An Ephemeral Smile

Notice: this serves as a sequel to "The Dark Dancer", available on my profile

 The frigid bonds remained adamant in locking my hands and feet together, while the grimy window filtered in decaying grey light. Bats scurried about the mouldy ceiling. All the while, the iridescent black rune Laqueum–trap–burned tauntingly in the air in front of me. 

In summation, it was not a great experience to be a prisoner of a diabolical queen. 

The world was split into four kingdoms, namely the North Kingdom, of the Necromancy Magicians, South Kingdom, of the Runic Magicians, the East Kingdom, of the Elemental Magicians, and the West Kingdom, of the Enchanters. My kingdom, the South Kingdom, was currently at war with the East and West Kingdoms because of the arrival of a mystical yet insanely powerful sorcerer named the Dark Dancer, who could manipulate darkness itself. 

In an attempt to turn the tables in our favour, King Asnis commanded his two most powerful sorcerers to seek an alliance with North Kingdom. Unfortunately, Jane and I happened to be the two sorcerers, and it just so happened that Queen Emerled, the ruler of North Kingdom, was the Dark Dancer. 

And now Emerled was planning a Revolution, given that Jane and I had handed her the Sword of Eternity, an omnipotent weapon. She had also mentioned that I was the prophesied Chosen One, the only sorcerer able to defeat the Dark Dancer. 

“You will rot in this cell until you agree to help me initiate the Revolution,” Emereld had spat before she slammed the door shut in my face nine days ago. 

The largest weakness of Runic Magic was that I needed to snap my fingers to cast a rune. Emereld, being Emerled, knew this and made sure my fingers were tied up like a Christmas present, only darker and smellier. 

“So, the Chosen One is decaying in a cell,” a voice purred. 

I squinted into the darkness and could make out the silhouette of a cat. 

“Oh wonderful,” I muttered. “Now I’m going insane.”

“You’re not going insane,” the voice repeated, and the cat stepped forward into the grey light. 

It was a Persian cat, golden in fur colour with piercing midnight-blue eyes. There was an electrifying quality to the cat that I could not quite place, and I felt the cat perusing through my every thought. 

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“I am Ricardus, sometimes called the One-to-See-it-All.” The cat tilted its head to study me, never letting its midnight-blue pupils wander away from mine. 

“Can you free me?” I asked hopefully. 

“Free you?” Ricardus repeated. “Now, how do you expect me to do that?”

“You’re a sorcerer,” I whispered. “I can sense the magic radiating off of you like light off of the Sun. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before.”

“I suppose you Runic Magicians are truly poetic,” Ricardus murmured. “I specialise in Dark Magic, Dresvale.”

“I thought the Dark Dancer–”

“–was the only one who harnessed the power of darkness?” Ricardus finished. “Yeah, that’s how Emereld likes to phrase it. No, several sorcerers can harness Dark Magic, myself being one of them.”

“How exactly are you a sorcerer, given that, well, you’re a cat?”

Ricardus granted me an ephemeral smile. “The most sacred animal for sorcerers is the cat. With the proper training, all cats can master the most potent forms of magic. I was raised and trained by the Coven of Shades, which was where Emerled was raised as well.”

“So you’re planning to support Emerled in her Revolution,” I concluded glumly. 

“Emerled left the Coven to become the ruler of North Kingdom. Amongst others who practice Dark Magic, Emereld is an outcast. Including me.”

“Then free me!” I shrieked. “Before Emerled’s incantations make me disintegrate!”

Ricardus closed his eyes, before murmuring something under his breath. His shadow stretched its darkness over me, which felt like a blizzard. However, Emereld’s bonds shriveled up and vaporised. The rune flickered away as well, and I clattered to the ground. 

“You’re welcome,” Ricardus announced as his shadow fitted back underneath him. “Now, Chosen One, I suppose you have to get out of the North Castle before Emereld tries to hang you.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Do you, uh, happen to know your way around the North Castle?”

Ricardus rolled his eyes. “You don’t get to be a Dark Magician for long unless you learn to hide in the shadows and explore all frontiers, Dresvale. I know my way in and out of this place. Come on!”

