Hope this tickles your fancy. And yes, there is a reason this chapter is short. No worries, next one's coming and not like winter. Also, words like "embodiment" are not used in a strictly literal sense since magic, spirits and demons are still, you know, one level lower than the Maker or other completely abstract concept. It would sound pretty stupid and tedious for the purpose of fiction to say a spirit is an empirically observable supernatural bodiless entity... Anyways, enjoy!
"You walk this realm every time you go to sleep, Hawke?" Aveline said. Her head sank. "How do you not go mad in this place?" she merely muttered than anything else.
"After the four hundred and fifty-third demon that has tried to tempt you with money, power and dashingly handsome men, it does get quite boring, actually," Hawke replied.
"It is curious how not one of them thought to tempt you with cake," Fenris commented meanly.
Hawke made a dismissive gesture. "Desire Demons are too into their looks to voluntarily live as fat abominations."
"What about Pride Demons?"
"What?" Hawke said sleepily, throwing out her hands. "Come, ye, and be the proud owner of a useless pancreas?"
"All mortals have a personal weakness," Justice said, because he was feeling left out. "Alas, it would be very annoying to confirm this hypothesis."
"Please, spirit, you are the definition of weakness."
If there was air, it would have been mercilessly cut in half by Justice's stare.
"You are a slave to your own singular nature. Indeed, it is true that we 'mortals' are bound by nature, but that is like saying the earth cannot escape its weather. We see eight colours that make up white. You only see eight shades of white."
"Do you often defend your position by mere platitudes that sound profound?" Justice retorted.
Hawke ignored him. "The difference is we are capable of change. We evolve, whereas you stagnate. For us, weakness is a challenge. For you, weakness is incarnate."
Justice inflated slightly. "It is not weakness to be the embodiment of virtue."
"Arrogance is a weakness, and I find it very arrogant that you instantly assume justice is a virtue."
Justice scowled, his eyes blazing like sapphires. "I can see why Anders finds you infuriating."
"It's because I hate cats, isn't it?" Hawke said with a flippant smile.
Fenris could hardly keep his amusement hidden.
"Speaking of nasty little bastards," she said, her expression becoming gradually more serious. "I can sense them nearby. They reek of desperation. Feynriel is surprisingly stubborn." She had a warm smile on her face. "I like that."
"He will break soon," Justice said in ominous tones.
"He will not, for I am here," Hawke said self-assuredly. "You just have to trust me."
And what was not to trust about her? People usually made decisions on the basis of their fear, anger or desire. Hawke would make decisions simply to irritate people.
"So ironic that you should point fingers at my arrogance no more than seconds ago," Justice said.
"I am not arrogant," Hawke retorted. "I know I am better than everyone else and that is backed up by considerable evidence."
"Keep your pride for the demon, human," Justice said curtly.
"There is no weakness in my pride. See, pride is reserved for one's own accomplishments. I feel a sense of inner reflection and self-fulfillment from what I have achieved. It is the product of my own sweat and determination. There is no pride in being a mage, a human, an elf or a spirit, or things you generally have no control over. When pride is dependent on desperation, it is hubris, and demons find it delicious."
They got to the door. She stopped them.
"Perhaps I have misjudged you," Justice said. "Alas, we shall have to resume this conversation."
"Indeed," Hawke said, and regarded the others. "They are near. We go through this door, there is no turning back."
They understood. And followed her in.
As they descended in the courtyard, the atmosphere changed, or rather, it was heavy and melting. That was the closest earthly description for it.
A dark wraith appeared from the other end of the courtyard.
"Well," it said, carrying itself ploddingly towards them. "It's rare to see two forgotten magics in one day." Slowly, leisurely, it rose to meet them at eye length. Its voice was… mentally diluting. "It is usually a slow place, the Fade... Not many surprises. I wasn't sure I'd like this one… but it has potential."
"A demon of Sloth," Justice quickly said. "It exists to make men forget their purpose and their pride. Do not relax around it."
"Call me Torpor," it said in sleepy, soothing tones. Its figure was hooded in dark rags and hunchback as it peered at them through a giant luminous orb. "I have a proposition that might interest you."
Suddenly having silly scribbles on your wrist was a thing to be thankful for. Fenris and Aveline consulted it several times during the conversation.
"Nice to meet you, Torpor. I eat demons like you for breakfast," Hawke said with a smile.
Demon morning breath. Now that's a perfume that sells itself.
"I doubt I taste any good," Torpor said without a care.
"You seem very disinterested for a demon with an offer I imagine I just can't refuse," Hawke said half mockingly.
"Refusal is foolish, but welcome," Torpor said nonchalantly. "I trust you are here for the mage, Feynriel… Two of the most powerful demons in this realm are vying for control of him… Sadly, I'm no warrior… I couldn't stand up to them. But if I did I would only want the boy's power to secure my position in the Fade."
