Wizard Trials: Chapter 155 (Patreon)

Index | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter 

          Peter stepped over Istven’s body. He reached for the Conflux.

          “Stop!” Draevin called out. He didn’t stop. Draevin had no choice. He drew on the power raging inside him to bury Peter in an avalanche of ice and snow, then condensed all the snow to solid ice. Whatever the cost, Draevin could not allow Peter to step into the Conflux.

          Draevin felt so flustered. How had he not seen this coming? He’d felt the air with his steam. Grrbraa had not been an illusion. He glanced over to see who he’d killed with his Icicle Spear instead of Peter. His heart dropped. It was Alex. He’d been the one approaching Istven under a veil of invisibility, not Peter. Just another distraction. Just another life sacrificed without a second thought in service to his ultimate plan.

          The glacier imprisoning Peter began to glow. Deep inside it, Draevin could feel something burning its way out. He tried to reinforce the ice, but it didn’t matter. Peter burned through Draevin’s ice so effortlessly he needn’t have even bothered. Peter emerged from the glacier, leaving a man-shaped hole in his wake, his body wrapped in a buzzing aura of white light.

          “Dammit, Peter!” Draevin shouted at him. “I’m not going to let you ruin everything twice. If you don’t stop, I’ll be forced to kill you! Don’t make me do it. I’m begging you!” They weren’t just empty words. Deep in his heart Draevin found he did not want to kill Peter. He’d done some terrible things, yes, but he believed his misguided actions were in service of some greater good. He wasn’t beyond redemption.

          “I knew you’d be a problem,” Peter said. His voice buzzed with the energy surrounding him. He held up his hand. His palm flashed with a blinding light so bright Draevin’s eyes felt like they’d suddenly been lit on fire. A palm-shaped imprint of blindness was burned into Draevin’s vision. He threw his arms up to block the flash, but his reaction was too slow. He tried blinking, he tried shaking his head. Nothing. He was completely blind. “You won’t kill me?” Peter’s voice said from Draevin’s left. “How about I won’t kill you?” his voice said from Draevin’s right.

          Draevin’s other senses were still intact. He could feel footsteps on the frost he’d already conjured. He could feel the heat emanating from the Conflux. Peter was running towards it now. Draevin fired a bolt of ice at the spot he knew Peter would be. The bolt struck exactly where he’d aimed, but Peter didn’t fall to the ground, instead the ice disappeared from Draevin’s consciousness the moment it hit that burning aura of Peter’s. Instead of stopping Peter, Draevin’s ice flashed into a harmless cloud of steam. That was the answer, Draevin realized. He grabbed the steam and forced an ocean of mana into it, turning it hot enough to melt stone. He erected that steam into a circular wall around the Conflux.

          “It’s over!” Draevin called out. “You can’t incinerate steam. If you touch that wall, you’ll die.” Draevin kept blinking his eyes in an attempt to restore his vision. It was slowly coming back; he got snatches of blue flames at the periphery of his vision.

          “How are you still—Ah! I don’t have time for this!” Peter shouted in frustration.

          Draevin could feel Peter’s footsteps as he darted forward despite the barrier blocking his way. He threw himself against Draevin’s burning wall of steam. His body burned and bubbled away as soon as it made contact. Only a chunk of flesh half the size of the man that had gone in flopped to the ground on the other side of Draevin’s wall. Whether it was a burned Peter or a dead Peter, Draevin couldn’t be sure. He was still too blind to see very well. He started feeling his way forward, using his staff to guide himself as his vision slowly returned. He’d have to reach the Conflux before it ended if he was going to start to undo all the damage Peter had done.

          Then Draevin heard Peter’s voice. Whatever was left of him was apparently still conscious enough to bend the Conflux to his will.

          “I WISH!” Peter’s voice echoed in Draevin’s mind and the stones beneath his feet. “ALL THE POWER OF THE CONFLUX WAS MINE!”

          The wish was made. It was too late. There was nothing Draevin could do to stop him. That had to have been his plan from the beginning: not to fix anything, but to take all the power for himself. Draevin had almost believed him. He’d almost believed that even when his actions seemed cruel it had come from a place of wanting to do good, not a selfish desire for power.

          It was another big lie, another grand deception.

          Draevin’s vision started to clear up and he saw Peter’s body floating up within the beam of the Conflux. Around Draevin was all the murder and mayhem Peter had left in his wake as he ascended to ultimate power: Istven’s body, limp on the ground; Alex, loyal to Peter until the end and rewarded with a spear of ice through the gut; Sylnya, staring off into the middle distance, her mind overwhelmed by the Blackroot; the discarded wires of the PME he stole from Truntstown lying uselessly on the ground, still glowing with power.

