Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 15:53:34 +0000 From: Michael Offutt Subject: Chapter 31 of "The Assassin's Apprentice" - Gay Science Fiction This story is protected under international and Pan-American copyright conventions. Please remember to donate to Nifty if you're financially able to do so. MY WEBSITE: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/books.html My email: kavrik@hotmail.com My art: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/my-artwork.html Forum discussion thread: http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html Drawings of Kian are on my art link above. A MAP of the world is on the FORUM link above. My other stories and writing samples are on the Website link above. ***** Chapter 31 Ser Calisto Blackmoor does not have eyes. He has pinpoints of crimson anger that glow like the lava storms of Tempest Mountain. And by the gods, I swear he's huge...at least a foot taller than I and with shoulders half again as broad. He has a stink about him that I should have expected from the undead. It's a fetid odor of decay, and it wafts from his armor like the odor produced from the fermentation of cabbage. I see exposed bone underneath the length of his ebony-colored vambraces. I wonder what kind of penis such a creature possesses under all that metal. If the bulk of him has turned to desiccated skin while the rest has rotted, with what does he use to fuck? Still, he must have something squishy inside of him for it feeds the maggots that occasionally roll from between his joints as he walks in (what I can only guess) are size twenty iron boots. They dwarf my size ten feet, which are so narrow they could belong to a gymnast. I know they're average for a man but would appear dainty next to his. "Those are grotesque," Talen whispers in my helmet. I see what he's looking at. The maggots pelt the floor like moist pieces of rice with tiny black heads. I smash quite a few of them as I stride behind the nude sorceress. "I'm so sorry, Kian," he whispers. I can tell by the tone in his voice that he's on the verge of crying. He even sniffs a little. When I glance his direction all I see is the shiny reflective exterior of his glass visor and his gorgeous black and emerald killsuit. But I know he's staring at me red-faced and puffy right now. Dammit...don't do this now, I think. We need to appear fearless. "About what?" I ask softly. Despite my frustration at the timing of these drippy feelings, I want to rub Talen's shoulders. I can't though. It's just not the time or the place for such affection. I surreptitiously take his armored hand in mine and give it a reassuring squeeze. "For almost-" he gags, "t-turning you over to t-that...m-monster. Gods...I want to vomit at the thought of him raping you with...w-whatever eel or grotesque appendage he has underneath that disgusting codpiece." "Don't cry over milk that hasn't been spilt," I say to him. "You came back to me before the end and for that I'm so grateful." He sighs. He sniffs but doesn't say anything. So I do the talking. "I love you, Talen. But I need you to be strong right now. Just focus, okay?" He nods. I look at Calisto but he doesn't seem to notice Talen's gesture. I don't want to clue him or anyone else into the fact Talen and I can have private conversations when wearing our killsuits. Instantaneous communication over a distance? That's the kind of magic that can win a war. "Watch the body gestures," I warn him. "Huh?" he asks. "Oh right. Sorry, I just wasn't thinking." "It's okay." Talen does have it right though. The death knight general is as disgusting as they come. Depending from his massive shoulders is a tattered cloak that's seen better days...and to be clear, by "better," I mean anything that hasn't been ravaged by moths and shit on by rats. It looks like a burial raiment and bears many blood and possibly--wait--could those be semen stains? Ugh, some are fresh and others old. His blackened armor is dented in places, scratched in others, and his tabard looks shredded by human fingers. The rips are just far enough apart to fit the fingers of my own hand if I imagine placing them there. My mind fills with images of young boys desperately fighting Calisto off as he climbs on top of them to rut his foul bile into their guts. How awful. The obscene appearance of his steel codpiece gives me the willies. It's a thick hammered bowl with indentations for nuts the size of kiwi fruit. Dense mats of fur spring forth around the edges, long coarse black hairs, as if Calisto rammed it on with a mallet and cared not that his jungle of pubis stuck out in every which way. And as untamed as that