Wizard Trials: Chapter 159 (Patreon)

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          “I know what I have to do,” Draevin said.

          “Be careful,” Tenna implored. “You aren’t going to be able to tap into any other sources of mana like last time.”

          “I know,” Draevin said. “Hopefully I won’t need them.” He floated up into the air. His perspective shifted. Merely the intention to confront Peter was enough to shift Draevin right in front of the trickster.

          Peter’s body glowed with white light. He didn’t look like a demon lord, but Draevin reserved judgment until he could be sure. There was one oddity about Peter’s appearance: his left arm hung limp at his side. It was the only part of him not glowing.

          “Peter,” Draevin said simply.

          Peter eyed Draevin up and down. “You are stronger than last time, Draevin. Where did you get that power?”

          “And you’re weaker,” Draevin said, ignoring Peter’s question. He nodded at the apparently dead arm. “What happened there?”

          “Irrelevant,” Peter said. “I will recover.”

          Draevin scoffed. “I guess tapping into the Blackroot’s power wasn’t free after all.”

          “Free?” Peter repeated. “You want to talk about free? After what you did? You ruined everything! I would have had enough power to fix everything and instead you and Istven had to try to kill me.”

          “I wasn’t trying to kill you, only stop you,” Draevin insisted, “though I couldn’t say the same for you.”

          “Right, as though killing because you’re mad at someone is the same as killing in service to an entire world of people.” Peter held up a hand. “Hold that thought,” he said, “we’re about to have some unwanted guests.”

          Draevin looked over Peter’s shoulders to see two dragons flying their direction through the relative darkness. One of the two was the black feathered dragon Draevin had confronted somewhat recently. “Halt!” the dragon shouted as he got close. “In the name of Emperor Tarrish of the—”

          Peter turned around and held up a hand. A burst of light flared out of him. When it faded, both dragons were gone. Not even a sizzle of smoke remained. “What did you do!” Draevin demanded.

          “They were full of mana,” Peter said. “I need every scrap of power I can get. What aren’t you understanding about this?”

          “You make no sense, Peter!” Draevin roared. “You’re destroying everything, killing everyone. We’re cut off from all the other worlds now. That leaves you the biggest monster on this planet!” Draevin raised his hands. Power surged through him. He was prepared to fight, to erase Peter from existence itself if he had to.

          Peter waved him down. “No, stop. We can’t fight. Literally. I know it might be cathartic for you or something, but if we fight right now, we’ll end up wasting the power this world needs. You do want to help this world, don’t you? Is that still your goal?”

          Slowly, Draevin nodded.

          “Then we can’t fight,” Peter said. “One of us has to surrender.”

          “Then surrender,” Draevin told him. “If you’re so smart. If you know for certain that surrendering is the only way, then do it.”

          Peter stood there. They stared at each other for a long minute, then Peter dropped to his knees. Draevin carefully examined his surroundings, using his enhanced senses. Peter had too much power to disguise himself this time. Draevin sensed no illusions, no tricks of any kind. “I don’t get it,” Draevin said. “You’re really going to surrender to me? Just like that?”

          “Why do you think I did all of this?” Peter asked. His gaze was intense, serious. “Why do you think I betrayed Istven, you, sacrificed everything? I was willing to pay any price to rebuild our world better than before. I still am. If the only chance we have is turning everything I have over to you, then that’s what I’ll do. I just have one request before I give you the power I gathered.”

          “You think you have the right to ask anything of me at this point? After everything you’ve done? I’m still waiting for the part where you try to stab me in the back. Again. I trusted you! We all did.”

          Peter shook his head sadly. “You would have stopped me,” he said. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have. Look at everything that’s happened since I left you in that tower. You’ve done everything in your power to stop me. I needed you out of the way.”

          “I only came after you because you tried to kill me! Before that we could have talked things over.”

