19. The Morality in Murder
"—trying to escape!" a man's voice could be heard fretting the moment Lorelai paused under the archway that had been guarded by the Shriekers. "Intercept the Seekers before they succeed!"
"Alexander," Ifan murmured with dark delight. "Perfect." He winked at Lorelai and gave her a sharp toothed grin. "I'll find some high ground," he said. "Anything else before we give 'em hell?"
"Mm…" Lorelai gazed at the unaware group of magisters. She did not remember the last time she had fought in a group, so she scrounged for the tactical knowledge that she should have stored away somewhere. "Allow me to focus on the heavily armored ones," she decided, "as they will deflect most weapons. Ifan, focus on Alexander, of course, and cast any support spells you have."
"No problem," Ifan said primly.
"Sebille," Lorelai continued, "please rid us of the gheists,"—Lorelai pointed at two disfigured creatures with wicked claws who might have been humanoids at one time—"and Fane, please focus on the elementalists. The Silent Monks are of lowest priority. I shall leave them to Bunny."
"Sounds wonderful," Sebille agreed, and Fane inclined his head.
"Allow me to draw their attention," Lorelai continued, "while Sebille and Ifan remain out of sight for as long as possible. Fane, remain at a distance with ranged magic."
"Fine, fine," Fane replied impatiently. "Is this all?"
"As far as I am concerned," Lorelai laughed. "Off we go."
Sebille and Ifan both crouched down and moved to the shadows. Sebille cast a spell that made her body blend into the environment, and Ifan crept up the nearby ladder, his footsteps silent as a wolf's paws in the forest. Lorelai waited for them to get into position before cracking her knuckles and stepping forwards daintily. She tapped down the stairs and began preparing a spell. There were five magisters, two gheists, and two silent monks in total, probably the largest group of red-robed people gathered together that Lorelai had seen. And then, there was Alexander. Lorelai had to give him some credit, at least, for wearing the same collar as the rest of the sorcerers. He was still cruel and deserving of death, but he was not a hypocrite in this one rule.
By now, Lorelai was rather amused that she had not yet been noticed. She was standing in plain view at the foot of the stairs, watching these oblivious idiots as they argued furiously and did absolutely nothing. Lorelai allowed them a few more seconds of peace before she coughed to get everyone's attention. The intense conversation among the magisters halted abruptly as everyone spun to face her. One of the magisters screamed at the sight of her Undead-ness, and all of them drew their weapons.
"Such tempers," Lorelai tutted, and she made no move towards aggression.
"The escaped sorcerers," Alexander growled hatefully, perfectly content with aggression. "Kill them!"
"If you insist," Lorelai murmured.
Lorelai snapped her fingers, and Bunny appeared behind one of the Silent Monks. Bunny hissed, drawing everyone's attention, which allowed Lorelai to toss a blistering tongue of flame at the first armored soldier. Her magic shields resisted it for a moment, but the intensity of Lorelai's flames soon burned through. Before anyone could even think about attacking Lorelai, the magister was being roasted alive.
Then, everything began happening in quick succession.
Bunny wrapped herself around the Silent Monk. Her thick body slowly began crushing the man's bones, and she easily ignored the Monk's struggles and offensive magic. Lorelai kept an eye on her familiar, ready to dissipate Bunny if she looked to be struggling, but the snake was sending intermittent thoughts of happiness towards Lorelai, so she did not want to ruin Bunny's fun.
The burning magister was writhing on the ground in agony, so Lorelai stopped blasting flame. If anyone tried to heal the magister, her red-hot armor would continue cooking her body, undoing any physical regenerative effects. If someone tried cooling her down, the woman's melting flesh would fuse to the cold metal. At this point, the magister should survive, however hideously scarred, but she would be incapacitated for the rest of the fight.
Lorelai forced herself to be satisfied with only that.
Shortly after the magister fell, Alexander cast a spell strengthen his allies' magic resistances, and one of the elementalists tried to heal the burning woman. As expected, she had a momentary reprieve before her armor seared her skin. Now that everyone was focused on Lorelai again, Sebille reappeared to shove her needle into the throat of the nearest gheist. The gheist roared furiously and spun to face her, so Sebille traded her needle for two daggers and began to engage it.
Lorelai felt the effects of Ifan's encouragement spell, and then the air grew charged with electricity as a lightning bolt hit the distracted elementalist. The attack was strong, very strong, and Lorelai mentally stored that tidbit about Fane. If he was an Eternal as he claimed, then he was likely even more talented in the arcane arts than Lorelai herself. It could be quite interesting to have him along, and Lorelai looked forwards to trading information with him—if he were receptive to such a thing, of course.
