to devour, you know,” he said. “She needed me to keep my strength up while she drained it to stay here instead of returning to hell.”
“No one made you come back for her,” Benjamin said, but he knew that was wrong. A junkie like Ethan would never have been able to resist their fix. “And we can’t undo the past. I just want to know what you want when all this is done. Things are coming to a head, and I only need you and the demoness that rides you for one more task. After that, if you survive, well, you have some options—”
“I want to kill her,” Ethan hissed immediately before Benjamin could even finish saying what he wanted to say.
“Noted, but unfortunately, I need her more than I need you for what comes next, so that’s probably not going to be an option. However, we could consider an exile, or perhaps even a return to Earth if you—” Benjamin said, trying to tangent him back to the topic.
“I WANT TO KILL HER!” Ethan screamed loudly enough that Benjamin was sure that half the camp could hear. “I WANT TO SHRED HER SOUL AND—”
“Miku, please mute your host for me,” Benjamin said, unnerved but not unsurprised by the sure power of his friend’s resentment. He wanted to kill her too, but then this conversation hadn’t been about Ethan anyway. It was just setting the stage for his conversation with the vile Rahkshasa.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
When Ethan stopped screaming, Benjamin addressed the demoness next. “As I was saying, as much as I’d like to let Ethan torture you for the rest of his natural life, I’m willing to let you free instead if you work with me to catch a bigger fish.”
There was only silence for a moment, and then her voice whispered, “Lord Jarris,” through Ethan’s lips.
“Exactly,” Benjamin answered. “I have no doubt that if he doesn’t command the army, we are about to battle, and then he holds a high position within it. You probably know him better than anyone alive. Remind me, how long did you serve him again?”
“Eighty two years, as you reckon them,” She sighed. “And in the places beyond time. Hundreds at least.”
“Sounds like more than enough reason to want him dead,” Benjamin volunteered.
“Maybe I don’t want to kill him,” she murmured, looking at him with Benjamin’s vacant eyes. “Maybe I want to torture him for a decade or two first.”
“I don’t care what you do with him after I get what I need,” Benjamin nodded. He’d rather just kill them both clean and be done with it, but if he’d learned one thing in his dealing with Miku, it was that she was a fan of malicious compliance, and if he was struggling to make her do her part, then there was no way that this plan was going to work.
“If I tell you no, you’ll simply order me to help you anyway,” she said, “and when I succeed in this trivial task, you will simply snuff me out, despite your play-acting with your clumsy play-acting with my host.”
“I’d be willing to swear a pact with you on it,” Benjamin said, not yet extending his hand. “I will vow to grant you your life and freedom if you do all that I ask in the days ahead.”
“You must think I’m unlikely to survive then to do such a foolhardy thing,” she smiled knowingly. “What sort of fool do you take me for?”
“Well, if you die, my mission fails, and I’ll probably die moments later, so… I think it’s a plan you would enjoy.” He said with a smile, making her lean forward as she slowly became interested. “Heads, you get your freedom, and tails you, me, and Ethan here all die in the same moment. How does that sound to you?”
“It sounds like an offer worth entertaining, at least,” she said. “Tell me your plan, mortal, and I will decide if it is worthy of my cooperation.”
So Benjamin spent the next twenty minutes telling her the details of his plan. There was no downside to being as open as honest as possible since she had no discernible way from communicating with anyone.
One of the reasons he’d waited so long to have this conversation, actually, was that he wanted to see if someone would come for her or if they had a way of tracking her to launch a surprise attack. Since neither of them had happened, it was safe to assume that she was a sacrificial pawn, just as everything else was to the Rhulvin.
He told her how she would ‘capture’ him and return to her master to report her mission successful on the eve of their attack and that Benjamin would paralyze their Rhulvin nerve center even as his forces struck from surprise. It was all pretty straightforward, aside from a couple of twists that only she could help him with, and when he was done, all she said was, “That’s very ambitious; where do I sign up?”
“You understand that Jarris has to live, though, right?” Benjamin asked. “Even after I give you his seal, you may do nothing but pretend to be under his control until he reaches the World Island and does all I need for him to do there.”
“All of these complications,” she sighed dramatically from Ethan’s mouth. It was unnerving seeing his friend being used like a puppet, but he ignored it. “You’ll never fit all of that into an oath.”
“Help me until my objectives are done; obey me until 24 hours after I give you the seal to release you,” he said, extending his hand as his mouth suddenly felt dry. “And in return, I will grant you your freedom and do you no harm.”
As Benjamin spoke, the pact spell booted up. It wasn’t something he would have even been aware of without the Prince’s memories and his education focused on all things demonic, but there it was. It was a fairly complicated work of magic that would place a prohibition on both their souls and do terrible things to whoever broke the pact.
It was a controversial but important tool in the arsenal of a young mage, Benjamin knew it could have terrible consequences, but he didn’t care about that too much. He actually thought there was a chance he could purge it from his soul if he really needed to, but that wasn’t an immediate concern. What was was saving as many lives as possible, and that meant he had to put his at risk.
Miku extended her hand, clasping his with Ethan’s clammy fingers. For a second, he didn’t feet those, though. Instead, he felt her slender fingers as she said, “I will obey you in all things, and help you achieve this victory, then we shall go out separate ways, and if we ever happen to meet again I will spend years ripping you open to see what makes you tick.”
Her response was more vengeful than he’d expected, and it was clear that if he agreed, he’d have to deal with her again in the future, but that was a later problem. He didn’t pull away, and moment by moment, the magic began to solidify.
For just a moment they both swelled with energy and then, ever so briefly, their souls touched, adding one more stain to his already ragged psyche. He would live with it. Benjamin felt the ties that bind circulate through him, and when they separated once more, the curious feeling lingered for a moment.
“We are agreed, then,” Benjamin said.
“We are agreed that one day you will regret this,” Miku said through Ethan’s mouth.
“I have plenty of regrets,” Benjamin said. “What’s one more?”
He ordered her bound and gagged once more, then after that, he ordered her to behave, and he went back to rejoin his friends. There were a few days at least before his own personal Ragnarök, and he was determined to enjoy them.