Fire Angels

Love blossoms Chapter 9 part 3

I apologize for not posting for a while but its been a very busy time at work and home.

In this section Dion and Shad face their feelings for each other.

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I stared at them, unable to find words. The fire light flickered across their faces and across the black back of Symon, who was again sitting in his place outside the circle. I felt afraid. Were they about to try and push me into something?

"Is that why you have befriended me? Because you see that I can be some kind of powerful ally to you. Because I assure you I am no politician. You would be better off not hoping for such things from me. It is not that I am ungrateful for your help," I went on realizing how offensive I had just sounded. "I am very grateful and would happily help you in any practical way. But I have no gifts for influencing rulers."

Tarwan grinned and Beg said,

"That is the very least among many reasons we helped you. You will be a powerful figure in the coming events whether you like it or not. A mage like you cannot avoid influencing events even if it is only as someone's puppet. But you would be a powerful ally to us without our friendship. For both of us have the desire to see the Great Waste freed of necromancy. We know your desire is as keen as ours."

My first thought was that I hoped she was wrong about my being powerful in coming events, but her words about necromancy, chased that thought away.

"Then it's not just Church politics?"

"Our people have seen this necromancy. A Demonmaster lives in the Wasteland upon the sight of Ruinac the old capital. They are building a great cathedral to honor their demons. The place is called Sanctuary."

"Then it's true about Sanctuary. But the Burning Light?"

"A great and evil trick has been played on those who worship the Burning Light. One which they left themselves sadly open to but it is no less tragic for that. Our people have been to Sanctuary and some came back to tell of things there."

"At first they were glad for where was once wasteland is covered in plants," said Tarwon. "Then they saw that the plant was boneseed, the cemetery weed, great green fields of it. At its roots, they found human bones scattered on the ground. Beyond the fields rises a huge grey building like one of your cathedrals though its roof is open to the sky and its arches are like the ribs of a dead creature."

"The Fire Angels rise to flight from out of that building," said Beg. "All around the cathedral, the Destroyer's prisoners labor to build the cathedral's walls. They quarry stone from a great pit at its foot. Slowly, group by group, they are taken into the cathedral and brought out as mutilated bodies. None of our people has yet got into it and lived to tell the tale. No one had returned to tell us what the face of the Demonmaster looks like."

"The prisoners know from the start that they are to die though they do not know why," said Tarwon angrily. "And while they work they are whipped and terrorized by the guards, and sometimes attacked by beasts. The Destroyer does not need their labor, for he has the power of more than one demon to build for him. It is simply part of his cruelty. What kind of being trades on others' pain for mere power?"

Beg snorted.

"Mere power can lengthen your life well beyond its natural time, boy. It is a seductive call you will hear soon enough.

She turned to me.

"Fear makes the life force more savory to demons," she said.

I knew that from my own experiences. I also knew that the emotion need not be fear. Any intense emotion, even pleasure, would have done.