          It wasn’t too late to stop Peter. It couldn’t be. Draevin refused to accept that version of events. He wasn’t just “Draevin the Cryomancer” now, he was “Draevin the God!” That had to mean something! He let the power of the Elder Tree pour into him. All his mortal limits were gone. No matter how much power he sucked in there was somehow always room for more. He blasted forward and grabbed the PME in the arm made of living ice, holding his mystic staff in the other. With all that power at his command, Draevin threw everything he had at Peter. Mountains of ice; steam so hot it burned with blue fire; raw destructive mana tinged with the silver aura of the Elder Tree. All of this spiraled out of Draevin toward the column of the Conflux. It did nothing, stopping just shy of the beam that reached all the way to the moon.

          Peter floated higher still; arms extended as three years' worth of missed Confluxes entered him. Draevin’s assault wasn’t stopping this transfer of power, but he saw a crack, a ripple in the barrier surrounding the Conflux. With no plan beyond doing whatever it took to stop Peter, Draevin blasted himself forward into that weak spot, leaving the PME’s cable behind. He hit the barrier, felt some resistance, then pushed through.

          Power assaulted Draevin’s body the moment he entered the Conflux. It was beyond comprehension, he’d felt the Conflux before, but never this strongly, and never when he’d been able to absorb it all with the power of a god and not get overwhelmed. Peter was there with him; he could feel him. Both of them soaked in enough power to shake mountains and drain oceans every second that passed. Then nothing. All at once the Conflux disappeared.

          Peter’s body was still charred beyond recognition when he flopped to the ground next to Draevin. His skin had flaked off like charcoal, his face oozed blood and pus. His eyes were just two empty holes. How a ruined creature like that had absorbed the power of several worlds was beyond Draevin’s comprehension.

          Never before had Draevin ever taken some of the Conflux’s power with him. It had always been a harrowing experience he felt lucky to even survive. This time was different. There was an energy inside him unlike anything he’d ever felt before. It connected him to all the life around him. He could feel the grass beneath his feet, the dead and dying bodies of Alex and Istven nearby, the sickly life coursing into Sylnya from the vines that grew beneath the ground. Those vines—and Sylnya herself—felt different. Draevin could only feel it, not reach out and touch it with an effort of will.

          While Draevin was still busy adjusting to his new frame of reference, Peter’s body sucked in a shuddering breath. Draevin looked down at him and watched in horrified fascination as he defied the laws of the universe and began putting himself back together. Draevin was connected to Peter, as he was to everything not associated with the Blackroot. He reached out and tried to stop Peter’s unnatural healing. Peter pushed back. Hard. He’d been in the Conflux far longer than Draevin had, and the difference in power between them was staggering.

          “You… bastard!” Draevin said through gritted teeth as he tried and failed to prevent Peter from healing himself. “You never… wanted to… fix… anything!”

          Peter’s eyes reformed. He turned them to meet Draevin’s gaze. “Is that really what you think?” he asked. His voice caused the dirt around him to vibrate in sync with him. Creation itself was his to control. “Trying to shape the Conflux was a mistake,” he said. “Wasteful. We tried to guide it with a single act of will, but that was never going to work. Only a god can control this much power, and only by holding it within themself.”

          “And you’ll use it to—”

          “It’s over. It’s done,” Peter interrupted. The flesh of his face became smooth and clear, evening out the charred chunks. “Stop wasting time trying to fight me. I have work to do. Much work.”

          “Oh, now you’re going to fix your mistakes? You don’t actually expect me to believe that do you?”

          Peter’s arms and legs regrew to their full length. He stood up. Casually. Completely ignoring Draevin’s attempts to hold him down with the new power inside him. “Draevin, the Tuan’diath are conducting the Rite of Severing as we speak, and together their power dwarfs mine and yours. We need to remove the Blackroot from this planet before they finish or we’ll be tossed into an endless void. Do you realize the fate that possibly awaits us if we stand here arguing? We are gods! It won’t kill us! Just an endless eternity, floating in a black void.”

          “Lies!” Draevin hissed. “Everything you say is—”

          Sylnya sprang to life behind Draevin. “Now!” she shouted. “Do it now!”

          Draevin turned around, confused. He hadn’t touched her with his godly power, nor had he felt Peter do so. She’d woken herself up on her own. “Do wh—” he started to ask.

