Author's Note: I am SO SORRY! I said I'd get back to regular weekly posting, but I failed! Make no mistake: This story isn't dead, not nearly; it's alive and kicking! And there are multiple unposted chapters ready. Five of them, in fact! I can't post them all right now, but keep watching for updates, my faithful readers, and thank you for putting up with my lateness. My reason for not posting: My dad blocked . He thinks everything on here is crap. Sure, a lot of it is, but some of it's great. Like this! Right? Right! O_O Come on! Don't just leave me hanging here! Right!
Chapter IX
Tome of Captive Souls: The Book of Binding
Jonathan and Maria quickly caught up with Charlotte, as she wasn't moving any faster than walking speed in her trance. They followed her down several corridors filled with books. It was almost disturbing that Charlotte was just walking past them without trying to see as many possible titles as possible. Something was just wrong about that. There were several things on these shelves that he figured she'd be overeager to look at. Divine Powers and Their Many Uses. The Occult Bestiary. The Secret History of Walachia. Normally he wouldn't have spared the books more than a passing glance, but with Charlotte's bookishness being neutralized, he felt almost like he was responsible to find these things for her. Jonathan suddenly noticed that they had come to a halt in front of a pair of large double doors.
Charlotte held her hands out in front of her and pushed the heavy wooden portals inward. The room inside was almost pitch black except for a ray of light illuminating a stone podium, upon which rested a thick book. She approached it, and Jonathan accompanied her. As she walked up to the podium she seemed to come out of her dream-like state. After a few moments she spoke:
"The coin took me here?"
"That's what we're guessing," Jonathan tried to answer despite the fact that he felt a bit clueless.
"So is this book what Death wanted me to take?"
Jonathan took a good look at it. It had green and gold edging and was bound in sturdy leather. "The Book of Binding," he read aloud, "I'm not absolutely positive, but seeing as you came out of your trance right in front of it, I'd say it is."
"Well then, I like it," she reached out to pick it up when it rose from its position on the podium and hovered in the air. It startled all of them when it snapped open to a random page and flames shot out from its inner spine and flew to the room's four corners, where they spread out to frame the room. They could see now, but that didn't really matter seeing that they couldn't get out: The book had just shot a ray of light at the doors. They not only closed, but also transformed into brick structures that were shaped like doors. It was physically impossible to escape from this room.
"You think this was his plan all along?" Jonathan shouted over the roar of the flames, "The goddamn liar pretends to congratulate us and say that he's neutral and then kills us when we're finally in a false sense of security!"
"I don't know! Maybe?"
At that moment the book flipped its pages again, opening to one that showed an image of Cerberus, the three-headed mastiff that guarded the entrance to the underworld. Moments later, the dog on the page moved. It then stepped out of the book and grew to what they guessed was life-sized for it. It had a somewhat ethereal appearance, slightly translucent and with a colorless aura framing its body. Each of the three heads looked at one of the three companions and snarled ferociously. It pounced at Maria, who ducked just in time for Cerberus to dive into the flames. They nearly felt relieved but moments later, the three-headed dog leaped out of the fire and pinned Charlotte under one of its paws. Jonathan pulled out his Nebula Whip and directed it at one of the heads to distract it before he followed up with a swipe at the paw that was holding Charlotte down.
"Thanks for that. I thought…he was going to bite my head off," she panted, gasping for breath.
"No problem, but he still will bite it off it you don't move!"
She ducked, and slid did a sliding dash along the ground just as one of Cerberus' three sets of jaws snapped shut over the spot she'd been in only seconds earlier.
Putting away his Darkfire Whip, he got Balmung ready. He took a swipe at Cerberus' left flank. It howled and turned enough for one of its heads to reach him. Just as Jonathan had planned. He jumped high above Cerberus' heads and brought the Balmung down over its left neck. It fell to the ground and faded away. Before it had time to react, he slashed at the middle head's neck, effectively slitting its throat. No blood came from it, but it made choking noises and the middle head drooped downwards lifelessly.
The monster suddenly seemed to be absorbed back into the book.
"Oh right," Jonathan groaned, "I nearly forgot about that."
