The Performer.

Chapter 4: Lands Stranger Than Ours

As the man's form crumpled to the floor, Kaeris counted to five. He wanted to roll his eyes. Such theatrics.

Kaeris' eyes raked over the man's body, snagging on the sporadic manner of his eyes. His body had fallen at an awkward angle and it was setting into paralysis quickly, even faster since he was panicking - searching for a way out. 

Kaeris allowed a ghost of a smile to play on his lips. There was no way out from destiny. 

"Greetings," Kaeris said. "I would offer my apologies, but you've been a very bad man. Haven't you, Adaikus?"

The man - Adaikus - looked up at Kaeris with seething eyes, before glancing towards the dark corridor of the hall.

Kaeris uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in his seat, reaching into his coat to retrieve a smooth, metal sphere. He tossed it up and down in the palm of his hand, attracting the gaze of the man once again. In an instant, the cold, metal sphere erupted into a bitingly hot blue flame. Adaikus' eyes widened - it was the only body part he could still move - as flames engulfed the sphere. Kaeris murmured something as the shadows in the room began to shift and distort themselves. 

"Do you know who I am, Adaikus?" Kaeris asked, watching the flames grow higher and reach up his arm like vines.

Adaikus lay unmoving on the ground, his eyes glossed over. Full paralysis.

"I know you can still hear me, Adaikus." Kaeris said in a low sing-song as he crouched and held the sphere in front of Adaikus' face. A tuft of mousy brown hair slowly drifted to the man's eyebrow. "Do you recognise this?" 

Adaikus didn't respond. Kaeris heaved a sigh that boomed across the small room and snapped his fingers.

The man's features snapped back into clarity and his widened eyes flicked over to Kaeris. Kaeris questioned again, the sphere flickering angrily, "Do you know what this is?" Adaikus' breathing grow shallow and he groaned, slowly shaking his head. The movement caused floating dust particles to be disturbed.

Kaeris raised an eyebrow. "I'd encourage you to speak the truth, especially when you are so agonisingly pathetic at lying," he said as he stood up. He adjusted his cuff-links. "You, my dear oaf, have meddled in Fate for far too long." Kaeris hummed as he circled Adaikus' body, resting the sphere in the palm of his hand. He then gestured towards it, "I will say, however, that I owe some respect to you for attaining this. Uninteresting, uninspired, and unvarying people like you should have no wisp of an idea about it." He bent over Adaikus. His once-again glossy eyes revealed nothing but Kaeris' reflection.

Kaeris said softly, but not without conviction, "You have played a god long enough. Consider me the righter of your wrongs."

Tiny pats of rain tapped on a window, providing a contrast, earthy smell to the stale air of the house. Briefly, the Adaikus' eyes jerked to life. Kaeris opened his mouth to say something, but Adaikus lurched towards him and bit his hand.

Kaeris yelled and pulled his hand back. That bastard.

Adaikus' teeth were crimson as he smiled at the blood drawn. "I have lost everything for the Cause," he rasped. "The devil himself will repent when I see him." Lightning clapped from outside as the rain poured down, battering against the window.

"Oh, that was a mistake," Kaeris snarled. Kaeris wasted no time summoning a blade using the sphere. His knuckles were white as he gripped the handle. "This is finished." Kaeris raised his hand above his head and swung his arm in an arc, when his body abruptly froze. Kaeris felt like the air whooshed out of him. His bloodied hand dripped onto the floor as it stood unmoving in the air, less than a few inches from Adaikus' thick neck.

Adaikus' eyebrows furrowed, mirrored to Kaeris' own actions. A beat of silence passes, and Kaeris almost drew in a sharp breath as a tall figure with a shock of copper hair strides in from the dark corridor.

An old friend. If one could call him that.

The tall figure stepped and reached a hand towards Adaikus, grinning. "Impressive, no?" Adaikus' eyes peered at him, before landing back on Kaeris. Hesitant. The figure followed his gaze.

"Ah, I see you've met an acquaintance of mine."

Kaeris grunted as he fought against whatever force held him still. Failing, Kaeris' resorted to glaring at the man with copper hair.

He sighed and gestured towards Kaeris. "Oh, don't glare at me like that. You should've expected this."

Adaikus shuffled away from Kaeris' knife and stood up, dusting himself off quickly.

Copper-hair's eyes lit up as he smiled. "Adaikus! I've heard so much about you." He squared his shoulders back and said in a lower tone, "I want to offer you a deal." Kaeris, under normal, non-paralysed circumstances, would've had to bite back a retort. Adaikus sniffed.

"I've heard of the pandemonium you've caused," he continued, reaching towards Kaeris and nicking the sphere from his coat pocket. "I want to employ your brains for my purposes."

Adaikus coughed and rubbed his neck. "And how, exactly, would I benefit from that arrangement?"

The man smiled broadly. "Hugely." 

"Come along now, we've plenty to discuss. Unless, of course, you'd rather me undo the spell that's currently keeping dear Kaeris disarmed?" 

Adaikus chuckled and replied, "No. No, thank you."

The figure clapped Adaikus on the back. Adaikus asked, "I didn't get a name?"as they walked away, but not before the pompous fool looked back over his shoulder and announced, "You can keep the knife!"

Kaeris could do nothing but grunt back at him, waiting for the spell to wear off, and for his hunt to begin for the sphere.