mindcracklove | Divided by Hostilities (Chapter 23)

This is an extra long chapter... I got a bit carried away. Enjoy :)

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22

“I wish to speak to you all, of course,” the creature said. “Zisteau, I believe you have some unfinished business you wish to talk to me about.”
“Yes,” Zisteau said loudly. He kept a firm grip on his sword’s hilt and stepped forward, away from the other five.
“We must sacrifice the heir!”
“We have met before,” the creature said. “Many, many years ago – before the existence of Aureylian’s world, before your new world was populated, when you lived here. When this world was green above, and people lived here.”
Zisteau felt the eyes of the others on him, questioning him, questioning their own perceptions of him.
“Yes. Yes we did.”
“And Zisteau,” the creature continued, voice smooth with a quality of pleasure – Zisteau knew it was so happy to be taunting him, to be torturing him with these memories, “Why did your guardian bring you to me?”
“No! He is only a baby. He must be kept safe.”
“But how else will we appease the monster?”
“I do not know. Do something. Anything.”
“Because the world was ending, and to sacrifice me was the only way to save all those people.”
But they all died anyway. You did nothing to stop that.
“Zisteau. Do your friends know of your past?”
Nobody knows. Not even you.
“I had forgotten,” Zisteau said angrily. He looked back to the various surprised and confused faces of his companions. “It started coming back when I arrived here…”
“How much do you know now?” The voice was still taking pleasure in the little Zisteau remembered – it must know how patchy his memories were.
“I – I know that I lived here. When I was young. The world was different.”
“You were just born, Zisteau,” the creature said. “Just a baby. Where were your parents?”
Zisteau struggled to remember. “I was… I do not know.”
“Your mother Eva was the queen of Kaio,” the creature said. “She was beautiful and powerful – you know, people say she had the gift of foresight. That she knew her world was coming to an end.”
“I forgot her,” Zisteau said quietly.
“Let me continue,” the creature said, “Since you really seem to know so little. As I was saying, when your mother foresaw the world’s end, she knew it was caused by something greater than her.”
“You.”
“Yes, I. And Eva knew that she was going to die in childbirth, so she entrusted her closest friend Kiri to the care of you. When she did give birth to you, do you know what happened?”
Zisteau’s hands shook but he kept a firm grip on his sword’s hilt. “No.”
“Her powers were passed down to you. Her powers of foresight, as well as other, smaller things – the manipulation of elements and the abilities of trust and knowledge. As well as the heir of Kaio, you became the bearer of your mother’s legacy.”
“But I never got to use those powers.”
The creature’s voice was cruel again. “No. Several days after your mother died, a great rumbling began deep under the earth. People began to be afraid. They knew something terrible was coming. I had moved up from my birthplace deep under the earth’s core to reside in this chamber here, miles under your own world of Kaio. Your caregiver, Kiri, felt it was her job to save all those people – so much so that she sent scouts to find the source of the earthquakes. By then, I had begun to use the dragons that already populated the caves in the mountains as my minions, so I believe it was easy for those scouts to follow the patterns and colonies down to my chamber – this one here. I remember well explaining to them that I had no intention of leaving, and that I would continue to cause increasing damage to their world unless they would bring me humans to eat every day.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You deserve to know your past, Zisteau.”
“I -,” Zisteau took a deep breath, “know.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, then?”
Zisteau had to override the overwhelming urge to ask more, to reveal more of his own story – it was so tempting to continue to listen to this creature’s willingness to fill in the gaps in Zisteau’s memory, even the parts that he’d not so much forgotten than deliberately erased. But he was here to do something else, so he ignored the sudden swell at the back of his throat and said,
“I’m not here to talk about my past. I want to know why you kidnapped Aureylian, and the others.”
“Aureylian knows very well why she is here. Has she not told you her story yet?”
Zisteau was surprised when Aureylian spoke up, stepping forward with a shaky voice. “Of course I couldn’t tell him. You would have known.”
“Ah yes. So you told your friends, Beef and Pause, instead.”
“I thought it was safe to tell them in Ancor, since you couldn’t hear me there. Once we were kidnapped, there was no point in not telling the rest of my story, so I – “
Here she was interrupted. The creature let out a great laugh, rumbling deep into their minds. “You believed that I could not see you in Ancor? I have fooled you so many times, and you believed me. I have always seen everything you do, Aureylian – I sent that dragon into Ancor, the one I taught to speak to you, to tell you I could not see or hear you in that dimension – that was a lie to make you feel safe there.”
Aureylian went pale.
“At first I did intend for you to bring back humans for me to feed on, that is true, but it soon became clear to me that you were too kind-hearted to do that, even at the risk of your own life. Seeing through your eyes, into their worlds gave me inspiration, though – I saw how they bred animals like pigs and cows for consumption, and I knew I should do the same with the humans. All I needed was for you to bring a mate back to Ancor - believing it was safe, after I sent that dragon to tell you so – and then I would send in another dragon to bring you both to me. Humans are just as simple to deceive as animals, it seems.”
“You’re wrong.”
Everyone turned heads to Pause, who had spoken. “You – you didn’t kill me. I know you can. You know you only needed two humans for your - your breeding program, and you had already captured Aureylian and Beef. Why did you spare me?”
There was an interruption, a commotion between Beef, Arkas and Pyro that made the other three and the creature turn to look. They saw the three, who had donned helmets and had out weapons – not swords but bows, ready to aim, right at the creature’s great head.