man bush appears, it's also crawling with lice. I can see them jumping onto the carpet through the magnification of the visor. In his left hand, Calisto carries a shield; across his back, a sword. It's a mighty weapon with a four foot blade made heavy with a weight of lead in the fuller. It possesses a two foot handle; the crosspiece is a skull with no eyes. It's done in silver and black metal and the pommel is decorated with a smooth shock of long white-blond hair, no doubt cut from an Atlantean just like me. Fucking bastard. It's like my race got birthed into this world so that our body parts could be used as upholstery. I swear to nothing but the silence in my mind that if there's a way to make Calisto suffer, I shall find it. I clench my fist, just waiting for an opportunity to scrape this horror from the face of the world. One less ugly thing to plague the people of Wynwrayth is a good deed, right? I think for a moment about the concept of good. What is it really? I know I'm a bad person, but I'd never willingly kill someone that didn't deserve it. Nor would I bring harm to another. I'm forced to admit I killed an innocent child once, here...in the very streets of Soulwarden. But I wouldn't have done it if I'd been strong enough to resist the compulsion of the Eros. I guess I didn't know what I was getting into, and I was so stuck on myself that I couldn't see the dangers of my pride. So yeah, the concept of what is good eludes me. However, I know good when I see it. I also know evil when I see it. Calisto is evil; so is Ravidan. I glance at the demon walking behind me. I'd call Ravidan an "it," but I know the bony cock between the legs defines the creature as a "he." It's long and surrounded by a scale-covered sheath. It's also punishingly thick. I'm sure he'd be a miserable lay for anyone not used to regularly giving birth. Any man he fucked would die from perforations to the colon. Kahket sashays her way into another room, Calisto by her side. Talen and I follow behind them, guided by the glow from a lit fireplace. Ravidan takes up the rear, shedding freezing cold wherever he steps with those enormous clawed feet. The aura of hoarfrost emanating from Ravidan's glistening black skin is so powerful it creates a swirl of snowflakes in his immediate vicinity, literally sucking the moisture from the air. I wonder if this is why the place is kept so hot. I spy a window, high and narrow, with a grid of iron bars. Beneath my feet, the carpet remains vermillion; the walls are either painted red or hang with velvet wallpaper that alternates between black, gold and scarlet. Beyond this window beckons the sweet violet night. Oh how I long for it. The solitude of comforting darkness pours into this place; dull shadows reflect off of the stone walls and velvet tapestries. I drop Talen's hand when I see a movement in the corner. It's beyond the curve of Kahket's hips; I move to the side to get a better look. It's Angelaria. She's lying against the far wall, garments soiled with what looks like feces. Her kitten meows softly at her. She's got a blackened eye, a bleeding lip. There's blood on her dress. "Fuck me," I swear under my breath. Talen gasps in horror. "Did they rape her?" he asks, but the question is rhetorical. The evidence is pretty clear what kind of crime recently took place. I hear him swallow uncomfortably. Talen's a good person inside; I think I bring out the worst in him actually. He got so angry with her, I know. But seeing her like this moves EVEN me. I'm dead to rights the one that should visualize her as a corpse...that should want her punished. I start to question myself. Maybe I'm not cut out to be an assassin. Maybe I'm just a victim masquerading as someone who wants to talk tough and be "the man" when really...I can't be. I can't be because I'm like a crab: hard on the outside but with a soft gooey interior. And seeing Angelaria like this makes me mad, really mad. I want to take vengeance on those who would do this to a girl. I know the time is very soon. It's just not right now. "I hope not," I say to my boyfriend. "No one deserves that." "I thought she did," Talen says, regret layered thick in his voice. "I-I know I thought that...wished it even. But if it really happened...gods. I'm a horrible person, buddy. How can you possibly love me?" Angelaria looks at us without comprehension. She has a cut on her head and blood has trickled into the one eye that isn't swollen shut. Calisto steps forward and brutally grabs her kitten. Verrr starts to meow louder, complaining. "No!" she cries out, reaching for the small animal. But Calisto hurls it on the ground and steps on