The HaRT Knight Decaverse

Heir of Magic

Chapter 30

The Black Flame

“I can do this, I can do this,” Alexander whispered to himself as the cloud of butterflies in his stomach exploded out of control until it reached the size and intensity of a full-blown hurricane. He could not bear the thought that if he failed this test, he would bring Chaka shame and dishonor. And yet, in no conceivable way could he imagine himself beating someone with Chaka’s skill and experience.
“You look nervous,” Chaka’s said as the two of them strode into the dueling circle. The entire pride population had gathered to witness what was sure to be an event so amazing that its retelling would become one of those shared at future initiation feasts. A group of nine gray-haired pride members were seated in a raised stand. The rest of the pride population and the visitors from Pensilisurbis, were seated on logs set out around the dueling circle.
“Not at all,” Alexander lied, all the while still thinking, I can do this, I can do this.
The two of them took up their positions, and the next second, the ring around the dueling circle caught fire. “Welcome, everyone, to today’s Right of Surpassing,” Chief Dieba announced in his ancient, powerful voice. “We are certain to remember this rite for centuries to come.”
I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, Alexander thought as he tried to wrestle the hurricane of butterflies in his stomach into submission.
“For the first time in nine centuries, outsiders will pay witness to the Right of Surpassing, for their benefit, I will now explain. Teacher and student will face off in a pyroturgic duel that will end only when one opponent burns the other. Should your flames lick your opponent without burning them, the duel will continue. Now,” Dieba paused as a wall of fire sprang up between Alexander and Chaka, cutting the dueling circle in two. “Is the teacher ready and willing to give it his all?”
“I am,” Chaka said over the roar of the flames.
“Is the student ready to prove his skill?” Dieba asked.
Alexander swallowed. “I am.”
“Then, by the will of our ancestors—” Dieba paused. The second of silence felt interminable. Alexander’s heart was beating so hard in his throat it felt like it was trying to mangle his tonsils. All he could do was repeat his mantra in his head, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.
After what felt like an eternity, Dieba yelled, “Begin!”
The wall of fire bifurcating the circle fell away and the first thing Alexander thought was, Shade, I can’t do this.
The second his father had yelled for the right to begin; Chaka’s aura changed and dominated the entire circle. Alexander suspected if the pride warrior wasn’t exercising such meticulous control over his aura, it would have covered the Palace of the Pride—if not the entire desert. The thaumaturgic energy was like pure heat, so intense it nearly caused Alexander to go into metaphysical shock. The air grew as dry as cork and all the moisture in the ground evaporated instantly, causing the ground to crack.
Alexander was still fighting against the physical force of Chaka’s aura when, in the same time it took to blink, a flame from the ring of fire flew into Chaka’s hand and the next second transformed into a pillar of flame that raced across the dueling circle.
Alexander barely blocked the attack in time. He had to use both hands and all his concentration to hold the blast of flame at bay, but Chaka didn’t even look like he was trying yet.
With a jerk of his wrist, the pride warrior broke off the attack and shook his head disappointed in what he was seeing.
I have to do this, Alexander yelled at himself in his head and shot three concentrated balls of fire in quick succession at Chaka. But the desperate attack was as effective as a mosquito trying to exsanguinate and elephant.
Chaka deflected the first two with ease, swiping them to the side and out of the circle with a mere wave of his hand. The third he sent flying back at Alexander, who deflected it straight into the ground.
“Please tell me that wasn’t a genuine attempt,” Chaka said in concern.
“Just a warm-up,” Alexander said in his best impression of confidence.
“Good. Then we can begin for real,” Chaka said, and the next second used a pyroturgic explosion to propel himself across the circle in the blink of an eye.
But his speed was no match for the spell Alexander had practiced throughout the night. Blobs of white flames erupted across his body and grew until they covered him like a suit of armor. Covered in the White Flame’s Embrace, Alexander had to maintain perfect control over the spell or it would shift to normal flames and set himself on fire. But controlled, the spell protected and strengthened him. Maintaining the spell, however, took an excessive amount of concentration and energy, so he had to move fast to capitalize on it.
Alexander moved out of Chaka’s way in a white blur. The pride warrior skid to a halt and altered his trajectory, but the Flame’s Embrace made Alexander supernaturally fast. He shot to the opposite side of the circle and back again. On his return journey, he aimed a devastating kick at Chaka’s ribs, but before he could reach his teacher, the pride warrior roared and filled the entire dueling circle with crimson flames that shot into the sky in a massive pillar of fire. Alexander tried to push forward, but the crimson flames were too strong.
