El-Vador's Travels (66 page)

And
down through the aisle between them strode Mina, her head held
proudly high and a wicked grin upon her face. She spread her hands,
and the voices silenced themselves. 'Welcome to my mind. Are you
enjoying being trapped here?'

'I
cannot say I am.' Aliana responded, waiting for the chorus of
derision to begin anew. 'For one who claimed she would kill me
entirely, it would appear that I am still in your head.'

The
woman smiled coldly. 'The merging was not entirely successful. The
final stage was interrupted by an unwelcome guest.'

'So
El-Vador did come then.' Aliana smiled. 'If he had been destroyed I
would not be here. That means he fights with Salvarius as you speak
to me. Yet why would you speak with me unless you figured a
distraction was necessary?'

Mina
stared on at the Pixie, fear showing in her face. 'What makes you
think I'm not here to finish the job?'

'If
that was all you were doing you wouldn't be speaking to me to stall
for time.' Aliana drifted forward quickly and lashed out a Mina,
catching her with a fist to the jaw and sending her sprawling upon
the darkened floor.

Mina
tasted blood as she lay there, shock registering upon her face at
being hit with such force.

She
picked herself up and sprinted through a short passage, clearly
trying to escape another conflict until she was ready for it. Aliana
followed, her fears disappearing at having got the upper hand of her
possessor. The walls melted away, revealing the miscreant as she
curled up in the darkness attempting to hide.

Aliana
approached her, a strange pang of sympathy hitting her heart at the
pathetic sight before her.

Mina
spat blood. 'This is my mind, you cannot overcome my power.'

Aliana
smiled. 'I was poisoned with your drugs when you took control of my
body. You did it because you knew that my will was greater than yours
ever would be. Now I am lucid and you have no power over me, even
here in your own mind.'

'You
presume much.' Mina hissed, rage contorting her features and fighting
off the fear that must be racking her. 'You are to be dominated, I
will not allow it to be any other way.'

With
a leap that defied reality, Mina soared upward and levelled a kick at
Aliana's head, it snapped back and the Pixie crumpled.

Mina
stood and grabbed a fistful of her hair. She yanked back, exposing
Aliana's throat. 'I will feast upon your defiance and make it my own
strength.'

Aliana
looked up, anger blazing in her eyes. 'No.'

Mina
laughed. 'What exactly do you think you can do to stop me?'

The
Pixie concentrated hard on the cruel lines of the woman's face,
slipping down onto her bare neck.

Mina
grinned. 'As I thought, nothing.'

Aliana
tugged back further upon the hair of her victim, bore her teeth and
sank them deep into the throat of her invader.

Mina's
body arched in shock, the transference had been so subtle, so
pervasive that she had not seen it until the moment had already
passed. Now she lay at Aliana's mercy, her throat slowly being torn
out to gurgling sounds of protest.

The
darkness exploded, and Aliana awoke for the first time.

The
mace came flashing down in a violent arc that sent slivers of stone
and dust careening through the air where El-Vador's head had lain
mere seconds before. He scrambled clear more from instinct than
anything, the primal call of the hunted rang deep in the marrow of
his bones to flee certain death and live to fight another day.

El-Vador
did not flee, even though his final energies mustered to deflect the
brunt of the assault had been expended. He knew that should Salvarius
return to that well of power coursing in him, be it by accident or
deliberately, he would suffer the fate of all the bodies slumped
about him.

He
divested one of the corpses of its axe and rose to a crouch, eyeing
his foe as he circled once more. He was no stranger to the weapon,
the son of a forester and born in the woods. Fighting with one
differed greatly from hacking at static trees however.

Salvarius
offered him a smile, swinging his mace in feints that had El-Vador
constantly on the defensive and not knowing when the man would
strike. 'I would have spared you, Elf. Do you know that? Your
desecration of this burrow has not altered my plans in any
significant way and I once held you with a begrudging respect for the
audacity of your actions.'

Behind
the man's eyes was murderous rage in its purest form, this confused
the Elf further as he had done nothing to muster such a feeling from
the man.

