With a small amount of awkwardness, Crispian turned back to the assembled group. “Now, we need to be aware of a few things,” he said, drawing them all back together. Azi was blushing slightly as she looked from him to Toby, and Jashen seemed a bit uncertain of what to make of things. Lexi, being Lexi, looked openly from one to the other. He could not tell whether it was shock or amusement on her face, but it was surely one or the other. Nekolia perched on his seat, a secret smile on his face. That perhaps bothered Crispian the most right now.


“First, everyone has to keep in mind that D’Vena, even in her right mind, is a dangerous foe. Now that we think she is seriously unhinged, it must be considered a possibility that she will be even more deadly.” He looked at them all. With the exception of Nekolia, whom he had just met, there was none here he would not die for. Yet, he knew that should any die, he would carry the burden with him forever. “Any of you might be killed, and again, I offer to let you free from any pledge you have to me.” His gray eyes went from one to the next, but all he saw was reassurance.


“Crispian,” Azi said quietly, “I told you long ago I would aid you to end this, and that pledge includes tonight.” Her calmness seemed to increase as she said this. Capable wizard now become worthy paladin, she was steadfast in her belief in the man she followed this night. Yes, there was much in common between he and Judan, for Judan too would have asked none to accompany him except of their own accord.


“I go where my sister goes,” Lexi stated defiantly. Her passion for the kindness and love that Azi had shown her burned like a bellows-fed fire. Her hands gripped the hilts of her blades tightly as she lifted her chin, daring Crispian to change his mind now.


Jashen smirked, the same smirk he got whenever Crispian threw out a challenge to him. “If you can face her, Cris, so can I.” He grinned roguishly at his older brother, but a tremor of nerves danced under one eye, the same tremor Crispian knew he had before meeting the enemy, but after they had been spotted. He could not fight down the matching grin to Jashen’s.


Nekolia moved his lips a moment and finally spoke. “‘Twas I who taught her, and I shall stand against her,” he said in his thin voice. Even though his eyes saw not, it was clear he could see what was upcoming. He bowed his head as a tear rolled down his cheek. “Were it not that she had to die,” he said in a voice broken with emotion.


At last, Crispian looked to Tobyas. He could barely meet his eyes, so intense was the feelings just recently brought to the fore. “Aye, I go where my Lord goes,” the young cleric said. He put meaning into the word lord that left no doubt for any in the chamber of which he spoke. It was he who looked away this time though.


“Very well,” Crispian said as he cleared his throat. “We shall set forth to her chambers, then. May fortune smile on us, and maybe the Light prevail.” He again checked his swords, making sure both slid forth easily when pulled from their scabbards. His crossbow brought to him in his earlier days of hunting from deep Lyonesse, he set on Toby’s desk, for tonight it would not be needed. Settling helm over head, he left the visor up. “Come my friends, to the battle,” he said, turning with parade ground precision and heading from the room.


Azi, Lexi and Jashen fell in behind and Toby helped Nekolia to his feet and allowed the old man to lean on his arm as they walked. “Ah, young lad, that was well spoken,” the old man said quietly as they moved down the hall and navigated the stairs. “Remember, when this is done and you are shed of her, that love does not come easy, but cannot be forced,” he advised. “But, if you two should find it, let the world be damned to separate you, no matter the consequences.” Toby looked sharply at him, even as he pulled the garth gate closed. “Yes, I know,” was all the more the old man said.


The journey to D’Vena’s rented floors was about ten blocks. They crossed them in tense quiet. The rapping of Azi and Crispian’s mail boots and the rustle of armor were their only accompaniment as they went. The shabby streets of the shadow quarter did not improve. In fact, they became more run down and worn, but none stood in their way. They reached the building and Jashen darted forward to scout. Tobyas prayed over them quietly, asking blessings from the Almighty that would aid each in the battle to come. Jashen returned to receive blessings last and then they were ready for it.


“Looks like they are both sleeping,” he said quietly, seeming to fade before them with a stealthiness new to him. The way seemed open. Crispian adjusted his shield and cloak a final time and stepped forward, leading them all across the street.


The entrance to the flats over the store was on the side of the building and gained with no troubles. The stairs creaked as they mounted them. Slowly, they went upward, pausing to listen for any sound from above. All their senses were predator keen and each looked about often, save for Nekolia, who seemed calmest of them all. In time, the door was before. It seemed to Crispian that this door had taken weeks to get to, weeks of struggle, failure, and strife, weeks of confusion, misery, hidden strength, and strange events. His gauntlet fist rested on the door latch, but he did not turn it.