it, crushing the poor thing like an insect. Blood and guts erupt from Verrr, and it dies shrieking. "You monster!" she exclaims, but Calisto bitch slaps her when she struggles to stand. Talen turns away. "She loved that cat," he sobs. "I kind of liked Verrr too." I swallow. Calisto wipes his boot on the carpet. "I'll get her," Talen says. "It should be me anyway since I'm partly responsible for this by turning her out onto the street with no protection." "You forgive her?" I ask. He looks at me, and then back at her. "No. I'm not to that point yet. I don't know if I ever will be. But this...whatever this is...it ends now. When she's better, when she's able to go it alone, when we're all far from this place; then she's got to go. She's got to walk her own path. But I'm not a monster. I'm not going to leave her here with these men." Talen walks to her side, and I feel so proud of him. She looks at Talen's visor once and turns away from him. But Talen kneels and puts his arm under Angelaria's back to support her. She fights him a little at first, but then concedes she's safer with him than anyone else. During this time Calisto looks on in amusement, and Kahket studies me intently sometimes blowing kisses in my direction and at other times licking her lips seductively. I really don't like her. "Do you two know each other?" she asks. "We caught the girl trying to leave Soulwarden. The church of Moh-Dehll has quite a bounty on her as well as two boys that she declares are now dead. I plan to collect on that bounty later, after she gives us what we want." "I don't know her," I say. "But we're not going to stand around and let you hurt this girl anymore." "As if you could stop me...but it's no matter, Hunter. You shouldn't get too cozy with her. I've stolen her magic to fuel my own. If she did have power, I assure you that she's a woman who doesn't take kindly to men." Angelaria spoke up. "I'm a woman that doesn't take kindly to pigs who sodomize me!" she yells. "And I dispute that you would even call such cowards 'men.'" Kahket laughs. "But the shit on your dress...it complements your hair." Then, I see what could be her rapist. It's Mordred...the knight that wanted to sodomize me with a dick so long and rigid that you'd see it raising the skin on my abdomen as he buried it in my rectum. I'd recognize those blood red eyes, the long white hair, and the inky black skin anywhere. He strides in wearing the polished armor of a Darkglory Timeron Knight, weighted razor cloak sweeping about his colossal boots. He's got his engorged dick in his hand, milking the last of his load with his fingers as it softens, and he stuffs it away behind his codpiece. "That was very satisfying, princess," Mordred says to her. "But I couldn't risk fucking your pussy, even a virgin one such as your own. You see, I'm a Timeron Knight. And a woman has to prove her body worthy to receive my seed, because even if it accidentally results in a child, the child is mine. You're not worthy...not of this," he gestures at his own magnificence. "I've seen whores in taverns that were more worthy to be my brood mare than you." Angelaria spits on him. "My father will have your head for this! I swear he'll execute your whole perverted squadron of knights. And as for you...he'll pluck your eyeballs from your skulls and feed them to the fish." Mordred turns his rugged face to her once, before examining both Talen and I. I see his step stiffen as he catches sight of the contours of my body in the skin-tight killsuit. I know he's just staring at lines; he has no idea who I am. But Tethyr's Teeth is he ever pleased with what he sees. "What have we here?" Mordred asks, tone obviously flirty. "If I'd known you were bringing me a man that looks like THIS in his armor, I'd have waited to satisfy my lust in his ass instead of hers." He walks around me like a merchant inspecting an animal at market. "Look at that butt," he whispers, fingering his chin. "It's perfect...so round. I bet you've got a tiny sweet pucker, boy. I had a chance at one only this week...the first perfectly round piece of paradise in all the years of my life. But it got away. Yet here's another only a short time later. Taleta truly is the goddess of bounty." He reaches out to feel me but I strike his hand aside so swiftly it writes pain across his smug face. "Why you little-" "You could only be so lucky," I interrupt him, voice sounding metallic through the speech synthesizer. Then I spring the two blades on my wrist causing him to jump back. They're almost as long as swords and reflect light in all colors of the rainbow. "Cibrian blades," Calisto says with a gasp. "You know what that