United Against Hate: Chapter 8

“Again.”

The room glowed with bright purple light as the spell was cast again. Runes aligned in a circle glowed to life to an almost blinding degree. The hooded woman narrowed her eyes ignoring it as she filtered the screams out of her ears. She didn’t care about the screams of the pain, she cared about the results. They had made a break, a crack in the air, and then nothing more. They couldn’t replicate it since.

The light died down as the spell was called off and the five mages casting the spell had their shoulder slump down. This was the fourth time the spell had been cast. The fourth time that the spell had been close and the fourth time it failed.

Shouting her frustration she swung and the far wall exploded with an invisible force. She turned and grabbed the mage at her side and lifted them off the ground. “Why are you failing? We’ve called dozens of demons down and given them away to a host. Why is this one any different?”

“I. I don’t know magus. We have followed the ritual perfectly. Nothing has changed.”

“Do not lie to me!”

“I’m not I swear it!”

She glared and her eyes glowed as the mage started reaching at their neck. They hacked and coughed reaching toward their face. The hood fell back and his face was red as a tomato. The magus’s eyes glowed brighter and the mage’s face exploded. Blood and flecks of brighter meat flew everywhere except the magus.

Dropping the body the magus growled and turned to the center of the magical circle that had been drawn. The glow of the chalk was still there though it had been fading slightly. But it was still bright enough that she was able to see the girl in the center of it.

She was on her knees in the center of the room her head slumped down. She had chains wrapped around her wrists and neck. Her head was down her silver hair catching all the light that came from the magic around her. Growling the magus walked toward the girl crossing the circle but careful not to break the drawing.

The magus’s thin hand grabbed her by the head and yanked it upward. Silva looked at the magus, her tired amber eyes unfocused but still angry. The magus met those eyes and scowled throwing her head down again. “Why is this one so difficult to turn into a host or a sacrifice. She’s brimming with power.”

The other mages were hesitant to respond until one came forward and finally said, “Unsure magus. Even the magic that permeates her is strange and different. Like she doesn’t belong here.”

“Doesn’t belong here?” the magus rounded on the hooded mage before pausing. “That’s not an entirely insane thought. For now we’re down. Take her back to her cell. And bring in one of the other sacrifices. I tire of failures.”

She waved her hand and a pair of the shadow soldiers from the edge of the rooms came forward. They unfastened the chains on the walls and wheeled them in as they approached her slowly. They made sure that the chains were tight in their hands and pulled.

Silva grunted as she was forced up to her feet. Her legs weren’t steady, barely able to support her weight. But they didn’t care that they were essentially dragging her along. They pulled her along her feet dragging behind as she tried to follow them but every step was pain.

She raised her head slowly and watched the scenery change slowly. She looked around her, seeing the other sacrifices chained to the walls and many torches. Some stared fearfully at the magic circle that was cooling down. Others were defeated or no longer moving.

They walked between the five of them through a long hallway. This hallway was nothing like the tower. Well kept carpeted floor, podiums with plants and busts of people she’d never seen before. There were dozens of paintings of likewise strange and different men and women. But all of them had the same expression of power and disdain.

She could see down the hallway and the light of the castle. She had to assume it was a castle because it reminded her of the castle in Reditus. She shut her eyes at the comparison. Even though it was similar to her home it was nothing like her home. And she was so far from home and in over her head.

The soldiers yanked on the chains and she was dragged down a separate hallway. One that turned into a series of curving stairs going down. With low light from the wall mounted torches it was hard to see and the only sound was their boots on stone. If it weren’t for her own vision she would have tripped and fell more than once.

The monotonous tone of their steps was enough to dull her mind. It let her focus on her pain. Physical pain she’d experienced, she and her brother used to play fight a lot. She’d had emotional pain for years but this was something else entirely. It was like something tried to reach into her soul and rip out what made her her.

She saw glimpses of a world of black that seemed to be like the constellations except infinite and cold. Every breath felt like she was breathing in shards of glass. But more than that there was the thing that had surrounded her. Pure inky blackness, and in that darkness she felt real. Felt its eyes on her, watching her. It made Daze’s gaze feel like her professors in comparison.

A cell door opened up suddenly and she was back to where she started. She was shoved forward and she hit the ground with a cry. She heard the chains lock into place and then the door clanged behind her. She didn’t bother trying to watch them go.

She looked at her hands, looked at the cuffs around her wrist, and the chain that went to the center of the cell. Tugging at them she winced and then lowered her head. She wasn’t strong enough to even make them budge let alone break them.

She didn’t know what material the chains were made of but they were stopping her from using her magic. Ever since they had ensnared her, she hadn’t been able to cast a single spell from a ball of light to calling her elementals. She was powerless.