He placed a paw on the cell door, and it dissolved into the shadows instantly. The Bellatores Inmortuae, the Undead Warriors, stationed outside leapt into action, but with a swipe of Ricardus’s paw, they burst into millions of skeletal fragments. 

“Your friend Jane is being held in this cell,” Ricardus explained as he raced down the hallway. “Emereld is planning to have her Necromancy Magicians torture Jane for information about South Kingdom soon, so we better hurry.”

We rounded a corner, to find ten more Bellatores Inmortuae guarding another prison door. With a snap of my fingers, the Perdere rune detonated, sending the guards into ten different orbits. 

“Perhaps you can try a less flashy spell next time,” Ricardus muttered as alarms began ringing in the hallway. 

The cell door dissolved upon contact with Ricardus, and we raced inside, to find…

…absolutely nothing. 

“Jane?” I asked tentatively as we stepped into the cell. 

The cell was smaller than mine, and, though I hadn’t thought this was possible, the window was even grimier than mine, letting in black light. 

Ricardus narrowed his eyes at the room. “Something doesn’t feel right here, Dresvale.”

“And you’d be right,” a voice that spoke out of my darkest nightmares snarled. 

Before I had a chance to respond, thirty Bellatores Inmortuae slammed me to the ground, nearly breaking my jaw. What little light that was filtering into the room completely blacked out, and icicles prickled my skin. 

Standing in the doorway was Emereld, still dressed in her black dress and her black crown. Her glittering brown eyes sliced through me like daggers. The Sword of Eternity, a sword made of pure darkness, was clutched in her right hand, while a ball of churning mist and shadows hovered above her left. 

“Locking you up was not enough, Dresvale,” Emereld purred. “Not when the One-to-Meddle-Into-All-of-Your-Personal-Business frees you from your cell.”

“Hello, Emereld,” Ricardus greeted, who remained standing without any guards pinioning him. “Long time no see. How has North Kingdom been for you?”

“Can the small-talk, you hypocrite,” Emereld snapped. “Oh, I ought to kill you right here right now.”

“But you can’t,” Ricardus countered. “Not even if you tried your hardest. Because we are from the same Coven. By the way, Rowena Underwoode says hi.”

Emereld turned towards me. “My magicians are working on torturing Jane. Would you like to see it?”

“No,” I replied, trying my hardest to stop my voice from shaking. “I want you to free us both.”

Emereld clucked her tongue. “No can do, Chosen One. You side against me. Bellatores Inmortuae, suffocant eum!”

Thirty pairs of skeletal hands clamped down on my throat, blurring my vision and burning my lungs. The inferno spread to the rest of my body, burning me to death. 

“Last chance, Dresvale,” Emereld warned as she stepped closer. “I need a new Coven of sorcerers to aid me. You can choose to fight alongside the glorious battle that will soon ensue, or choose to be my first victim.”

“Stop this, Emereld,” Ricardus growled. 

His shadow began to extend towards me, disintegrating the skeletons in the way and slightly lightening the pressure exerted upon me. 

“Oh no you don’t,” Emereld warned. 

Her shadow extended across the room to graze Ricardus’s, making him yelp and collapse onto the floor. 

Emereld hurled the ball of darkness into the air, and a portal popped open above us. Jane’s shrieks echoed louder than a thunderstorm inside the room, nearly rupturing my eardrum. 

“This is happening right now, Dresvale,” Emereld continued. “Give me your answer! WILL YOU JOIN ME IN THE REVOLUTION OR DIE WITH JANE?!”

Emereld is afraid of me. Because she is afraid of what I can do.

An airy voice that fitted a hummingbird whispered into my head. Call upon your inner strength. You have immense power on your side, for you are the Chosen One. Defeat the Dark Dancer. End this.

A beam of golden light entered the room, incinerating the pile of Undead Warriors in the way and releasing a blast of wind that generated a miniature earthquake. Emereld was thrown off of her feet as the bricks that formed the wall began to rearrange themselves into the shape of the cobalt blue rune of Potestas–power. 

“How about this?” I thundered. “I kill you.”

