Defiance: Birth of the Renegades
Chapter 52
A/N: Written to "Angel", by Within Temptation and "Asu e no Brilliant Road" by "Angelela.
Decent: Time...
Before he'd even stepped foot -proverbially of course, as he was on the wing- in Silvaria he was swarmed by angels. Growling, annoyed at Mithos' startling foresight of his intentions, he'd strived valiantly to avoid the witless angels. When that failed, he strove to dislodge them. He had twelve half elves to extract from the city, and by the sound of things, the sights of the angels and Desian's waging war in the city of Silver was enough to send it's inhabitants into insanity. There was riots, or rather had been. Riots and wars, all occurring in the same place, he shook his head, and both praised and cursed the smoke that obscured his vision. The sounds alone were more hellish than any head heard in any of his long years on the battlefield, he was loath to see the sights.
Guards fighting Desian's struck from behind by angels. Rejoicing Desian's cut down by waves of scalding hot light... Despite the smoke he could see such sights, in his mind.
As he argued with one of the sentient Angel Commanders, not quite daring to kill those who barred his path. He was not yet desperate enough -or crazed- to risk Mithos' wraith. Nothing, he knew, in this world or the next, was worth enough for him to openly defy Mithos and court another span of torture. Nothing ever would be.
So shackled by the mad whim of the Lord of Light, restricted by his inability to bare more, he struggled on with an air of impotent defiance. His goal was to impress his will upon those subordinate to him, to override the Lord of Heaven's will with his own .
It was little wonder, then, that he failed.
X
Pacing before the front doors of his ranch, he seemed a mad thing. Fury pounded though his soul, lightning had snapped from his fingers, at least at first. Rage had run it's crimson course. Hot blood he could not feel cooled with despair, as Yashin and Clavk, and all the others, reported failure after failure.
Even black onyx wasn't working, they'd tried that at first. Ordering Yuan away from the portal bound in violet hued luminescence they'd attacked it with crossbolts and swords. Spells had been used, the most powerful magi had worked in concert regardless of what alliance they held to a single element. Desperate, the unified front they had mounted, only earned them searing headaches for their efforts.
For all his efforts, Yuan had suffered from acute mana shortage, and had to be dragged away from the door on the first day. Kicking and screaming, was what he would have liked to have said, that they dragged him kicking and screaming... He would tell Rene that, when she returned, to salvage his pride. But the truth, that was being whispered amongst old and young members, senior and green... was that the drainage had been so bad he'd only managed a lukewarm whimper of pain and a few feeble squirms when the medics had come to gather him up.
It was then, his rage totally drained, his strength fading, that he came back to reality. From his bed he ordered the wind magi of his Ranch gathered and brought before him. His orders were simple, the weakest were to keep the air of the ranch circulating. While they couldn't summon winds from outside to keep the supply what the false Desian's would use from stagnating. Those powerful enough were given schedules and sections of the ranch to supply with new air.
"I don't care if you have to turn steel into air, or drain yourselves half dead every day. We're partially underground, with the thoroughness of this seal I can say that we are totally cut off from any type of oxygen. You have to supply it, or we'll all die."
"They say," One of the youngest, one rescued from one of the few caravans that Yuan had lead a raid against, half protested. "that you won't, sir."
"No, I won't, but I'll go catatonic. My body will shut down, my heart will stop beating. I'd cease to function."
"So you'd die." The young man had said.
"No, I'd hover, between death and life until I was revived." Yuan corrected cooly. "Not quite the same as death, but close enough, don't you think? Now, if there are any relevant questions you are dismissed, and someone send in the water magi."
He closed his eyes, and stared at the darkness behind them with eyes that never rested. And cursed his mind, his soul, his status, that denied him sleep.
On the third day the generators, those without natural ties outside the ranch, died. Those that had been powered by slivers of earth, by the caress of wind, those had died the first moment the barrier went up. It was a wonder that they had lasted as long as they did, all of Yashin's low power draining designs had shared one single limitation. They all had been reliant on minimal outside stimuli. Rather short sighted of him, but then having the world effectively end beyond one's front door hadn't been in the scenario's thought of during the device's brainstorm session. Those generators left inside that were totally self sufficient were designed to last long enough for someone to go outside and make repairs.
The fire magi had been gathered then, the lightning. Their tasks were to power the generators, and if that failed, to supply lumination in those halls that were most often traversed.
They had failed, it took fine control to fuel the generators, most of the younger and inexperienced ones had fried the generator's receptor capabilities learning that lesson. Now that Yashin's office was cut off, the canny young wizard had padded down each and every hall making crude replacements for the tools he'd use to fix the generators. If rumor held true, one whole hall had been cut off, and engineer and competent civilians clambered over the devices -and each other- like bugs over some fallen civilization trying to fix and increase the longevity the devices.
"All medics arcanely suitable will take shifts, providing light and tending to the wounded." Yuan rasped, his eyes half closed, the emptiness was back. He'd been on the patrols himself. Setting himself to a task that - despite it's simplicity- was almost beyond him. He had crawled back to the medic wing rather than to his office. He lay on a pallet normally set aside for the wounded. And again, lack of medicines were showing. One of their own had died, and Yuan had been set on his pallet. The body taken to some rarely used closet and incinerated. The ashes were gathered and offered to the wife. He'd have to talk of her, of course, in a few hours he'd dredge up the energy from somewhere and make the walk across the base to her quarters.
In a few hours...
"What time is it?" He rasped.
One of the medics was passing him by; she halted in whatever task she had set herself to, and knelt by him. She seemed ignorant, or perhaps was merely indifferent, to who he was.
"Sir, do you need something, water, food, to go to the privy?"
He wanted to shake his head, but that too was beyond him. Depression and mana deprivation were weighing down on his soul. Every spare second he'd been left to himself he planned and plotted, perhaps saved his people... but under that he knew. He hated the knowledge, that damning knowledge, of what must be going on. Both ignorant and knowing, he suffered and writhed from guilt and grief, and fear. Terrible horrible all consuming fear.
Distraction, while not physically able, he grasped her, her presence and it's blessed distraction. The words took unholy effort, but he managed them through a suddenly dry throat and swollen feeling tongue.
"What time is it?"
She paused, looked at him, and bit her lip. Her blue eyes wide with concern. Concern, or recognition? In this state, with it's omnipresent physical darkness and his near mad desperation, he wasn't sure which it was.
"We can't tell sir. With the strange shell and all, no one can tell a Martel blessed thing. But it's almost over, Sir, everything will be alright." She petted his head, reached through -what must be for her, but was not for him- impenetrable darkness to stroke his head. "I'll be back sir, in a jiff. You need water, and then you need to sleep. Goddess bless, you sound half dead! I'll bring one of the light magi and some water. I'll be by in a moment. You just rest."