When the other elementalist tossed a spear of ice Lorelai's way, she hastily threw a ward up that absorbed most of the damage. A sheen of ice still coated Lorelai's hands, but it did not restrict her movement or ability to cast. The two other armored magisters rushed towards Lorelai, so she used the frost on her hands as inspiration to slick the ground in front of them with ice. One tripped and landed on his back with a heavy clatter, but the other pushed through.
Adrenaline filled Lorelai with a pleasant buzz, and she eagerly morphed both of her arms into tentacles. One knocked the helmet off the magister's head, and the other struck him right on his exposed face. The magister howled in pain and pressed both hands to his face, so Lorelai blasted his gauntlets with a small dose of scorching flame. The man screamed as his skin melted against the metal, and he ripped his hands away instinctively, tearing the flesh off his face in the process.
Lorelai took advantage of this to skip backwards so that she was standing next to Fane. He cast her a quick glance but did not otherwise react. He had already taken out one of the elementalists; the woman was nothing but a scorch mark on the stone from another lightning bolt.
On the other side of the courtyard, Sebille ripped one of the gheists apart and skipped out of the other's way. She was bleeding from some nasty claw marks on her arm, but she displayed no discomfort from the wound. Ifan was sending elemental bolts onto Alexander, straining to break through his magical armor as he skipped out of the way of Alexander's hasty blasts of magic.
Suddenly, Ifan whistled loudly. A gray wolf nearly as tall as a human materialized next to Alexander and began tearing through his robes with ferocious intensity. Delighted by this new ally, Lorelai remembered to check on Bunny. Her familiar had crushed the first Silent Monk into a contorted mass and was attempting to wrap herself around the second. She had a small cut on her side and a few torn scales where magic had hit her, but she was otherwise unharmed.
The armored magister knocked down by the ice struggled to his feet and rushed to his disfigured companion. He tried to drag the writhing man off the battlefield, but a crossbow bolt struck him in the foot, piercing through his boot to pin him to the ground. Lorelai sent out a blast of flame at the two at the same time as Fane summoned a lightning bolt to chain across the battlefield. Both armored magisters were electrocuted, their metal armor conducting the lightning efficiently, and they were stunned, unable to escape from the pool of flame Lorelai had created around them.
The second gheist screamed as Sebille slashed its throat, and she instantly threw a dagger that embedded itself in the second elementalist's head with unerring accuracy. The remaining Silent Monk collapsed under the pressure of Bunny's coils and, suddenly, only Alexander was left.
The Godwoken backed away, summoning magic around his hands, while Ifan's wolf stalked towards him, a vicious snarl on its face, when the ground shuddered and split. A giant worm, a Voidwoken larger and more hideous than Lorelai had ever seen, screeched horrifically as it dragged itself from the ground and lashed out with oily limbs. It writhed wildly and fixed its beady eyes on Fane.
"See?" Alexander shrieked, staring at the Voidwoken. "This is why Source must be eradicated!" He sent his gathered magic at the creature. "We must destroy—"
A crossbow bolt pierced him through the heart, and Divine Alexander collapsed to the ground. Ifan's wolf spun to begin tearing at the Voidwoken, and every other one of Lorelai's companions attacked the Voidwoken without hesitation. Lorelai sent magic its way indiscriminately, only pausing to dissipate Bunny, who would not be effective against such a large enemy.
The Voidwoken managed to injure the wolf, tossing it across the courtyard, and Sebille only barely managed to avoid being snapped up by the creature. Other than spraying poison towards Fane and screeching at Lorelai, however, the Voidwoken managed nothing else before Sebille's daggers tore open its gelatinous flesh. The creature's dying wails shook the walls of the courtyard, but it collapsed into a pool of black ooze and spreading blood.
In the silence that followed, Sebille flicked her hands, dislodging clumps of blood and decaying flesh, and she turned to Lorelai with a grimace.
"We ought to find another melee attacker," she said dryly. "I should not be the one to catch every single blood spatter."
Lorelai laughed and skipped over to her. "I could summon some rain for you if you would like," she offered, and Sebille nodded gratefully. Lorelai formed a cloud above Sebille and allowed it to burst with gentle rain, washing most of the gore from Sebille's body. Once the rain petered out, Lorelai sent a blast of hot air that dried Sebille in an instant.
"You, darling, are very useful to keep around," Sebille said with a smirk as she flicked off the remaining bits of Voidwoken from her clothes.
