The Warlord

Chapter 29: Calthius

The shackles around my wrist gnaw and bite at my skin. My robe lies in tatters and pieces, scattered around me and barely clinging to my now-thin frame. Blearily, I lift my battered head up and stare at the cage surrounding me. The earth and sky roar in a hot-red, and I can feel flames and fire licking the bars of my cell. I do not know how long I have been here, suffering in eternal agony. Periodically, different types of demons torture me through the mind, the soul, and the body. Sooner or later I will be Corrupted, and become one of them. But for now my wounds insist on healing, my mind insists on repairing the damage, and each day, those stitches are split open again.

Demons dancing in the firelight, their dark magic and sharp, black weapons jabbing at my body. Strange, shadowy figures howling in pain, their screams making my ears bleed. But the worst of my daily torturers is my father. He likes to stand in front of me, his shadow darkening my vision, his power making me quiver even though I do not have any strength left in my bones. Every time he only asks me one question: Will you join me? And every time I spit at his feet.

He is not the father that I knew. Not the tall, strong, brooding man that showed me how to hold a sword and how to control my magic. He has become something monstrous, something not quite a god, but not quite a demon either. It took me a while to figure out his aura, but the presence was unmistakable. It held the same ominous, ancient force of the Top Order's spells, and the magic surrounding the damaged portal.

I grow more and more helpless each day as I hang by my wrists, my knees on the floor, my head hanging and drooping. There is a play, a plot stretching far deeper than I ever imagined, and someone has all the realms in the palm of their hand. Is it my father? Is it my mother? Or is it a third party, a puppet master with strings dangling from their fingertips? Speculation takes me by the throat and shoves me deeper into the churning currents of despair as the hours pass.

Today, with the fires raging and roaring, I slump in defeat, wondering who will visit me. Then the ominous, dreaded shadow stretches across my body, and I don't have to raise my head to know who it is.

"Will you join me?" His voice is deep and low, calm and rumbling, like a slumbering bear.

I want to spit at his feet again, as I always have. But today questions burn inside of me, searing my chest and pressing against my throat. "Why?" The word is a croak, an ugly sound from parched and cracked lips.

My father goes very, very still, and very, very silent. Then he gives a low chuckle, a strange and foreign sound that should not be coming from him. "You did not give me time to explain before you refused me and attacked me. Look at this place, Calthius." His magic lifts my chin and supports my body, and I see glowing red with jagged rock and winged nightmares flitting across the sky. "You might see something abhorrent, something contradictory to the very essence of Heaven, but I see potential. Yes, wonderful potential. Hell holds as much power as Heaven, after all, and when the two powers are combined, the results are glorious. Now my power is not that of a god's, but something far better. Something much more open-minded and open-ended. This is the result of combining Heaven and Hell, and I intend to make both realms into one."

"Impossible," I spit out, my head whirling. Sacrilege! Blasphemy! Hell is disorder and madness, and Heaven is its jailer. Corruption would run amok, angels and gods alike would fall mad if this is what he is planning.

"It can be done, foolish boy. Look, another god, one who is also something far more powerful than you could ever dream of."

He makes me twist my head, and my eyes widen as a shadowy figure standing at the side of my cage steps into view.

Somehow, I still recognize her, and instinctually, I know right away who she is. A thousand memories, a thousand sounds, a thousand images flash through my mind as I stare at her face. She is older, more mature, but those dirty golden locks are still the same, and that war-like untouchable expression has not changed. Soft hands patting my head, a high and mighty posture, a white cape flapping and walking away.

"Ansel..." I whisper. "What are you... doing here?" She should be imprisoned, locked away, forgotten. She failed to take the throne, failed the final test of strength and spirit. And she was punished by being sealed away in the Twelve Stars. A forgotten prisoner. I did not know whether to feel anguish or disgust when my mother told me. Take this as a warning, little love. Do not fail the test of becoming king. Do not fail like Ansel, your sister. Now my eyes burn with stinging tears as I face her, as I remember growing in her shadow and watching her leap towards glory. Ansel, Heaven's Sun-Haired General. The second-in-command of my father. I was not jealous of her success, I was not bitter, instead, I was proud. And now, she has been turned, Corrupted like my foul father. She is not the person I knew, and that cracks my heart a little. We were young and wild, two stormy-eyed children destined for greatness. And now one of us is a fallen god, the other one trapped and bound in chains.

"Dear brother," she murmurs, her hard eyes looking into mine, "there is still so much you do not know." Then she strides over to Father, and they exchange a few brief sentences before she turns away and stretches out her arm. A swirling mass of blackness forms, and to my horror, she fades into a shadow and falls into the portal. The hole blinks out of existence, but its magic pulses from where it once was, and I double over when it hits me. The same cursed, not-quite pure aura that emanates from my father, from the Top Order, and from Heaven's damaged portal.

"Where did you... send her?" I ask, a deep fear settling into my heart as I take in the full scope of this world's situation. If my father is pulling the strings, if he intends to fulfill some master plan, then he has his new power and Heaven's army at his disposal.

"Someone very important needed to be... removed," he answers, and uneasiness gnaws at my gut when I hear those words. "You know her well, Calthius. She is, after all, your mother."