Chapter 24

24.
         "You see," the Dark Lord said, his voice deep and onorous, "we can only act by our natures. My master is the lord of all evil, everywhere, whether it be the blackest killer or the evil that lurks within the heart of an innocent child. As his servants, we are only reflections of his person."
         "You've made this speech before," Agent One said, and his face was dark. Tristian felt a chill as the two opponents faced each other, the Dark Lord towering over the sitting Agent. "In the UnderEarth, we came after you."
         "The UnderEarth?" Auburon said, his face confusd. "Just what are you talking about-"
         "Shut up," the Dark Lord said, his voice no longer even pretending to be friendly. Auburon's face registered shock and then anger and he opened his mouth to say something but the Dark Lord just kept talking over him, talking to the Agent. "And you did, Magent, I remember you that day, still young." He paced around the table a bit. "You and the Naxgul, you came to stop us at the city."
         "You had held it hostage for three days," Agent One said, his voice flying with memory. Tristian felt a chill as he sat there, watching the two nearly ageless beings discuss events that were billions of years ago like they had just happened. Like they were still happening. "The Dark Riders tortured the others there for all those days . . . I could still hear the screams . . . I . . ." overcome briefly, he ducked his head, rubbing his face, then returning his gaze, still steely to the Dark Lord. "We warned you, told you to let the city go and you told us . . . you told us that . . ." and the Agent gave a grim smile, "that you had little control over your actions, being evil by nature."
         "That's exactly what I said, Magent. I said that being evil, we didn't have the choice that other beings had. If evil was defined as the absence of good, then we would forever be set apart by the actions of others, always acting as the counterpoint to their good." The Dark Lord gave a small laugh at this. "And do you remember what you said then, Magent?"
         All the fairies were now looking worriedly at each other, except for Auburon, who was getting more angered by the second. But every time he went to speak, Sylvania put a hand on his arm to silence him. Grimacing, he sat down, exchanging glances with the others. Tristian thought that they all figured both the Agent and the Dark Lord had gone completely insane, sitting here talking about past events.
         "I said," the Agent replied, his eyes narrowing, "and it's the same thing I would say now, that it was total bull and you just used it as an excuse to take the easy way out." He closed his eyes again, briefly.
         "And I said that the easy way was not necessarily the evil was, sometimes it was simply the easiest."
         "And then," Agent One finished for him, "with us standing there, you blew the entire city up. The Shining City gone . . . three hundred thousand people . . ." Now the Agent was standing up, and Tristian was getting ready to move. He had a feeling something was about to happen.
         "I remember the expression on your face, Magent, as if I was still standing there now. It was pure shock," and the Dark Lord sounded elated at this, "as if the ill wind blowing from explosion, nearly knocking us off our feet, was blasting away your innocence." His voice dropped a notch, then, as if his next words were only for the Agent. "Just because you're considered evil doesn't mean that good will automatically truimph over you."
         "Doesn't mean we can't try either," Agent One said, his voice firm and unyielding. "Now that you've dropped the pretense of being nice and given us the typical speech, are you going to blow us to pieces as well?"
         "Nothing so blatant, Magent. I was young then as well, not one for subtlety it seemed. Especially when there are so many other avenues to be considered."
         "Enough of this!" Auburon suddenly thundered, standing up and glaring at both the Dark Lord and the Agent. "This is not a place for you two to squabble over personal differences, and it's nothing that I will tolerate!" Voice still dark, he said, "You've given us an offer, Dark Lord, either stay neutral as you slaughter the human race, or fight you. Do you still want to know our choice?"
         "We will fight," Sylvania said, looking up at Auburon. The other fairy stared down at her in surprised, but the others were nodding. "The humans may change magic by their presence, but they have respect for it at least. This one shows no respect for anything."
         "Even now the fabric cringes away from his presence," Sampras intoned, shifting his body forward to face the Dark Lord. "We suggest that you leave now, if you wish to leave peacefully." Thorns bristled around the fairy suddenly, some glistening with what Tristian figured was poison. Sitting next to the fairy, he backed away slowly. The Agent wasn't saying anything, merely sitting there. He appeared to be considering something.