It saw them, the tiny creatures who called themselves heroes – the man Zisteau who knew he was a sacrifice, knew his past and yet denied it, the woman who had been so easy as a pawn with the gift of some minor power, and the four others, the two men who had become so close to Aureylian, and the two younger men – boys – who thought armour made them strong. They all wore the mask of the hero they believed to be, with Zisteau donning the mask of ‘king’, believing royal blood could save him from consequence of his actions. Aureylian thought she was a saviour, believing that enough time spent in one of those other worlds could cure them of their various problems, despite the problems stretched on like a disease into infinity. Pause was the heroic one – believing his false gift of foresight could help him save his friends, could help him make any adventure like a storybook with a perfect resolution. Beef tried to shake off his own burdens, pretending that everything that happened to him would pass in time: the death of his other friend, the fire at his shop, even the ache in his heart, not letting these things stay for too long in his mind.
It was intrigued by the other two – Pyro, who too had enough heartache from the war but still thought himself a warrior, his dragon skin seemingly a testament to his adventures, his love of books and stories of this sort of hero always present. Arkas had followed him, perhaps wanting too, to slay some dragons, but they had both ended up following the king, hadn’t they? There was no free will in that kingdom. It had made sure of that.
It retreated from its mind’s eye and regarded the bunch, the three in the back ready to fire at its own head. It laughed, letting them all feel the weight of its contempt – how could three boys with bows do any harm to him? He had no fear of any of them, not even Zisteau.
“You are like children,” it said, placing the words carefully in the minds of the three at the back. “You cannot hurt me.”
“We can try,” said Pyro, the dragon-slayer, “Anyway, it’s not like you’ve hurt any of us, ever. You are all bark and no bite.”
It ignored the confusing end part, and focused on the start of the sentence. It laughed. Everything these humans did was laughable. “I have hurt plenty of you. Pause can tell you of the pain he has experienced directly at my hands, but you do not know of my further reach to you through Zisteau.”
It was time to tell them all. Even Zisteau, who pretended not to care, looked up to it as it said,
“Kiri, Zisteau’s mother’s closest friend, decided that the best way to circumvent the deaths of all the people of Kaio was to offer the heir as a sacrifice. Imagine that! Kiri offered the baby she had been entrusted to take care of, in exchange for peace. I was uninterested at first until I learnt of the baby’s power. Of the legends of how he had been born with vibrant green eyes, just like his powerful mother’s. That made me want this deal. I had physical strength of course, but the power of foresight was a tempting gift. I agreed to stop causing earthquakes, and not to cause the volcanic eruption that Eva had predicted, in exchange for most of the baby’s powers.
So Kiri brought Zisteau to me and I took his power. The green from one of his eyes transferred to mine as a sign of the power taken. At last, I had this power.”
“You did not keep your end of the deal!” Zisteau suddenly shouted, furious. “You caused a fucking eruption anyway! Many people died, and everyone else had to evacuate.”
“It was the people’s fault for trusting me.” it said. “I’ve never had need to be trustworthy.”
The burned one, Pause, looked like he wanted to speak. Ah yes, it knew what this was about.
“Can – can I say something?”
When no objection came, he continued, “I have this gift, uh, Beef and Aureylian know about it. I can see stuff that happens in the future. Also the past. I didn’t tell anyone, but I had a vision of this world, Kaio. Of the eruption. And there were no people before the eruption. Just animals.”