He was no assassin to sneak in, but a warrior. “D’Vena,” he called as his fist slammed on the door, “I have come to face you in combat!” He threw the door open and walked into the chamber. A large bed was its center, cornered and canopied. Two tables were against either wall, one for dressing and one for refreshment. A rug of Dartmoor weave was upon the floor. Although worn, it was still valuable. “D’Vena!” he announced, even as the stench of death filled his nostrils and he took a chill from the air in the room.


Azi was already moving to his left, Lexi close to her side. Jashen was on his right, poison smeared blades bared and ready. Nekolia stood in the doorway as Tobyas broke up his satchel, pulling forth the reliquary and other items he had packed, along with the candles Azi had brought.


“Oramus,” he intoned lowly, lighting one candle from a tinder spark. “Pater Omnipitence, lavabo mea et tua.” His hand sprinkled about with blessed water as he called on the Almighty to wash those assembled from sin. Droplets spattered them all, and some reached toward the bed where D’Vena rested.


A wail filled the air as she rose to her feet. It was not a motion of standing, for her body remained rigid. She rose up, like a board being tipped into place. Her eyes burned with a ghastly blue light as she looked at them all. There was no mortal intellect behind those eyes as she surveyed them, hands rising in a claw like gesture.


With a hiss of metal on metal, swords came free of their scabbards. Lexi, Azi and Crispian filled their hands with bared metal as Jashen faded from sight against the far wall. Nekolia, still in the doorframe, raised his hands to cast and Tobyas began a new prayer, a prayer of healing. As one, the three warriors moved forward toward their foe, standing so large upon the bed. The dread cold of the grave seemed to envelop them as they moved forward, fear and sorrow washing over them.


In a voice the scintillated of laughter and the presence of more than one person, D’Vena spoke. “Is it that little play thing come to threaten me at long last?” The voice grated on the mind and soul, seeming to reach deep into each of them.

 

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Crispian felt D'vena's, or the being within her, mind press against his. The onslaught was terrible. Images of humiliation and pain flitted trough his imagination. He saw all that he loved destroyed.


From somewhere in the darkness, he heard a single word hissed. "Varya." The sphere turned ice cold as the spell woven into it flared into life. Crispian felt the wall slam into place between D'vena and himself. Then he heard the voice again. "Now, lad. Finish this."

 

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Azi stayed focused, though the voice pierced her like a thousand swords. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits. Though she was aware of all that surrounded her, there was nothing in the room to her, save herself and D'vena. She gripped her sword lightly, balancing on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce at her first chance against this foul evil.


/bump

The strange magic form the talisman he had been wearing since the night he met Tobyas and Ayslyn flared and Crispian moved forward, even as his friends braced from the onslaught of Mirth’s Will and power. Like wading to sea against the tide, he ponderously advanced toward the figure atop the bed; blade held ready and low for a sweep strike.


Crispian’s blade rose, his shield instinctively raised. “I have come to end this, D’Vena. I will have my freedom of you!” he threw back at this thing which was and was not D’Vena. He felt sweat forming on his back and forehead. The chill air in the room almost caused him to shiver. In his side-vision, he saw Azi and Tobyas both standing to the ready. He advanced a step, the low murmur of prayer and spell moving with him. Plated boots and chain boots sounded on the floorboards of the room as they stepped.


Mirth watched them approach, assessing them as threat. “You are as nothing before us,” It chided them. The sanctity of the cleric did not trouble Mirth at all, for he could be challenge and destroyed. The doubt in the two little girls would soon be used to rip them apart, soul from body. The one in the middle, D’Vena’s little obsession, he was no threat either, Mirth concluded. Yes, It could handle them all. “We do not have to obey your authorities or threats!” The malevolent gaze seemed to consume them all, even finally taking in Nekolia against the door. “Old Man, have you come for what you lusted after?” It taunted.


Frozen at the first words of D’Vena, or whatever was in her, again, they now moved forward. A wall of stench and cold welled up from area of her bed and she continued to hold a rigid posture, arm extended, but her fingers moved in no spell, no gesture of casting. Crispian swallowed down fear, sweat trickling down his brow, soaking into the leather padding of his helm. Again, he stepped forward.