         "I've not given my answer," Auburon said firmly, not giving an inch of ground to his fellows on the council. "And I still believe that the human threat needs to be curbed for . . ." he turned sharply to the Dark Lord, "What are you laughing at?"
         His laughter cutting through Auburon's speech, the Dark Lord threw his head back and gave a deep chuckle, as chilling was it was essentially emotionless. Only for show. "Oh, dear Auburon," the Dark Lord told him, his speech almost pitying, "weren't you listening to anything I was saying? I am evil by nature, even if you had agreed to my little deal, I would not have honored it."
         "Then why even offer it, bringing yourself right into the heart of our realm?" Nanri asked, floating slightly above the table. Her smooth face was confused, and Tristian could agree with the sentiment. He didn't know what was going on either.
         "Right here, at the heart of our power," Auburon said, his face dark with violence. His body seemed to pulsing with a strange sort of energy, Tristian could feel his responding to it even from the distance he was sitting. "You are indeed a fool, Dark Lord, to taunt us so."
         "No, it is Auburon who is the fool, to think that the Dark Lord would walk into such a situation unprepared," he was informed by the Dark Lord. He faced Auburon without any outwardly concern. "I've done this before, Auburon, I know each step before you do. I came here with duplicity cloaked in the aura of sincerity, playing to your most favored dream, trying to give you your heart's desire, the total stagnation of magic."
         "No, that's not what I want . . ." Auburon said, his voice fading. Agent One was starting to stand up now.
         "But I've since torn the sincerity away, not a cloak I wore that well in the first place and shown you my true face. It shall be the last thing you see."
         "You won't stop us," Hallas said, and his antlers seemed to glisten sharply in the naked light. "You've made deadly enemies tonight."
         "You've always been my enemies," the Dark Lord replied calmly. "You just never realized it. But by the end of this night, you shall all be . . . corpses." And then he waved his hand, causing even the bravest at the table to flinch back. Tristian kept his eye on the laser sword, he knew that if he had a chance he could go for it and even the fight up, perhaps even make all subsequent fights even. But the Dark Lord would use for it defense given half a chance as well. Slowly, he started to stand up, feeling all his nervousness fade away.
         He stood up just in time to step back as a column of black light fell from the sky, striking the center of the table. There was the sound of something hitting the table and then the column ascended upward again. Tristian felt disgust flood his stomach even as something in his head swept it all away. There was no room for feeling now.
         A body was in the center of the table, bloodied and beaten, the entire mess hardly recognizable as having been living once. The body seemed to be nothing more than pulp, as if the person had died and then the assailants had continued to assault his nonliving form. The eyes were the worst. Clear and blue as the day, they told of someone who once loved life, experienced it to the fullest. Now they barely saw eternity, the life in them had been shattered, the pieces spread across the table for all to see.
         "Torlot," Sylvania whispered, looking slightly sick. And everyone no longer wonder what happened to the missing fairy.
         "How, monster . . ." Auburon spoke softly, his eyes never moving from his dead comrade. There was unspeakable saddness there, perhaps guilt as he realized his actions, however inevitable, had moved his friend to this fate as surely as if his hand had done the beating. "How?"
         "So shall you all die," was all the Dark Lord said.
         "And is death all the Dark Riders can accomplish," Agent One said slowly, finally, standing up. The Agent seemed to be shaking, and Tristian assumed it was anger. "Is there nothing that they will not find perverse, nothing they will not violate."
         "Strange, Magent, but you said the same thing to me as we stood there in the burning light coming from the ruins of the Shining City."
         "And do you know what happened next?" the Agent said thickly. Tristian thought his eyes seemed unfocused but the Agent was probably just concentrating his power.
         "You blasted my head off right where I stood," the Dark Lord said with amusement uncharactistic of the subject he was discussing. "As you can see, in the long run, it did little. I'm sure it felt good at the time, however."