          “Hurry!” Sylnya urged. “I can only keep it vulnerable for a little bit longer!” she looked around. “Where’s Istven? Did he take the Conflux?”

          This was their plan. Draevin had never been privy to the details, but he knew it involved Sylnya sacrificing herself.

          “No Istven,” Peter said. “I took the Conflux.”

          Sylnya shook her head. “Whatever, just hurry. Use me!” She reached out both hands towards the two of them, her feet rooted in place.

          Peter stepped forward. Draevin placed a hand on his chest to stop him. “Wait,” he said, “there has to be another way. Don’t kill her.”

          “There isn’t time to come up with another way,” Peter said dismissively. “If I couldn’t do it a week ago, I won’t be able to do it in the next ten seconds.” He shoved Draevin aside and grasped hands with Sylnya. At their contact, Sylnya’s body erupted with white light. She started screaming in agony.

          “Stop it!” Draevin shouted. He grabbed Sylnya’s hand, tried to pull her away. As he did, he could feel the network of Blackroot vines covering the planet. Hundreds of leagues to the South there was a Kreet-sized hole in the Blackroot’s vines, but otherwise it had conquered Eldira already, leaving dead plants and lifeless, red soil in its wake. Every green thing on the planet was dead, even the seaweed in the oceans. Draevin could feel the fire of Peter’s unstoppable will pushing its way through that network, consuming vines as it went.

          Draevin could feel Sylnya’s life in his hands, her pain, her desires. She was filled with guilt for the sins of her past lives. Draevin could feel that guilt. He could feel her desire to undo all that evil with one singular act of redemption. You don’t have to do this, Draevin sent to her mind. I was in the Conflux too, I can erase the Blackroot. Pull it up like the weed it is and burn it.

          There’s no time for that, you blockhead, Sylnya replied back. Just because you don’t want to do it, doesn’t mean it’s—

          She cut off. Her body went stiff. Draevin tried to shake her awake, but her hand broke off in his.

          “It’s done,” Peter announced in a cold, clinical voice. “The Blackroot has been eliminated. We need to tell the Tuan’diath, so they—”

          “You killed her!” Draevin shouted. He took in a deep breath, cold rage filling him.

          “Draevin, I don’t have time for this,” Peter said. “Be mad, or sad, or whatever later. You’re a god now. If you want, you can make a new Sylnya. Don’t you see? That’s why none of this matters.”

          “That’s not the same,” Draevin said. “You can’t just… remake people.”

          “Of course you can,” Peter said dismissively. He walked over to where Alex lay and placed a hand upon him. “Look, see? His soul hasn’t moved on yet. I can just…” Alex’s eyes popped open, exploding with light as the hole in his chest started to close.

          “Wha—ah?” he sputtered.

          “Shh,” Peter said to him. “I’m still figuring out how this healing thing works. You shouldn’t try to move. You did good work. Could have gone smoother, but I got him after you went down.”

          “Is it… done?” Alex asked. His voice was strained and thin.

          “Almost,” Peter said. He glanced up at Draevin. “Draevin somehow got in and took some of the power before I could finish, but I got most of it.”

          “You know… what you have to do… then,” Alex said.

          “So Alex gets healed but Sylnya has to die?” Draevin asked.

          “I can bring her back too,” Peter said. “That was the whole point of all of this. It doesn’t matter what you have to pay for ultimate power, because once you get it, you can take back everything it cost you. Now do you want to stand around and complain, or do you want to help? If you give me some of your memories of Sylnya it will make rebuilding her a whole lot easier. By the time we’re done, you won’t be able to tell the difference. Same with Istven.”

          “I don’t want a replica of Sylnya!” Draevin shouted. His heart felt like it was ripping in two. He wanted to walk over there and break Peter’s nose but assumed that with how much more power Peter had he’d be more likely to break his own hand in the process.

          “Calm down,” Peter said. “It’s not as bad as you think. You literally won’t be able to tell the difference if I make her right. Neither will she! Here. I’ll show you on Istven. You’ll see that there’s nothing to worry about.” Peter walked over to Istven and leaned over him while Draevin watched. He was still figuring out for himself how to even sense things around him with his godly powers, he didn’t see how Peter was already trying to heal people and bring back the dead.

          Right as Peter leaned over Istven, the black prince’s eyes shot open. Before Peter could react, he brought his hand up and grabbed Peter by the throat, yanking down and ripping out a meaty chunk of his esophagus. Peter fell back, hand gripping his throat ineffectually as his eyes went wide with panic.

          “Peter!” Alex gasped in his thin voice.

          “Not… dead…yet…” Istven croaked.

Index | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter