The Divided Knight - Epilogue

Summer had come at last to Telvany. Normally, this was Garrold's favorite part of the year, full of festivals, tournaments, and many other reasons besides for him not to spend the majority of his time holed up inside the walls of Valewind. This year was different, however. No longer was Garrold just a duke – he had named himself Magister of a reborn Torvaran Empire, meaning he was now in open rebellion to a kingdom his family had served faithfully for more than three hundred years, a kingdom that, if everything worked the way he hoped, would soon become part of the lands under his rule. Garrold still didn't know what to think about all of that – or what to think about the revelation that he was a mage, and a powerful one, at that – and the crown Wilem had presented him with earlier, today, wasn't helping.

The crown, which, right now, sat on the mantle above the hearth in Garrold's study, was made entirely of a crystal that Wilem claimed was unbreakable. The Order of Catharzen had had the crown in its possession since the fall of the Old Empire, protecting and preserving it in the hopes that, one day, it might again be worn. It was called the Shining Circlet and, according to Wilem, would provide Garrold with a focus for his powers when worn. Garrold knew he needed that focus – without training, and without the use of spells as a buffer, the wild magic he commanded would, one day, consume him unless he had some kind of secondary focus – but putting the crown on also meant that everything he'd started would become more or less permanent. Garrold wasn't sure he was ready for that to happen, yet. He wasn't sure he would ever be ready. Father didn't start out wanting to be Duke, Garrold reminded himself. He made a good one, though. Who's to say I won't make a good Magister?

“It's intimidating, isn't it?”

With a start, Garrold turned away from the hearth. A tall man, dressed from head to toe in black, with a longsword strapped to his back and radiating an almost overwhelming sense of magic, stood where no one had been just a moment before. At once, Garrold knew who the man was – hadn't he been sensing his presence in the world for days, after all? – but he still found himself wanting to deny his existence. The Nightslayer was just a legend. Legends weren't supposed to just walk out of the stories they were in and start talking.

“I don't think we've met,” Garrold said.

The Nightslayer smiled. “We have, now.” He grew more serious. “Thaddeus Alvarem at your service, Your Grace.”

Garrold raised his eyebrows. “At my service?”

“Yes, Your Grace. The Nightslayers have only ever served, and I pledge my service to yours. I will help you in any way I can.”

“I'm grateful,” Garrold said, and while still a bit unsettled to be speaking to a creature of legend, sincerely meant it. Having the aid of the Nightslayer might even mean Garrold didn't have to do anything, at all. That would make things too easy, though. I'm sure there are things he can't, or won't be able, to do for me. “Can you fight my war for me?”

Thaddeus smiled and bowed his head. “Unfortunately, Your Grace, I can't.” He looked back up. “I can, however, help you win it.”

“How?”

“While you fight King Lyrian and the Order of the Crimson Serpent, I will fight their masters. Fighting them – keeping their attention on me – will make your war that much easier. It will also keep you from losing it before it's even begun.”

“Who are their masters?”

“I think you know, Your Grace. I think you can sense them the same way that I do.”

“The Demon Lords?”

“Yes.”

“Gods Above,” Garrold breathed. He looked at the Nightslayer. “Can you fight them?”

“I am a Nightslayer. I must.”

“But you'll be alone.”

“Just because I am alone, now, doesn't mean I always will be.”

“Who will help you?”

“People I trust,” the Nightslayer said, eyes fixed on Garrold. “People I love, even. And, perhaps, even some people I have yet to meet.” He gestured at the mantle. “Put the crown on, Your Grace. I think you will find that, intimidating as it is, it suits you.”

And with that, the Nightslayer vanished.

Garrold turned back to the hearth, eyeing the crystal crown on the mantle. Reaching out with his magic, he lifted it off the mantle and guided it into his hands. It was warm to the touch – pleasantly so – and, as Garrold watched, started to glow with a faint, violet light. He placed it on his head, and, when he did, it felt like it had been made for him, like it had always been meant for his head, and his head alone. All at once, Garrold's worries about the path before him vanished. He was Magister. Now, all that was left was to take back that which was his. To remake that which was destroyed. For you, Resey. For you, my love.

The Divided Knight - Chapter Thirty-Three

Thaddeus opened his eyes. Above him, gray clouds scudded across a dark sky, and, all around him, a bone-chillingly cold wind wailed. The sound of the wind reminded him of something – another sound he'd heard recently – but he couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what. Turning his head, Thaddeus saw his sword, and also saw that the stone surface he was laying on had an enormous crack running through it that would soon cause half of the platform to break off and crumble down the side of the mountain. Platform? Mountain? Why were his thoughts so muddled, and how come his chest ached?

With a groan, Thaddeus turned on his side and reached for his sword. And then he paused. Where were Zoe and Aylander? And what about the wyvern they'd been fighting? The wyvern hit me, Thaddeus suddenly remembered. That was why his chest ached, and why he'd lost his grip on his sword. The wyvern had been able to hit him because Thaddeus had tripped something during one of his attacks – a trap that Thaddeus had only recognized when it had been too late to do anything about it. The wyvern had been the trap's bait, and, ultimately, also one of its victims, being pulled out of reality and back into the Abyss not long after the trap had sprung. But what about Zoe and Aylander? Had they taken hits like Thaddeus's? Were theirs worse?

Taking a hold of his sword, Thaddeus used it to help push himself back to his feet. The platform cracked and shifted under him, but – for the moment, at least – continued to hold. Looking up at the side of the mountain, Thaddeus saw the iron doors of the Gates of Eclipse had swung closed. Reopening them would be fairly easy – all it would take was the right amount of magic, enhanced by the properties of Thaddeus's sword. It would be too late, though, when he got them back open as, by then, Atraxos would have already obtained the Amulet. But would it be? Hadn't Adarion told him that, in the larger scheme of things, Atraxos was ultimately irrelevant? I have to get to him before he uses it, though. I have to.

Raising his sword and leveling it at the Gates, Thaddeus began to summon his magic, and that was when he remembered why the wail of the wind sounded so familiar. Zoe had screamed when the trap containing the wyvern had sprung. Her scream hadn't been one of pain, however – it had been one of terror. She'd been caught in the trap along with the wyvern. So had Aylander. And, like the wyvern, they both had been pulled into the Abyss, a condition that had only become possible once Thaddeus had lost his grip on his sword. That had broken the link they'd shared, making Zoe and Aylander vulnerable to both the wyvern, and to anything affecting it.

All at once, reopening the Gates of Eclipse no longer mattered. Zoe and Aylander – who, when they had all started out, had been little more than good friends, but who had, over the course of just the few days they had been together, become his family – were gone, lost in a place that, even as powerful as Thaddeus had become, he could never hope to reach. What was he supposed to do, now? How could he go on without them? Did he even have a choice? Of course I do. I could walk away right now, but, if I do that, I doom everyone. And what if, should I go on, I'm able to find a way to bring Zoe and Aylander back? Didn't Adarion imply that me making the choice to go on would allow me to be able to save the ones I love? Can I really turn my back on a possibility like that?

His mind made up, Thaddeus refocused his attention on the Gates, summoning his magic and sending it forth from his sword in a blast of blue light. When Atraxos had closed the Gates, he had locked them with an additional spell on top of that which already sealed them, and when Thaddeus's magic touched it, it tried to fight back, nearly causing Thaddeus's magic to be reflected back at him. Thaddeus staggered but, with the help of his sword, he was able to keep the magic from springing back, slapping Atraxos's spell against the Gates, which caused it to scatter. From that point, reopening the Gates was child's play, and, with a groan of iron hinges, the doors sprang apart, flinging themselves back against the mountain. The impact of the doors against the mountain caused the platform Thaddeus was on to splinter and begin to crumble, but he hardly noticed as he used a further burst of his magic to leap up toward and through the now open Gates of Eclipse.

Thaddeus raced down the tunnels that burrowed into and under the mountain. Magic – more than he had ever felt before, and of a type so old that to call it ancient would still have been an understatement – boiled around him, calling to him, wanting him to lose himself inside the heady flow of it, but Thaddeus ignored it, his only goal, now, to take up the mantle of the Nightslayer in the hope that doing so would give him a away to bring his family back. Stopping Atraxos and the Demon Lords had become secondary concerns – if Thaddeus could, he would, but saving Zoe and Aylander came first. And what if Zoe and Aylander had been killed by being pulled into the Abyss? If it came to that, Thaddeus would deal with it, then. Worrying about it, now, was counterproductive, and would only slow him down.

Thaddeus found Atraxos waiting for him in a curiously spartan room that, based on what his magical senses told him, was the source of the growing power that had surrounded him since passing through the Gates of Eclipse and into the mountain. Atraxos was sitting with his back to a glowing, marble archway, a small, black, metal cube on the floor before him. When Thaddeus entered the room, Atraxos looked up and grinned. “Hello, Thaddeus,” he said. “I've been expecting you.” He indicated the cube. “There's something, here, I need your help opening.”

The cube was obviously a box, and the box apparently contained the Amulet of Adarion. Why did Atraxos need Thaddeus to help him open it, however? Thaddeus probed the box with his magic, which, he found, was sealed by a spell that made it impossible for one person to open. “So I see,” Thaddeus said. “What makes you think I'll help you?”

“Because we both want the same thing. The Amulet is in this box. Help me open it, and all you will need to do is overpower me in order for the Amulet's power to be yours.” The fires in Atraxos's eyes flared. “If you think you can, that is.”