Once again, the book's pages flipped wildly, coming to a page showing an image of a bat. Like Cerberus, it stepped, or rather flew, out from the book's pages, taking on an ethereal appearance. But this was no ordinary bat; it was absolutely gigantic! For a bat at least — The average vampire bat generally wasn't the size of a full-grown human like this one.
It screeched and they were forced to cover their ears from the high-pitched noise. The giant bat proceeded to flap around the room madly at a speed that was surprising based on its size. Jonathan put Balmung away and took out his assassin's blade. He slashed at its wing and was shocked and somewhat disturbed when the bat seemed to shatter into a whole colony of bats. Wait a minute…
"Charlotte! Chain Lightning! Now!" he shouted.
Charlotte obeyed, lightning flew everywhere, and seconds later the few surviving bats were absorbed back into the book.
Once again, it started flipping its pages, opening to an image of a tall, gangly and featureless humanoid figure, which leaped out of the book's pages. It turned its blank face in Maria's direction, and before any of them could blink, they were looking at Maria's reflection. Except that the doppelganger seemed to have gotten something wrong: Maria wasn't actually wearing the gold ribbon that was tied around the doppelganger's midsection, nor was she carrying the doppelganger's rather elegant staff.
The look-alike swung its staff at its real counterpart, who sent her doves at it to attack. It recoiled as the birds flew up to its face and obscured its vision.
Charlotte took her opportunity to send a bolt of 'Chain Lightning' at the doppelganger. The metal staff it was carrying acted like a lightning rod and sent electricity coursing through its ethereal body. The doppelganger screamed in a voice just like Maria's and dropped its staff. Moments later it was absorbed back into the book, curiously leaving the staff and the ribbon from its midsection behind. The book flew back a few paces from them.
"Okay, I think it's safe to say that if we don't take care of the book, we'll never see an end to these monsters," Charlotte observed.
"On it!" Jonathan shouted, not even needing to be given an order. Re-equipping his Darkfire whip, he jumped and took a swing at the book, which deftly maneuvered out of the way. He took another couple swipes, each of which were avoided, and slowed down a moment.
"I have an idea," Charlotte ran up to him, "Did you notice that it stops moving in order to summon those monsters?"
"No, why?"
"Nothing," Charlotte rolled her eyes. "…Clueless," she muttered under her breath.
The book began to turn its pages again. They flipped a bit more slowly this time, as if it were trying to decide on something. Charlotte tried to take the opportunity to cast a spell the loose sheets that remained of her spellbook were too clumsy to find an appropriate spell in time and she missed her opportunity. The pages stopped turning and Charlotte found herself staring into the blinking eyes of a red dragon appeared on its open pages. A single, giant, clawed hand reached out of the book's pages, followed by another. There was an ear-shattering roar as the dragon's long neck emerged from the book's pages and moments later, the rest of its body emerged. It reared up and shattered the roof of the room, revealing the night sky. It didn't look ethereal at all. 'This must be the book's ultimate defense,' she reasoned.
A huge jet of fire burst from the dragon's mouth and Charlotte was forced to dive for cover.
"You still have your 'Ice Needles' spell right?" Jonathan called in her direction, "See if that works. It did with the last one!"
Charlotte curled one of her hands into a fist, took a deep breath and found 'Ice Needles' in the remaining pages of her spellbook. Moments later, five lances made of ice were rotating in front of her. They shot upwards towards the dragon's neck. One by one they hit their target, doing no noticeable damage. Charlotte gaped.
Jonathan grit his teeth and ran towards the dragon, simultaneously prepping his crossbow.
"Jonathan, wait a second!" Maria cried. He skidded to a halt.
"What? We don't have a lot of time here!"
"I know! But don't you remember what Alucard said about your sword? He said that the Balmung was similar to his Ascalon! They didn't look anything like one another, but maybe it really is a dragon-slaying sword!"
"Don't kid yourself! We only called it Dragon Slayer because it was big and we couldn't think of a better name!" he looked up just in time to see the dragon's claws coming down on him. He slid out of the way just in time.
"But what if he was right? You'd be able to bring that thing down easily!"
"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to give it a shot…what am I saying, of course it'll hurt! Well, what do you think Char?"