Chaka took a step forward and lashed out with a single, powerful punch that threw Alexander backwards and onto the ground. Crimson and white flames both died out together and both contestants breathed hard at the strain caused by their respective spells.
“Ah, I see, this is how it works,” Chaka said.
Alexander struggled to look up from where he was on his hands and knees on the edge of the dueling circle. Although the circle was sweltering hot, he went ice cold at what he saw.
Chaka was holding a hand full of white flames close to his face so he could examine it. He flung the fist-full of Alexander’s spell to the side and the next second, snowy white flames covered his body. He locked eyes with Alexander and said, “This is rather simple.”
Chaka vanished from sight. He moved so fast and suddenly that he sent a shock wave of lava in the opposite direction from where he had been standing a second ago. Alexander blinked and Chaka was next to him. The pride warrior swept his former student’s feet out from under him before leaping into the air and bringing a fist covered in white flames down like a meteor. Alexander rolled out of the way just in time and Chaka’s fist hit the ground which melted, allowing the pride warrior’s arm to sink elbow deep into the lava.
Desperately, Alexander scrambled away to the opposite side of the dueling circle.
“This is a useful technique,” Chaka said, freeing his arm from the melting ground. “But the speed might take some getting used to.”
Alexander struggled to his feet and breathed hard as his eyes locked with his former teacher’s.
“As impressive as this is, I’m not so sure it stands much of a chance against my personal technique,” Chaka said.
“Personal technique?” Alexander said under his breath.
“Yes. I should probably have taught it to you, but at my Right of Surpassing the elders made me swear never to teach it to another. But I can show it to you now,” Chaka said and the white flames that covered his body fell away to collect in the palm of his right hand. “I devised this during my final test in the desert. I was always obsessed with the story of the original twin chieftains, so like them, I wanted to return with a spectacular ability of my own design. This is what I came up with: Glass Fire.” The flames in his hands grew translucent. The intense heat from the glass-like fire was unlike anything Alexander had ever experienced before. Even with the twelve feet between them, the glass-like flame threatened to boil the eyes out of his head.
There is no way I’ll be able to block it once he launches it at me, Alexander realized as he concentrated everything he had on blocking the waves of heat coming from the spell in Chaka’s hand.
As his teacher raised his right hand, primal fear took over, and Alexander reacted. He conjured the first spell that came to mind. A cord of concentrated flame uncoiled itself from around his wrist, and in an attempt to stop Chaka from pointing his spell at him, he swung the whip at the glass-like flame.
Chaka’s left hand shot out like lightning and caught the whip. “You would think that by now, you would know better than to use my own technique against me.” He closed his fist around the cord which suddenly grew out of control and wrapped itself around Alexander, holding him in place as Chaka aimed his glass-like flame.
“Sorry, Alex, it’s over,” Chaka said. “I see now, you weren’t ready.”
Wow I really wasn’t able to do this, Alexander thought as the crushing weight of disappointment crashed down on him causing his heart to speed up and time to slow. If there had been anything he could have done, the extra time might have been useful, but as it was, the only thing he could do with his eternal second was look around at the onlooking crowd.
Dante had his eyes pressed closed and his head facing away. Next to the wizard, Merrick was restraining a panicking Jared. In the back of the crowd, the mountain of muscle that was Kohr wore a stoic mask as his eyes burned with intensity as he took in every minor detail of the duel. In the raised wooden stand, Dieba looked overcome with disappointment.
The pained look on the chief’s face hurt so much, Alexander turned his head the other way, and immediately, he forgot about Dieba. His eyes locked with a pair of the most intense blue eyes. Eyes that he had seen on several other occasions in his life, always from the same woman. The same woman that had been there the day Tír na Angelus fell, who had watched as The Golden Spear sank, and who was now grinning at him. Unlike everyone else around her, she was not frozen in time. That is, until she winked at him and spun around on the balls of her feet so fast that it sent her raven hair flying into the air. She too froze.
Alexander stared at her intently for a second, and as his attention focused on her hair suspended in the air, something clicked inside him. Nero Fire, he thought. He had yet to even try to conjure the black flames, but he did not see why it would be any harder to do than the white or gold ones.