Thaddeus had to help Atraxos open the box, of course. Once the box was opened, it no longer mattered which one of them used the Amulet – the Sundered Halls would open and the Demon Lords would be free. And so would Adarion, who had somehow escaped the fate of the rest of the Divine Council and sealed himself away, waiting for the moment when the right person – the person who would be able to make the impossible decision, and, therefore, be worthy of the title of Nightslayer – came along. It amused Thaddeus that Atraxos still dared to think he had the upper hand, but then, after all, Atraxos – who was a fool, just as, it seemed, he always had been – had no way of understanding the truth of the situation.

“Let's open it, then,” Thaddeus said.

For a moment, Atraxos looked puzzled – why had Thaddeus agreed to help so readily? – but then, his attention shifted to the box. Thaddeus focused his attention on it, as well, and there was an audible click as the spell which had sealed it was undone. A seam appeared in the box's surface, and then the top slid soundlessly aside, exposing a white glow within. The glow was mesmerizing, and it took an effort of will for Thaddeus to pull his eyes away from it. Atraxos took a few seconds longer to look away, and, when he finally did, the flames in his eyes seemed a little dimmer, almost as if the glow had leached some of his power away. For a long moment, Thaddeus and Atraxos stared at one another, and it was all Thaddeus could do to keep himself from smiling.

“What, no move? No brazen attempt to seize the Amulet?” Atraxos asked.

Thaddeus said nothing.

“The key to godhood itself lies before you! Don't you want it?”

Thaddeus said nothing, and did not move.

“Perhaps the glow of the Amulet has addled your mind? It nearly did that to mine. A pity if you succumbed to it. I had hoped you would offer me more of a challenge.”

Atraxos reached into the box, taking the Amulet into his hand and drawing it out. To Thaddeus, the Amulet resembled a glowing pearl. It was beautiful, and, again, he had to force himself to keep from being mesmerized by its light. Atraxos made no such effort, and stared at it with an expression of rapt awe. And then the light of Amulet went out, leaving an object in Atraxos's hand roughly the same size as a marble, and which no longer gave off any kind of magical sense whatsoever. Thaddeus smiled, then.

“I don't understand,” Atraxos said. He shook the Amulet. The Amulet remained dark. “I don't understand!”

The archway Atraxos had his back to stopped glowing. The darkness within it began to contract in on itself, smaller and smaller until it was nothing more than a black pinprick, and then there was a brilliant flash of blue light. Deafening thunder followed the flash, and then there were figures emerging from the archway. The figures were black silhouettes wreathed in flame, each of the silhouettes largely human in appearance, and when they had all emerged, there were seven of them. Wrongness – similar to, but also somehow different, from that which had radiated from the drakes and the wyvern – seeped from these figures like a rank miasma. There could be no doubt who the figures were – the Demon Lords – and the one who approached Atraxos, now, the one whose silhouette was taller than the others and whose eyes blazed like twin furnaces, had to be none other than the Hidden King, himself.

“You have served your purpose well, Atraxos,” the Hidden King said.

“Purpose, Great One?” Atraxos asked.

“Yes. You freed us. And, for that, you have my eternal gratitude.”

“It . . . it was an honor, Great One.”

“Oh, I know. Our tools are always honored to serve their purposes.” The Hidden King raised a hand toward Atraxos. He clenched the hand into a fist and made a sudden, twisting motion to one side. Atraxos gasped – Thaddeus couldn't tell if it was in surprise or pain – and collapsed to the floor in a heap. “And they never seem to understand when their usefulness has come to an end.” The Hidden King looked over at Thaddeus, flashing him an infernal, burning grin. “Your turn, now, I think.”

“Unlike your tool, Magnus, Thaddeus Alvarem's time has not yet come.”

An eighth figure had emerged from the archway. This figure was that of an elderly man surrounded by a faint, blue glow. He wore a long, black robe and carried a staff with an odd, blade-like crook on one end. Walking with a slight limp, and using the staff like a cane, the man crossed the room to stand beside Thaddeus.

“So you do still live, Old Man,” the Hidden King said. “I knew I should have gone after you, myself.”

“Yes, very foolish of you not to. But then, weren't you always a foolish one, Magnus?”

“Why must you insist on calling me that?”

“It's your name, isn't it?”

“Not any longer.” The Hidden King stepped toward them and raised his hands. “And this time, I won't be so foolish.”