Tobyas was still to his side; book of healing prayer clutched in one hand, sacred water in his other. He was trying to angle to make for the side of the bed and construct a warding of holy might, but D’Vena did not seem to react in the least. He lifted the vial and again shook water over them all as they approached closer, the few feet form door to bed seeming to take a surreal amount of time to cover. “And you shall be baptized to the Almighty with water, washing you clean of sin and taint,” he intoned, blessing each again, giving them strength in the Almighty.


A sudden blast caught him full in the chest, hurling him across the chamber. He slammed into the wall with a gasp, vial and missal falling to the ground. With a great grunt, he slid down to the floor, gasping for breath, his back alight with the fire of pain. “Do NOT call on your puny faith, man-lover!” Mirth shot at him.


Tobyas gasped for breath, his mind suddenly assailed with a great force; his sanity pushed back, his reason assaulted with images base and vile. “The Lord is my shepherd,” he muttered, clutching his holy symbol. “He giveth me rest, he leadeth me in quiet meadows.” He filled his mind with images of sanctity, calling up the faith he had invested himself in. The assault continued, the images more crude and coarse, twisted and harsh.


“NOW!” Crispian suddenly shouted and sprung into an assault. Perhaps it was his seasoning, perhaps it was the foes he had faced deep in the hell spawn of Darkness Falls, but he alone reached the creature with his blade, swinging a mighty blow that started with the tip near the floor and raced in an arc toward her. A savage yell burst from his lips as he swung.


Mirth diverted itself from Tobyas long enough to flick Its left-hand at Apolexia and throw her against the far wall. She raised it palm up and Azaeli stopped in her tracks, shock and fear on her face. The great scimitar was frozen in place, even as she raised it to strike. “CRISPIAN!” she yelled, though she could not move any other part of her body.


He turned not away from his blow, continuing upward with it, into the body of D’Vena. He felt the blade bite into her. Icy fire raced up the blade and into his arm, numbness spreading as his fingers went loose on the hilt and he cried out in pain. He slammed his shield into D’Vena’s body with all the force he would use on a troll or telamon, and with some small satisfaction saw her fall back as he did so. Again, a brutal cold force engulfed him.


Mirth sneered down at him even as blood ran from the gash in D’Vena’s side. “Catamite!” she snarled, her hands making a grasping gesture and then a hurling motion, throwing Crispian across the room. The impact of him against the wall was loud, as was the crunch of bone snapping. Only the metal of his greave kept his legs from bending in a third spot where it was not meant to by nature. He rose, levering himself up with his sword, to watch in horror as Azi and Lexi both rushed forward, the elder paladin just steps ahead of her adopted sister.


Their trio of blades swung through the air and seemed to connect, rending new gashes on the body of D’Vena, but the cold blue flesh around the wounds only gaped red and open. No blood flowed, nor entrails spilled. They drew back to hack again, but Mirth gestured and they fell to the ground, gasping in pain as their hands clutched at their heads from the pain of a million voices screaming in damnation and pain.


Jashen, overlooked to now, took his moment to drop the remaining attendant to D’Vena, who stood to the side with a look of horror on his face as he watched his mistress assaulted so. Twin steel gauches, crafted by his brother’s hands, sank deep into the man’s flesh, opening him to the kidneys. With a muffled cry, he slid bonelessly to the floor, bleeding out his life even as his renal system carried poisons into his blood stream. Death was racing through him even as death leached his life out.


Nekolia released his held magic at the figure, as Mirth was intent on the women and making them suffer. His lips moved in great and terrible magic as his fingers danced and his arms gestured. “Bend to my will, foul demon and fallen student. Harken to my mind! As I will it, so mote it be!” he called out in a voice that rang with power. No longer was he a wizened old man, but now he was master of his skill and craft. He released a stream of dancing lights and fog that swirled about D’Vena/Mirth and the contest was entered.


His eyes blazed with power and the supreme mastery of will that a Primus Sorcerer could summon at will. Mirth wailed, throwing at him a lifetime of error, indulgence and want. Mirth drew on Its own mastery of human want and failing. Nekolia gritted his teeth and held firm with his ensorcelment of his foe. Mirth found no grip in his soul for Its clutches, for such was the resolve of a man who knew his life, his errors, and was resigned to them before the Almighty.


Crispian rose, crying in agony as his weight hit his shattered leg. He advanced, left leg dragging behind him, sword acting as cane and support. “NO!” he screamed at this creature that was and was not his tormentor. Tears ran down as his cheeks as blood ran down his leg, both leaving their marks of passage. “No,” he said again, moving forward.