The ball of darkness hit me out of nowhere, catapulting me at light speed out of the cell. Before I could bash my head against the solid wall, though, twin balls of white light stabilised me. 

“So, I suppose the Chosen One has chosen the hard path,” Emereld apathetically observed. “Oh well, no matter.”

She fired another ball of darkness at me, this time nailing me in the head. Another one, this time in the arm. Another one, this time in the chest. I collapsed onto the ground, blood soaking my shirt. 

“You Runic Magicians never do listen, do you?” Emereld boomed. “NO ONE BEATS ME!”

With a twirl of her wrist, the ceiling crumbled and buried me under a kilometre of plaster. Her hold strengthened, crushing my ribcage and thirteen other bones. 

With a snap of my fingers, the rune Perdere exploded into existence, blasting the rubble toward Emereld. 

“We do listen,” I corrected as I struggled back to my feet. “It’s just that you are too ignorant to see it.”

“I suppose your arrogance precedes your every action,” Emereld noted, and snapped her blackening fingers. 

The air solidified in front of her, to form a slender, dark arrow. She pointed it at my heart as I prepared to cast my runes. 

“You disgust me, Dresvale,” Emereld spat. “You are the manifestation of all of my life’s most infuriating problems. When I fire this poisoned arrow, it will murder you beyond a doubt. And then I will burn your corpse!”

She fired the arrow.

This is it, I thought as the arrow soared toward me. The end. 

Before the arrow pierced through my heart, though, it vaporised. 

“A lesson you ought to learn, Emereld,” Ricardus didactically instructed as he crawled out of Jane’s cell. “Make your taunts after you successfully kill your enemy.”

Hundreds of Bellatores Inmortuae spontaneously appeared next to Ricardus, burying him under a mountain of skeletons. 

“Shut up,” Emereld warned, and promptly fired another ball of darkness in my direction. 

Rather than detonating onto me, though, my extended hands absorbed the spell. 

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” Emereld shrieked. “WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!!!!”

“Perdere,” I replied.

However, the cobalt blue rune morphed into an ebony shade in front of Emereld. She smirked as the rune detonated into my chest, blasting me off of my feet and sending me sprawled one hundred metres down the hallway. 

“I suppose I’m going to kill Jane with my own hands now,” Emereld muttered as black tendrils froze my fingers in place. 

Jane materialised in front of her. She was singed on the arms and the legs, and knife scars littered her face. 

“Dresvale,” she rasped. 

“Indeed,” Emereld agreed, forcibly dragging my limp body towards her with a flick of her wrist. “Broken as badly as you, I imagine.”

Ricardus lurched out of the pile of skeletons, claws extended as his shadow stretched towards Emereld, but he crashed against the wall with a deafening explosion as Emereld fired another ball of darkness toward him. 

“A pitiful team, really,” Emereld tutted, twirling around me. “I imagine, Dresvale, you thought that your imbued strength from being the Chosen One would allow you to defeat me and my millennia of incantations?”

She squeezed my lungs like a sponge, burning my windpipe once again. 

“Now, I will kill Jane in front of you,” Emereld gleefully gloated. “And I will make sure you watch every moment of it. Afterward, I’ll slaughter you and cast Ricardus into the Gleiz River.”

A black flame erupted from the palm of her hand, its roaring heat so intense that the air simmered above it. 

“No,” I whispered as she brought the flame in contact with Jane. 

“AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!” Jane shrieked, her shrill voice shattering a diamond bead embedded in Emereld’s dress. 

“Oh shut up, will you,” Emereld growled as she ignited another black flame upon Jane’s face. 

“No,” I whispered again. 

I do not exactly know what happened next, but I do know that the next thing I knew, millions of runes began to scorch Emereld’s skin, releasing her hold on the three of us. The black flames that she sparked spread rapidly across North Castle, igniting an inferno. All the while, the very earth shook as I took a step toward the Dark Dancer. The remaining Bellatores Inmortuae decayed as the flames melted their bodies, rendering Emereld’s army useless.

“Here’s what will happen this time,” I announced, a sword made out of pure light popped up in my left hand. “I will murder you for everything you have done to us. Afterward, I will throw your corpse onto this roaring inferno that will ravage all of North Kingdom, erasing you and your cohort from existence.”