Adarion – for that was who the eighth figure had to have been – tapped Thaddeus on the shoulder with his staff. All at once, time seemed to stand still, and then everything went dark. The darkness lasted only a few moments before Thaddeus found himself standing inside a circle of white light. Outside the circle, the darkness lingered, but out of that darkness, images began to emerge, images that rushed toward Thaddeus and then broke around him like water breaking around a boulder in the middle of a river. The images showed Thaddeus the march of time – he saw the dawn of creation, the formation of the Divine Council, the naming of the first Nightslayers, and the rise of the Demon Lords. For a normal person, the torrent of images would have been overwhelming, and more than likely would have driven them mad. Thaddeus was able to weather it better – he was even able to process most of it, and understand why he had to see it – but knew that, without Adarion's presence and aid, he would have eventually lost his grip on sanity, as well.

The last thing Thaddeus saw was the most shocking of all. Toward the end, the Divine Council had been betrayed by the Nightslayers, and the resulting conflict had nearly torn the cosmos apart. Rifts – one of which had opened here, inside the Mountains of the Moon, and had allowed the people who would later be known as Eltarans to cross into this world from another plane of reality – were torn open in the dimensional fabric, so many that the only way to stabilize things had been to connect them all by creating a series of pathways called the Halls of Twilight. The Halls of Twilight were soon found to be the perfect trap for both the Demon Lords, and the Nightslayers who followed them – Nightslayers who, by that point, had become Demon Lords of their own. Those parts of the Halls of Twilight that became prisons were soon renamed the Sundered Halls, and it began to seem that, through them, the Divine Council would finally be able to restore at least a semblance of peace.

The final sealing of the Sundered Halls never happened, however – a last push by the Demon Lords had left all the Divine Council save Adarion dead, and Adarion had only escaped at the cost of his own Divinity. Giving up his Divinity, which had unleashed an incredible amount of magical energy, had placed a barrier between the Halls of Twilight and the rifts they connected, and had also placed in the minds of people the impetus and will to maintain those barriers until someone worthy of being named Nightslayer again emerged. Through this act, both the True and the Order of Catharzen had come into being, and it had been their actions – both direct, and otherwise – which had, at last, brought Thaddeus here.

The flood of images ended. Adarion stood before Thaddeus, now, regarding him with eyes the glowed an icy blue. “You have come far, Thaddeus Alvarem,” he said. “You have made the decisions that others could not and proven yourself worthy. However, one further decision – perhaps the most difficult of all – now lies before you. Will you, to the sacrifice of all else, take up this burden?”

“To the sacrifice of all else?” Thaddeus asked.

“Yes. All else.”

I will not give up on the ones I love. “I will,” Thaddeus said.

For a long moment, Adarion said nothing, his expression unreadable. And then, “Very well. I name you Nightslayer.”

And then Thaddeus was back in the room, with the Hidden King standing before him and ready to strike. Beside him, Adarion collapsed, dead, to the floor, the last of his strength – of his Divinity – sacrificed to naming Thaddeus the Nightslayer. At first, Thaddeus felt no different, but then the Hidden King struck, hurling a blast of magic at him that should have incinerated him. Raising his hand, Thaddeus caught the blast, and then sent it hurtling back. The Hidden King almost wasn't fast enough when he flung himself out of the way.

“Flee!” the Hidden King bellowed. “FLEE!”

There was a flash of light and a clap of thunder, and when both had passed, the Demon Lords were gone.

Now that the immediate threat had passed, Thaddeus was finally able to take stock of everything that had changed. Largely, he still felt as he had before, but there were differences – such as his sense of how much magic he could draw on, which had increased exponentially. And it wasn't just Arcane magic he could draw on, anymore – Life magic, it seemed, had been opened to him, as well, and, without any training of any kind, he could already see ways in which it and Arcane magic could be blended together. Looking down at himself, Thaddeus saw his clothing was different – he was now dressed from head to toe in black, his tabbard replaced by a knee-length coat with shimmering silver embroidery winding its way around the sleeves in subtle but intricate patterns that Thaddeus somehow knew only he – or someone very much like him – would be able to understand.

Unsheathing his sword – which he had no memory of returning to its scabbard – Thaddeus examined the blade. Nothing had changed about the sword, but Thaddeus found he could now read the runes on its surface, runes which spelled out the word Lightgiver. Thaddeus also became aware of a new bond he now shared with the sword – it had become well and truly his. Anyone else who tried to use it – unless they had Thaddeus's permission, or if they were bound to him by ties of blood or love – would find their souls taken from them and cast into the Abyss. Death, Thaddeus sensed, was the only way this bond could be broken, and there was even something – something elusive that he could just barely touch, and which reminded him of the tap Adarion had placed on his shoulder with his staff – that could make it stronger.

Returning his sword to its scabbard, Thaddeus took turns examining the bodies of both Atraxos the Black, and Adarion. Atraxos's body looked like it had been burned, his clothes reduced to ash, his bones scorched and blackened. No sense of magic came from the corpse, and with a quick probe of Life magic, Thaddeus understood that Atraxos's soul had become the Hidden King's thrall – which meant that, as long as it remained whole, the Hidden King could draw on it to fuel his magic without having to tap into his own personal reserves. This was how all of the Demon Lords fueled their powers, and the more thralls each of them had, the stronger they were. The Hidden King was the strongest of all, and all of the souls that were his lived in torment, begging to be released.

