Fan Fiction ❯ Roam ❯ Agahnim ( Chapter 6 )

Agahnim

I heard a sound much like lightning, but more concentrated, from the top of the tower. It was still difficult to target due to the Wind blowing past me in the run. No clap of thunder followed it.

"No! Charles!" I immediately altered my course to cut off his descent down the wall. His blue form was barely visible in the coarse twilight. The clouds came more steadily. He fell past my head and I dived, catching the cloth under his armor and knocking the wind out of my lungs in the process. I waited till I had a better grip and I could breath again before I spoke.

"Hold on, I'll pull you up." I assured him.

He looked up at my arm. "You don't have the muscle in those arms."

"No, but I have the Willpower." Why do I care?

Charles laughed, causing him to slide down a bit more.

"Hang on, friend!" I tried to yank him back.

"Friend?" he chuckled, "You've never said that before." He had a guttural laugh, pushing him still further. "Guess the old man softened ya up a bit." It was only a whisper. He jumbled around at the side of his belt, and I struggled to keep him up. What he revealed was a small knife. Carefully, with his other hand, he took hold of my hand, which was grasping the cloth on his shoulder, and lifted up, stretching the fabric. He pressed the blade against the fabric and began to saw. It didn't take long for it to give way…

"NOOOOO!" Charles fell loose, riding down the side of the castle. His feet caught in one of the notches, and at his speed propelled him forward. For a moment he stood straight up on the diagonal, spread out, but continued. I didn't look when I heard the sickening crunch as he smashed face first to the stone, then continued to roll over the edge to hit the grass with a light thud.

I was lying flat, my chest to the stone. My arm hung over the edge, fingers still grasping the blue fabric. Its excess streams of cloth blew in the Wind. Why had he cut himself loose? We could have worked together. It would have taken time. Why let yourself fall?… Time… He was…

"He was giving me time." And it was running quickly out. I stood up, spread my legs out, the next six flights of stairs laid out before me. My right hand drew my short sword. My left shot over my shoulder and drew my longsword. Lungs were heaving, breathing becoming heavy. I was overcome.

And then… The breathing stopped, and my legs moved. The swords were set at length at my sides, like wings. The stairs felt flat, I was on a straightaway. I was flying to that door. That emblem laced door. Behind it was destiny.

The short sword ran down the middle of the door, and my shoulder pried it open in one lunge. Hell behind me, darkness before me. Oh, those glowing red eyes and the possessed war cries. My blades switched hands.

The first Trident charged me. I tossed my short sword up, and caught it now facing down. I swung the longsword up, knocking the shaft to the ceiling, and my short sword's point sank into the eye hole of the visor. Mist once again emitted from the armor till it fell lifeless and formless to the floor.

I tossed the short sword up again, catching it by the tip. It sang like the bird of vengeance and imbedded itself in the second Trident's neck. I didn't wait for the mist to leak.

Grasping my longsword with both hands, I barreled to up the final staircase, and crashed into the sage's chamber, all my fears gone at last. I have nothing more to lose…

The chamber was a large octagon, with three great, blue curtains with gold frills on the far end. Two small flights of stairs lines with blue and red carpet led the way to a rather flat peak. I stepped further into the room. As for another living, breathing being, it was empty. However, I heard something from the far end of the room, amidst the many blue curtains. Chanting.

I sheathed my sword and dashed over the tile. My invisible wings had not dissipated yet, and they aided me to make no sound. I pushed through the far center curtain to reveal a room nearly identical to its precursor. It was dark, lit only by a few torches, and of the blue energies atop its own peak. This peak, though, balanced a beast flanked bed. And hovering over it, I saw the maiden.

The maiden was suspended in her bubble, surrounded by lightning. Agahnim stood chanting, waving his arms a little around the bubble. The lightning itself was emanating from his own fingers.

I bit my lower lip and let my instincts do the rest. I wallowed in the sound of the blade leaving my sheath and coming rest horizontal beside me. You won't take her again. I stood just as I had before the Sand Worm. Not again. But this time the odds did not deny my fervor. Come at me, Sage.