Tobyas rose from his slump to his knees and prayed from rote. He poured healing magics into Crispian, pleading the Almighty to give him power to sustain the young Lord as he advanced on the foe. He tried to picture the bones as they should be, formed, and knitted, but even from his distant place he knew the damage was too great for the simple healing magics he commanded. He withdrew the energy and sobbed at his ineffectiveness.


Crispian sensed the waning power from Tobyas and called back, “Heal me, Toby!” He cringed again as he jarred his leg moving forward. “JUST DO IT!” he screamed over the cacophony of the fray. Hellish screeches, the scream of sorcery, and the wails of Azi and Lexi filled the air, but he shuttered his mind off from it. With the determination of one that knows the grave is his triumph, Crispian pressed on.


With a more wretched sob, Tobyas resumed his prayers. “Coalescere, Domine, tuus servus Crispianus,” he said weakly, loosing the energies on Crispian, even as he knew they would not perform the task correctly. In his healing trance, he saw the bones reform and reshape, saw the blood rushing through to mend muscles and ligaments. He also saw the mis-set of the bone. Even as Crispian straightened, the pain leaving him, Tobyas could tell that he limped now due to bones set nearly an eighth-inch off.


Crispian rose straighter, the power of the Almighty rejuvenating him to face the foe. As he advanced, his eyes widen in horror. Jashen was poised to hurl himself at Mirth/D’Vena’s back, even as Nekolia called up a new spell. The instant froze for him as his brother launched himself and the old sorcerer released his spell.

 

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Bashir walks quickly throught the guild hall, seeking something though not quite sure what.

 

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The moment froze in Crispian’s mind, as it would be forever: Jashen lounging through the air, Azi and Lexi lying in pain, the slightly hysterical tone of Toby’s voice, and the calm incantations of Nekolia. It would always be as it was just then, a tapestry of life. So many things happened next, it was hard to sort out, even later when they discussed in hushed tones often used by those lucky to survive.


D’Vena lurched to the side, a claw-hand connecting with Jashen in a mighty blow that sent him flying like a cloth doll across the chamber. Nekolia unleashed another pulse of his magic. Crispian, Azi and Lexi all moved. The women rose from the floor. Lexi sprung forward, her twin blades slicing for this fiend that had hurt her sister even as Crispian’s blade was in motion again. Azi grasped the great scimitar double handed and prepared to follow them both with her own blow. Words of power fell from her lips in ritual chant, calling on the biblical imagery of battle, healing, and protection in such quick succession it was hard to tell which she was reciting.


In the face of the onslaught, Mirth had little choice but to try to deal with her most evident foe and that was Lexi first. She grabbed at her chest, hands rending right through the chain armor as if it were worn cloth. Her fingers dug into the gambeson underneath as she flung Lexi toward Nekolia, hoping to distract or disable the sorcerer with her human missile. But choosing one foe in three is always tough, and Mirth miscalculated. As she released Lexi into an arc toward Nekolia, Crispian’s blade bit into her side and unleashed a pulse of magic. A blue-black sphere emerged from the length of the blade and aided its momentum into the torn and battered body that had been D’Vena. Mirth wailed in agony as It sensed the mortal wound done to Its host.


Years, nearly a lifetime, of cultivating hatred and misery was shattered in an instant. The vessel was ruined! This being would die, and Mirth must flee. It gathered its essence to itself and prepared for flight, as the lifeblood of D’Vena began to pump through her again. The body warmed and organs began to work, circulating blood and fluids through shattered limbs and into a torso thrice ripped by swords. Mirth lounged ethereally at her foes even as the great scimitar of Azaeli Hammerfel sliced into the chest of she who was D’Vena.


The metal of the blade moved inexorably through the body. It split bone, muscle, and ligament as it ripped into the divine machine which is the human body. With no remorse, Azi drove her blow onward, her entire body behind it. She struck with passion, with the love of purity and truth that is the bastion of any Paladin. She struck with the love of a daughter for a mother lost to deceit, and of a friend who has watched a friend suffer and been helpless to right the wrong. This was her moment of Victory, in the Name of the Almighty who had brought them all into Life.


So stalwart was her faith that Mirth was forced to abandon a path along the metal and in to the body of Azi. Mirth recoiled at the purity of heart and purpose in the girl, shrieking such a sound that glass shattered and ear rang. She next turned to Lexi, another potential weakling, but found that she was touched by one greater, and there Mirth would find no purchase.