Adarion's body no longer looked like that of an elderly man. All of the years had gone from it, and the expression on its youthful face was serene and peaceful. As Thaddeus watched, Adarion's body began to glow, the glow growing brighter and brighter until, just when the glow should have become blinding, it faded away. When the glow faded was gone, the body was, as well. Taken by magic, Thaddeus realized. “May your slumber be restful and your days peaceful, Great One,” he said, his voice hardly louder than a whisper, the blessing one that was almost as old, he realized, as time, itself.

Rising, Thaddeus turned to look at the archway the Demon Lords and Adarion had emerged from. The archway had become a tunnel that stretched back and back, further and further away until it no longer looked like a tunnel, at all. That tunnel was one of the Halls of Twilight, and, if he'd wanted to, Thaddeus could have walked down it and come out in any other plane of existence connected to it. He wouldn't have been able to use it to rescue Zoe and Aylander, however – they were in the Abyss, the emptiness between the planes, and it was possible that they weren't even alive at all, any longer. By becoming the Nightslayer, Thaddeus had sworn to forsake all else, but he was sure that not even Adarion had expected him to live up to the letter of that oath. He would find Zoe and Aylander, but he would also fight the renewed threat of the Demon Lords. Neither task was, in his mind, mutually exclusive of the other. They couldn't be, because Thaddeus understood that, alone, his chances of fighting the Demon Lords without becoming one himself were all but non-existent.

And so Thaddeus Alvarem got to work.

The Divided Knight - Chapter Thirty-Two

Atraxos the Black smiled to himself when he sensed the trap spring. While it did mean that he no longer had a wyvern to call upon, it also meant that Thaddeus was now alone. Had Atraxos's trap killed Thaddeus's Spellbreaker whore and the unholy abomination the Sprite in the Vault had helped create? That hardly mattered. Dead or alive, they were beyond anyone's reach, now, trapped in the empty, black void that existed between the different planes of reality. If they weren't dead, they would go mad, so – more because any thoughts about what conscious existence in the Void were something even Atraxos found disturbing than out of any real feeling for Thaddeus's companions – he hoped they were dead. He also hoped that, in the moments before they died, they had had time to realize the true horror of what defying someone like Atraxos the Black entailed.

Atraxos was beyond the Gates of Eclipse, now, walking through a series of tunnels that led ever downward, deeper and deeper into and under the mountain. The magic that surrounded him, here, was ancient and powerful. That made sense, though – according to Eltaran myth, the Mountains of the Moon were the place the Eltarans had emerged into the world, and it was only natural that there was strong magic, here. Of course the True would choose this place to hide the Amulet of Adarion, and Atraxos cursed himself for not reasoning that fact out on his own long ago. But how far would he have to go until he found the chamber that held the Amulet? And what if he ran into something unexpected on the way? I am one of the Demon Lords, Atraxos thought. Unexpected or not, nothing can stand in my way.

“I see you lost the wyvern.”

It was Solanas, again, appearing in mid-air before him. He didn't look quite as ethereal as he had back in Aldraden – the spell that allowed him to appear no doubt boosted by the magic within the mountain – but he was no more there, now, than he had been, before. Atraxos tried to banish him, to disrupt the spell that cast his image, but he couldn't pinpoint it. Which, despite the amount of magical energy that surrounded him, should not have been possible. How could a god be blind to a single, simple spell?

“You're no god, Atraxos,” Solanas said. “And you never will be, either. You're going to die here, you know.”

“Why can't you just stay dead, Solanas?” Atraxos asked. He started walking, again, Solanas's image continuing to float in the air in front of him.

“Stay dead? I am dead, Atraxos. Dead, and forever safe from you.”

“Once I free the rest of the Demon Lords, no soul will be safe any longer. The Divine Council is long since gone and the Nightslayers are extinct. We will have dominion over everything, and nothing will be able to stop us.” Atraxos smiled. “Perhaps, once my ascendancy is complete, I will make your soul my personal thrall. Wouldn't that be poetic?”

“The Nightslayers aren't extinct, Atraxos. One of them stalks you even now.”

“Thaddeus Alvarem is no Nightslayer.”

“Oh? And what is it, then, that makes one a Nightslayer?”

Atraxos didn't answer right away. “Surely something you never possessed, Solanas,” he said at last. “We wouldn't be having this conversation, otherwise.”

Solanas looked stricken for a moment, but the moment was fleeting. “You're right, of course,” he said. “Thaddeus does have something I never did. He has a family. He has people who love him as much as he loves them. He would do anything for them. Even something I never could.”