          “No,” Peter insisted. “You were going to let Istven take the power. The whole world would have been at his mercy, even if he ended up being benevolent, he would still have been our master. And we would have been his slave. Don’t you get it? That whole system where one group is powerless to stop another from dominating them is exactly what I was trying to get rid of. You think I wanted to do what I’ve done? I had no choice. I’d betrayed your trust too many times. You were never going to believe a word I said. You were never going to side with me. The moment I started to put my plan into action you would have thrown everything you had into stopping me.” Tears came to Peter’s eyes. Draevin couldn’t decide if they were real or just an act. He wasn’t sure what Peter would be trying to manipulate him into feeling. “If you really believe in something,” he said, “you don’t stop when it gets hard. Tell me, Draevin. Tell me honestly. Would you have helped me betray Istven and take his power for myself?”

          Peter’s emotions thrummed under the gaze of Draevin’s enhanced senses. He could see the way the magic inside Peter responded to his genuine feelings of regret. It didn’t… appear to be a trick. “No,” Draevin admitted. “I wouldn’t have helped you. You’re right. I would have tried to stop you the moment you tried something.”

          Peter held out his one good hand, palm up. “See?” he asked. “What was I supposed to do?”

          “You didn’t have to betray Istven,” Draevin said. “Did you maybe consider talking to him about giving up... control…” He had to stop himself there. Even as he said it Draevin realized how absurd the idea was. Istven would have never gone for it. It had been his goal to rule over Eldesia longer than Draevin had been alive and every scrap of power he collected went right toward telling others what to do. Being in charge came as naturally to Istven as breathing.

          “That would never have worked, and you know it,” Peter said. “No kings. No gods. Only man. That was my goal. If Istven took power like that he never would have given it up. With so much power he would have ruled Eldira for an eternity. He knew how to be cruel when it suited him. How long before he started turning that cruelty against innocent people?” Peter shook his head. “No. I was the only person I could trust with that kind of power.”

          “You?”

          “Yes! Me!” Peter shouted defiantly. “I know I would have been willing to give it up when I was done using it. There isn’t a single person I know who could be trusted to do the same. You? Sylnya? You know she wasn’t such a nice person in her past lives, right? No. It had to be me. But…”

          “But now it doesn’t have to? You suddenly trust me?” Draevin asked.

          Peter shrugged. “There’s no choice anymore. This world can’t survive in its present state, and if I try to fight you, we’ll be dooming it to a slow inevitable death. We need to fix it. I would rather give my power to you than risk losing that chance. I can’t take you in a fight, Draevin. You’ve always been the better fighter. Even when I had more power than you, you still almost overwhelmed me. The world is in desperate need of a re-ordering of the structures of the past that allowed some to be exploited by others, but more than that it just needs to be healed. By any means. If you’re the only one left that can do it, then it has to be you.”

          Draevin looked into Peter’s eyes. He looked deep. Into his soul. Without really understanding how the power he now had worked, or what its limitations were, Draevin asked it to show him the depths of Peter’s mind. His power opened Peter’s mind, showed Draevin his true character. Draevin could tell on an instinctive level that taking from Peter the power he offered would leave him broken. He wouldn’t survive it. If Draevin wanted to truly understand his old friend, this would be his last chance.

          Draevin saw the experiences that had shaped Peter: watching his fellow slaves suffer whippings when they disobeyed, his father being taken from him because he had a useful skill the master wanted to sell to another slaver, his mother dying under mysterious circumstances before he was old enough to walk and never getting a straight answer about what happened, the bodies of anyone that tried to escape being brought back to be publicly displayed as a warning to the others. It had been a hopeless existence, yet with the power of his mind Peter had found a way out of it. He didn’t count himself lucky for having escaped; it had left him with a singular, unshakable desire at the core of his being. He wanted to create a world where the kind of power imbalance that had led to his people’s enslavement would be impossible. He didn’t just want revenge on the slavers; he wanted to make a better world. Everything in his being was honed down to a fine point, with only one target: create a new world, create a new world, create a new world.