means don't you?" I ask. I stare at Mordred, although in the armored visor, it probably just looks like I'm facing him. "It means I could cut you to pieces with every swipe of my wrist. I could leave you a pile of stumps, Mordred. You'd have to change your name to Doormat." "Mordred," Kahket says to him. "This is Hunter, and he's to be obeyed as readily as I am. Is this understood?" The knight looks at the sorceress and scowls. "You fucking whore. I ally myself with you for only a day and you think you can make requests of me?" Kahket raises her hand as if to strike him. Green lightning courses across her fingertips and blazes with a brightness akin to the rising sun. But Calisto is swifter. He grabs Kahket's arm in his right gauntlet. Pale blue fire swirls around his fingers and burns her flesh. I hear whispers coming from that fire. For a minute, there's nothing but tension. Then the flames slowly go out; Kahket draws them into herself. Somehow, she's able to absorb magic. How in the lowest pits of hell is that possible? "Forgive me, Calisto. I only acted to chastise your man," Kahket says. There's no emotion in her voice; no fear. "I didn't think you felt so strongly about him, considering he could have been one of those who betrayed you...one of those whose entrails now decorate the walls of the torture room." The Death Knight lets her go. A black ring of dead flesh surrounds her wrist. It looks painful, but she reveals no such discomfort on her face. And soon, the flesh begins to turn pink, healing at an accelerated rate. Calisto speaks in a low baritone to Mordred. "My brother, you WILL obey Kahket or I shall remove your guts through your mouth. You brought a conspiracy to my attention, but your own innocence in the scheme that would have me deposed whilst I fucked a boy cunt has not earned you any favor. You'd be wise to appease our allies or I shall be forced to rethink your usefulness." Calisto folds his arms, eyes glowing with red fire. Then he looks at Kahket directly and points at us. "As for you, sorceress...your appetites are dangerous. They shall be your demise. You know not what you've invited unto this place. Only that it makes your loose pussy sopping wet. I doubt even a bull could make you feel anything." Kahket rubs her hand, calling forth the same blue fire that Calisto only a moment before held to her wrist. Then she extinguishes it. I know she's just showing off. I know she wants everyone to see how she can steal other's abilities and temporarily use them as her own. Kahket turns back to Calisto. "Your insults are pathetic, dead one." Then her eyes linger on my body, or more appropriately, my codpiece. "Still...a bull is easier to find than you realize. I've had more boys than you, and I understand this makes you jealous especially when the ones I fuck tend to live. I understand. But I'm also beautiful and you dear knight...you long ago became hideous to even the blind." "Bitch," Calisto says. "If not for this meeting, I'd flay the skin from your bones. And what makes you think that I like the boys whose assholes I destroy...to live?" "Enough pillow talk, honey," Kahket says. Then she turns to Talen and I. "The time is at hand. You're about to witness something very special." She exits into a narrow hallway lined with flickering yellow torches. The floor in front of us is polished mahogany and the walls are made from expensive black marble. Veins resembling spilt milk spread in patterns both chaotic and beautiful across the surface. I chase her shadow; Talen and Angelaria follow quietly at my side. Angelaria leans heavily against Talen for support, blood visible on her ankles that occasionally peek out from her torn dress. She sobs loudly. I know she has many things to cry about, but Verrr's the last thing of comfort that remained in her life. I also know the physical pain she's going through. It doesn't look like Mordred used lube when he took her from behind, and I doubt he employed any delicacy. The pig probably tore her sphincter. We're led to a door of polished wood, bound in strips of iron. The handles are crafted to resemble devil's hands and these in turn are covered in hammered gold. Kahket clasps them in her hands and flings the doors wide. Beyond these doors lies a council chamber. The room is small, and the sorceress enters with arms raised in triumph over her head. She's brazen in her nakedness, flaunting what beauty she believes is hers to give. Never have I seen someone so proud to be nude. Kahket unashamedly strides forth, legs spread as she walks, to let the strange men see the glory of the womanhood that sits between her legs. It's both ridiculous and