Sorcerer in a fantasy world
Chapter 97

Chapter 97: Chapter 97

The cloaked man dashed and killed a still shocked Morgana. He was about to slay Iris again when Tara re-engaged with him and met the attacker blow for blow.

Iris crouched in despair clutching Samiya and Morgana. Grief and shock taking leave of her senses.

"Master, fight!" Umbra shouted at me. "Kill them."

A bloodthirst lit up in me. It counted for little as Jack the fae monster attacked my mind and crippled me from fighting back with magic.

"No!" I heard Umbra scream.

Umbra resisted Jack’s attack. She’d been lucky to keep a relatively cool head and her enhancement plus the evil eye helped stay out of harm’s way. Yes, it was the evil eye. Malice met malice and she lived.

It was not my first time enduring a psychic attack, but whereas Maradon had used his limited intellect and guile, Jack drew from an abyss of eldritch horror that was like detonating napalm in my brain.

Tara dropped to one knee and blood flowed from her mouth.

He cast his glance over to frighten me.

"You resist still, Sorcerer. You struggle against Jack’s touch. I will help you. I will give you incentive to embrace Jack’s intimacy."

He lifted up Tara’s arm and chopped off her hand. He cut cleanly, but blood flowed from the stump.

Iris raged and the Cloaked man stabbed her through the gut. He withdrew his blade and stabbed again. He laughed looking into her eye as he cut into her heart and through the back of her neck.

He threw Tara’s hand into Jack’s open, gaping maw. Jack swallowed the hand.

Tara roared in defiant anger. Tara whose guts spilled out from her belly. Tara’s whose hand was just devoured. Tara brave Tara.

I could anticipate his next move. The muscle’s shifting in his shoulder, the slight sway of his hip. The arc of his sword to cut her head off.

If she could act then I must follow her example.

I tried to grasp my magic to get in touch with myself, but a spiral, no it was shapeless, no darkness and without image seared my skull. Jack had broken the connection to my self, and all that was left was the observer.

Umbra, the last of us still able to fight, wailed and let out the full force of her evil eye. Her foul magic distracted Jack.

For a moment, I could do something. The effort to draw on my own magic may seem impossible. But my staff was all it took was my intent for a burst of lightning to blast from it and connect with the sword of the Cloaked Man.

The Cloaked Man let out a pained grunt, but held onto the blade. Tara toppled over and was still. Her head attached, but the effort had been all she had left.

I too stopped. The pain and confusion Jack inflicted broke my connection to my magic.

A red cloaked figure flew in from the sky and battled the black cloaked man. Làidir versus the stranger. Clavile’s devotee.

While Umbra barely stopped Jack from devouring all of her minds.

Làidir fought on equal footing with the Cloaked man. It seemed almost like they were dancing and anticipating one anothers moves. Halberd and sword clashed. The one with the longer reach held the slight advantage.

The cloaked man broke off with Làidir and dashed back. He clutched his head.

"No, go away. This is my time."

"No, don’t go." Jack groaned.

The cloaked man sighed.

"Ah well. Another time. Let us go Jack. We have tormented them enough for one day."

Jack moaned.

"Don’t worry. They will come to us and you will get another chance to feast on their bones."

"Yay! I’m so happy, happy, happy..."

With that they vanished into darkness.

The pain and terror left with their departure. A new fear and suffering took over. Dead bodies of my loved ones scattering like slaughtered animals.

But the fight wasn’t over. The human allies of our attacker charged at me. Umbra ripped out the consciousness of one them turning them into a vegetable that she proceeded to strangle.

I punched another and my fist went through her chest like she was made of cheap foam. I withdrew my hand from the gaping hole of where the centre of her chest had been.

I front kicked another and took his entire crotch and hip bone. He folded in on himself sort of snapping in half.

Still more darted out, how was there morale not crushed? Anyone sane would retreat. I drew down and blasted them to dust with lightning.

