Elijah found himself laying on a mound of ash and tar. A great maelstrom churned above him, sickly and purple like a bruise in the sky. Far-off wind howled. He sat up; off in the distance, a line of black spires stood amidst scorched planes. A foul, familiar voice chuckled behind him. He turned. The demon loomed over him, sitting atop a throne of skulls and tracing a claw along the edge of the sword.
“I took your advice.” It gestured to its seat, wearing its grotesque grin. “What do you think?”
“I changed my mind,” Belov replied, standing up and brushing the black slime from his arms and chest. “It looks tacky.”
“Never satisfied.” Xalleius tsked. “Let us move on, then. It seems you have gotten yourself into some trouble.” That much was obvious. His fight against the angel still played out in his mind, as though done by someone else. Why did he attack her? It seemed so foolish and... horrific to him, now.
“You want to make me another offer, right?” The dreamer rolled his eyes. “I know your game, demon.”
“You know my 'game', do you?” The demon sneered. “You are so sure of yourself, so... arrogant. You must think you have all the answers, yet you fail to see that I am your only hope now.”
“So you say. The answer is still no.”
“So you would rather die?”
“Than barter my soul? I should hope so.” Eli glanced around, trying to get a feel for his location. The place looked familiar, yet the circle of spires stretched far wider than before. “Besides, I may not die. I don't know the intentions of those hosting the Adventurer's Crown, but they may yet decide to bring me back to their island in one piece. It seems likely, in fact.”
“Perhaps, but would you return in defeat and give up the Book of Fate?”
“I've lived without it this long.” He shrugged. “I did my best, and I will earn what I earn. I don't need it or anything you can offer me.”
“Oh, of course.” Xalleius laughed again, a sound like bubbling sludge. “Your 'best'. Shall we review what your best has accomplished?” A gout of green and purple fire sprang up from the foot of the throne. The demon leaned forward intently, flicking his fingers at the flame. “Look closely.”
“I have no interest in your--” Images appeared in the flames and a familiar scene took shape. A forest in autumn; a castle covered in gargoyles; a horde of zombies. He saw himself, battling a powerful vampire named Kincaid with fire and steel. The undead lord wielded the sword.
“You surely remember this,” said the demon as the battle from four years ago unfolded. “The vampire Kincaid had no idea the power at his fingertips. Yet, he was still more than a match for you. Before we... met, you were nothing. Your powers were weak, your will feeble. Even against the pathetic self-styled vampire lord, you had to saved by another.”
In the flame-spawned vision, a man in a black cloak appeared behind Kincaid and drove a stake though his dead heart, just before the sword pierced Elijah's throat. Marcus Salbrecht. The images changed, now showing Elijah digging in a large pit of ashes and human remains before emerging with the sword in his hand. He remembered that night clearly. A week later, the civil war in Salvar officially started and everything fell apart.
Xalleius continued to speak. “He saved your life and let you leave, even though you were a sorcerer. And how did you repay him?” The fire shifted again. Marcus and Elijah now stood outside an abandoned farmhouse in the dead of night. Belov stabbed the witch hunter through the chest and burned his body to ash. “You murdered him two months later.”
“Should I feel ashamed?” Eli waved his hand toward the fading image in disgust. The memory stirred up long-dormant anger. “I thought him a good man, but he was a zealot like the rest of them. He and his men ransacked my home town, killed several of my friends and executed my mother!”
“Yes, what of your mother?” Yet another scene appeared. “You told your paladin friend Grigor that the Ethereal Sway's servants executed her because she opposed them, but we both know the full truth, don't we?” In the flame, Elijah knelt in his own bedroom all those years ago, staring in shock at a missing floorboard and the empty hiding place beneath. “They found your books, your books of sorcery in the house and thought that she was the witch. She died because of you. And Marcus? You killed him not for revenge or justice, but to bury your own guilt.”
“That's enough,” Belov growled, closing his bloodshot eyes and taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I've spent enough time blaming myself for it. You won't make me start again, now.”
“Forgave yourself, did you?” Xalleius chuckled gleefully. “Good, good. And what of Alexandria? Have you forgiven yourself for her as well?” The fire flickered and writhed, washing away his home town.