My glare still locked on his figure, I thrust my longsword into the tile. It worked. Agahnim's chanting cut off immediately and the lightning stopped flowing.

The sage turned and was immediately enfolded in a dark mist, closing him into a pillar of black. The pillar retreated into a rotating, flat spiral on the floor. It spun rapidly, and zipped around to the crest of the stairs. The pillar resurfaced, then fell to reveal him.

"I do so enjoy doing that." He hissed, laughing.

I didn't care. Not about his remarks or his magic. He had torn my life apart, and now I would return the favor in blood. I brandished my black crossbow and aimed over its top. The sage took no notice as of yet of my action. My hands shuddered, and then were still.

Thseww! The arrow sang. Agahnim finally recognized the threat, summoning his pillar of mist again. My arrow fluttered straight through the smoke, igniting upon its exit. The pillar once again subsided, and the sage was looking rather…angry. His arms bent, fists clenching. Two red orbs bulged where his hands once were. Without hesitation, he thrust his arms forward, the orbs stretching into parallel beams. I easily rolled out of the way. The stairs, door, and nearly the entire far wall ended in rubble.

"Ah, so that is the difference between you and others. You've lasted longer already." Agahnim gloated. The red in his hands vanished. His left arm was now outstretched, strangely. I drew my sword from its place in the tile.

"No matter." His eyes emitted black smoke. "So you killed the Captain. I'll get a replacement soon enough." The red light rose around him and I feared what I knew what was coming. But I'm not the Captain. What does that mean?

The red torrent spewed forth and collapsed onto me. For a moment I felt nothing, surprised at the beauty of the light. And then… It struck. "GAAAAAAAA!" I screamed. I felt my own innards being twisted, as if my soul was being torn out of my body.

"Ah," Agahnim taunted, "He screams. Scream again, boy!" I slipped once, it won't happen again. A wail was rising again through my lungs, but it halted behind clenched teeth. I would not please him again.

"I will not fall tonight. Not to hell…" I felt my efforts were in vain. I was giving in… I remembered. "Mystic Armos, I call to you now." The pain was excruciating, but it was becoming a numbing sensation.

"Praying to the Gods?" What was it he said? I do not end myself, the gods end me. That knight is dead, I once held his knife. That knight trusted me. Perhaps I made a promise. I promise nothing to a knight! Then I made a promise to his son. No… This isn't his fight… IT'S MINE!

"The gods will never end me!" The power dispersed to the far walls. The torches went out in the short gust of Wind. "I will end the one who thinks he's God." I glared up at the Sage.

"Very well," he seethed, "We'll do things the hard way." The Sage's outstretched hand released several streams of lightning, shooting in chaotic directions, then solidifying into a shaft. What finally materialized was a sky-blue, reflective broadsword of crystalline, still warping slightly with excess energy. Agahnim looked from his weapon to me, the same lightning beginning to flow even from his eyes.

I scaled the steps in seconds, while the Sage descended down only one to meet me. We struck. Seven thunder claps sounded across the room at once and streams of lightning gushed from between our connection, scaling up the walls. The streams left ravines in the stone.

Agahnim's crystal shoved my steel back for a time, but I would not be denied. Twenty charges of energy escaped from the crystal this time, as I struck again and again down upon his shaft. "I will NOT be denied!"

Apparently, nor would he. Another massive gust of manifest wind engulfed me, and I was thrown back to where the carpet was still clean. The Sage held his crystalline sword above his head, and it collapsed back into his skin. Now, his outstretched palm grew a great blew orb. It spewed over a hundred blue tentacles of lightning toward me. I knelt in place, my sword in front, and waited.

The lightning surged all around me. I heard the stone shatter and disintegrate behind me. Then, I felt the force of the surge. My feet were ripped from the floor and I panicked when my skin felt the cold, night air. I was falling…

Charles… Whho-shink! My longsword stuck in the diagonal wall. I swung awkwardly from it, but my hand was in a vice-grip. Feet thankfully found the wall, and I stood with my sword as a brace. Nearly two feet up was the gaping hole in the stone.