         "And I'd do it . . . again . . ." Agent One said and he raised a glowing hand. Tristian realized that it wasn't just his eyes that seemed funny but his entire body was that same out of focus way, almost blurred. It made Tristian's eyes hurt to look at it.
         "He's doing something to you!" Tristian shouted, trying to get the Agent's attention. "He's using himself as a distraction!"
         "I realize . . . guh!" and then his voice contorted and twisted and Agent One dropped his hand to the table, gripping it. There was the sound of crunching stone and pulverized rock as splinters of stone fell to the ground. "I . . . I . . ." and then he whipped his body around in a blurred red motion, turning the air a bloody color. Tristian realized with horror that he was taking up more space than before, while becoming thinner and more insubstantial.
         "The problem with being made of energy," the Dark Lord said, casually going for his sword, "is that given the right force, you can be easily dispersed. But you're not really listening now, are you, Magent?" as Agent One gave something that sounded like a garbled screen and stretched out like a kite, his body painfully tearing apart and then turning into nothing more then red motes floating away on the wind.
         "I didn't think so," the Dark Lord said calmly. He had lifted the sword slightly out of the sheath and Tristian could see a faint red glow falling out over the top.
         "Don't let him use the sword!" Tristian yelled, already in motion. The world became full of slow time now, as all the fairies moved at once. Sampras, the closest, reached him first, swatting him with a massive hand, seeming to have the force of the entire forest behind it. The Dark Lord jerked his head to the side and fell back, rolling on the ground, someone not getting entangled in his cape.
         Tristian, still running, tried to overtake Sampras, who was roaring something primeval. Thorns were jutting like spikes all over his body now, and as the Dark Lord started to get up, Sampras lifted him bodily off the ground, and drew him to his silt filled body in something resembling a hug, if totally devoid of the emotion normally associated with such an action. The Dark Lord gave a low moan as the spikes drove through his body, and Tristian could see his cape bending outward as the spines exited his back.
         "Ah . . ." the Dark Lord sighed but the light in his eyes didn't go out and he continued to talk, though his speech was slow and painful. "You don't understand, my master is nearby and . . . his power is mine . . ." and the hand that was still clenched around the hilt of the sword suddenly jerked it free with inhuman strength.
         Tristian could do nothing but shout and his speech rebounded slowly anyway, as if outracing the devil himself. In one motion the Dark Lord slipped the glowing sword up, past Sampras' arms and then drove it straight into his body. The red blade exited out the back even as the fairy squeezed tighter.
         "You make a . . . mockery of all . . ." Sampras began but never finished his sentence. The Dark Lord merely drove the sword up, cutting the top half of his body in two up the center. The grip relaxed and the Dark Lord dropped lightly to the ground, kicking the body over with his foot. It tumbled heavily, hitting the ground hollowly, all life having exited.
         Something dark and black oozed from holes in the Dark Lord's body but he seemed to pay no attention to them. Tristian was the closest to the Dark Lord and the fairies seemed confused as to what to do. Auburon was standing up now and he was saying something but it all seemed to be coming from very far away. He was outracing words, outracing light itself. Before the Dark Lord even knew what was happening Tristian had slammed into him, tackling him, battering at his arms and head as they tumbled to the ground. Try to get him to relax his grip, try to get the sword, try to even the fight. It all was jumbling in his head but the conditioning was making sense of it, turning his body cold and numb even as it guided his actions.
         The glowing sword was filling his vision, the Dark Lord was trying to bring it up. Even in his this slowed down time, even with his altered perceptions, the Dark Lord still seemed to be moving normally. Too fast. The sword cut him across the top of the head, Tristian barely moved back in time. It was numb and pulsing, the pain moving in time with his heart. Moving. Blood sprang from his forehead, slinked down into his eyes. Evil was aided by his own body. His hand kept striking the Dark Lord, his other hand holding the sword back now. Come on you bastard, let go. Come on.
