Keys of Magic - Part 18

I was forced to release the sword and push with both of my hands and with one leg to break free from her grip. I managed to stumble away and turn back to the man in red robes. He was charging me with his sword pressed forward. I had to run backward and escape his reach. It brought me father and father way from my sword. The woman gurgled and I could tell that she was still live. She held at the sword in her wound. The blood wasn’t flowing however. She must have been holding it back with her power.

“Still alive huh, that’s a pity.” I muttered. It was a problem. I had made a risk to kill her and then I would be able to use my full power against the man. However now I was at a disadvantage. I was now missing my sword and the woman was still breathing. She might eventually die from her injuries but maybe not especially with her using her power to prevent the bleeding. I could try to overly use my power to prevent her from using her power to save herself but I didn’t know how long that would take.

I also had more important things to deal with because the man with the red robe had a sword with my name on it. He was good and I didn’t have a weapon anymore so I was in real trouble. And I still didn’t know what his power was. I frozen the air in front of me forming a makeshift sword. As long as I held onto it I could probably prevent the woman from controlling it. However an ice sword was way worse then a normal sword. Each time he swung at me I was barely able to block it and my sword was only an inch away from shattering. I had to keep making sure to reform it with more energy.

Everything was going his way and he was making sure to stay between me and the woman so that I couldn’t get my sword back. I considered running away but I doubted that would work. They would turn on Risgar and he would probably die. Then the three would come after me together. Not a good option. I could vaguely see that Risgar was holding his own against his opponents. But he didn’t seem to be winning. While it wasn’t our job to win we needed to not lose.

I guess this was the time to try something new. Especially since it was my only option now. I watched the man trying to figure where it was. He would need to be carrying a focus some time kind. Something gold on his person. There was not any visible gold that I could see so that probably implied a necklace with the gods symbol. It would be under his robe so that it could be touching his skin. It was a good place that was hard to notice on the streets and easily protectable.

I didn’t know what good getting it away from him would do but it might be able to change the course of the battle. I used the power that the woman couldn’t do much to prevent. I made it colder, much much colder. I was unaffected by it but would certainly make it harder for the other two. During his next pass I took my next risk. I left an opening in my guard, nothing obvious but it was there. I left him swing in at it, and it let me twist in under his guard. I brought my ice blade up cross his chest. He was able able to pull back and avoid any real injury.

But my goal was accomplished. There was blood on my blade and a thin line up his chest where my blade had cut through his clothes. However I was surprised when he started to laugh. I stumbled and stepped back from him. He didn’t seem be after me right now. “It looks like you made yet another mistake. Looking for my conduit so that you could strip me of it wasn’t a bad idea. Too bad however you were wrong.”

He reach up and ripped his robe above the belt from his chest. He had a lean muscular body but there wasn’t a golden medallion anywhere there. He was smiling like this was all part of a joke. “See there is nothing there, no conduit you can use to stop me. But you lose something didn’t you. Too bade your fake opening turned out to be a real one.”

I knew what he was talking about. During the exchange he had managed to slice into my right arm. I was hanging limply because he must have cut my muscles or something. I couldn’t move it. I have frozen the wound closed so that it wouldn’t bleed out but it was now a liability. And I had been wrong, he hadn’t had a necklace of his god’s symbol. I growled at him, “Are you sure you are even an Apostate at all. I haven’t seen you use your power yet.”

“That is because you are young and foolish. I have been using it since the battle begun. And I do have a conduit.” His smile widened, “But you’ll never be able to deprive me of it.” He opened he mouth and pointed inside before continuing, “Because I swallowed it. Nothing you can do will make me lose my powers and now there is nothing you can do except die.”

It was hard to admit it but he seemed to be right. Given my current abilities I was on the ropes. I didn’t have many options. “Your right, right now there is nothing that I can do to beat you.”

“Come to your senses have you? Unfortunately it is too late. I won’t let you join our forces anymore. You have already done too much to harm us. And I really want to personally kill you.”