bold at the same time. On both sides of the door packed stone bleachers filled with rows of gawking men, many of them bearded and old, suddenly quiet. They'd been focused on an empty table with fourteen chairs. But now, all eyes are on Kahket. Quite a few quaff from tankards, drizzling ale from the corners of smacking lips. One man is so taken by her that he begins to whack off in the stands. The stone bleachers wrap most of the room. Because of Kahket, no one notices either myself or Talen. Some whisper and point at Angelaria. I spy one other door into this room. It lies on the far side beneath a wall of narrow windows which are open to the night. Lightning brief and thunder loud flickers and crashes outside those windows, and it sets the mood for tonight's entertainment. Purple and angry, the clouds of ash and steam boil with ever increasing rage. The red blood of Tempest Mountain is reflected in the night and seems brighter here, like plumes of mist catching sunlight as the dawn breaks with first sunrise. The only illumination inside the room shines from multiple (and very expensive) golden candelabra. The other door opens; it causes these flames to gutter slightly, and I shuffle farther into the room behind the celebrant sorceress. Talen and Angelaria are at my side. There is no chatter on the inside of my helmet. No one says a thing. Our eyes watch the empty table at the center of the floor with apprehension. The table itself is a magnificent creation. It's made from expensive woods and polished to a gleam. The entirety of it has an edge of teakwood carefully inlaid with carvings of winding ivy, stalking animals, and buzzing insects. The chairs are equally impeccable, their backs wrapped in exorbitant vermillion silks and emblazoned with gold emboss. I'm amazed at the grandeur and the silence. I watch transfixed like everyone else. The door slides open further, and an assembly of men enters. All of them wear heavy muslin robes that carry the scent of mold with them. It's pungent and sharp. Then abruptly I see him...Constantine...my trainer! As proud and invincible as ever, the tall powerful assassin walks in, face swathed in gray hair, eyes bowed, boots and armor gleaming and polished. Across his back is his sword, at his belt several knives. I know he carries more weapons concealed on his person. But the most dangerous weapon by far is his body and his mind. For a man almost thrice my age, he lacks excessive body fat. He's pure sinew, bone, muscle...he's a hardened killer through and through. Why did he pick me? I'll probably never know. He scans the crowd, eyes both Talen and I briefly. He takes a seat at the table, carefully folding his hands before him, reserved and settled, watching the others. They take their places. As they look up, I see each hides his face behind a mask of gold, silver, or bronze. I look to the shadows and see figures I'd not noticed before. Other Nightshades are here as well...not just Constantine. Their skill is such that they escaped my eyes until I sought them out through the visor. They scowl at each other; some thrum their fingers along the handles of their swords. Ah, so this is how it is. They view one another as competition. As strange as this may seem, Talen and I are probably the only two here that would back each other up in a fight. Everyone else would be in it only for themselves. That's what Tethyr wants to change. Incredible, I think in the quiet of my mind. I count four other Nightshades outside of Constantine. I scan the crowd around us. Four students must also be there, and at last I spot them. I'm surprised two are girls. How do I recognize them? Easy. They pay no attention to Kahket. None at all. In fact, they only pay attention to each other. They've probably already planned how each will take the other out. Such infighting in the church is destroying us, and that's only assuming that these people actually believe. Something tells me, they're here only because they have to be. They control their focus well. A murmur erupts from the crowd. I feel a presence that reminds me of that daydream in the cave next to the shore. The dream in which my fever finally broke the layer of Eros addiction that threatened to drown me in layers of pain and delusion. It's the dream in which I met the black wolf with yellow eyes for the first time. What I feel now is like that. It's the unearthly presence of God...an immortal being that's as immense as creation itself. A giant figure enters the room. Tethyr's completely transparent and surrounded by a gray nimbus. He's the most beautiful man I've ever seen. I'm at once smitten and shaken. I feel my heart inflate