"I think you should go for it!" She yelped as a blast of fire came towards her from the dragon's mouth.
"Okay then," Jonathan said uneasily, "here goes nothing." He hefted the Balmung up and dashed towards the fire-breathing menace. He was swiped away as he got too close. He took a different approach. Circling behind it, he tried to jump onto its tail. He realized his mistake when he was swatted and found himself staring at the dragon from a two foot deep indentation in the wall he'd made upon impact. "Charlotte! Toss me a potion!"
"Can do!"
She dug a potion out of her bag and ran it over to him. She climbed into the hole in the wall.
"This is a bit awkward," he muttered as sweat started rolling down his brow for a reason other than the extreme exertion he was putting himself through.
"Well, when I heard you calling and not getting out, I figured you couldn't move."
"Fine, but don't you dare try feeding that to me. I can move my arms. He snatched the bottle out of her hands and downed it in ten seconds.
"Okay, I'm back in action, now get off of me. And hurry because that dragon's looking at us the same way I look at an uncooked hamburger."
Charlotte hopped out of Jonathan's part of the wall.
"Face it! You can't cook anything that doesn't require a grill!"
"Don't we have bigger problems right now?" Jonathan pushed himself out of the wall just as a jet of fire shot from the dragon's mouth and turned the dented section of wall into a kiln. The fire stopped and it looked inside the dent in the wall. It was surprised to find that there was no charbroiled meal waiting for it inside. It was ever more surprised when it felt something crawling up its left arm.
Jonathan finally made it onto the red monster's back. Unfortunately, the dragon was now staring at the bite-sized morsel on its back and was probably thinking of how to season it. The dragon spread its wings and roared before leaping into the air spectacularly. Jonathan found himself being shaken loose as the dragon did a few clumsy but effective maneuvers in the air as it tried to dislodge him. One such maneuver involved bucking itself up straight in the air. That motion sent Jonathan flying into the side of one of the towers. He dug his sword into the stonework to slow his fall, and pulled it out as he came to a halt on a lookout tower that overlooked the side of the castle. The dragon shot a burst of fire at him and he ducked behind a turret. The dragon descended to look him in the eye. This little snack was proving to be far too much trouble to just be eaten. However, as it looked at him, Jonathan leaped into the air Balmung held high and plunged it deep into the dragon's head. Like all the other creatures, it didn't bleed, but it still roared in pain before it fell to the ground, dead. Slowly it vanished back into the book from whence it came. The book in question wasn't quite as lively as it had been earlier either. As the dragon finished fading, Jonathan realized that he was literally standing on nothing and fell the remaining four-and-a-half feet to the ground before landing in an uncomfortable heap. The book snapped shut and slowly floated towards Charlotte. It then dropped into her hands. It reopened itself to the blank first page. Words appeared on the page as though they were being written at that moment.
'You have proven yourself worthy.
'You may use me as you see fit.'
Charlotte gaped.
"Well, we certainly paid for this. Not much of a gift."
Death's voice came in a rumble that the three companions could feel in their bones:
"I have given you the privilege of keeping this powerful artifact until the end of your days. You did well to conquer its test, but do not tempt me to go back on my word."
"Well, I guess I'll see how powerful this book really is in due time. But I'm still hesitant to thank you based on previous experience."
"Very well," Death said, a hint of intrigue present in his hollow voice, "If you would like to test it… then test it you shall!" He raised his arms above his head, and several monsters appeared on their vicinity: A demon, a pair of minotaurs, three white dragons and a humanoid bird with electric blue feathers.
Charlotte began by casting Night Terror towards the minotaurs. As the broken orb of madness and terror collided with the two bull-headed creatures, they collapsed to the ground howling out of utter horror of some phantasmal entity that they no doubt saw. They twitched on the floor for a few moments before dying. She spun around on her heel as she thought she heard something approaching her, but—
"Surprise!" The demon cackled inches away from her face before swiping its claws across her upper body. She thanked heaven for the effectiveness of her armor.
She opened the Book to a new page:
"Spirit of Light!"