'Why
then do you insist on trying to rid yourself of me now? What crime
have I committed that is worse than slaying all these Orcs?'

Sarvacts
snarled at him with an almost Orcish level of fervour. 'You dare act
as if you do not know what it is you have done? I asked one thing of
you Elf, one thing. I asked that you spare the life of Harg, the Orc
that was as a father to me. You knew of this and still you chose to
kill him with the rest, to use your darkest powers to devour his very
soul!'

El-Vador
blinked, he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. 'Stay your
mace, fool! It was not I that killed Harg. To my knowledge he and the
survivors from the destroyed burrow live to this day.'

There
was a momentary pause from the man, the slightest hint of uncertainty
in his resolute stance. 'What mean you? Speak quickly, and know that
I will see through your every lie.'

The
Elf lowered his axe to parley, and the man before him lowered his own
weapon in a mirror image. 'I fled from the destruction of the burrow,
out into the woods beyond. Your General sent a number of men in
pursuit of me but I escaped their senses. They met a member of the
Brotherhood in the woods that slaughtered them in some kind of ritual
massacre in order to divine my whereabouts. This Brother captured me
through a glamour and after besting me through deception took me to
their isle.'

Silence
greeted the words as El-Vador kept his eyes trained upon the man,
whose anger had given way to suspicion and contemplation.

'Tell
me that I do not speak true and have done with it, but I swear to you
on the frozen graves of my homeland that I did not see Harg upon
reaching the woods.'

The
mace wavered and did not return to its previous swinging motion. 'You
speak truly Elf, and I know not what to make of it. Harg would not
have wanted you to escape into the sanctuary of the Brotherhood after
committing such crimes. He rarely spoke of the Brotherhood, but when
he did it was never favourably.'

El-Vador
chose his words carefully, venturing his opinion now could cause
Salvarius to side either way. 'If the Orcs you encountered were
killed through darker powers, then that suggests they fell foul of
the Brotherhood.'

Salvarius
nodded. 'It would seem the logical conclusion, Elf. Perhaps I have
been mistaken about you, nevertheless you must now stand aside so
that I may complete the bonding.'

The
Elf sighed, for all their diplomacy it had to end this way. 'I cannot
allow you to do that. If you rent the ether with your power then the
Brotherhood will surely kill both me and Aliana.'

'Aliana
is dead already.' a sonorous female voice replied from behind them.

Aliana
stepped forth, but her demeanour had changed, and the cadence of her
speech differed from anything El-Vador had previously heard. 'She has
already perished Elf, you are the last remaining defier of the
Brotherhood. For your crimes you shall perish, but not after a long
and exhilarating torture.'

She
touched her form then, eliciting almost obscene moaning noises as she
crossed the floor to be at the side of Salvarius.

'You
need not kill him, my love. Simply render him powerless to prevent
our imminent union and the forces from beyond the ether shall do the
rest.'

To
El-Vador's disbelief, Salvarius did not smile in return, instead he
shook off the affections of the serpentine woman and growled at her.
'Were the Brotherhood responsible for the death of General Harg?'

This
gave the woman pause, and in that brief moment El-Vador realised that
she knew the truth.

'The
Elf was responsible for the death of General Harg, had he not
destroyed the burrow then none of this would have come about.' she
purred.

It
was the wrong thing to say, and the countenance of Salvarius darkened
with every word. 'If the Elf did not kill the General then I have no
quarrel with him. If the Brotherhood are responsible then I shall not
aid them any further.'

El-Vador
watched on as the woman's features contorted, a nailed hand swept
forth and slapped Salvarius across the face.

'Fool!
You could be the ruler of all this realm, you could have everything
your heart ever desired. My love, wealth beyond your dreams, bidding
servants willing to prostrate themselves to your every need. Why
would you throw this all away?'

She
made to slap him again, the rage bubbling over. He caught her arm
this time, his grip causing her to shake indignantly, the first signs
of fear slowly spreading across her face.