“Come to my senses? No, I’m about to lose them. Watch as I break the rules.” I closed my eyes. It wasn’t difficult to open up my mind. I could see the theatre again. The lights were on and I could see the unnoticeable forms through the bright lights. I looked out at them and asked, “Are we ready to try something impossible?”

There was muttering in the crowd before the close voice answered, “Are you going to start on the road to being a god then?”

I shook my head, “No I have something else planned. Something very different.”

“Oh?” Said the voice like it was prompting me, “What is it that you have planned?”

“I intend to ruin everything. I want to access all of Zillk’s power. And when I have it I have it all I intend to change it into something else.”

There was a long moment of silence before the voice exactly like mine said, “That could kill you.”

“If I don’t I will die anyway. I have no other option. But don’t worry. I will not die, I can not die. Because if I die there will be nobody to kill Eyo.”

The crown said in unison. “I understand. Then begin.”

Then I opened my eyes looked back into the man’s eyes. Not even a second has passed since I had closed my eyes. I dropped my ice sword from my hand and with one hand managed to pull the ring off the ringer. I held in my hand. “Are you ready for my next magic trick? I’m about to change the world.” My hand filled with ice with the ring in the center. I chilled it as cold as I could make it and covered it in thick layer of ice.”

“What are you doing?” Said the man he was watching me in confusion like he didn’t understand my unusual actions. “Have you gone crazy from your injuries.”

I then turned my hand over and dropped the ring. “Just watch.” The ring spun as it fell toward the ground. I kept concentrating on it was it fell. Then it hit the ground. It was a rough rock that I had dropped it one. It hit the rock and the ring shattered. It had become fragile from extreme cold that had been applied to it. It could feel my connection to Zillk began to shatter just as the ring was doing. I grasped as each of those individual strands as they broke apart. I pulled and pulled the power like I was pulling through a sieve.

I felt the pain as I pulled all the power into it. It wasn’t just all as much power as I could use or that I could hold. I literally tried to pull all of the power through the broken shards of the ring. The ground around me frozen then the air seemed to shatter as if a thousand possible visions of the future was being refracted in it. I felt pain, more pain then I could imagine. My body was cold, freezing, and I felt like I was getting no protection from the cold at all.

The ground began to crack and I could feel a rumbling as the ground around me shuttered. The man staggered and I could see the others. The two other rebel Apostate’s and Risgar has stopped their battle and were looking in my direction. I felt the power coursing through my veins, thrumming through my body. The shards of Zillk clashed and fought in my body trying to reform into one power but I wouldn’t let them.

My skin split in places as the power in me bubbled to the surface. My blood leaked from the wounds in my flesh. My entire body shuttered like it was about to break. Then I had it. I had all of Zillk’s power inside me. I knew with this much power I could do whatever I wanted. I could be a god or crush all those before me but I knew if I did this it would change me. That much power at my disposal would make me something different, not human. So I let it go.

Nine, the ring had broken into nine parts and I now had six fragments of Zillk’s power floating inside me. Frost, colder, the winter aspect. I let it go and the world around me blanketed with cold. Death, the one who watches those go into afterlife and tells them of their crimes in life. I let it do and the grass beneath me died. Violent swordsmanship, blood killer who shows no mercy. I let it go and I felt my anger go with it. Despair, the last of hope, total and utter fear. I let it go and with it my worries. The future, that shows the darkness and possible dangers to come. I let it go and watched the thousands deaths that could have happened go with it. Finally the nothingness that is left behind, the void of emptiness where nothing survives. I let it go and the air pulled way from me for a moment leaving me gasping.

Then I was just myself. No Zillk, no power coursing through my veins. I was standing in the snow watching it fall down and I was at peace. I had broken it, shattered it like ice. As much as I Slayer had killed Zillk I had done it again. I had unmade him, broke his power into pieces such that it could never be remade. I still held within me the last remnants of Zillk, the emotions, the personality. Then I let those go, freed them to finally be at peace.

I knelt in the snow looked up at the flakes falling from the sky. I felt cold but not freezing. I was calm, not the deadly calm that Zillk had given me but a true calm like just before you fall asleep.

“It is done.”