Illumination

Chapter 8

Thrice blessed by Saint Carus herself, Conviction was a formidable weapon to behold. Single edged, and possessing a slight curve, the blade measured a few inches shy of three feet. Along the sword's silvered edge, runes of banishment etched in gold gently pulsed in time with a silent heartbeat. Left hand closed tight around the long, ivory handle, I advanced towards the demon that hovered ahead of me, Conviction at the ready.

The taste of bile that once filled my mouth, a side effect brought on by my proximity to the demon, was now gone. I suspected it had either been cast out by Conviction's presence or perhaps just masked by the taste of my own blood.

“Ooh, what have wehere?A ssword?” A deep laugh, flowing and liquid. “It pleassess uss to know that humanss never change.” The fiend gave me a sharp grin, the rest of its empty face twitching. All the while, the bleeding eyes that studded its body stared at me, unblinking. “And jusstlike thosse who came before you, you sshall die a sslave at our feet.”

The demon attacked my mind again, this time not just to render me helpless, as it had before, but to take complete control over me. Like a sudden wave, the creature's Will crashed against mine, threatening to overwhelm me, to see me buried beneath the fury of its attack.

I would not be so easily defeated.

Planting my feet in a wide stance and closing my eyes, I dropped the scabbard from my right hand, and changed my grip on Conviction to a two-handed one. I held the sword in front of me like a man preparing to split a river, as my mind began chanting. I became a spider spinning a web, weaving the words around me into a mental fortress. I wrought incantations into gates of spiked iron, I shaped prayers into impregnable walls of stone.

I could feel the demon throwing itself against my defenses, looking for the slightest crack or weakness that it might break through and destroy me. I allowed it none. My mind was assailed with nightmarish visions; the bodies of my friends rent and torn in front of me, cities reduced to ruin, whole worlds burning. The walls of my fortress shook, and the gates threatened to buckle under the infernal bombardment. Still I refused to yield, unable to accept such dark realities and, well aware that if I did, every threat the demon made would come to pass, every unspeakable deed made real.

I knew the consequences of my failure, so rather than trying to shut out the hateful images, I embraced them, using them as energy to fuel my efforts further. Dreams of slaughter unending were melted down to make metal supports, eternities of sorrow swiftly reforged into armor plating, all the better to repel the creatures efforts.

I could feel the dark energies of the demon building, amassing for one final strike. It was a malevolent storm, bent on tearing open my mind and destroying all that I held dear. I took refuge behind the walls of my fortress, awaiting the invasion, determined to hold out against this one final onslaught, or end up enslaved to this creature.

With the sound of a throat being ripped open, the demon's voice reverberated across my mind.

“You are fortunate that we have found you worthy of being our sslave. After we have consssumed the otherss, you sshall live on, sspending the rest of your miserable exisstence as a tessstimony to your failures!”