"Don't listen to it. Sloth demons prey on your trust," Justice said sternly.
Velvety hush. "I'd be no threat to your world," Torpor said gently, almost sweetly.
"Oh, well that changes everything," Hawke said sarcastically. But then she entertained an idea. What if…
"Is that sarcasm? Do tell me if it's sarcasm. It is so tiresome to understand the appeal of such caustic language," Torpor said gruelingly.
"It will remain so until I understand your appeal, demon," Hawke said assertively.
"We are drawn to the mortal realm to merge with a living soul. Once I have done so, what need will I have for your people? I merely want power against my own kind."
"Well, that's all fine and dandy, but consider this: I kill you, and the end result for my world will be the same, and with less for me to worry about. You pose no threat."
"I do not, but I know the secret to bringing the boy out of the illusions my kind are trying to feed him," Torpor said. Its eye-orb glowed brighter for a moment. "And much more."
"Of course you do," Hawke sighed and rubbed her forehead. Several moments passed in which she seemed to ponder on it. "Well, time is wasting, demon. Let's hear this secret."
"This is a monster!" Justice snapped, the sapphire light boiling. "It asks you to sacrifice an innocent to its ambition! My kind has been opposing his since the beginning of time. This is a creature of complacency, of injustice. I will not let you treat with it!"
"Eight shades of white… here we go again," Hawke said in annoyance. "Calm yourself. Have you no trust in your own host? He seems to trust me plenty."
"Ignore this tiresome little spirit," Torpor said dismissively. "I ask only what it has already taken. A willing merger with a human host."
"Do not work with this creature. I will stop you," Justice threatened, in the midst of throwing out his staff to attack her.
The cerulean glow blasted furiously, but it did not belong to Justice. It was Fenris that had his azure-glowing arm surging bright inside Anders' chest. It sent him exploding into a million pieces like confetti.
"I always wanted to do that," Fenris said darkly.
"What human would want to merge with a prig like that?" Torpor said dispassionately.
"I feel like you killed the completely wrong person here," Hawke said in pleased disbelief.
"I am not impressed with your decisions, but I am keeping you alive, aren't I?" Fenris said coldly, although his tone cut.
"Torpor can't do anything to me, can he? There are greater, much more powerful demons who make this one look like a dying kitten. Indeed, they're trying to turn Feynriel's mind into oatmeal right now. If this demon is willing to betray his kind, I will consider it." She turned her gaze back to Torpor. "Now, tell me what needs to be done."
Pride
"Why did you interfere?" Keeper Marethari shouted as Feynriel produced a portal and ran. Quickly, it took its true form. "With my power joined to his, Feynriel could have changed the world," it said.
"Well, you were hardly the looker before," Hawke said impassively. "At least the horns are dramatic."
"You put such stock in appearances? Perhaps that is why your friends' loyalty only goes skin deep," Wryme said aggressively. "You think this slave would choose you over his freedom?" it said, its tone that of utter poison.
"Cast your eyes elsewhere demon," Fenris said, coming by her side. "I have won my freedom from the magisters long ago."
"But you fear them still," Wryme said, scanning his soul. Instant flash of desperation. "They've left their marks on your body and your mind." The crackling of the magical whip came back. The spitting. The starvation. The pyres. The thousand cries. Danarius playing with his mind. His master ordering him to set fire to so many people, slay so many others. His master bending him over the table. "With my aid, you could be free forever. You would have power enough to challenge any who would chain you."
Cold, hard snap. A horrible thought had occurred to him with full force. That he may one day wake from this warm, comfortable life, drunk on the sloth of it, like that lesser demon before, and in one second he could be back in the whipping cells, back in the dungeons starving, back at the pyres, back killing innocents, back over the table, and he could do nothing, absolutely nothing to escape a second time. Ferocious shock. That he would never be the dark haired healthy man with normal skin, that his eyes will never make sense because they stripped all of it from him, and they could again, even this last spark of ignorance he foolishly believed was hope.
Then he heard the demon's voice inside his head:
Kill them, Fenris. Slaughter them both.
He was paralyzed. Suddenly Hawke was standing in front of him, grasping his arms. "You can resist. You can."
The demon's icy voice had become an engulfing sound in his brain.
You will do this for me. Slaughter them so that the legend of their punishment will surpass the legend of this place where not enough of the world's weak mages rot as they should. They are ignorant, desperate, foolish souls.
Behold your mage who you put your trust into, how she has just proven to be one of them by falling to Sloth's cheap trick. She keeps you close because you are obscure and useful. She gives you false hope and expectation with every kiss she then takes back. Why do you think that is? Your markings are useful. What kind of woman magick would look at a slave beyond his utility?
