Chapter 46: Discord (Patreon)

Chapter 46: Discord

It took me a moment to gather myself.

Or maybe was only a heartbeat, as my body began sliding through the air on puppet strings, fingers inching upwards and mana singing in my veins. My thoughts raced, like high octane, like jet fuel, even as they came back to a single point.

I pushed aside the vision of a different world and the version of myself that dwelt there, and instead focused once more on my own world. On my own choice.

“You left me hanging there from a while,” I said. My voiced echoed around the plane of Order.

“A house divided cannot stand,” came the voice of Fate.

Klarion stood in the gaping hole in the wall Fate had made. “That’s a funny way of saying you sidelined me,” I muttered. My focus narrowed as Klarion and Fate traded a barrage of spell fire. Reds and whites, blossoms of heat and rasps of darkness twinned through the air in front of my face.

“I merely gave you the chance to put yourself in Order. That you are inimical to the most fundamental force of the universe was cause enough.”

I said nothing as Fate piloted my body through the air with an economy of motion I’d never possessed. Something hot flared in my chest as I saw Klarion dodge with similar ease. I felt my power, the other one, shift in the back of my mind. Wordlessly, my Shard offered control of my body. I smothered my rage as Klarion retreated deeper into the building with another parting insult.

“Where is everyone else,” I said, as I turned my attention to the surroundings. Aside from the new emergency exit, the place looked like a normal office building cum college campus. Below, waves rushed softly over a rocky beach, giving Kent’s prison a commanding view of the waters. “Where are we?”

“I have found Kent Nealson,” Fate said as my body drifted towards the building. “Your companions are close behind. Now, have you had time to gather yourself, Walker of the Planes?”

“You know,” I said. “You’ve mentioned that twice now. I was under the impression that most people didn’t know about Planeswalkers.”

“There will be time for such discourse after Kent has been freed from the grasp of Chaos.”

I bowed my head, “Fine,” I said, pushing away the influence of my power. “Then go take care of Klarion. I don’t know what you expect me to do from here.” At my words, Fate paused at the impromptu entrance of the building. Featureless white corridors stretched in both directions, with only sooty foot prints marking Klarion’s passing.

“The powers your kind wield are vast.” Fate said. “Even now you resist the connection of My Helm passively, Fate is made lesser because of it.”

I scoffed, keeping my thoughts off the other potential source of such resistance. “That sounds like your problem,” I said, crossing my arms. “I put on the helmet, I gave you access to my body and my magical abilities.” Not that I was happy about being benched, but if Fate was asking me to fork over even more of my consciousness for its sake, it could look somewhere else.

The realm around me trembled. “You see only your own suffering, child. Your reticence will lead to the doom of worlds.”

I gave a wan smile. “Now that is just categorically untrue,” I said. “What do you want anyway? For me to give all of my magic over to you in some sort of binding oath? Do you expect me to believe you’ll just let Klarion roam free if I don’t give you one?”

Fate floated into the building, following the trail of chaotic magic Klarion left behind. Behind, I heard the sound of the bioship closing in on our location, no doubt with the rest of the team in tow, but Fate did not pause to wait for their arrival. “The helm creates a bond between the host and Nabu. It is not something so crude as mind control. The joining is to the benefit of both.” He said, blasting apart a steel door.

Deeper into the maze of identical white halls we went, tracing lingering flecks of discord that I’d never been able to perceive until now. Wearing the helmet was doing something to my own senses as they filtered through the haze of white mana and order.

“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” I said. “I’m doing this for Kent, but just from that brief exchange, it looks like you have Klarion pretty well handled without any of this joining crap. Forgive me if I’m not so eager to put my free will and self-determination on the line these days.”

We passed through a series of labs, bereft of personal and test subjects both, walls lined with empty cages. Mundane security measures fell before Fate easily. I suppose my shattering spells translated well into his orderly magic as it disenchanted the animating force of gun turrets and security doors alike. “You donned this helm,” Fate said. “Knowing what it would entail. And yet balk now.”

I sighed. “If necessary, I’d put my own soul on the line to save Kent,” I said. “But I’m not eager to take that step, not yet. Not now.” I shrugged as my shard wiggled in the back of my mind, the edges of my power flaring as Fate placed a hand on a door before blasting it wide. “Besides, I’m not resisting this connection at all. If there’s a disconnect, it’s something completely out of my control.”

“Doubtful,” Fate said, but he spoke no more besides that. I held back a huff, ire forming a lump at the back of my throat.

“Why did Klarion run,” I asked instead. “It reeks of a trap.”

“Indeed. But giving the enemy time to prepare uncontested is untenable. The fastest way to discern an ambush is to spring it.”

“I’m more worried about the empty cages.”

“The tools of science hold no power over this conflict. Their order will only bolster my own power in this place.”

There was a scrape of claw on tile. Fate slowed to a stop as a misshapen tiger dragged itself around the next bend in the hall. If not for my power, I would have tasted bile at the sight.

The thing had muscles bulging into skin rents, with fur sloughing off, leaving only mangy patches behind. Its eyes darted and mouth frothed as its entire body trembled with a manic sort of energy. Worse than that, however, were the sickening runes etched into the creature’s skin. Even from a dozen yards away, I could see the chaos magic leeching distorted fingers into the tiger’s being.

