Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 534: Rattle

The black spear plummeted from the sky and slammed straight into Axil’s heart. It ripped through her body like it were made of paper, and continued down into Noah, pinning the both of them to the ground.

Axil wheezed. She grasped at the handle of the massive spear, her hands struggling to pull it free. A line traced down her skin, running from the top of her skull all the way down her body.

Then she peeled apart like a ripe fruit, splattering to the ground on either side of Noah. Blood bubbled from the thick wound in his chest, rushing past the haft of the spear even as it evaporated, dumping him unceremoniously to the ground.

Noah’s consciousness fluttered. Pain punched into his chest and spread down his nerves, reaching for his throat and threatening to swallow him whole. He could feel his soul shuddering, trying to peel itself free of his body.

He held on for an instant longer and forced his head to the side. Axil’s body wasn’t reforming anymore. Her corpse remained still. A tiny grin tugged at the corners of Noah’s lips.

Then he died.

It had been a long time coming, all things considered. His death had been signed the instant Axil had cut off his arm. He wasn’t about to go wandering around unable to play his violin. Death had been inevitable. It had just been a matter of when.

His soul drifted up into the air above his body, a band of dark energy forming around his throat. It pulled at him, trying to drag him into the tent where Moxie and Lee had retreated. Noah resisted it for another few seconds to make sure Axil remained exactly where he’d left her, then finally gave in.

Sunder yanked on its leash and he blurred, hurtling to meet the new body forming for him.

A ripple of energy passed through the Damned Plains. It was so faint that its signature was little more than a blip in the grand scheme of things, the mark of a soul passing from one life into the next.

By no means was this soul a significant one. It held little strength, nor had it achieved any immense heights. It was simply the soul of a demon. An ordinary demon by most aspects. Most — but not all.

This soul had a single abnormality. Nothing more than a delicate brush stroke across its delicate blue surface, the mark of something greater. The small mark was hardly anything that normally would have been worthy of notice.

But, in a sea of blue souls, a tiny dot of black may as well have been a thundering roar in a silent valley. To anyone who may have been watching, such a difference was the difference between the sky and the earth.

Someone was indeed watching.

The darkness that was the cosmos shifted. A will pushed through it like a canoe through an ocean of black. Massive wispy fingers curled like clouds, passing through space and ether as one.

They closed in around the soul streaking from the Damned Plains, halting its path before it could reach the line. The glowing blue light coming from the soul vanished. The hand curled around the soul, enveloping it entirely.

Then, slowly, the fingers pulled open once more. Bands of black had wrapped the blue soul in its entirety like fishnet. Features bloomed across the soul. Arms followed after legs. A blurry face came in their wake, joined by the curling horn of a demon — and, finally, consciousness.

The soul looked down at itself, at the bindings enveloping its form. Then it raised its face again, the features growing concrete and defined. Awe swirled across the soul as it stared up into the starry cosmos surrounding it. Then it dropped to its knees.

“Lord Sievan,” Axil breathed, prostrating herself on the ground. “I am not worthy of your attention. I did not think I would ever be granted such grace to lay eyes upon your power while I lived.”

“You were not,” a voice as cold as a winter storm responded.

Axil hesitated. “I wasn’t?”

“Raise your head, Axil.”

He knows my name?

She rose just enough to see the cloudy black surface before her. Wisps of darkness twisted up from the palm of the massive hand to take the form of a rather plain looking man. He wore a gray suit and was of pale complexion.

The man’s lips were thin and almost entirely devoid of color. If he was a demon, he sported no horns. There was only a mop of dusty brown hair at the top of his head. His eyes were the only thing that could have been considered odd about him.

Where there should have been an iris, there was nothing but milky white. The man’s eyes were nothing but two perfectly flat and white orbs. A gaze that should have been empty and blind — but, when Axil met it, was anything but.

“Lord Sievan?” Axil asked, confusion tightening its grip on her even further. Her memories were hazy. Twisted. The harder she thought, the more jumbled everything became. She’d been called upon. There had been a fight.

Excitement.

Disappointment.

And then… nothing.

It was like a chunk of her memories had been carved free and a weeping wound had been left in her mind where they had been.

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Axil groaned as a piercing headache jabbed into her skull like an ice pick. She clutched her skull and ground her teeth, fighting to keep herself from showing too much emotion in the presence of Lord Sievan — if that was even who she stood before.

No. It must be. This power is unmistakable. It does not matter what form he has taken to greet me. I recognize this magic.

“Confusion is natural. Do not resist it,” Sievan’s voice fell around Axil like freezing spring rain.

A hand appeared in Axil’s view. Plain and well-cared for. Smaller than her own. She stared at it, uncomprehending. A second passed. Neither of them spoke. Axil swallowed. The pain was growing more intense with every passing second.

She extended her own hand and slowly accepted the offer.

A freezing river screamed through her head. It enveloped the pain and washed it away in an instant, leaving clarity in its wake. Axil’s translucent eyes widened. She looked down at herself once more, then back up at the plain man standing above her.

“I died,” Axil realized.

“So you did,” Sievan said. He pulled Axil to her feet, and Axil realized that she was actually taller than he was.

