Gabriel had never felt more helpless in his entire life.
He sat on the sidelines watching the battle, unwilling to interfere. If I try anything, I could distract both of them, he thought. That’ll break Era’s concentration and make Caine focus his attacks on me. He clenched his fists until they shook. But I have to do something…
Summoning his courage, he began to focus his thoughts. I’m a mage, damn it!! I may be a hedge wizard, but I’m still a fucking mage! He calmed the storm within him, dipping invisible fingers into the river of mana he felt all around him. I am Gabriel Dalgard, he thought assertively, and I require your help.
Sweat beaded on his brow, akasha pumping through every nerve ending. He visualized his spell as clearly as he was able, storing it, waiting…
And, when the moment was right, he unleashed a storm of energy above Caine’s head.
Lightning cracked the air around it, making the ears of everyone in the room ring. Electricity pumped through Caine’s body, sending him into violent convulsions and making him froth at his lips. The spell ended as Gabriel’s hold on the magic slipped, and Caine stood stunned and motionless.
“Era!!” Gabriel screamed, “End it!! End it now!!”
Suddenly Era’s emotional side resurfaced. Kill him? he thought with horror. No, no, I can’t! I have no right! I can’t…
He hesitated just long enough for Caine to snap out of his stupor, and with a strength none of them realized he had left, he shot his hands around Era’s throat, choking him even as they both plunged into his grey void.
The area shift was instantaneous: one moment they were surrounded by the chaos of the office, and the next they were surrounded on all sides by the endless void. Era purposely fell into Caine, using his scant body weight to try and offset his attack.
Caine continued to squeeze his windpipe, and Era felt the man’s calloused hand rub against the skin of his scar – the scar given to him by Death’s scythe. Why is it a staff now, I wonder? he thought in the back of his mind, eager for some sort of distraction from the terrible pain he felt throughout his being.
Because I have never had need for a scythe.
The staff lay on the left side of Caine within his reach. Grabbing it, he awkwardly thrust it into Caine’s nose.
A sickening “crack” came from the point of contact.
Blood poured out of the man’s nose, and he let go of Era in a knee-jerk reaction. Era immediately rolled to the side, trembling as he rose once more to his feet. He gripped Death’s staff – his staff – with white-knuckled hands.
Caine remained on the ground, staring up to Era as a wounded wolf would. His glare pierced through Era, made him feel weak in the knees. Era saw strange sparks flash and fizzle around them both, not realizing what they were until he saw Caine’s eyes closed in intense concentration.
“You’re too weak to cast any more spells,” he stated in that strange, emotionless tone he had faded in and out of ever since his memory had returned to him.
“So what will you do now?” Caine asked bitterly. “You preached on and on about how I ‘kicked you when you were down.’ Will you do the same to me?”
To his own horror, Era advanced on the downed man slowly. He knew what he was about to do, but he fought it tooth and nail. What am I doing? What have I become?
“Yes, I will.” Era gripped his staff with both hands, looking down to Caine as an executioner would to a prisoner.
“Disgusting hypocrite,” he spat. “You make me suffer a fate worse than death a dozen times, and only now do you kill me. You steal my position of power, you torture me, you haunt my nightmares, and only when I am a miserable wreck of a man do you decide to resurface for a revenge that isn’t yours to take.”
No, no, no, don’t hurt him, don’t kill him, he doesn’t deserve it, please, Era pleaded in the back of his mind. This is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong…
“You’ll not sway me with words,” the strange, “other” Era said. “I’ve already decided your fate.”
“Then kill me,” Caine said with a diabolical smirk even as he started to twitch violently. “Caine Lapointe – Archmage Surront – will go down in history as a powerful and charismatic friend of the King who overcame the death of his master and a crippling disability. What will the great former-Archmage Eravisté be remembered for?” He sank to the ground, once more succumbing to the seizures that had plagued him ever since Era’s experimentation.
Wordlessly, Era lifted the staff in a stance that would allow him to swing it properly. I am about to take a life, he thought numbly. At that, the scythe blade suddenly reformed at the end of the staff, nearly throwing him off-balance.
Using the weight of the blade to his advantage, Era brought the blade down on Caine’s neck, neatly severing his head from his body.
The world of grey dissolved around him.
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