“That,” I said, “does not look very scientific, or orderly.”

“You have a penchant for understatement,” Fate noted, floating higher in the air. The tiger’s eyes, snapped up, locking onto us. “Kent did not mention such, during his last visit to the tower.”

The creature lunged. Its claws tore screeching divots into the tile as the misshapen tiger raced down the hall. With a wave, Fate conjured a golden wall in front of it. The tiger leapt, clawing at the golden weave of magic. The runes flared an angry red, and the creature screamed. The wall shattered.

“Unfortunate,” Fate said aloud as the tiger continued its mad charge. Then he blasted it with an Ankh.

The golden light threw the creature backwards and the far wall gave way with a soft crunch as a metric ton of anger and fur crashed into it. Despite that, the tiger slipped back to the floor without a second’s pause, the red marks on its flesh glowing bright enough to paint the walls red all the way to where Fate floated. It looked completely unharmed.

“Maybe a more aggressive magic,” I said.

“Your adaptations of order magic is a perversion. I will not taint this world with their ilk.” 

White mana rushed down Fate’s fingers, and another golden Ankh blasted the tiger through the wall. The sound of shattering glass echoed through the corridor as the beast yowled in pain. 

I pinched my nose as Fate continued onward. “And you wonder why I wasn’t in a hurry to ‘join’ with an embodiment of order.” I hadn’t thought it would be this much of a pain either. Kent, in the solid ten seconds that he’d pitched the idea the first time, made putting on the helmet seem like the start and finish of this whole mystical bond. I was… less than impressed with the reality.

Another blast of golden light sent the tiger crashing through the floor. The concrete floor crumbled in after it. 

“Destiny!”

Fate turned slightly, enough for me to see Artemis and the rest of the team racing down the hall towards me. Guess they didn’t run into any resistance between here and our entry point. Concerning. You’d think blowing up the wall would have drawn more of the ‘specimens’ to that location. If they were being released directly in my path instead.

The Witch Boy didn’t strike me as a planner or a scientist. So where the hell did he get his own castle of horrors?

“Your arrival is fortuitous,” Fate said as Artemis skid to a stop in front of me. “The creatures that stalk these halls are resistant to magic. Deal with them, while I Pursue the Witch Boy.”

“What are you doing?” I asked. Artemis echoed me unknowingly in the real world, albeit with more curses. I almost laughed when M’gann placed a hand over the archer’s mouth. 

Fate even bother turning around in the air. He shot forward in the air, leaving my team behind. “Hey!” I shouted. “You can blow them off, but you can’t just ignore me!”

“Unless you cooperate, you are a hindrance to be overcome.”

I gaped. My power poked my once again, and for the first time I was tempted to take its offer.

Another mutated creature burst out of the wall, scythe-like claws descending on my gold clad form. Fate wove through the air with a twist, rolling to the side without a moments pause. I heard the soft hiss as the thing’s forelegs trailed along the surface of my cloak… and then we were past.

“Fuck!” Artemis shouted. There was an explosion, then a roar. But Fate didn’t turn around.

And like that, I was reduced to a spectator in my own body. Klarion’s trail burned bright in our shared vision, and he followed it to the exclusion of all else. Each warped creature was blasted out of the way with minimal effort, leaving them in tangled heaps in walls or through floors. My friends would have to clean them all up afterwards. Worry gnawed at me. I could only hope that the runes on the monsters’ hides only protected from magic, and not physical damage as well.

None of it was enough to check Fate’s advance. He forced his way deeper and deeper into the facility, ignoring every suggestion I made with aplomb no less. The tension ratcheted higher with each room. Even if this trap was only supposed to snare me, mindless animals with magic resistance wouldn’t be enough.

It was the worst kind of waiting. The other shoe was dropping, I could tell. Fate could tell, for what little he cared. But I could do nothing to discern the cage closing in around me, or dodge whatever pitfall Klarion and his mysterious partner had placed in my path.

And so, without pause for consideration or concordance, Fate burst into a massive room at the lowest level of the building. At once, I saw the walls glowing with the selfsame runes that had adorned every monstrous animals’ flesh. They pulsed red as Fate crossed beneath the lintel, door slamming shut in his wake.

Across the room Klarion stood, body twisted into eldritch proportions. “Hey little girl!” he said, beckoning me with spindly fingers. To the left and right, two massive elephants, every bit as mutated and overgrown as the rest, stepped out of the shadows. Around their necks burned two crackling collars of lightning, and the Witch Boy held the leash. “Want some candy?”

“No.”

Fate charged.

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A/N: Sorry for the long delay. My schedule ended up getting messed up a few weeks ago with midterms, and after missing the first chapter I spiraled into this unofficial hiatus where I found this chapter fighting back every time that I had a chance to sit down and write. Combine that with the looming final projects that are coming at the end of this, my final semester, and I really let this one sit for longer than it should have.

I'm back in the saddle now. Got myself organized, set aside time for writing and all of that stuff I never really did because I'm still a procrastinator at heart. We'll be returning to the normal update schedule now. Thanks a bunch for your patience, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.