          There was no deception that Draevin could detect. Peter’s very soul was laid bare.

          Draevin then turned his godly inspection on Peter’s memories of himself. He let himself feel what Peter had felt when he’d tried to kill him. It was like the kind of deep wound Draevin was only too familiar with. Self-inflicted, but still very real, and very visceral. Peter was capable of lying with the best of them, but what he’d said about not wanting to betray Draevin had been the truth. That pain wasn’t something that could be faked. Betraying Draevin had been incredibly difficult for him, but he’d done it anyway. He believed Draevin was standing in the way of a new world, and that was more important to him than his personal feelings.

          “Very well,” Draevin said. “I believe you. I’m not sure what it changes, but I believe you. What was your one request? You never said.”

          Peter hesitated. He pursed his lips. “Give it up when you’re done. Please. Surrender your godhood. Fix the world, then set it free.”

          “You’re… serious.”

          Peter nodded. “People deserve to be free. That was all I ever wanted.”

          Draevin considered Peter’s request. He thought about what he would do with ultimate power. He would never have to lose anyone ever again. But… would that be fair to the rest of the world? An ever-expanding circle of immortal friends and family members? How many would want to pretend at friendship just so he’d keep them alive? Could he make everyone immortal? Would that even be a world worth living in? Was there something about dying that was important to the experience of being alive? Draevin was no philosopher. He didn’t know the answers to the questions he was considering, but knew it felt wrong. Even in the life he’d lived before Peter’s wish, when he’d not been subject to aging, Draevin had never considered his life endless. Elves and eldrin died all the time. It was the natural order.

          So why couldn’t Draevin imagine himself allowing his loved ones to die? He knew it was wrong, but he just couldn’t stand to go through that kind of pain when he had the power in his hands to stop it from happening. He knew how the World Tree and even the Elder Tree fed on the souls of the dead. The cycle of life and death was what kept the cosmos turning. If Eldira was going to survive on its own, it would need a constant churning of lives to keep things running. Would Draevin allow that cycle to continue? Would Peter? Draevin was strong. He knew he was. Without question he was the strongest entity left on their isolated world. But… did Draevin have the strength to do the hard thing, even when he knew it was the right thing? Peter had shown that he could. Draevin knew what the answer must be.

          “I understand,” Draevin said.

          Peter bowed his head. “I sincerely hope you do,” he said. “Just make it quick.”

          Draevin laid his hand upon Peter’s shoulder. He could feel the power inside Peter’s body, the divine seed that contained it. Peter’s defenses were down. He wasn’t fighting back. All Draevin had to do was wish it, and all of Peter’s power would be his. There would be enough power between them to remake the world. There had to be.

          Draevin didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. If he stopped, he might realize what an idiot he was being. Actions always served him better than careful thought. With Peter’s defenses down, he was not prepared to stop Draevin from giving him his power. Draevin pushed everything he had into Peter. All the power from the crumbled arena, the mystic staves created from branches of a much more powerful god. If Peter’s plan was to have any chance of success, he would need every scrap of power their world had left to offer.

          Draevin’s vision began to narrow. His head emptied out, leaving him dizzy and numb. Still, he kept pushing out his power. Peter’s eyes went wide with shock at first, but when he realized what was happening, he drank it in. Everything Draevin offered him. He stood tall, his shriveled arm rebuilding itself as the last trickles of Draevin power pushed into him.

          “Why?” Peter demanded, as Draevin began to fall backwards. “I wasn’t trying to manipulate you,” Peter said.

          “I know…” Draevin said. “That was why…” Something caught him and lowered him gently to the ground. He let his eyes close. He didn’t know if he’d ever open them again. It didn’t matter. The world would be in better hands without him. Draevin let oblivion take him.

          He was done fighting. He would let his soul rejoin the cycle, the way it was supposed to. The way so many of the people he once cared about already had.

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