'You
are poisonous, Mina. I shall do the world a favour and prevent your
murderous Brotherhood from ever returning to this land. All the
wealth in the world cannot replace my fallen master, and all the
promises you make cannot change that you robbed me of my only
friend.'

Mina
was panicked now, she attempted to wrestle herself free of the grip
of Salvarius but his arms were as powerful as the stone he was clad
in.

'What
of the Orcs the Elf killed? Will you simply let such a murderer walk
free without punishment? He destroyed your home and now he violates
this burrow with his taint!'

Salvarius
laughed then, and it was a wholesome sound, at odds with the corpses
that surrounded them. 'It matters not to me how many of these
wretched creatures the Elf kills. As far as I am concerned he is
doing the world a favour. No, the only taint here is your poisonous
lies, and for those you shall pay with your life.'

The
man grasped Mina by the throat then, bodily lifting her from the
floor and letting his stone gauntlets close upon the soft pale flesh.
Her eyes bulged and she began to choke, but not before El-Vador saw
the rage fill.

'Salvarius,
look out!' he shouted, bounding toward the man and drawing his
attention.

The
armoured Captain hurled the pale form of what El-Vador had once
thought was Aliana into the air and dove at the same time. His armour
and the toll of their previous fight slowed him significantly though,
and while his strength had propelled the woman away she hovered in
mid-air, dark energies swirling about her arms and wings as she
cackled.

'Did
you really believe that you could stand against the Brotherhood,
Salvarius? That you were anything but a figurehead we would use to
further our own ideals? We shall simply take the artefact from your
body and find another more supplicated to wear it.'

Her
voice had a note of strain that split across several octaves, making
it almost impossible to comprehend. It rang like a serrated knife
across El-Vador's ears and caused him to clutch at his head.
Salvarius stood unmoving, transfixed by the hovering figure
condemning him.

He
knew they were dead, Salvarius had shown no aptitude with the power
he had been given and El-Vador himself had nothing left to form a
shield with. Judging from the swirling darkness that engulfed the
figure before them he would have been hard pressed to stop the
assault even if he had any remaining energy.

With
a scream that rent the air before it, the blackness from the
possessed Pixie's body lashed out, a dark wave of terrifying hunger
that sought to engulf them in one fell strike.

Nothing
happened.

El-Vador
opened his eyes, and all was darkness. He wondered briefly if he was
dead, then started choking on the smoke that surrounded him.

'I
am afraid that I cannot allow you to do that, Mina.' Anacletus said,
appearing before them wreathed in smoke. 'They are far too useful to
me alive.'

The
smoke began to clear and Mina shook with barely-repressed fury,
letting out a screech of frustration at being foiled. 'You will stand
aside, Anacletus, any further actions from you will tip the balance
and rent the veil!'

The
assassin smiled at her amiably. 'That much is true, and any further
action from you will result in the ether being torn and the
Brotherhood breaking free.'

She
grinned back at him coldly, letting out a high and piercing laugh.
'You can do nothing to save them, assassin.'

'I
don't need to. You have already lost, Mina.'

Mina
shook violently, her wings faltering as she fell to floor, Anacletus
watched on with the same amused expression painted on his dark
features.

'What
have... What have you done to me?' she spat at him, faint of breath
and swaying on her feet.

Anacletus
chuckled. 'I? I have done nothing, you stupid fool.' He pointed at
Salvarius now, sweeping his cloak of darkness out before him. 'It is
your own incompetence that is your downfall, and the will of the one
within you to break free of you.'

'I
don't understand!' Mina wailed. 'This is some kind of trick! What
have you done to my power?'

'You
did this to yourself, Mina. You failed to complete the joining with
Salvarius, and thus your bonding with Aliana was also left
incomplete. Even now she rages inside of you, tearing away at your
control over her body. Flee this place, foul succubus! Else she will
destroy you utterly.'

Mina
did not give her ground in spite of being felled, she raised her arms
in a threatening fashion and conjured forth even more darkness to
their tips. Staggering toward them, she poised to strike like a
wounded predator lurking in a corner.