She sought the boy-priest, the perverted Cleric. Again, she recoiled. He WOULD have her to host, but only because of his love for the plaything of D’Vena, that Crispian-boy. She withdrew from the eagerness of his welcome, for she saw his intent to destroy himself as soon as she resided there. As he noticed, he resumed prayers, splashing about with the burning fluid blessed to his God. “The Power of God Compels you,” he chanted at her, somehow able to follow her noncorporeal movements with eyes and hands. The hand that clutched his holy symbol served as visible anchor for him. What he held, he believed, and what he believed, he had power to act for.


She shrieked again, for this cleric would not make the arrogant mistake some others made, that the power was theirs. No, he continued to call on the Divine, to invoke the Divine power, but never to own it. With a keen of spirit that could slay when needed and attached to living form, Mirth withdrew from his direction.


The other boy-man was unconscious and would do her no good, for his shattered arms would prevent him from rising to her aid if she went there. No, she had damaged him too much, too soon. She squared against the one already touched, only to find him prepared for her.


He held in his hand a glowing orb, an Elven orb that emitted a cold blue light. His gray eyes blazed at her even in the spirit realm. She could see each great breath he drew, and saw the blade he held against his own neck, dark with poison. He too was prepared for destruction of self if Mirth should touch him, but he was not welcoming. He challenged her to assail the fortress of his soul, and was prepared to pay for losing with his life.


Mirth shrieked in Its demonic anger. To be faced with foes full of love and self-giving was not in her normal ken, and the golden hair boy-man was the worst. For in his mind and heart, she saw an offering of love in toto, a consuming passion for all and a deep belief in the good of Man Created by the Divine. She hated that, for only with a doubting of that could she work to turn any to her purpose. Then she heard it, a call.


Nekolia’s eyes were closed as he again worked an incantation. He had studied it in his arrogant youth, and when he realized what it was, he had ordered the tomes burned, and the ashes scattered. Soul-abduction was the most foul of magics any could perform, and now, he incanted the words of power. A great light diffused from his body, spreading into the room. It swirled and shifted, touching surfaces and rising against the walls.


“To me,” he intoned arms wide, “to me, thou foul being from the nether world, to me, usurper of the will God has given.” His words were steady, calm, yet ringing with authority and power. It seemed for a moment, they were locked in that moment, Nekolia calling on Mirth, and Mirth trying to resist.

 

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((whispers: "Back up there..))

((holds her breath))

up, with you, up, dammit!

((grr Winterborne, I thought it was a continuation! <glare> ))

Nekolia gasped as he struggled for domination over Mirth, his enslaving spell worked to perfection. The clash of wills continued, though. His lungs burned with each breath he drew and his arms ached. Not in many years had he worked sorcery so power and mighty. “To me,” he said in a weakening voice. “To me, spawn of nether hell,” he chanted on. His heart thundered in his chest and his eyes rimmed with tears. His body was already spent, but his mind was as agile and firm as it had been seventy years prior when he became a mage, then a sorcerer. “As I will it, so mote it be!”


Tobyas rose to stand, his back a mass of burning muscle and his ears still ringing with the keening wail D’Vena had let loose. His raised his holy symbol before him as he staggered to the satchel he had brought. “The Power of God compels you,” he chanted. The words tumbled out of his mouth, growing stronger and stronger as he walked, halting step becoming determined, firm movements. Blood trickled down his neck from a gash at the back of his helm. To move his left arm was an agony from how his shoulder hung, but he pressed on.


Gaining the satchel, he reached in and withdrew the linen swaddled reliquary, hastily yanking off the wrapping. The Relic, usually an article of dubious history that was attributed to a saint of the church, was genuine in this case. The gold and silver, gem-encrusted shrine housed the bones of a factual saint. In his spiritual senses, the raw power of the object assailed him as badly as Mirth had. Pure dedication to the Almighty, Mother Church, and his faith radiated forth in pulsing rings of power. Tobyas grasped it in his hands and raised it up. “By the Sacrifice of Holy Martyrs, we believe in the power of God. That power now compels you to go forth from this chamber, from her occupants, and descend to thy nether home, foul creature of reviled evil, servant of He who was cast out.”


His shaking hands raised the reliquary up, only to be steadied by Azi’s slim and firm hands. Her face was streaked with tears and tangles of blond shown under her helm. However, her hands, upon the stem of the reliquary that supported the spheroid home of the bones, were firm and steady. As Tobyas continued to drone the words of a minor exorcism, Azaeli bowed her head, hands supporting his in raising the relic against their foe. Her voice, always a fine tenor in tone, rang with conviction as she intoned the psalm that filled her mind.