“And you believed this vision to be correct?” It laughed as the others stared at Pause. “You even believed that you have foresight?”
“But it’s true!” Pause insisted. “I predicted Aureylian coming. And…” he faltered. It saw him lose faith in his ability just like that.
“You never thought that there were ways to manipulate your vision?” it felt the cruel weight of its own words, how they made Pause back down slowly.
“I…”
“It was fun to play with your mind like that, Pause. Through Aureylian’s contact, I made you believe things – that there was a dragon coming to your world, that Beef was being tortured, that Kaio was never populated with humans – I could easily make you believe things, just by placing these false visions in your head.
“But I read a book that said -.”
“Books are often wrong, Pause.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Sometimes for fun. Other times to serve a purpose. I do not think of the consequence to your life.”
The burned one looked properly scared now, standing back behind Aureylian and Zisteau. He looked defeated. Good.
“Zisteau,” it said, getting back to the topic that most interested it, “Do you not want to know what happened after the eruption?”
“I know what happened.” His voice was strained. “Thousands of people died. Those that survived had found a place where a fire portal could be lit, a portal that led to Ancor. Since Kaio was uninhabitable, they escaped through the portal. Kiri had died, so a handful of the survivors were taking care of me. Some stayed in Ancor, and some found ways to create fire portals to other worlds where they spread and settled down. I was left in my particular world. From a young age, I knew I was the heir of something great, of a kingdom. Since I had never been given that kingdom I deserved, I decided to build my own. It was close to the kingdom of Daedalia, that is true. For years I tried to take that one as my own so I would be the sole ruler of the land.” Zisteau stopped his speech surlily.
It was impressed. It hadn’t told Zisteau about the small detail, the thing that set him apart, and the reason why he’d become such a cruel ruler, but didn’t it always save the best until last? It savoured this detail, relishing in the reaction it already knew the information would bring.
“Very good. I don’t suppose you know the exact details of your sacrifice?”
“All I know is that you took all my power and did not keep your end of the bargain. Did you know how guilty this made me later in life? So much so that I tried to take out my own eye, the one that you had turned blue when you took my power. I blinded myself so I wouldn’t have to see that reminder of my past.”
“But you always had a reminder with you, Zisteau,” it said. It was so pleased to be delivering the final blow. “When I took your powers you were not left unscathed. As an exchange, part of my soul was united with you, just a small part, but enough to ensure you kept some of my thirst for power within your heart. It caused you to start the many wars you did while King of Abattia, and it is what made your own people fear you. Many of your actions were more like my own.”
There was a long silence. It regarded the various reactions with interest. The two young ones were staring at Zisteau with betrayal. Pause looked angry. Beef looked hurt and shocked. Aureylian seemed to be saddened – it had a feeling she must have known something of this, given her own connection to them both. The silence continued.

Zisteau felt more fear than rage now, but he felt blinded by nothing but the overwhelming desire to rush forward with his sword and attack. It would be no use, though; the creature made that clear, for whenever one of the group seemed inclined to attack or try to run, it would sweep its eyes over them with such a look that assured them no such thing was possible. Still, Zisteau felt revenge was the only thing that mattered now. But he was trapped.