         And the eyes kept shining at him, and perhaps he was saying something but it was all a roar just the same. All just one sound. Colors were flying all around his vision but he couldn't tell if it was fairy magic or just blood striking his eye or maybe even something else. The Agent would always be with them in spirit. Why don't you fall you bastard? Why won't you drop the goddamn sword?
         And then the Dark Lord shifted his weight and Tristian felt a leg enter his stomach and he was upside and sailing and the Dark Lord was below him and then behind him. There was a cutting glow across his stomach and he could feel numbness settling there as well and blood dripping across the ground. Only a surface wound. It had to be only. And then he hit the ground and was rolling, tasting dirt and leaves in his mouth, feeling blood seeping through his teeth from a bitten tongue. His head hit something hard on the way down and the world whirled crazily, refusing to compromise with his expectations. Everyone kept dying. Everyone. And he was so goddamned helpless.
         And the Dark Lord was standing now and words were filtering back to him now. The colors were always there. There were so many it hurt. His head hurt, his body ached. Outclassed in a second, idiot, you're lucky he didn't cut you in half like he did to Sampras. Could be dead. Fool.          
         Auburon was speaking but it was so far away and his body couldn't move. Couldn't get it to move.
         ". . . twice the insult now, Dark Lord . . . you were bold to come and taunt us in this fashion but your maddness stops here, Sampras shall be the last to die by your hand . . ." and Auburon was glowing like a beacon and even the trees seemed to shudder from the power. The king of the fairies, that was a lot of magic. The others seemed to be drawing back from him, as if afraid to be caught in the whiplash.
         The world was grim and blurred now, like the Agent, like everything else. Nothing else was in focus anymore, nothing was even in focus, he was always deciphering the drunken ramblings of the world's writers. It was craziness. Tristian lifted his head, unable to get his body to move. The Dark Lord had said something, what did he say? Something about different ways. Alternatives. And he was raising his hand. Not his sword hand.
         The other hand.
         With Auburon, glowing like a beacon. A goddamned beacon. A goddamned target. Got to get your head moving and working, Tristian. See his hand. It's the forked one, the one that you always knew something about, the one useless up close.
         And then it was all quite simple to see.
         "Auburon," he thought he whispered, he hoped he whispered, he wanted to think that in the last moments he had given the fairy at least some warning. But he doubted his voice even worked that well anymore. That anything really mattered to his broken head. To his broken life.
         And two straight lines of light streaked from the Dark Lord's forked hand, streaked out and ended their railroad lines right in the center of Auburon's chest. The fairy stared down at those lines, confused, afraid.
         The Dark Lord spoke something. A parting comment.
         Then the lines pulsed brightly and all that was Auburon became a wet splash against the trees as the Dark Lord's lasers drilled two neat holes in his chest and blew everything else out the back.

* * * * *
         "Johan!" Michelle yelled as the Dark Rider's sword cut down at him, but the other man was already in motion. He had drawn his sword without really thinking about it and he wasn't sure what that meant for him. Perhaps it meant he was becoming a fighter, a warrior. It wasn't what he had wanted to become. Back where Tristian had come from, someone had once said that life is what happens when you're making other plans. If Tristian had ever shared that sentiment with Johan, he would have wholeheartedly agreed.
         Johan managed to score a cut against the lead Dark Rider but they were trying to surround him and he vaguely remembered his fight with the Dark Lord, the glowing sword. It had sliced right through the blade of his sword, left it lying on the ground. Where had he gotten another. He didn't remember. Perhaps the Magent had repaired it. But the sword had also gone through his throat and they have saved his life as well. Not to get killed again by the same weapon, he suspected. Dancing back, he went on the defensive, trying to stay out of the way.
         Still they tried to get around him. Before he had conjured magic to stop them, had tapped deep within himself. But magic like that was too far away for him, it wasn't something that he could reach by himself. Then, desperation and a need to save his life had fueled his frantic flight for the source. Now, tired and shaken, he could summon nothing more than a flicker.
