Death's End

Chapter 36 - Revelation

The teleportation spell took only but an instant to perform. Zenvix and Misaki, now with the addition of Novita Tenebrae, stood outside the door that would lead eventually to the prayer hall in the Palace of Esheria. Looking once at his companions, the prince took a deep breath and opened the door warily.

The entrance opened up to an antechamber. From the ceiling, an ornately designed chandelier carrying numerous candles hung from its peg, and arranged neatly along the sides of the chamber were rows of chairs and divans for the guests. Aside from these, however, emptiness reigned. Emptiness and normality. There was not a sign of disturbance within the spacious room.

As Zenvix took one step into the chamber, he was stopped by a hand held to his chest. Novita regarded the expanse within with a solemn eye. Drawing intricate symbols in thin air, the prime sorceress muttered a short incantation before making a cutting motion with her right hand. A brilliant line of aureate followed her gesture, cutting across the drawn symbols and setting them ablaze in fiery sparks.

"Trust not what you see with the naked eye," she said. In the short space of a second, where emptiness once reigned, now the floor across was sprawled with the bodies of soldiers and attendants. The chandelier laid smashed and broken on top of an armoured guard; its candles spilled chaotically across the ground amidst shattered glass pieces.

"That was a high-ranked illusion spell," Novita said, as Zenvix stepped into the chamber, a pained look on his face. "Probably similar to the one you faced on the battlefield just now. The perpetrator obviously wanted to keep up the pretense of normalcy."

Misaki bent down to inspect the bodies within the chamber. She shook her head. The blood had dried completely; there was no saving them.

Zenvix paused some distance behind the double-sided door that should lead to the internal chamber, his expression doubtful. "If I open that door, would I also not behold the true reality I should actually see?" he said.

Joining the prince, Novita narrowed her eyes. "You were prudent not to touch that door. Once opened and you have stepped in, you would need to break the spell from the inside, which would have been much tougher," she said.

"What spell is that?" Zenvix asked.

"From the place where I previously came from called The Guild, mages liked to name it The Endless Loop. Once cast, the spell takes a snapshot of the surroundings you were in, and repeats that environment endlessly within a set space. Basically, the moment you entered that door, you would arrive back in this same antechamber. You open the door in that second chamber, you arrive back in the same space again. It endlessly traps you, and drives you insane in due time," Novita said.

"The key is to stay vigilant, and break it from the outside," the sorceress continued, as she intoned a series of syllables from the old tongue. The door glowed subtly for a moment, increasing in intensity, before returning to the status quo once again. Novita calmed herself, beads of perspiration rolling down her cheeks. Looking once at Zenvix, she nodded her head in affirmation.

The prince opened the door, which led to a huge expanse filled with golden statues of Esheria and other deities of Ceil's religion - the prayer hall. Seated right before the Goddess, was a cloaked figure whose back was turned to the group. When they filed in, a gasp of shock escaped from Novita as she glimpsed the sightless eyes of Minister Zila staring right back at her; her head arched forwards in the direction of the door and her body splayed with dried crimson across the ground.

A loud sigh came from the cloaked man. "I didn't want to kill her, but the woman refused to hand over the artifact of souls," the man uttered. "Our ancestors, protected under the Goddess's light, were the reason Ceil stood tall for decades," she said. I had to laugh. Her religious folly amused me to no end."