“I said enough!” Anger flared up in his chest. “I will have no more of this, hell-spawn!”
“You will not look away,” commanded the demon, its voice low and menacing like rumbling thunder. Elijah tried to close his eyes, but an unseen force locked his gaze on the images forming in the flames.
His heart stopped in his chest as the next scene unfolded. In it, he stood behind a ruined fortress in a burning forest, sword in hand. Across from him, the Ethereal Sway assassin Heinrich Reichter held a dagger to the throat of a tall, fair-haired woman. Alexandria Timko, Elijah's one source of light in that time of tragedy and war; the only woman he had ever truly loved. He recalled every detail: the smell of charred trees, the distant din of battle, and the satisfied sneer on the assassin's face; hope and fear at war in Alexandria's eyes. Heinrich had told him to stand down, but he refused. He had felt so certain that the Sway agent was bluffing, and on that feeling he gambled her, and lost.
In the flame vision, Alexandria fell to the ground with a gash across her throat and Elijah's past self rushed to her side, struggling to cauterize the wound. She survived, but it left her neck horribly scarred and her voice a harsh rasp. He could still see the look of betrayal and... hatred in her eyes. She vanished soon after and he never saw her again. Back in the present, Belov fell to his knees and shut his eyes tight. Shaking furiously, he dug his fingers into the ashen mud.
“With all your power, you could not protect her from your own arrogance.” The foul creature's voice seemed to bubble up from the earth. “Despite all your skill, you cannot mend or heal or fix. You can only destroy.” Xalleius's flame changed one last time. “And after all your sacrifices, what did you do? Why, you fled the country. You tell yourself that you had no choice, but neither of us believe it.
“The sad truth is that your homeland had to be saved by a band of foreign adventurers instead. Look where it is as a result, and what it will become.” The final vision appeared, different from the others yet just as familiar. Armies trampled fields and burned cities. Thousands of dead littered the earth. Elijah led armies cloaked in darkness, his eyes black and empty. He saw it all in the scrying pool at the end of his first trial. “Don't you see? No matter how hard you try, your best will only ever lead to ruin. But I can help you.”
“You cannot help anyone, demon,” Eli snarled, tears staining his eyes for the first time in many years. “You can only torment and deceive.”
“Ah, my own words twisted and turned against me. Even amidst such anguish, your wit never dulls.” Xalleius grinned wider. “What a champion you could make, if you would but accept my offer. Oh, the things you could accomplish. You could restore your homeland and bring peace to the world.” The demon held out its hand. “I could help you find Alexandria and make her whole again. I could give her to you, if you but give yourself to me.”
Elijah looked up at the ancient malevolent being. It seemed easy, so... simple to take its hand and accept. Surely one soul was a small price against restoring an entire kingdom and righting all the wrongs he caused. What of Alexandria? Wouldn't he pay anything to have her back? He reached up.
He stopped halfway. The Alexandria he remembered would never want him to lean on infernal powers. The kingdom of Salvar did not need more demons roaming its lands. It was a nation of men, and as a man he would save it; never as a demon's slave. He retracted his hand and stood up.
“The answer is still no,” he said at last, his voice soft yet firm. He turned away. “You will never own me.”
“Still so defiant.” The demon stood up, his throne of skulls crumbling to dust behind it. “I was never truly giving you a choice.”
Elijah spun back around, embers swirling about his hands. “You have no sway over me, devil.”
“Poor, foolish child. Have you learned nothing?” Xalleius advanced, the sword held tight in his claws. “You are deep in my domain, now. You cannot fight me here. You cannot defy me here. If you will not accept my offer, you will never leave here.” Suddenly, the ground split with a deafening crack. White light spilled from the fissures. The distant black spires shattered and the earth broke apart.
A heavenly voice filled the air. “I will cleanse the darkness from you!” The angel wasn't trying to destroy him, but rather trying to destroy the evil force within him: the demon and its corrupting influence.