With an actual plan—as anorexic as it may be—and a spark of hope, his heart slowed again, and conversely, time sped up once more. He closed his eyes and thought back to what he had read on the piece of paper about the three natures of magic and how it had described the dark third of the Jördai source. She is all that is darkness, death, and destruction. She is winter and ice, the absence of light and warmth, and the end that comes before the new beginning.
Everything about this description seemed like the exact opposite of what fire was, and Alexander struggled a little to find congruency between the dark third and fire, but it was all he had, and so he tried to force such a fire to take form. As he opened his eyes, he focused on his aura that was the fuel for the cords of fire holding him in place, and changed its thaumaturgic phase. The cord broke apart as the black flames devoured the crimson ones, and as unnatural as it may have seemed, he noticed that they gave off no heat at all, but they devoured everything they touched—including light, which is why they appear so dark, he realized.
Alexander’s fascination with the Nero Fire ended almost immediately as Chaka gave a blood-curdling scream. The black fire had devoured the entire flame whip and was now spreading down the pride warrior’s arm. He held up his left hand and his fingers—which the Nero Fire had already turned to ash—crumbled away.
“No!” Alexander screamed as panic overcame him and caused his mind to go into shock.
Chaka screamed and fell to his knees as the black flames raced up his arm and threatened to devour his entire body. Unlike Alexander, however, the pride warrior did not freeze up in his panic but reacted quickly. He pressed the glass-like fire to his left shoulder and there was a massive shock wave of scolding air as the invisible blast of heat severed Chaka’s arm. For once, his control was not absolute, and his attack raced out of the dueling circle and through the Palace of the pride, incinerating every building in its path.
Panicking, Alexander ran to Chaka, his eyes fixed on the black flames that died out as the severed arm crumbled into a pile of ash.
“Chaka!” Alexander screamed as he fell to his knees next to the groaning warrior. His attack had at least cauterized the wound where his arm had been, but his body was still in shock.
Dante and Dieba reached Chaka at the same time and fell to their knees in unison. Without asking for permission, Dante conjured two healing gates, one above and one below Chaka, and snapped them open. The pride warrior jerked and groaned but at least he was still alive.
Whispers of, “Phoenix King,” erupted from the stands around the now flame-less dueling circle, but as Alexander looked up, he did not see the same hopeful and happy expressions from the previous night, instead, he saw fear and apprehension.
What have I done? He thought in horror as he forced his gaze back down at Chaka. Closing his eyes and concentrating all his effort on looking as stoic as ever, he rose to his feet and strode away.
No one tried to stop him.

As Alexander sat on the boulder on which the black lion’s head was painted, perched on the cliff entrance to the Palace of the Pride, he stared out over the desert as the light from the setting sun transformed the sand into an ocean of molten gold. Even in his morose state, he had to admit it was a beautiful sight.
“I thought I might find you here,” Merrick said as he came walking up from behind. He looked around at the surroundings at the top of the cliff. “Please tell me you’re not here waiting for a lightning storm. Because I feel like Dante already thinks I’m a bad influence on you, and I think that might finally seal his opinion of me.” He waited for Alexander to smile then realized his mistake and looked down at his feet as he said. “Sorry. Too early to joke.”
Alexander snorted and shook his head. He returned his gaze to the setting sun and the two of them remained silent until it finally vanished behind the horizon. “How do you do it, Merrick?”
“What? Get my foot in my mouth at least once a conversation.” Merrick shrugged. “I’m double jointed.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Alexander forced himself to look the other man in the eyes. “For the first time, I think I understand a small bit of the agony you live with every day, and I can’t understand how you’ve remained sane.”
Merrick burst out laughing. “Sorry, brother. But really? Me. Sane? Do you even know me at all?” he held up three fingers, dropping one to emphasize each piece of evidence that contradicted Alexander’s belief. “I use sarcasm and humor as a defensive mechanism to keep the world at an emotional arm’s length. The emotions that get through, I try to kill with liberal and frequent applications of alcohol—whether it’s made from grapes or donkey dung. And whenever I’m not dulled by alcohol or narcotics, I run around like a mischievous six-year-old on a sugar rush.” He laughed again. “I’m a sarcastic, alcoholic six-year-old. And that’s the sanest I’ve been for ages. It’s probably as sane as I’ll ever be.”
