Chapter 12: The Chlan Spirit of the Eye, the Chlan in One’s Own Heart

Quayr had been possessed by some malevolent force within the crimson eye.

Leshac was frozen in place, transfixed by those corrupt eyes, he wanted to flee, but could not. He wanted to scream but could not. He was barely holding back a kind of fog inside his mind. Leshac knew what it was; nousfog.

Nousfog is caused by many strong spirits and even magical artefacts. A kind of clouding of the mind, chlan spirits are quite known for having a potent nousfog, but that of course isn’t much help when you encounter one, as that knowledge would be clouded.

Leshac knew what it was before him. He knew what those sickly yellow eyes meant. He clung onto that knowledge. A look of irritation came across the face of what had been Quayr. It was likely aware that its nousfog had not taken hold. Leshac struggled for control of his own mind, trying to focus his mind, as most mages must learn to do.

Quayr, no, the chlan took a step towards Leshac. Leshac suppressed the instinctual fear rising in his heartflame. He needed to dispel the nousfog, so though the foe was right before him, he desperately meditated.

The pattern of darkness, if he could fill his mind with that, he could obscure the nousfog. It was a bit of a demented ploy, basically obscuring something that itself was obscuring, but under the effects of the nousfog it was the best Leshac could come up with.

Darkness seemed to deepen around Leshac and the shadows which had been recoiling from the chlan being grew bolder. The vision of the pattern was vague in Leshac’s mind. His visualization was poor under the nousfog, but it became clearer as the pattern shoved the fog out.

Finally Leshac was free! As soon as he was Quil’s voice burst into his mind.

-Lesh, get back now!- she screamed.

He quickly leapt back, even going so far as to pull his both and shadow with the other shadows. The chlan had almost been right before his face.

It dropped the hand that had been reaching for Leshac’s face and looked sadly at him.

“Lesh, get out of there now! Forget about the eye, I’ll talk to Balreah! Just get away!”

Leshac almost fled.

However… Leshac remembered. It was his fault that the eye had surfaced, that the Shiverclaw Lodge had been twisted. Well, not all his fault, but he certainly had a part. Leshac didn’t think he could just let whatever it was possessing Quayr rampage about.

He had destroyed all his past chlanic research, he had forsaken that corrupt power. How could he just run away? Leshac did not know this, but that reaction was part of why Liohk Balreah had called in the favour to get Leshac acquiring the eye. Liohk was sure that the current Leshac would not give up.

-I’m sorry Quil, but I can’t flee. I have to face this, I’m… partly to blame-

Quil sighed.

-I’ll support you, I’m going to have words for that old peeper after all this!-

Leshac felt a mischievous strength sing its way into his heartflame.

The chlan stepped forward again.

“Tell me, why did you abandon your power?” It questioned.

Leshac’s reply was to grasp his lance with shadow and swing it at the chlan, a sheet of midnight flowing out from the sweep of the lance, and from four different directions Leshac shot dark spears at the chlan.

A wisp of an enchanted song was within the spears. The song was fire, Quil’s indignation against the chlan for threatening Leshac… and… an intimate feeling.

A whip of wails lashed out from the eye splitting the twilight slash of the lance, but the chlan made no attempt to block or parry the song spears of darkness. For those it dropped to all fours and scuttled around the ceiling. Did it fear the fire or the intimacy or a combination of the two?

“You were strong, free? Was it that woman? You could have her and the power, with that power you could keep her forever! Aren’t you scared, scared of her dying?”

Along with a new wave of nousfog there was a kind of twisted enchantment to the words. Not only that, but Leshac would be a liar if he said part of him didn’t worry about Quil like that and certainly sometimes he got annoyed about how much he was having to put in to regain power as a dark mage.

-W-we aren’t like that! You’d never hold me prisoner even if we were! Don’t listen to it!-

Leshac shook his head. That was what the chlan had suggested. Keeping her forever? Was she some kind of ornament to be put in a box? Leshac felt anger.

Yet… that anger prompted a disgusting smile on the face of the chlan.

It pushed forward and Leshac was put on the defensive, trying to keep that whip of wails away from his body while trying to skewer the chlan with dark spears.

Leshac was not having a good time of it. He couldn’t block all the lashes of the whip and each time he was hit, he felt his resistance to the nousfog grow weaker.

“If it was you of the past, you’d not have so much trouble, no you’d easily make me submit as your servant, and I’d be glad to serve one so strong, weak, so weak. You have no substance, no conviction. No power.”

Leshac felt his anger rising further. It was frustrating, fighting this being, couldn’t it shut up, if he was stronger, it wouldn’t have the time to talk.

He felt it then the power of emptiness, calling to him. Leshac was so shocked that the chlan almost managed to grab his face.

“If you used me, you could just void this pest, get the accursed eye, and get back to her”

That was what the power of nothing promised.

“Out of my head!” Leshac spat, recognising that his own mind was being provoked, but still he fell further into anger.

The chlan smiled that revolting smile even wider.

“After I am done with you, I think I shall seek that pixie out, such a rare body, so valuable. Perhaps I will even let her live, make her a servant to my will, no… a slave”

Leshac snarled and all the darkness formed into beasts and blades, and a torrent fell down upon the chlan. Leshac wildly jabbed with his lance too, tearing through the floor, ceiling and walls.

…but the chlan laughed.

It no longer feared Leshac’s dark magic. There was no longer that wisp of song, only Leshac’s own fury.

With a crow of triumph it knocked back Leshac’s lance and lowered its head to Leshac, touching him with the eye.

In that moment, time seemed to stop.

A voice, not Quil’s, not Quayr’s and not the chlan’s spoke into Leshac’s mind.

-What kind of sssstupid fool are you, to fall for sssuch a obvioussss ssssinsster ploy as that?-

-We have no time, shapeshifter? You cannot fall. Why do you not change shape?-

Then, time moved on, and Leshac felt something trying to escape from the eye and into his body.

Leshac, his head full of fear and panic, changed into the most powerful form he knew, one that he could not hold for long.

The chlan was sent flying back and there was the roar of a dragon.