A pair of pure souls formed in the air behind her and targeted the nearest being in the room with the most powerful aura of darkness: The demon. The spirits didn't kill the demon, but the damage was already done; it was clutching the raw and blistered flesh that had been hit by the light spirits. It lunged at Charlotte with a roar, only to be blasted by a Piercing Beam spell. The demon was engulfed by the searing light and the onlooking parties watched as its silhouette seemed to disintigrate from the outside in. When the ray of light vanished, all that remained of the demon were a few charred scraps of flesh and some ashes.
"Three down, four to go," Charlotte glared at the unfamiliar monster flapping its electric-blue wings in front of her.
"What is that thing anyway?" she muttered. Her question was answered moments later as the Book of Binding flipped away from the page containing Spirit of Light and re-opened to a blank page. Ink began to swirl along the pages and an image reminiscent of a bestiary page formed on the page.
On one side was a profile and on the other side was a picture of the avian creature before her.
"'Rycuda…'" She mumbled.
'Rycudas are thunder spirits from an ancient culture.' She read, 'While they are highly intelligent, they are quite aggressive and can pose a threat to those who encounter it unless a pact has been made beforehand. It is easily subdued by strong winds.'
"And I don't have Gale Force or Tornado anymore. Terrific."
She decided to just take the rycuda down the old fashioned way: The same way she got rid of Jonathan when he was bothering her: By dropping a book on its head. She pulled her encyclopedia out of her bag and delivered a strong whack to the electric bird's head. It squawked and collapsed. A blue light erupted from its body and was sucked into the book. It flipped open to the page of Chain Lightning. In the bottom left corner of the page, the words "The Second Power" were now written. She decided to try casting it on the white dragons. Though it wasn't too different it seemed as though the lighting bolts were larger and there was a heavier electrical hum as the lighting shot from the book than there usually was. As the Chain Lightning hit each of the white dragons they went into convulsions and clattered to the floor in pieces. Red light arose from the remains of all three monsters in a similar manner to what had happened with the rycuda. The red lights entered the book's pages and they flipped to the spell 'Raging Fire.' In the bottom left corner were the words "The Fourth Power."
Although there were no more monsters left, she decided to cast it just for kicks to see what happened.
"Raging Fire!"
The result was flashy to say the least. The flames that the spell produced were significantly larger and hotter than usual. Charlotte grinned ecstatically.
"You know, it may have tried to kill us, but this book is really growing on me."
Death reappeared in the room.
"I figured it would. You're the most avid reader on this side of the world, and I decided that it would be worth trying again."
"Huh? Trying what again?"
"The first person I offered the Book of Binding to died due to exhaustion after trying to fight the book without damaging it. The second person was impaled by the book's 'Thousand Needles' spell. And the book actually devoured the soul of the third person. I figured that whether you died or not, I would still win. There was nothing for me to lose by offering the book to you. I'm impressed, if not somewhat surprised, that it has actually chosen you as its bearer."
"So this really was just another scheme to kill us?" Charlotte asked Death, fuming.
"Not entirely," the Reaper cackled that hollow laugh of shaking bones and vanished before any of them could attack.
"Well, that was an adventure all on its own," Jonathan muttered, "I know you probably want to rant to me about how inconsiderate Death is, Charlotte, but can you do that while we walk back to the library entrance. Stella and Loretta can't be left unsupervised for too long. They'll end up telling us crazy stories about locust demons that we've already killed."
"You're probably right," Charlotte agreed.
"Still, that was a pretty nasty thing even for Death to do," Maria piped up. She almost said it knowingly.
"Oh my God!" Charlotte gasped, "I know! What is his problem?"
"Actually, I don't know…I don't even know what to compare it with. Ever since I walked into this castle, it's like I'm remembering things that…aren't really my own memories. And that's not to mention the fact that the doppelganger turned into someone who looked like me, but wasn't really me."
"Huh?" Jonathan mused, "Does any of that even make sense?"
"I'm asking Alucard about it when we get back," Maria muttered, "Something tells me that he knows more than he's letting on."
The Armory:
Charlotte's Weapons:
The Book of Binding – A tome of terrible power that absorbs the abilities that certain monsters use. For more details, see its page on the Castlevania Wiki.