“I… died?” Axil repeated, the words sounding odd and hollow to her ears. She could not die. Death did not come for those who followed Lord Sievan. There was pain. Defeat. Disappointment. All other aspects of life remained — but not death.

Sievan’s followers could never do anything more than taste death. They could sample from its platter, feel its sensation as they danced from its grip, but never could they actually be caught in its grasp.

At least, that was what she had believed.

“An anomaly,” Sievan agreed. “You died. And I would like to know how. It has been so long since I felt any fragment of my power leave this plane that I had to investigate myself. I thought that perhaps…”

His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “Never mind. Answer the question, my disciple. How is it that your soul was severed from its body? Such a thing should have been impossible unless you decided that you no longer wished to serve me. Is that the case?”

“No!” Axil shook her head firmly. “I would never turn my back to you, Lord Sievan. Serving you has brought beauty into my life. I have borne witness to such great things. Such indescribable awe that—”

The words froze in Axil’s chest. A vision flicked through her mind. The memory of a black spear — and the canvas that had trailed in its wake. A piece of artwork that could no longer be merely described as beautiful.

It had swallowed the sky in its immensity. There were more strokes than her mind could comprehend, more designs than a mortal could ever study even if they had dedicated their entire life to it.

Perfection.

There was no other word to describe it. Perfected death, a completed painting that had been done by such a masterful hand that she would never have believed it existed had she not witnessed it herself — had she not joined the strokes of that canvas herself.

Spider had been playing with her. He had pretended to be nothing more than a mere demon, but in the end, he had granted her wish. Every single stroke of perfection that had filled the sky was connected to him. They extended from his soul like the tendrils of a jellyfish trailing through the open sea behind it.

A tear welled in Axil’s eyes. She had joined the beauty of the universe, entering the greatest canvas it had ever witnessed. There could have been no greater honor than entering it under Sievan’s own hand.

“It was incredible,” Axil breathed, barely even able to find her words once more. “I bore witness to beauty, Lord Sievan. Did you gift this death to me? For my service?”

“Your passing was not at my hand,” Sievan replied, his voice unchanging. “It was granted by another.”

“Incredible,” Axil repeated. Her mind couldn’t manage to form any other words yet.

“Who did this immense beauty belong to?” Sievan asked. “Who was able to kill you?”

“Spider.” Axil’s voice drifted as memories prickled against her mind. “The one who possesses the rune you seek. I am sorry. I could not acquire it for you, Lord Sievan. I grew too distracted. The beauty was too great.”

“Mistakes and life cannot exist independently of one another. It seems you were outmatched.” For the first time, Lord Sievan’s voice changed. Something different entered his tone, but the emotion was foreign to Axil and she could not understand it. “And now you are faced with a choice.”

“I am at your service, Lord Sievan.”

A tired laugh echoed through the stars swirling around them. “You are dead, Axil. You are at nobody’s service. And thus is the choice you must make. Are you satisfied with your life and its conclusion? Prepared to move onto the great beyond?”

“My only regret is to not be permitted to witness such incredible beauty a second time.” A dreamy smile played across Axil’s lips. Then it flickered. Her head tilted to the side. “But… what comes next? What awaits for me in the beyond?”

A long, slow sigh escaped Sievan and the faintest smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “The wait awaits. A new future, bought at the cost of the present. You will be… different. Reborn.”

“Reborn?” A swirl of unease passed through Axil’s stomach. “My memories?”

“Gone, I fear. As all things that pass into the beyond inevitably are.”

The unease turned to fear.

“I do not wish to forget what I saw,” Axil said. “Is there another path? A way free of this? One in which I retain my knowledge?”

“Very rarely in life is there only a single path,” Sievan said. His smile grew wider, but it never reached his eyes. “Death is not so different. Some things change, and some remain. But your death is not yet set in stone.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Axil said. “I don’t want to forget what I saw. I want to see more of it. I never want to forget.”

“Not all will be as it was,” Sievan warned. “You will not return to what you left. Death is not one to be cheated lightly. It comes at cost. A great cost.”

“To me?”

Sievan nodded.

“I will do it,” Axil said. “I will remain in your service for as long as you grace me with your aid.”

“Your service to me has already ended,” Sievan said with a gentle shake of his head. “You are mine no longer. That which connected us is already wiped clean. But you will do me one last favor before your life truly becomes yours once more.”

“Anything you desire.”

“Get me that rune — and find out more about this Spider while you’re at it,” Sievan said. “And this time, I suggest trying a different angle. I will not notice your death should it happen again.”

Axil swallowed. The admonishment in Lord Sievan’s tone was evident. She gave him a sharp nod. The idea of no longer being in his service burned her heart like a molten iron, but she would not beg or argue with him. To do so would have been to disgrace to his name.

“I will do as you ask,” Axil swore. “I will not fail you twice. I will beg for the rune, should that be what is called of me.”

Sievan smiled.

His body blew away into streams of black smoke.

The cloudy hand closed around Axil. It collapsed in on itself, vanishing and leaving no trace of its passing. Axil’s soul never made it to the Great Line. Its gentle glow disappeared with the passing of the massive hand, stolen like a kiss in the night.

A great distance away, within the Damned Plains upon the streets of the walking city of Treadon, a black axe laying in a pool of blood on the cobbled street of a market started to rattle.