with feelings of love for this unearthly face. I want to run to him, I want to fold my arms around him, and I desire his flesh inside mine, penetrating me with abandon, but only if it makes him happy. I would beg at his feet for a year just to hear him say that I pleased him. It's impossible to describe really, but I think it must be similar to how a caveman who has lived underground for his entire life must feel when viewing the sun for the first time. I know that I'd end my life in an instant if He just gave the word. I do love thee, a voice says in my helmet, but it doesn't belong to Talen. I search the faces of my companions. Talen's posture tells me he's also listening to the same thing. "I love thee, my child, and thy brother Talen, and welcome thee with my heart. Someday I shall take you to bed, perhaps both you and Talen at the same time. Perhaps I shall rub my spilt seed into your skin, but not today. I promise thee it shall come to pass as reward for thy service. At this time though, I need thy and thy brother to bear witness to what is fated to pass in this room and to not be confused by what is seen. As a god, I am unable to affect the material world without physical flesh. All of us gave up our bodies many thousands of years ago and agreed to manipulate the world only through the actions of our followers. After what occurs here today, the scale of power will shift, but it shall not be in my direction." I'm speechless, but I'm sure He understands. The Godling strides to the front of the table and His powerful presence fills the room like an overinflated balloon. I can feel His thoughts, His emotions, His mind. I know in my soul that had He wished...with but a simple whim, He could move a mountain, or bring the dead back to life. He has about Him the presence of power infinite and His understanding lie beyond my feeble mortal comprehension. The thirteen around the table quake visibly. They tremble as God watches them from only a few feet away. I fall to my knees and Talen and Angelaria join me. Together we watch Tethyr's every move, His every breath...knowing full well that we will stay rooted to this spot and never take our eyes from Him even to eat food or drink water. I want to beg to have His image seared forever into my mind. The God turns to Kahket. "Come Lamia of Magic. It is Thy Time." Lamia of magic? What is that? Does it refer to her ability to suck magic from others? Kahket trembles. "You know what I plan to do!" "Yes," Tethyr replies. "As truly had thy used all of thine power and abilities and those you stole from your betters to protect a single thought from Mine would I with but an afterthought take from thee this thought and leave thy mind a maddened husk. What thy plan is no secret but must come to pass. Step forward and embrace thy destiny, child." Kahket's face forms a sneer; she sways like a venomous cobra. Calisto steps forward and hands her a jeweled box which she holds forth in front of her like a prized trophy. "Nay, but I did not detect my brother," Tethyr says with surprise. "Come forth Zandine and slink no longer in the shadows!" Then I see another being appear: this one wears a nimbus of deep violet blazing around him like liquid fire. He's as beautiful as the first, with perfect features and a face of deep calm. Zandine's long glossy black hair is only matched by the finery of his masculine beard and mustache. A god through and through, He's a marvel to behold. Towering ten feet tall the same as his brother, Zandine is transparent as well. As Tethyr told me, the gods have no flesh and Zandine is no exception. "What is this?" Tethyr demands. "And a Duke of Hell? Ravidan Scalebane. Flee from my presence foul and putrid host of Taleta, or I shalt abjure thee and send thy body to the deepest pits of Hell!" Ravidan shrinks from Tethyr who waits only a second more before smiting him with a single word. The utterance of that word utterly destroys the Duke of Hell, and he implodes in shrieks that leave a gaping hole in the floor that burns with black malevolent flame. I suppose being a demon, Ravidan doesn't qualify as being a part of the physical world since he hails from another place. I step forward cautiously, so as to distance myself by a few feet from the crater where Ravidan once stood. Kahket raises her voice. "Did you think it so easy that I wrest what I want from the lips of Constantine as I bed him a hundred times in ten years? That I wore face after face to milk his loins to cajole the knowledge I needed from this Nightshade who grew to hate you? Did you think it so easy that I whispered into his ear of how...as a god in the sheets...he should