Lorelai bowed ostentatiously before casting her gaze around. She spotted Ifan hopping down from a ladder nearby and rushed to him. "Ifan!" she cried out, grabbing the man's attention. "You did it! Alexander is wonderfully dead, and the magisters are likewise or terribly maimed!"
Ifan gave her a brilliant grin and clapped her on the shoulder with enough force that she could feel the pressure. "We did it indeed," he said. He pulled her into an unexpected bear hug that filled Lorelai with a mixture of joy and pride. "Thank you for your help, Lorelai," Ifan said into her shoulder, his voice soft enough that only she would hear it. "To be honest, I doubt I would have succeeded without you."
"And Sebille," Lorelai added in an attempt to hide how nervous this proximity with Ifan was making her.
Ifan pulled back, an eyebrow raised, but kept a hand on her shoulder. He snuck a glance at Sebille. After a moment, he shrugged. "You may be right," he said noncommittally. Lorelai snorted with laughter and gave him a second quick hug that he returned without hesitation.
"Are you planning on… leaving now?" Lorelai inquired carefully after she released him. "Your contract being fulfilled and all…"
A flash of surprise and then uncertainty ran through Ifan's gaze. "...A contract isn't over until I turn it in," he decided gruffly.
"Ah, wonderful!" Lorelai cried with a delight that she did not completely feel.
Lorelai wanted to keep him from going to Reaper's Coast, if only so that he would be unable to leave her company. Ifan was her first friend in longer than she could remember and one of the very few who had not reacted to her lack of life. Losing him and Sebille would be a deep blow to Lorelai, one that she could not bear to suffer just yet. She knew, however, that she had no right to force her wishes onto her companions. They would decide their fates for themselves.
xXxXxXx
Ifan had succeeded. Alexander was dead, his contract was complete, and he was about to leave for Reaper's Coast. And yet, his victory seemed hollow. Lorelai had reminded him that he was nearly done with his mission. That meant Ifan would return to his life as a mercenary, receive another mission, and complete it. Without Lorelai at his side.
That thought did not feel right to him.
Ifan wanted to talk to Lorelai about it. He had no idea what he was planning to say to her, but he walked to her anyway. She had spun around and trotted back to Sebille and Fane after she had spoken to him, and now she was waving her arms dramatically.
"—to inspect which of our enemies have survived," she was telling them. "Could you check on the Seekers' progress in stealing a ship?"
"Indeed," Sebille said, "but I shall not be saving any of them from death if they are being annihilated."
Lorelai chuckled without any apparent disapproval and patted Sebille on the head. Sebille puffed a breath out of her nose and tossed Ifan an indiscernible glance. "Thank you, dear one," Lorelai said warmly, then made her way to the collapsed magisters. Ifan followed behind without speaking, and she did not seem to notice him.
"Messy, messy," Lorelai murmured. She rummaged through her ribcage and placed her mask on her face so that she shimmered into the pretty elf of flesh and blood. She pressed her fingers to the throat of each magister, inspecting them thoroughly, but she did not spare a glance for Alexander.
Only two seemed to have survived: that magister whom Lorelai had cooked alive and the one who had slipped on the ice. Lorelai summoned two telekinetic tendrils to move the magisters to the edge of the courtyard and leaned them upright against a wall. Lorelai carefully removed the woman's helmet, ignoring how her skin tore. The woman's flesh was drooping and distorted like the magister's in the prison, but parts of her cheekbone was also visible. Lorelai surveyed her dispassionately and did nothing more.
Lorelai moved to the man next and inspected him. He was unconscious but only lightly scorched; Lorelai regarded him for a moment, then snapped her fingers. Lorelai's familiar, Bunny, materialized at her side. Bunny gazed up at Lorelai and flicked out her tongue.
"…Somewhat," Lorelai said to her familiar, giving Bunny an affectionate pat on the head. She cast a small healing spell that restored Bunny's broken scales back to their sparkling green-brown glory, and Bunny hissed happily. "Would you mind crushing this man's legs so that he may never walk again?" Lorelai asked Bunny.
Ifan startled slightly, but Lorelai was still looking at the serpent. After a moment, she laughed.
"Yes, dear one, and I apologize," she said fondly. "He is not quite incapacitated enough for my tastes, but…" Lorelai hesitated, then sighed. "I suppose that I should not wish for his death," she said almost mournfully.
Startled by Lorelai's words, Ifan watched intently as Bunny seemed to nod. Lorelai lifted the man's legs for Bunny to slither forwards and wrap her body around them. It took only a few seconds for the sound of bones cracking and splitting to echo across the courtyard; the man woke up part of the way through and began to scream with abandon. Lorelai did not twitch, but Ifan winced just slightly.