How long had she been here. Days? Weeks? It was hard to tell with how little of the outside she saw. The experiments made it difficult to process anything. And all through that time she wondered if her siblings were okay. Wondered if they even knew where she was. Was anyone coming to save her or was she alone here?

She slid as far as her chain would allow and found the darkest corner of the cell and closed her eyes. She needed to get as much as rest as she could. But she was awoken by footsteps. These footsteps were different than those of the soldiers and their boots. They exuded magic, in a similar way that a loud person could be heard far away.

As the steps grew closer, she started to hear voices to accompany them. Neither voice was the voice of the magus or any of the ritualists. It was younger that much she could figure out. Closing her eyes tightly, she felt the force that was still inside her blood. Even if she couldn’t cast spells, it wouldn’t stop her dragon blood.

As her ears changed the sounds focused and she could hear their voices properly. “There’s so many people here. Do we really need all of them for this?” Silva guessed that the voice was male and young.

“There’s an argument to say we don’t need any of them.” A female voice said. She sounded annoyed.

“Then why are we doing this?” the male voice asked. “How many are already dead in these cells?”

“Far too many. A waste of good meat,” that voice startled Silva. Whatever that was, wasn’t human. “He could have used these for sacrifices and called the damn thing himself.”

“Well we don’t know where he is right now. And we’re stuck us with his dirty work,” the female voice said frustrated.

“What were his exact words?”

“Watch and observe,” said the male voice. “And we’re getting tired of doing it.”

“You and us both.”

The footsteps of the trio of speakers got louder and Silva turned letting her scales fade away. She raised her face slowly to see the owners of the voices, her eyes shifting to the deep draconic amber.

The first one to enter her view was a shorter boy. He had soft grey hair cut very short around his face. His skin was very pale and though he looked uneasy there was a kindness to his eyes. He wasn’t like the Magus at least. He reminded her of her uncle in a lot of ways. He couldn’t have been much older than Sefirin.  Despite the kindness of his face, his eyes were entirely black in that same void way as the spells cast on her.

The other was taller as well, maybe the same height as Sofie. She had tawny skin and black hair shaved closed to her head. Her features were similar to the boys and she had one hand covering her face. The half of the face she could see was set in a grimace that seemed too sharp for her face. But as she lowered her hand the oily metal mask on her face became apparent, the masked eye red and the normal one brown. Silva was sure she was older than the boy.

They were both wearing the same clothes, something like black suits with tails and what were once good pants but now they were covered in various forms of muck and grime. Both had black chains going from their pockets to their pants. Just looking at them Silva didn’t know who or what they were but they felt dangerous.

They stopped just outside her cell and turned to face one another. “Have you gone out to see the city?” the boy asked.

“We don’t really have a lot of time to go out and enjoy things these days. The magus has been beyond busy these past few weeks. Doubling up on raiding the surrounding villages. Either they’re getting close or they’re getting desperate. What do you two think?”

“We think it’s not something that’s going to favor us or our king in the long run,” the boy looked down. “Our people deserve better than this. But we’re collectively too weak to do anything about it.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“You know they’re right.”

“And how’s the shark?”

Looking down he touched his chest. Closing both eyes for a long moment he relaxed, “Invictus is still asleep thankfully. They haven’t shown any sign of waking up yet and for that we’re glad. Though they’re going to need to stretch their legs soon.”

“Hopefully something interesting happens before that.”

“We really don’t want to be the ones that have to tire them out.”

“We still have some scars from the last time we had to do it.”

That got a laugh out of them all. The two, no three, of them chuckled and finally turned around. He paused looking into the cell and Silva realized that he was looking at her. Even in the darkness somehow, he was looking right at her. She didn’t blink, her heartbeat stopped, and she tried to pretend she hadn’t been watching them. Despite his face, his black eyes were unsettling.

His eyes widened slightly and he took a step back, “You. You’re not from here are you?  No. I can feel it in your magic. You’re not strictly human.”

“What are you going on about?”

“Something interesting about that prisoner?”

“Very,” he said softly staring at her eyes.

Before either of them could say more there was another loud sound. The sound made her flinch and her eyes narrow. An instinct made her teeth bare and then her body shake. He’d seen that look before in more than one person. A cornered animal, even if the ‘animal’ didn’t know it.

 He and the woman both stood at attention. They watched as a trio of shapes came toward them, holding a torch to illuminate where they were. Two shadow soldiers and then a mage in their dark robes. When Silva looked closer, she realized that it was the magus and immediately looked away.

The magus looked at the pair of them and lowered her head, “The guardians to the demon king. To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?”

“The pleasure of our presence?” the woman asked.

“That’s a first. We didn’t think we were well liked in Noria.”