A stone flew past my head, from behind me. What the…! I shot my eyes down the wall. All the shattered pieces of stone were rising back up, smaller ones faster than larger ones. I looked back to the hole. It was disappearing. Agahnim was closing the hole on me! That's how the room was rebuilt when I got there!

I arched around to the rising stones. There! One rather large chunk would rise beneath me. It was now or never. I yanked my sword out and fell onto the stone. Its ascent, however, was hastening. I just then realized what would happen when it found its home again.

Crash! I was flung and rolled across the carpet. Agahnim turned and on impulse fired off a short blast. It ignited the wall, again, casting ash and smoke everywhere. As I ducked through it, I heard him yell with great annoyance, "Are you still here?"

I appeared at the foot of the steps again. Agahnim noticed, landing at its top. Brandishing my sword with both hands, I screamed a war cry and dashed up the first flight. I half-leapt to my left as another blast incinerated the carpet, then leapt back as a third found its home beside me. It seemed the Sage was charging for a fourth, but instead arched/flew back and drew his crystalline sword.

You won't back off from me now! I leapt onto the altar and off again before it splintered from the fourth blast. My steel and his crystal connected again, but this time my rage-filled leap got the best of me. See, the Sage actually got cunning, by putting his blade up over his head, and arching his back. What commenced was me sliding off his sword over him to land, hard, on the carpeted stairs, continuing to roll down them.

I felt explosions all around me, flattening the staircase. I regained my composure fast enough to hurl myself out of the way, clearing the stairs and hitting the floor beneath. Oddly, the tile had now accommodated a thick fog. The collected dust. He's not wasting any energy on reconstructing his room. I ducked another blast. The torches had been obliterated. I couldn't even tell if there was a ceiling anymore…

The Sage was literally flattening his own arena. "Don't you ever die!?" his blasts consumed the room. I appeared behind him.

"I will never die, false prophet!" he whirled fast enough to catch my gauntlet with his mouth. He lost teeth, or fangs, I wasn't sure which he had by now. I buried the glove into his gut, then to his chin. Beat the crap out of him!

But the Sage was barely fazed, as his open palm flung me across the room without touching me. I smacked against whatever stone remained, and slid down, quite dazed. Dazed, yet my Sight was not blurred. I watched lightning once again surround the maiden. Get up. No… Get up, now! My body would not budge. Why can't you move!? Why are you so damn weak!? My sword hand twitched. Agahnim's arms rose again, spanning the girl. My forearm wavered.

In a great crack of thunder, the malevolent forces took her, and the orb of lightning ceased to be. She's gone…

"NOOOOOO!" I charged over the cracked, blue tile. Agahnim turned, eyes wide with a terror I had never seen in an opponent's eyes. His sword was still up in a flash.

Titans clashed. My barrages were relentless. So much that he barely blocked. I was in a pit of rage, but I knew what I was doing. The robes that dragged at his feet were cut loose and his outer cape fell. At last, the Sage swung upward. In a way, I let him strike my blade. I was flung back-first into the far wall, my sword clattering inches from my hand.

The demonic Sage approached me with caution, then with confidence as I whimpered in his presence. Just get it over with.

"Agahnim…Sage…" I whispered. Have Mercy.

"Mercy?" the Sage laughed. A deep, corrupted laugh, with no bearing on a human voice anymore. "I never thought you'd be so weak." He hissed. I glared into those white, pupiless pools for eyes. His sockets burned…

I'm not. My voice was soft, my mind was louder. Either way, he heard it clear. The same flames of the Wood and my steel rose again in my heart and formed an arrow. I didn't feel myself draw it. I didn't feel the arrow load. I didn't see it fire. But it was done.

Thseww-cling! Agahnim, black mist rising of shock, spun his blue crystalline sword up in time. The spike entered the blade as if it were liquid. The abrasion grew from around the strike, but didn't stop at a few inches. The cracks continued to grow until they all but sheared one half of the crystal from its shaft.