"That is sufficient, Bunny," Lorelai said after another moment.
Bunny obediently released her grip on the man and gazed expectantly at Lorelai. The man was still sniveling and gasping from the pain, but Lorelai turned to smile at Ifan. She snapped her fingers so that Bunny disappeared, then she patted Ifan gently on the head. Her eyes widened with seemingly innocent wonder, and she began to tilt his head back and forth with her hand tangled into his hair. Ifan remained still, aware that she meant no harm, but his every instinct was telling him to shove her away.
"Even after all these years," Lorelai commented, "I have not mastered the control of my temper." She ruffled Ifan's hair again before lowering her hand, and Ifan looked at her curiously.
"What do you mean?" he prompted.
"I have a vengeful streak," Lorelai replied cheerfully. "Gracious, while Bunny was crushing that poor magister's legs, all I could think was 'Who is the Shrieker now?'" She took a deep breath and massaged her forehead.
"Understandable," Ifan rumbled. It would be difficult for anyone to forgive the magisters' cruelty.
Lorelai cast Ifan a thoughtful glance and nodded. "It is understandable," Lorelai agreed, "but I should not lose my temper for such a minor offence."
"So?" Ifan inquired. He crossed his arms and gazed up at her. "Why did you?"
"…Braccus Rex was horrific," Lorelai said after a pause. She looked over her shoulder at the unconscious magisters. "When he finally died," she said, "almost everyone agreed that he was evil, that his methods were evil, that his goals were evil." She blinked back to Ifan with a soft smile and sad eyes. "Why, Ifan, do people wish to reinstate the same practices they denounce as evil?" she appealed to him. "What is the purpose in crucifying and infecting innocents and turning others into mindless slaves to be killed senselessly? What gave these people the right to destroy my homelands and annihilate my people?" She shook her head and glanced to the magisters again. Her hands clenched and relaxed. "I want them to understand, even just the tiniest bit," she said calmly, "what pain feels like. What the pain they inflict feels like."
"I think that's normal, Lorelai," Ifan told her carefully, and she twisted to face him with her head tilted slightly to the side. He was unable to read her expression. She looked and sounded thoughtful even though her words were not so tranquil.
"Is it truly normal?" Lorelai asked him. "Perhaps it is…" She sighed and blinked at Ifan, her eyes wide with nothing but curiosity. Not much managed to unnerve Ifan anymore, but her utter lack of discernible emotion was starting to make his skin crawl. "Remember when I spoke of fear when we first met?" Lorelai asked. "At how one must fear one's own potential?"
Lorelai was gazing at him so intently that Ifan felt as though he were held in place, compelled to answer else never move again. He blinked to snap himself out of it and nodded briskly.
"I, Ifan, am far too powerful to hold vendettas," Lorelai told him gravely. "I can cause severe damage with vendettas and grudges. This is something that I fear."
Lorelai was being far too solemn for Ifan, but he did not know how to help. So, he just grinned and patted her roughly on the shoulder. "Lucky for you," Ifan said humorously, "you have me to keep you out of trouble."
As Ifan had hoped, a slow smile spread across Lorelai's face until she was grinning widely. "Ah, yes," she laughed, "you truly are such a positive role model." Her smile faded just slightly, and her eyes softened. "I appreciate that you are with me," she said in such a kind voice that Ifan's throat went dry. "Thank you for your words, and please do inform me if I am straying from the morals by which I stand. Please."
"Morals are the mercenary's best friend," Ifan snorted. "I'll do my best."
"Thank you, dear one."
Against Ifan's expectations, a surge of unbridled affection filled Lorelai's gaze, and she reached forwards to pull him into another hug. Ifan had not been expecting this one, so it took him a moment to reciprocate. Nearly at the same time, Lorelai pulled away but kept her arms draped across his shoulders. She gazed at him intently, then sighed out of her nose. Before Ifan could do a thing, she slid one hand into his hair and lowered her face towards him.
Ifan's mind turned blank.
Lorelai gently knocked Ifan's forehead against hers and sighed with contentment. Ifan was hyperaware of the contact and yet confused by the type. He had been certain Lorelai had been about to kiss him, and he was unsure how he felt about that. This here, this odd little touch of foreheads, was strange but far more of a relief—yet, also severely disappointing.
Lorelai remained there for no more than three seconds before she released him and stepped away, seeming unbothered. Ifan, on the other hand, could not even begin to calm his heart rate.