         Then the world became blue and he realized that Michelle had no problem with that. The Dark Riders took a single step back, surprised when the shield sprang forth, but then glanced at each other and drove their swords through the shield. He heard Michelle give a small cry but he had more pressing matters, as the blades dangled inches from his own, tender body. He couldn't even parry the swords, couldn't do anything.
         So he spun, figuring the Dark Rider's couldn't get through the shield. But, upon spinning, he realized that one had and it was menacing Michelle, even as she strove to keep it at bay, she couldn't protect them both. Johan decided in a cold burst of insight, that he would solve the problem. Three steps took him to the Dark Rider, who turned to face him just as he reached there. He met the blade of Johan's sword in his throat and the arm that went up to parry him died in mid-surge, dropping limply even as the rest of the body followed suit. Michelle, sporting a cut down her robe where the sword had come too close for comfort, pushed hair out of her face and glanced at Johan.
         "We have to get out of here," he said, knowing that the same thought was on her mind as well. Grabbing her arm, even as she grabbed his, they both sped off, leaving her shield behind.
         "We have to get back to the council and warn them!" she said in his ear as they ran.
         "If they haven't gotten to them already," Johan told her, hating himself for saying it but knowing that it might just be true. The Dark Riders seemed the type to cover all the angles. Michelle just glanced at him, hope in her face but said nothing more.
         They ran for several minutes but found nothing but more tangled and twisted forest. It was deathly quiet. Stopping, all they could hear was the sound of their own labored breathing, echoing in canyons and tunnels of tree trunks.
         "We went the wrong way," Johan said, trying to get his bearings. "The fight must have turned us around."
         "No, I'm sure we went the right way," Michelle insisted. "This must be fairy magic, changing the forest, maybe to confuse the Dark Riders."
         "They'll just tear the whole place apart," Johan said, "what do they care about living the wilderness pristine."
         "We have to do something," she frowned, running a hand down her slashed robe and sealing the fabric back together. "If we keep wandering alone we're just going to get ourselves killed."
         "Can you sense the fairies, I'd imagine with Auburon and the Magent there that gives off a lot of magic . . ."
         Michelle shrugged, her face set. "It's worth a shot," she said and closed his eyes briefly in concentration. Azure danced around her hair but after a moment she sighed and opened her eyes. "It's no use," she said, sounding defeated. "Either there's just magic all over or the Dark Lord is acting like a magical void, canceling them all out." Softly, she said, "What are we going to do?"
         "We'll think of-" and then he stopped as a red glow appeared all around them. It flickered and spun, seeming drunk and crazy.
         "The Magent," Michelle whispered.
         It spun and swirled and settled into a vaguely human form a short distance away. It was leaning against the tree and the tree was glowing as well. It seemed a human set in a loose framework, the eyes glowing like two stars in a hollow head, the features vaguely defined.
         "Didn't expect . . ." the voice came from seemingly everywhere.
         ". . . twisting me . . ." it came from behind them, like a sigh and then was another there, not standing near a tree but mimicking the other's movement, leaning into the air.
         ". . . trapping . . ." said another, off to the left.
         "Magent!" Michelle yelled. "What's going on?"
         ". . . dispersal . . ." all said together. The voice was toneless and eerie.
         "They did something to him," Johan said, feeling fear run through his body. "They did something and he can't reverse it."
         "all . . . forms of . . . energy . . ." said the one near the tree.
         ". . . control all . . . forms . . ." another stated.
         ". . . even . . ."
         ". . . heat . . ."
         Then the different permutations vanished and condensed in the center, featuring a pale, drawn looking Agent, pure crimson flickering at the edges of his form, like he was coming apart.
         It reached a hand toward them, trembling, as if lost. "Johan, Michelle, get the hell out of here," came his breathless voice and his eyes were haunted things.
         Then he gasped and looked to the sky, letting his arms drop to the side. He opened his mouth and an endless sucession of Agents appeared, staggered all around the forest.
         All screamed, a hoarse, unending sound.
         Then they vanished and just as Johan and Michelle started to move, they felt a blast of impossible heat that knocked them to the ground.
         And the entire forest burst into sudden flame.