Billions of more runes sailed towards Emereld, pinning her arms against the walls. Her brown eyes widened with fear as her magic began to fail her. 

“Any last words?” I purred. 

Emereld suddenly kicked her left foot out at my face with so much vigour that my cheek nearly cracked open. She drove her heel against me, throwing me up towards the ceiling and releasing the hold of the runes upon her. 

“Very well done, Dresvale,” Emereld congratulated as she retrieved the Sword of Eternity. “But in the end, you still underestimate me.”

She fired ten more balls of darkness at me, each one hitting me square in the face. Ricardus made a vain attempt to aid me, but Emereld formed a black force field around both him and Jane, trapping them. 

The ground split open as ninety more Undead Warriors streamed into the battle site, each brandishing a skeletal sword. 

My sword turned an inky shade once more, and it clattered to the floor, where it vanished into Emereld’s extended shadow. 

“Today marks the day when Dark Magic prevails over the world as it once did,” Emereld relished. 

Black tendrils formed around my hands and feet, locking me into place as black flames singed my feet. The black force field tightened around Jane and Ricardus, suffocatingly entombing them. 

Emereld traced out onyx runes in the air in front of me, all of which made me nauseated. The sunlight filtering into the ceilingless basement greyed and dimmed as Emereld’s shadow spread like an advancing ocean, enveloping the entire castle into an illusory midnight at dawn. The inferno raging across North Castle snuffed out, leaving only a damp, musty smell behind. 

“Perdere,” I whispered. This time, not even a flicker came out. 

Emereld placed her glowing brown eyes upon me as a black book solidified in front of her hands. “Aperi ostium tenebrarum,” she recited and closed her eyes. 

I recalled what the spell meant: Open the Door of Darkness, the gateway to the tortuous Underworld, where the most despicable entities were chained for eternity. Any sorcerer wishing to lock another being in the Underworld must first create a new, unbreakable tether, before linking the tether to the being’s mind and body. 

The largest flaw in this process, as King Asnis had once taught me, was that during the generation of the tether, the sorcerer’s spirit must enter Underworld, subjecting them to the hazards present in the dimension. Any slight distraction during the spell could result in the sorcerer falling into the Underworld. 

All I needed to do was free myself, dodge all of the skeletal guards, distract Emereld enough to cast her into Underworld, and hope that I didn’t die in the process. 

I closed my eyes and cleared my mind. “Explorare!” I shrieked. 

A blue rune flickered to life in front of me, yet it died out underneath Emereld’s looming form. 

I glanced back toward the force field, where Ricardus was mouthing the word light. Was brightness what was needed to defeat Emereld?

“Oh no you don’t,” the Bellatores Inmortuae warned as I closed my eyes again. 

“Oh yes I do,” I countered. “Lux!”

The nimbus clouds that had gathered vanished as azure light burned into the basement, disintegrating the entire army of Bellatores Inmortuae and Emereld’s shadow-spell. 

“Explorare!” I commanded once more, and the rune detonated in front of Emereld with so much force that it catapulted her toward me. 

Emereld’s eyes flew open, however, and as she slammed into me, the surroundings morphed into a narrow bridge teetering over an endless chasm. A glowing portal had formed behind us.

“Fool!” Emereld roared. “You transported us to Underworld!”

She immediately lurched at me, but I sidestepped, and she nearly tumbled into the void beyond. 

“You never learn, do you?” Emereld seethed. 

She conjured up a boulder and hurled it, narrowly missing me. Part of the bridge collapsed into the chasm.

“Goodbye!” Emereld shrieked and flew towards the portal. 

“Explorare!” Emereld was thrown back to the bridge as the rune discharged. 

Emereld brandished a knife, poised to strike me. “Goodbye.”

A sudden gust of wind blasted her toward the edge of the bridge. 

Ricardus stepped out of the portal. 

“You-” The final Explorare rune blasted her off of the bridge, throwing her into the chasm. 

Ricardus granted me an ephemeral smile as we headed toward the portal. “We did what we had to, Dresvale.”

The portal vanished behind us.