“That may be so, but it doesn't matter. I will reach the Amulet before he does. I will use it. I will open the Sundered Halls and free the Demon Lords. And, when I do, the power of the Amulet will be no more. Without the power of the Amulet, Thaddeus can never be a Nightslayer. Never.”

Solanas's looked disappointed. “You always assume so much, Atraxos. You always think you know so much more than everyone else. Atraxos, no one knows everything, and only a fool would believe anything else. Can you not be a fool, Atraxos? Just this once? Even now, you can turn around and avoid the fate that awaits you if you go any further.”

Atraxos stopped, looking at Solanas's ethereal form through narrowed eyes. “You're pitiful, Solanas,” he said. “You were when you were alive, and you still are, now. You pretend to care about what happens to others when all you care about is yourself. Making you a thrall will be a pleasure beyond words. Old friend.”

“That will never happen, Atraxos. You'll learn the truth of that before long. Farewell, Brother.”

“You were never my brother!” Atraxos roared, but it was too late. Solanas was gone.

With a snarl, Atraxos quickened his pace, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Nothing that Solanas had said should have affected him this much, and yet it had, a fact which only added to Atraxos's rage and disgust. And, just as it hadn't been back in Aldraden, that hadn't even been Solanas – it had only been a spell, an image left behind in an infantile attempt to torment Atraxos in the moments before he claimed his final victory. Just because the image in Aldraden had been right about the wyvern – a fact Atraxos hadn't discovered until it was almost too late, but which had given him the idea for the trap he had set for Thaddeus – didn't mean the image he had encountered, here, was something that should be trusted. And yet Atraxos couldn't deny the way it had made him feel – the way Solanas had always made him feel, like he was something inferior, a misguided soul who, instead of being feared, should be pitied for not understanding just how wrong he was. He never understood, Atraxos thought, his lips curling. No one ever has. They soon will, though. And, when they do, they will fear me. They will!

Up ahead, the tunnel Atraxos was in ended in what looked like some kind of door. Based on what Atraxos was sensing, the source of the magical energy in this place was in the room on the other side of that door. The Amulet was no doubt in that room, as well – where else would it be if not there? Knowing that door was likely warded, Atraxos forced himself to slow his approach, coming to a stop when he was about a foot from it. He tried probing the door with his magical senses in order to determine what kind of ward protected it, but was frustrated by finding himself still distracted by his encounter with Solanas's image. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Atraxos used techniques he had thought that, now that he was one of the Demon Lords, he would never have to use again to clear his mind and focus his thoughts. It took longer than it should have – Damn you, Solanas! – but, at last, Atraxos was able to center his mind enough to probe the door. And was surprised to find that it wasn't warded, at all.

Atraxos frowned in puzzlement. Why leave the door unwarded? Without wards, anyone could step into the room beyond and learn its secrets. If that room held everything Atraxos was sure it did, leaving it so vulnerable made no sense. Unless it's a trap. But, even if it is, can it really harm me? I'm no mere mortal, any longer. His mind made up, Atraxos reached out and laid his hand on the door, which immediately crumbled to dust. After waiting a moment to be sure nothing was going to trigger, Atraxos stepped into the room beyond.

The first thing Atraxos saw was a bookshelf stuffed to the bursting with scrolls. A spell surrounded the shelf and its contents, protecting them from the passage of time. Though he knew there was great knowledge to be found among the scrolls on that shelf, Atraxos saw nothing on it that looked like it could have been the Amulet, and so he dismissed it. Turning to the side, he was confronted by the sight of a simple, wood-framed bed with a straw mattress. A partially mummified corpse lay on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. A quick probe of it with his magic told Atraxos the corpse had been female, and that she had been dead for more than a thousand years. Who were you, I wonder?

Atraxos looked back toward the bookshelf, then focused his attention past it. On the far side of the room, a marble archway had been built into the wall, and, as Atraxos watched, it pulsed with a faint, blue light. Moving further into the room, Atraxos stepped around the bookshelf and approached the archway. Here was the source of the magic he felt. And then he saw the darkness the archway framed – a darkness he had thought was nothing more than the entrance to another room – move, rippling like the surface of a pond, even seeming to bulge toward him a bit, as if reaching to pull him in.

This was the entrance to the Sundered Halls. It had to be. On the other side of that restless, rippling darkness, the remaining Demon Lords sensed Atraxos's presence. They called to him, pleading for him to set them free. But, without the Amulet, how could he? Then he saw the box, black, seamless, gleaming in the soft, yellow magelight that lit the room. It sat just in front of the archway, almost expectant in its placement, and Atraxos grinned as he looked upon it. He probed it with his magic. And then frowned.