Don't escape the chain of one magick to become the fool of another. This is divine war, not the loathsome killing which you have done for your selfish master without scheme or reason but to survive.
You will kill now in my name and for my cause and I give you the greatest freedom ever given to man: I tell you that to slay your mortal brethren is right.
Now use the new power I've given you.
It seemed he saw a vision. He saw a form in robes rise before him holding a second thin, emaciated form by the chain. His emaciated, shamed form. Rage overcame him. He couldn't help himself. The shift from fear to anger was so fast. He gritted his teeth as he glared at it, concentrating his malice as if it were a straight line of pure death, and wanted to penetrate the master's skull with his fingers and to squeeze his brain. He wanted to see all of it, as crude as it was.
Oh was the demon right, how he wanted to do it, how he dreamed of it in his earliest years. The sheer bliss of killing them, destroying them under all their names and houses, those who deserved to be killed, killing with full force, his body turning to rock-solid muscle, his teeth clenching, his hatred and his invisible strength made one.
He would slake his thirst for freedom. He wanted to commit the murders he had been imprisoned for. They would all taste cruelty like he had tasted it. They would all be broken like his wings.
In all directions they ran, but that only inflamed him. He drove them back, the power slamming them into the walls. He aimed for the heart with his weaver of death, and heard the heart when it burst. He shoved robed figures down, rupturing brains and hearts and arteries. He turned round and round, directing his death pulses carefully yet instantly to this one and that one, and then another, they dropped to their knees and waited for death, and he delivered it until the blood gushed through the bursting flesh.
It did not matter that no one ratified his purpose. He shall make it so. The world would burn with magistrates. Waste their blood whole. A conflagration so fitting.
Well done, my vengeful spirit.
He couldn't stop. This invisible claw of death was one of his limbs now. He couldn't withdraw it back into himself or make it vanish.
Suddenly, he felt her holding him though she was nowhere near him.
— This is complete crap! Fight it! —
He felt the urge to listen to her voice, while the claw of death sent cascades of impulses into his limbs and over his forehead to rush and find her and kill her. The power concentrated itself within him and became part of him and nothing more.
One more and you are free.
He turned to look, left and right, nothing but a long line of faceless bodies with robes soaked in blood and guts. It was orgasmic power to have. His eyes were boiling out of their orbits. He smelled death as he had never smelled it. Look at all this and he'd done it with his bare hands—
Two hands much smaller than his blazing claws of death were keeping them in place, and he was on his knees. She held him motionless from behind, and a great calm was coming over him, as if a drug had been fed into his veins.
The force was overwhelming. He wanted to weep. The energy neutralizing him was not cruel, but it was inexplicably powerful. Her energy came in waves over him, like actual silky water crashing over him, but not drowning him. Even so, his lungs were already filled with ashes. His wings of vengeance, as it were, sagged to the ground.
Kill the temptress.
His markings went ablaze, only faintly. He stared at those small hands refusing to let him go. Verge of ... freedom. He stared at how beautiful they were right in his black, unforgiving claws, and he crushed them.
Two light blades grew out, nay, stabbed right out of his death claws, both from top and bottom. They were as thin as a molecule. The jolt...
Fenris was blasted away until he hit flat solid. The destructive wave of compressed magic sent him flying real good.
He looked up at her not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Her white military coat, the red veil around her waist, the spiky shoulder piece, the ferocious red hair... Glowing, iridescent almost, her luminous blades growing larger as if they were part of her hands.
She raised one blade and sent it like a bolt through him. It seared like a thousand cries of murdered children. He threw up blood instantly.
She walked towards him slowly. Her expression could cut the Maker. She threw another sharp bolt in him. This one crucified his torso against the wall. It was searing light. Or her psychic energy. It was something indescribable. It was some impenetrable magic. The thin blade felt like it multiplied after hitting and cutting at him away in random directions. He let out a horrible scream.
She stopped until the distance was impractical. He stared into her eyes intently. She focused the radiance from her arms and it spawned one, two—seven deadly psychic bolts.
He closed his eyes as the wrath of light incarnate was sent onto him. There was no impact. He opened his eyes. The demon fell from above him and shattered into a disgusting greenish-purple swamp bubbling on the ground. It smeared her white coat. She looked cold and still. And armed.
And from somewhere deep in him, where the sun had never penetrated, came the realization that he had believed in what the demon was saying, that he voluntarily let this demon work its poisonous offer on him, destroying him, destroying his heart and his will, and he did this unspeakable thing, this slaughter that he committed once more of his innocent friends, and it would never be redeemed, and he had to die.
"Kill me," Fenris said.