They refused to break. A zealous courage drove them to fulfil their mission. Their mission of killing the ones I love. Morgana’s cold, dead eyes. I was running out of time to bring her back.

"Enough!" I screamed.

I denoted. Pure magical energy ignited. It would have taken all of Elkilbour in a furious nuclear-like fire. But I tightened and closed off my attack as soon as I let go. I tapped into my emotion and then disciplined them with the sad knowledge that this world was like paper and I’m a knife pressed into it.

The three attackers who had converged on me and the empty houses behind them vanished. A few feet of ground beneath there feet too was consumed and blown down and reduced to less than atoms.

Làidir was fine. But of the women I came with only Umbra and Tulisa stood alive.

Umbra had a dark look in her eyes. A look that I could only call murder.

"Umbra it is over." I said.

She smiled, but it wasn’t her smile, all teeth, bulging eyes and none of her.

Tulisa trembled. Her mouth moved but no sound came out. No voice forthcoming. Silenced.

"Umbra, I am your Master. This is not you. Give me your charm and we can seal with eye again."

"No."

Umbra stretched out her arm and pointed a finger. But not at me.

Black beam of death hit Tulisa square in the chest. Tulisa rotted. Her flesh bubbled, peeled and fell off that scraps of paper blowing her entire body in the wind.

"What have you done?" I asked.

How... the situation had triggered the evil eyes release, I knew that, but I couldn’t comprehend her attack.

"Should I kill her, Damian?" Làidir asked.

"Let me handle her."

"You! Handle me? You got lucky last time, but this body is mine now." The evil eye said through Umbra. "She got what she deserved this host."

One holiday trip and everything had gone wrong. What cruel punishment this all was. I still didn’t have a solution for the evil eye.

"Oh, don’t look at me with such scary eyes. I’ve been watching you. We both know you don’t have the heart to this body. Your strong against your enemies, but to a close ally, a lover. No, you aren’t that cold."

I gulped.

Containment it was, I wasn’t going to give the death penalty to my lover. I could imprison her until I came up with a solution.

I assembled the metal cage in the sky while she continued to mock me.

"Everyone you care about is dead. Just become my slave. You will be happy. I tell no lie."

I dropped the cage on her and sealed the bottom.

She slammed into it, but even with enchanted strength the metal was too thick at five metres solid and too strong. I tiny hole for air, but she was essentially in a sensory deprived environment. I held her high, high up just in case she could charm her way out even with tiny holes to the outside world.

Tulisa had little left of her original body. Most of her head and part of her upper body yet to be rotted.

I cried, but I hadn’t given up yet.

"I am the Sorcerer, I made a promise. Death is but an obstacle."

I tried to regenerate Tulisa, but she had lost too much and the Evil Eye’s attack was too brutal in its continuous destruction.

The attack first. If I didn’t stop it then any healing would be undone. I set up a thin magical barrier to protect what was left of her body and the remaining vital organs. It took three attempts, but I finally managed a barrier that worked. I then mimicked based on her current flesh a sort of false body. A line of skin which being entirely magically I was able to enchant to host the barrier onto. I also wove another enchantment into a piece of metal that would keep her remaining body functioning. She was working on one lung and a heart in panic, but she was alive.

She was in critical condition. Tulisa was basically on magical life support. I’d halted the attack, but not stopped it and was keeping her body alive purely by magic.

Now for the recently dead.

I placed my hands on Morgana and Iris. I healed their wounds and stimulated their vitality. I called back the breath of life. They breathed. Resurrected.

I did the same for Samiya.

Tears poured out my eyes. Tears for the death dealt to my loved ones. Tears for a grief I had prevented. But in imagination felt all too intense.

For the death of Maradon and my interference with the affairs of Elikbour, the Unseelie had dealt their revenge. Romans aside, the conflict and confrontation between the Unseelie forces and us had renewed in earnest once more.

Was Elikilbour to be another Ferisdarm?