The box had been sealed by a spell that made it impossible for one person to open. A Spellbreaker could have gotten around that, but Spellbreaking was a talent Atraxos didn't possess. Wasn't he one of the Demon Lords, though? Shouldn't breaking a spell have been child's play for someone like him? Atraxos hurled a fireball at the box in frustration, snarling in rage when the flames left it untouched. Was this how things would end, then? With victory all but in his grasp only for him to fail because he was alone?

Something tickled the edge of his awareness. It was Thaddeus, and he was coming. He was alone, now, too, and, while powerful, was no Nightslayer. Thaddeus would put up a fight, of course, but, in the end, Atraxos would have his way, and would make Thaddeus help him open the box before killing him. Laughing at the thought, Atraxos settled down to wait.

The Divided Knight - Chapter Thirty-One

Thaddeus blazed like a brilliant, blue beacon as he charged toward the wyvern. The magical sense coming off of him was some of the strongest Aylander could ever remember feeling, and that was before accounting for what Thaddeus's sword was contributing to it. If that sword had been in the hands of someone with no natural magical ability, it would have made that person a mage. In the hands of Thaddeus Alvarem, it turned him into something that could almost have been called a god. How much more powerful would becoming the Nightslayer make him? The thought made Aylander's mind reel – along with making him feel more than a little afraid – and he had to force himself to focus on what was going on in front of him. Any other considerations could be left for later, even if, by then, his brother had become something so powerful that he had ceased to be his brother, at all.

There was a sympathetic pull coming from Thaddeus's magic as he charged the wyvern, a tug that seemed to be trying to draw Aylander's power along with it. The tug made Aylander want to move, to charge with his brother, but what good would that do? Unlike Thaddeus, Aylander had no sword that could strike a Creature of the Abyss – he had no weapons at all, for that matter – and charging at the wyvern would win him nothing but a lost soul. But was that really the case? The tug Aylander felt wasn't a physical one – it was magical. As strange as it sounded, was it possible that Thaddeus's magic was somehow inviting Aylander's magic to combine with it? Would that protect him from the wyvern? Would that give him the same ability to use his magic against the creature that the sword gave Thaddeus? There was only one way for Aylander to know.

Using methods that had been taught to him long ago, back when he was first learning to tap into his magical abilities, Aylander relaxed his mind, clearing it of all extraneous thoughts. Focusing on the magical pull coming from Thaddeus, Aylander let his magic be taken up by it, and, for a moment, it was like he was in two places at once. And then all he felt was a torrent of power unlike anything he had ever experienced, before, a raging tempest within him in which, if he concentrated hard enough, he could just barely make out where his magic ended and Thaddeus's began. Aylander understood at once that he needed to maintain his awareness of that boundary – if he didn't, both he and Thaddeus would die, as, no matter how much their magic needed to work together, it could only ever belong to two separate people.

Not two, Zoe's voice said from inside Aylander's head. Three.

Aylander looked at her. She was smiling at him, her eyes sparkling with green light – blue and yellow combined – while blue flames danced around her. Aylander could feel Zoe's magic – the first time he had ever experienced Life Magic from the wielder's perspective – and it filled him with a sense of comfort, reassurance, and peace. Zoe's magic would be the balance, making it so Aylander and Thaddeus could focus on destroying the wyvern without having to worry about losing themselves to each other's power. And what would she gain from Aylander and Thaddeus? All but total invincibility. It was marvelous.

The wyvern shrieked and the platform on which they stood shook. Looking over, Aylander saw that Thaddeus had already successfully bound the wyvern in some kind of web that would keep it from being able to take to the air. Thaddeus was also moving faster than Aylander could see, a blue streak that, as Aylander watched, evaded three separate attempts by the wyvern to attack in the span of only a few seconds. And then Thaddeus scored on an attack of his own, the impact of his sword on the wyvern's leg causing the creature to bellow in pain and anger while, all around them, the sky flashed crimson as dimensional fabric was twisted and torn.

Does he even need our help? Zoe asked, clearly in awe of what she was seeing.

Without us, he will eventually tire, Aylander said. And, while he is powerful, he still does not know as much about magic as you or I. He needs us. And we need him. Aylander looked at her and smiled. Wouldn't you agree?

Because of the link they shared, Zoe clearly caught the full meaning of Aylander's words, her eyes giving a brief flare of lust as she smiled back. Indeed I would.

Aylander grinned at her, then took off toward the wyvern, readying any spell he could think of that might work. He cast them as he dashed, jumped, and ducked, each one of them made more powerful by the link he shared with Thaddeus, but each one never quite doing exactly what he hoped it would. If only he had a sword like Thaddeus's. Aylander understood, though, that the sword his brother now wielded was unique – that it was, in a sense, something that shouldn't even exist at all – which meant that, in this fight, magic was his only recourse. And that recourse, despite the enhancements from Thaddeus, was not availing him. How could they destroy the wyvern without Aylander's magic?