I struck with the force of angels. I fought with a Fire unheard of, that not even the Wind could match. At that time, we were equals, both warring for the same act of survival. Desperate. …Truth…

I remember every blow as clear as the sunrise… The hard bronze lining my sword cast a spiraling river to match his flowing blue crystal. We clashed in brilliant motions of light, at each connection filling the room with daylight momentarily.

My blade struck his again and again, pushing the Sage further and further across the final terrace. My spirit drove him back for miles of his pride. I would crush him for his acts. At last, both our spirits hit their ends, and we broke from light's embraces.

I spun away and landed on one knee, my left hand steadying me. The longsword held firm in my right gauntlet. My face was surprisingly dry, unlike his. The Sage wreaked of unholy sweat…

The shadows danced across our faces for a time. The fire burned brighter on my side… I drew the short sword with the golden hilt. This fight is worthy.

The Sage charged, and my sword blocked. The robes of his right shoulder split. Then the garbs of undercoat. Then his golden talisman shattered. I stepped back. His clothes had turned to rags. My longsword rose to my head and I charged with one fervor-filled arm stretched forward. The Sage dodged, but I was ready.

The blue shaft came crashing down, only to be kissed by the finest sword ever made in the likeness of a father and his son. The thrust knife held and my longsword went through the crystal like water as it fell from where my arrow had struck its blade. Even before the crystal shattered onto the floor, my longsword's hilt rammed Agahnim's chin. As he recoiled, the short sword, now pointing down, became one with my fist as I scarred across the robes at his chest, then rotated my wrist for the blade's same journey back. A third slash down by my sword ended the formation.

I swung my longsword back up, but it seemed the Sage had finally realized his position. He grasped my rising arm with his own right, but my golden hilt drew a line of blood, a jagged tear from his right cheek into his eye. His grip immediately left. He didn't fall long, though, as his torn body came back in a frenzy. I readied my larger blade as I would ready an arrow. The bow released.

"Yaaaaaargh!" I saw black, heavy slime leak from the cracks in his face. It disgusted me…

Both swords pointing down, I rammed shoulder-first into the Sage, then wrapped my right arm around the back of his neck. Know that I would never embrace this man, but I held his writhing body closer, only so my worthy sword would not find it so hard to locate his back.

The blade sank to its shining gold hilt. When it had done so, I let myself find distance between this pitiful excuse for a human being. No, he was never human. The Sage was contorted in his own demise, his body's mannerisms hardly reflecting anything physically possible. No matter, he would pay. This bastard would pay for what he had done to my family…

Family? You don't have a family, you never had one. Not now, not ever would he survive this night. Do you remember Charles? I remember Charles. I was patient. So content was I in watching him slowly feel the pain that I was scared of myself. Scared of what I was so capable of doing…

He was speaking. "Please…knight…please…" No, sobbing. "Have…m-mercy."

It was time. I felt the hilt's cool knob flutter in my palm as the sword became upright. I waited for my grip to become steady and for my legs to spread and provide a firm stance. His head would be gone in a matter of seconds. Knight? Is that what you call me? I am no knight… NEVER COMPARE ME TO SUCH COWARDS!

Now.

The Wind took my hands and swung!

The Sage's bleeding eyes glowed and his once limp hands shot forward…

Damn it… The force of a thousand gusts of an angry God whipped my neck back, my hair standing on end. The longsword struck the ceiling, and stayed there. I, however, broke against the last pillar. Get up! There's nothing left. Get up, damn you! Go away…

Get up. Please, just get up…

"You have blinded me hero," Agahnim slumped as he yanked out the short sword lodged in his back. His other hand cradled his eyes as black goo spurted from them. "But it matters not, I know what to do with you." He outstretched one bloody palm toward me.

The tile around me broke and rose within a pillar of red light. I, too, felt myself leave the cold surface. Where is the Wind?

I was flung into the abyss of clouds. The black mass enveloped me. The fire was simply put out, but there was something else as I was hurled away from my hindered foe. I had heard the sparrow's cry for me, and now something escaped my lungs that, I suppose, was not human, for it matched the cry of my dream…