“Well that doesn’t bode well for me,” Alexander said. “Especially since I can’t even get drunk.”
“Nah, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Merrick said. “You don’t have to follow me down the same wolpertinger hole. I killed the two people most important to me in the entire world. Even though Chaka is your friend and you care for him, he is not the center of your existence, and even more importantly, he is still alive.”
“And crippled.”
“Yes, he is. Because of you. Because of an accident you caused. So, feeling guilty is normal, but don’t allow that guilt to devour you. Take it from someone who knows, wallowing in your guilt doesn’t help anyone, it’s just overindulgent and selfish.”
“Selfish?” Alexander exclaimed.
“Yes, Alexander, selfish,” Merrick said. “Because of what you did, you feel you deserve to be punished. You feel you deserve the pain of your guilt. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, you have more important things to do and everyone—whether or not they know it—is counting on you to do them.”
“Wow, thanks, I feel so much better now,” Alexander said sardonically.
“Look, mate there is nothing I can say to make you feel better right now. All I can do is warn you: guilt is corrosive, if you give in to it, it will lead you down a dark path. It will devour you from the inside out until it has left you hollow.” Merrick went silent, when he spoke again, his eyes and voice grew haunted with memories. “After that, it is only a matter of time until that pain becomes anger. Anger at the world, at destiny, but mostly at yourself. Anger eventually gives way to hate. And before you know it, you will find yourself possessed by the very abyss you are meant to battle. You, of all people, can’t go down that path. With your power, you could become worse than your uncle.”
“You think I’m capable of becoming a monster like Cain?” Alexander said indignantly.
“I know for a fact that everyone has that potential, yes,” Merrick said. “But you alone possess the power.”
“You can’t seriously believe I can become him.”
“Do you think your uncle started out the way he is now? Even from the little I know about your family I can tell that’s not the case.”
Alexander opened his mouth to respond, but he stopped when a memory he had buried a long time ago resurfaced thanks to Merrick’s words.
He was back in his room in Tír na Angelus. His mother was sitting at the foot of his bed as she told him about her brothers.
“We Angelians were genetically designed to be as close as possible to perfect beings, and in no one was that more evident than in your uncle Marcus. He was impossibly handsome, charming, and powerful.” His mother’s smile faltered for a second and an expression between sadness and hatred flared as she said, “Sadly, he used his near perfection as a disguise to hide what he truly was.”
She shook her head and smiled sadly at him. “William, as Marcus’s twin, always lived in his brothers shadow. Instead of people, he preferred books. He came across as logical and cold, and yes, mostly he was, but those who really knew him knew that this was all rooted in shyness. Your uncle Cain however,” his mother’s expression changed to a beaming smile that enhanced her beauty tenfold. “Cain never wanted power or knowledge like the twins, he just wanted love and to make people happy. He was kind and sweet, and of all my brothers, I loved him most.”
“Brother,” Merrick brought Alexander back from the memory. “You still there?”
“Yes, sorry,” Alexander said, shaking his head. How was it possible that he had forgotten that memory? Not once in the last sixteen years had he thought of it, although he had spent most of that time obsessed with thoughts of his uncle.
He shook his head again and looked at Merrick as he said, “So what should I do now? How do I stop myself from being taken over by my guilt?”
“That is actually rather easy. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but it took me near a century to figure this simple trick out on my own,” Merrick said. “Feel your guilt, don’t discard it or run from it, accept it, embrace it, then get up and move on. Carry it if you have to, but don’t let it slow or stop you. Take three slow deep breathes and move forward.”
Alexander looked at Merrick for a long while before he nodded. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in—Because of me Chaka no longer has his arm, but if I don’t stop Cain, Chaka will lose a lot more than his arm. The entire world will—and out. In—My mother once thought of him as the kindest of her brothers. Her most beloved sibling. And yet, he killed her—and out. In—No matter what, I can’t allow myself to become like him. I need to become better so something like this doesn’t happen again. I need to become stronger, so I can stop Cain. I can’t do either by sitting here and feeling sorry for myself—and out.
Alexander leaped off of the boulder and landed gracefully next to Merrick. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder and said, “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, brother.” Merrick grinned at him as he gave him a playful punch. “Now, come on. We have work to do.”
“Yes, we do,” Alexander said as he followed his friend back into the Palace of the Pride.