Let go of the spells, Thaddeus said from within Aylander's mind. They're hampering your ability. Blunting it. Just think about what you want to do and do it.

Could Aylander do what his brother suggested? Aylander had been reliant on spells for so long, he didn't know if, on a whim, he could just stop using them and go back to being the wild mage he had been before his formal training had begun. What if he lost control and the magic overwhelmed him, consuming him as he had been warned would happen to wild mages who were never trained? It hasn't overwhelmed Thaddeus, Aylander thought. And he has never been trained.

The wyvern whipped its tail around, lashing out at Aylander, and he just barely had time to jump out of the way. And then, without even thinking of the spell, he conjured a ball of blue magefire and hurled it at the beast. The ball of arcane fire struck the wyvern's tail and set it ablaze, causing everything behind the point of impact to instantly vaporize. The wyvern howled and tried to take off, again, but was stopped by Thaddeus's web, crashing back to the platform, which began to crack and splinter under the onslaught.

That's the way to do it, Brother! Thaddeus said, rushing in to launch a flurry of blows to each of the wyvern's legs, which elicited more howls and more blood-tinted flashes of light.

We need to widen the tears, Zoe said.

Aylander looked back at her. What?

It'll take us too long to kill it. We need to widen the tears in reality that happen when Thaddeus hits it, and then we need to push it through.

During his training, Aylander had been taught what little even his people had known about dimensional theory. Supposedly, the fabric of reality was alive, and could heal itself from small, unintentional tears. Deliberate tears made into the fabric were dangerous and could cause a larger unraveling, though this didn't seem to be as much of a problem for those whose physical bodies had already died, like the Sprites. Aylander, Thaddeus, and Zoe were all still very much alive physically, however, and what Zoe was suggesting – deliberately widening tears in reality that would otherwise heal on their own – sounded like madness, indeed. But then Aylander got a look at the wyvern's tail, and saw that, in just the span of moments since he'd cast his fireball, the part he had vaporized had already grown back. He could vaporize it, again – he knew that, each time he hurt the beast, he weakened it – but it would still grow back, and would continue to do so until they weakened the wyvern enough for it to die. And it was anyone's guess how long that would take.

Can you do it? Aylander asked.

With the help I'm getting from you and Thaddeus, I think so, Zoe said. It should be just like breaking a spell. Once I've widened the tear, though, I'll need you and Thaddeus to push the wyvern through.

Did you hear that, Brother? Aylander asked Thaddeus.

I did, Thaddeus said. I'm not sure I like it, though.

I think any other options we may have are severely limited.

All right. Let's do it, then.

And without any further hesitation, Thaddeus whirled and charged, a blue streak that raced up the wyvern's outstretched leg and then down its back, the wyvern shrieking and howling as Thaddeus landed a flurry of blows along the length of its spine. Catching himself watching in amazement – had he ever seen anything move so fast, before? – Aylander began to move, as well, turning his attention to the web of glowing, blue filaments that was holding the wyvern down. Reaching a hand out, he summoned one of the filaments to him, grabbing it like a rope and darting toward the wyvern's other leg. Just as the wyvern moved to swipe at him with its claws, Aylander leaped into the air, not even feeling it when he landed on the beast's leg, and only partly aware of how fast he moved as he sprinted upward toward its shoulder. Magic pulsed and throbbed within and around him, and never before had Aylander felt so alive.

The wyvern turned its head and snapped at Aylander, but he easily dodged the attack – in fact, he realized, he may have dodged it a little too easily. There was no time to think about that, however – even now, through the link they shared, Aylander could feel Zoe using her magic to force open the tears that were being made in the dimensional fabric, and, because of his own magic, could feel how little time they now had to force the wyvern through the tears before they became so wide that they could not seal on their own. It didn't matter if it was suddenly becoming too easy to combat the beast they were trying to banish – they had to banish it before what they were doing caused all of reality to unravel. And so Aylander began to loop the blue filament in his hand around the neck of the wyvern, fashioning a lasso he could pull the wyvern through the tears with that the wyvern would not be able to free itself from.

Suddenly, Thaddeus was flying through the air, knocked backward by a blow from the wyvern. Aylander saw Thaddeus fall. He saw Thaddeus lose his grip on his sword, which immediately severed the link he shared with Aylander and Zoe. And then all Aylander could see, hear, or feel was chaos – the shrieking of the wyvern, the howl and tug of some bone chilling, otherworldly wind, Zoe screaming, the chaotic, uncontrolled rage of wild magic. All of this lasted only a few seconds, but, to Aylander, those seconds seemed like an eternity.

And then all Aylander knew was darkness.