1He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress;

My God, in whom I trust.

3For he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,

And from the deadly pestilence.

4He will cover thee with his pinions,

And under his wings shalt thou take refuge:

His truth is a shield and a buckler.

5Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,

Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6For the pestilence that walketh in darkness,

Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7A thousand shall fall at thy side,

And ten thousand at thy right hand;

[But] it shall not come nigh thee.

8Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold,

And see the reward of the wicked.

9For thou, O Jehovah, art my refuge!

Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation;

10There shall no evil befall thee,

Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent.

11For he will give his angels charge over thee,

To keep thee in all thy ways.

12They shall bear thee up in their hands,

Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:

The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under foot.

14Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I

deliver him:

I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

15He shall call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble:

I will deliver him, and honor him.

16With long life will I satisfy him,

And show him my salvation.


Crispian steadied himself, gaining his breath. Before him, on the bed, was the collapsed and broken body of D’Vena. No force, her own or other, animated it now. Her eyes gazed out unseeing at the room and the horror that was playing out in it. Oddly, in death she looked serene and calm, at least her face did. He was almost moved to weep for her. A foe, indeed, but one who had wagered with power beyond her ken to do her will. His moment of introspection was gone as quickly as it started as he turned to the struggle behind him.


He shifted shield slightly as he turned. He malformed left leg dragged slightly as he turned with a wince. The form of Mirth, discernable even outside of the host-body of D’Vena, was horrible. It vaguely once might have been human, but unlike other ghosts that walked the realm, no longer did it cling to that image. A bulbous head perched on a corded neck thick with muscles. A skeletal, emaciated body with long, swinging arms and multi-jointed legs was beneath and an oozing skin of gray slime covered the whole.


He drop his blade, the fine edge that Lexi had put on it now blunted the length from the blast of cold he had endured. His right hand reached to his shoulder and slid out the slaying blade that Toorc had given him. “This blade will slay D’Vena,” the older Avalonian had told him. He had been partially right. This blade was meant for Mirth, to dispatch the presence to Its vile home.


“To ME!” Nekolia snarled, louder than the last time. Mirth roared in defiance. Azi and Tobyas staggered under the volume of her opposition. Lexi shuddered, turning away and crouching against the far side of the bed. Her face was a mask of emotions that ran over it in such rapid confusion that none could discern it. She moved as far from the milling fray as she could, reaching the crumpled body of Jashen. Weeping, but not for him, she pulled his head into her lap and stroked the matted blond hair.


Crispian slashed at the air, raking the blade through Mirth’s essence. Mirth wailed at the strike, spinning to face the warrior and counter-strike with a great smash at his soul. Crispian recoiled, striking again and a third time. The pulsing purity of the reliquary, aided on by the fervent prayers of Azi and Toby, drove him forward. Mirth struck, countering blows, and fell back, becoming weaker with each ethereal strike It took. In that instant, Crispian was the best he had ever been in battle, perhaps the best he would ever be. He parried, struck with his shield, and drove forward as his foe gave ground in the small chamber.


Weakened, diminished, and wounded, Mirth could not stand the dual onslaught of purity and might from one side and compelling command from the other. It shrieked Its rage even as it knew it had lost. Nekolia continued to roar his commands at Mirth and Crispian pressed the assault. In a final, hideous, unforgettable moment, Mirth plunged into Nekolia, striking him full in the chest and causing him to stagger, clutching at the doorframe for support.


“Now, boy, do it, ere she overwhelm me!” he cried out as she took claim to him. His film covered eyes met Crispian’s for an instant. “Do this for me, Crispian, son of Jasper, who was my companion,” he gasped, shuddering as the flood of energy from his spell ebbed and Mirth took a firm hold.


In a single motion, Crispian raised the blade, kissed the crossguard in salute and plunged it into the old man’s skull. The blade pierced flesh and spirit, severing forever the union of one to other. A bolt of force coursed back over the blade, hurling Crispian away even as he raised his shield to guard himself. He hurtled through the air to collide with the far wall and slump to ground, even as Nekolia was crumpling within the doorway. The old man’s hand was raised in a gesture of blessing even as the last breath rattled from his lungs.


A silence filled the room as all returned to normalness, save for a ruckus in the street below.

 

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