also be worshiped as a god outside of them? It's you, Tethyr, who are the foolish one. You lost your greatest warrior to my gorgeous pussy." "She lies!" Constantine yells. "I knew her for what she is. I sent my apprentice in my place to fetch the Eye of Blood when she expected only me. I knew she would try to set a trap for me in Ladika, but would never expect my apprentice. It's the only chance I had to escape her sorcery even if I could kill all her minions. I assure you Lord, the Eye of Blood is safe with my pupil far from here." Kahket laughs, producing the Eye of Blood from a pouch. "Your apprentice is here today. Hunter is right beside me. And he brought me the Eye of Blood. I'll fuck him too, just like I fucked you. Your betrayal is complete." Constantine stares at me in the armor, stunned at who I might be. "Remove your helmet," he commands. "No," I say. "Did you bring the Eye of Blood here? Are you so stupid boy?! The Eye of Blood is the key to a great artifact forged by Tethyr, but it's also a vessel that contains the vitae of the most powerful evil dragon that ever lived...a thing with five heads that possessed an army of men as deathless as the dragons themselves. The Eye of Blood brokered the peace between the children of men and the children of the queen of dragons. Sheila, Queen of Dragons, declared that the Eye of Blood must not be allowed to make a god whole on Wynwrayth or her anger would know no bounds. If what she says is true, you've just destroyed that peace you fucking idiot!" I swallow uncomfortably. "I-I uhh...I-I might have brought it. You should have told me!" Constantine wrings his hands and swears repeatedly under his breath. Kahket cackles and then directs her rage at Tethyr who can do nothing but listen. "It is I then who humbles a god, right? And now the trap is complete, for I challenge Constantine in this place for having broken the ancient Pact of Dragons! Constantine's penance shall be taken from his soul by the Queen of the Dragons herself. A fitting end for a has-been follower of a now weak and sniveling deity! The dragons shall declare war upon the world of men, and thy followers will be persecuted for it. The war shall claim many casualties, but it is the forces of Zandine who will prosper. Today, I make my god whole. Perhaps we shall even conquer Mal Ruen, home to Sheila herself, because a god of flesh and blood is invincible!" I decide to kill her and try to move, but I discover I'm frozen somehow...frozen in place by some kind of magic. I look to the back of the room and see men there where none stood before, chanting and calling forth magic. They wear robes the same color as Zandine's nimbus. Body quaking, Kahket raises the lid. "I make the elixir of life from the Eye of Blood," she whispers. I see magic seep from her fingers and drain the color from the stone. A single large blood droplet forms and then falls into the box...the vitae of the dead dragon. "I mix it with the bones of a god, and the blessings of a Duke of Hell," she says, shaking the box. "I've fulfilled the conditions as were set by the gods on the Final Day, and I present it to ye, Zandine, Lord of Illusion, so that ye shalt live again and take me as thy bride!" "Monstrous!" Constantine yells, exploding to his feet. Somehow, he's the only one able to move in the magical field that holds us all in thrall. The chair in which he sat is reduced to timbers, and I see a wristband that glows white hot under the cuff of his armor. Why didn't you act sooner? I ask to no one, but I want to ask Constantine that question. And then it finally hits me. Tethyr is absolutely right when he says Constantine abandoned him long ago. The reason Constantine didn't act sooner and attack Kahket before she could complete the ritual is because he was looking for a way to flee. He's in this only for himself. Constantine always cared only for Constantine. If he put off airs otherwise, it was all a lie. "You betrayed your own god!" Kahket laughs. Just as I thought he would, Constantine heads for the door. Kahket hurls a bolt of green fire at Constantine's chest. The room explodes with burning plasma and Constantine, a broken man, slams into the stone wall. Even with the visor protecting my eyes, I'm forced to shield them as best I can. I also throw my body atop Talen and Angelaria who are thrown to the ground by the powerful blast. The assembly of men at the table disappears in the glow. I hear screams as well as the awful burning and popping sound that bacon makes when it's on fire. ***** Next week I shall post Chapter 32. Please check out my other writing samples on my website (link at the top of this chapter).