“Whatever gave you that impression my lords,” the magus said quickly looking at them. “We have worked steadily for this day. In fact, we have a presentation that is ready for show. We were going to showcase it to you soon.”

The two looked at one another for a short moment. The girl glanced at the magus and then spoke, “Did you feel it?”

“We felt something on our arrival. But they’ve also been failing a lot. If they’re boasting to save face they’re going to be in trouble if they fuck this up.”

“So perhaps they truly did open the gate,” the boy said. “We have hard time believing it but the magus has always been shrewd. She wouldn’t lie so openly to us.”

“It is no lie guardians. We have had many months of failed attempts, yes. But it was only because we have been conservative since our first success. But now that we understand the limitations, we will spare no expense to succeed properly.”

“What’s your name?” the woman asked.

“Formerly my name was Camilla and I was the baroness of Isal. But now I am simply the magus.”

“Well that’ll be impressive to see. We haven’t seen a proper demon in a long time. Just these knock of shadow soldiers of yours,” the woman said. “So show us the fruits of all this labor and sacrifice.”

“Yes of course. Right this way to the courtyard. You will not regret this I promise you that.”

“We hope for your sake that that’s the case,” she said jerking her chin toward them. They stood one by one and motioned for her to follow. She started to walk but stopped and looked at her companion. “You’re still staring at that one. You wanna take them home or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Don’t be weird.”

“I’m not being weird. She’s new. Young. She doesn’t deserve this. None of them do.”

She snorted, “Come on. We’re half demons that work as enforcers for a cult. We’re not in any position to really be trying to save people. You can’t save everyone.”

“We have to try. The moment we stop trying is the moment we end up like Daze.”

She stared at him a moment longer and let out a frustrated growl. “Fine. Fine. We’ll figure out what to do with her after the ritual is done.”

“Thank you,” Standing up quickly he motioned toward the cell. “Open this. Please.”

When the soldiers indicated that they didn’t have the keys to the cell he sighed. But the magus shook her head. “This one. Are you sure?”

“Enough of this. I’ll do it myself,” the woman said. She came forward and Silva saw her brown hand turn as black as her mask. She punched the lock at Silva’s door and shattered it. She grabbed one of the bars and swung the gate open.

Silva’s eyes widened as she finally recognized what the black material reminded her of, “Nil?”

He came forward first and extended a hand to her, “We know how this looks but we’d rather there not be any more death and destruction in our home. Please trust us.”

Silva looked at this man and every instinct she had told her to ignore any words that he said. They said that no one in this situation could be trusted. But she looked at him and then looked at the woman. Despite the energy that radiated off them they felt like a better option than remaining a prisoner.

Shuddering against the ground she glared at them and shook her head, “Why?”

He winced and nodded slowly, “I know trusting someone like us in your situation isn’t smart. But we can guarantee your safety. Especially from these experiments. It’s hard for us to ask you to trust us but we are asking you anyway. Please.”

Silva had been through enough pain and punishment in however long she’d been here that she wanted to trust him. Trust any friendly voice in the moment. Even though it felt like a bad idea or even dangerous. But beyond that, she was wondered if she was able to even bargain.

He looked at the woman at his side. She was nodding her head subtly and Silva frowned harder at this. She looked at him and thought of her odds of survival. She had no idea how far away her brother and sister were at this point. Or if they even knew where she was. Or if they were coming at all.

Finally she took his hand. When she gripped it he realized just how weak she was and had to lift her off the ground. His hands were soft and his grip was only as strong as she needed it to be.

When she reached the end of her chains he glanced at his companion and with a quick swipe of her arm she severed the chains. She didn’t bother to ask them to remove the cuffs on her wrist, being able to walk freely was more than enough. “Our name is Miles. And hers is Julie. We’re not your enemies. I promise.” He came forward and whispered slowly. “Once the ritual starts just disappear into the crowd. The restraints come off easier than you’d think. Get back to where you came from. Forget about all of this.”

Scoffing she pushed Miles back and stood up slowly. She looked down at her torn clothes, the fabric of the dress frayed and gone. Looking at the edge of it she saw the pocket watch fall from her side. She grabbed for it immediately and tried to balance it in her hands. And then it hit her. If there were any time to call for help, anytime at all to call for the headmaster now was it.

“Wait you have one of those too?” Julie asked.

“What?”

She reached into her pocket and out came a pocket watch, black and catching the light in its strange oiled way. But as she looked at it and it was identical to the one that she was holding onto. “What is that? How do you have one of those?”

“We both have one,” Miles fished into the pocket of his pants and revealed an identical watch. “It’s actually pretty clever. It tells time, lets us find one another, and then teleport to locations if we really need to.”

She shook her head taking a slight step back, “How? Who gave you those?”

“Daze did.” And the horrified look on Silva’s face said more than any follow up could have ever done.