“The angel seeks to cleanse you.” The hell-spawned beast laughed wickedly, even as its body unraveled. “But she knows not what power she faces. In freeing you from my grasp she has broken my prison and unleashed me into your mind! Now you shall become my vessel, my doorway into your world. Not even an angel will stand before me!”
The entire dreamscape shattered and became a maelstrom of debris and lightning. Meanwhile, Xalleius shrugged off his humanoid shape like an ugly coat. His true form opened up like a great maw of teeth, fleshy tentacles, and screaming faces. A great red light pulsed within a sea of smoke. Its roar rumbled like a waking volcano. The very sight of the gargantuan, thrashing abomination struck Elijah like a psychic blast of boiling water. It felt as vast, ancient, and uncaring as the earth itself. It lashed out with a swarm of barbed tendrils, latching onto the sorcerer's dreaming form. He struggled and squirmed, but the immense weight of the demon's presence overwhelmed him.
More blasts of light pierced the writhing void, battering the demon's unearthly form. It recoiled, pulling its appendages inward to ward of the assault of holy energy. Elijah broke free from its grip, drifting onto a beam of light. He landed on floating chunk of rock. The angel's soft voice floated in his head. You are in control here, Elijah. He grit his teeth and squared his shoulders against the roiling mass of primal evil. Fire flared up around him. The swarm of floating rocks that were once the ground responded to his renewed determination, drawing inward.
“I will not be held captive in my own mind! This is my domain!” His will became a titanic force in the unraveling dream. Flames swept outward from him, consuming the floating debris and turning stone into lava. The demon roared in alarm, a sound like a breaking glacier. Molten rock rushed toward the beast in a massive, blazing surge. Flesh burned and blood boiled, spawning a cloud of noxious smog. Magma cooled and smoke cleared. As all went quiet, Elijah floated in a vast, empty void beside a massive sphere of solid stone.
Then he fell, drifting toward a distant ocean of light.
* * * * *
“Ah, he awakens,” whispered a soothing voice. Soft fingertips stroked his brow. The angel knelt over him, wrapping him in her wings. For the first time in in days, he felt safe.
“You didn't kill me.” Elijah croaked, feeling his chest. He found no wound there.
She laughed, a sound like twittering birds and calm music. “Child, I am a spirit of life, not of death.” She smiled somberly. “The demonic influence within you is gone, now. I cannot feel it.”
“Thank you. I can't begin to--”
“Think nothing of it. I merely repaid my debt to you.” She stood, helping him to his feet. “I feared to try, for I knew not if your will was strong enough to overcome the demon inside of you.”
“I almost didn't.” The two walked toward the roof's edge. Beneath their feet, the black stone slowly changed to gray. “Who are you?”
“I have not used my name in a long time.” She paused to think. “I am Lyne.” Elijah smiled. Lynestev. “But tell me, how did you come to be here?”
“I can't fully say how, other than that a man named Kenneth Stern sent me here as part of a trial.”
“Stern?” Lyne's laughter bubbled up again, more exuberant than before. “I know him. I should have known he had sent you to me, that he would choose this moment to do so. He was always so very clever.”
Elijah blinked, her words slowly sinking in. “Do you think Stern sent me here to save you?” he asked.
“Perhaps, child.” The angel's smile filled him with warmth. “Or maybe to save yourself.”
“Save myself...” The words sparked an epiphany in him. Everything clicked together, a single chain events. In each challenge, me met someone who knew of him; Letho Ravenheart in the first, Nonag the Salvic-born club boss in the second, and finally in the third, Grigor, the paladin of the Ethereal Sway. He received a grim vision of Salvar in flames before learning of the Book of Fate, the grand prize of the Adventurer's Crown. They took his sword, only to let him recover right before his arrival in Salvar, where the demon's strength would reach its peak. Each challenge forced him to confront his past and overcome inner demons, until finally he faced his true inner demon. The weight of revelation almost knocked Elijah off his feet. Stern, you magnificent bastard...
“Come,” she said, holding out her hand. A soft silver aura appeared between them. “I can send you back to him.” Elijah sighed wearily, glad to be done with it all. He stepped into the light, letting it take him from his homeland, all while trying to ignore the itch in his skull. On the horizon, the sun finally rose.
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