Chapter 15: I see what I wish, so I call Judgement

Not one of the eyes that were floating about turned to look at Leshac and Quil.

Liohk Balreah had a good natured smirk, it was what was normally decorating his face.

He did not seem at all disturbed by Leshac’s distrust.

Not one of the eyes were looking at Leshac, but still, Leshac felt a fierce piercing gaze crawl about his very spirit.

Balreah let out a chuckle.

“You haven’t become enamoured of it have you?” Balreah asked.

“He’s not like that, not now, nobody with their senses intact would be snared by something like that!” Quil objected.

“Well, few people have any sense, do they? I’ve seen that much” Balreah said.

“I’m not the man I was” Leshac said.

“Well, you are a changeling” Balreah quipped.

“You know that isn’t what he meant!” Quil snapped.

“Oh really? My bad, I didn’t see that”

“Why are you being difficult about this?” Leshac asked.

“Difficult about what?” Balreah replied with a confused expression on his face.

Quil and Leshac stared slack-jawed at the Magus of Eyes.

“You…” Quil trailed off, not being able to find the words to express how inane Balreah was being.

“Shouldn’t you be more exact about these things Leshac?” Balreah admonished.

Then he turned his bemused face to Quil.

“I’m sure I taught you better than this too”

“Enough” A woman’s voice cut across the air.

Quil and Leshac looked about, but they could only catch a vague outline of a cat in hat and dress with two tails.

“You can play games later Bally.”

Leshac felt the presence of a powerful mage focus on his person.

“Your caution and distrust does you credit, Leshac of Many Faces, would that you had been so discerning in past. I shall allay your fears, child of phantasm.”

Everything rippled.

“I am Ira Kiopla, the Witch of Dimensions, I’m currently quite busy, so I thought I would call in a favour from this unrepentant rogue”

Ira pointed at Liohk Balreah, who without any gravitas, noisily scratched the back of his head.

“He was to, one way or another, locate my apprentice and extract her from the demi-dimension of the Red Crystal Realm, in this case, he is going to do it using that disgusting eye. You should have no fear, not only will the chlan presence inside not escape, but the artefact will likely be destroyed by the process”

She paused

“In the course of this, he has drug his feet, passed the responsibility onto you and generally made it clear that he doesn’t want me to rely on him for anything or attempt to ensnare him into owing me any favours… as if I willingly spent this favour he owes me. Now, hand the accursed thing over already”

Leshac, cowed by Ira’s stream of words and her assurance, meekly handed the the eye over, wrapped as it was in many shadows.

The cloud of lightning began to move as if the bolts were serpents and not masses of electricity, the pillars arose, reaching out from the pool and its rings, as if they yearned to claw at the cloud.

The shadow wrapped eye did not even touch Balreah’s hands. It floated over above his head and the shadows scattered to reveal that the eye was pulsating as if alive.

There was a genuinely repulsive aura emanating from it, a raging frustration of powerlessness, futility.

-FREE ME!-

The roar shook the air, and pierced Quil and Leshac’s minds like a headache, Balreah and Ira showed no reaction.

“No” Balreah replied.

-I shall grant you whatever you wish!-

Balreah sneered.

“You have not the power. If you did, you would not have been bound, how could such an incomplete being such as you know the scope of my desires, you presume too much”

There was a howl of anger from within the eye, and a sickly yellow glow flickered within it.

“I call judgement” Balreah began, and a bolt shot from the cloud, struck the crimson eye loudly then arched out into the bronze-like petals that surrounded the pool.

The eyes on the petals opened up and the lightning filled them.

“I see the cost with my eyes. I see the punishment, I see her, I see it. I call Judgement”

A trio of bolts this time, and at the same moment, the eyes shot out what they contained towards the white eyes floating in the bowls of the pillars. As soon as the eyes were struck, the blue pillars cracked slightly while the red began to take a bluish tinge.

The new bolts entered the petal eyes, then left on the same path as the first did.

As that happened, the white eyes focused on the crimson eye, and cobalt bolts of lightning struck the crimson eye, causing it to shudder and crack and the liquids of the cobalt ring and the milky ring raged.

“Despair to hope, futility to purpose, I see this, I see return and imprisonment. I call Judgement”

Shudder. Crack. Howls of the Chlan that fears what happens.

“I see separation, I see within, I see binding. I see loosing. I call Judgement”

Shudder. Crack. Howls of the Chlan that feels the bite of the poison it fed others.

“Reversion, that should remain, that which was not meant to remain, this I see. I call Judgement”

Shudder. Crack. Howls of the Chlan that has no recourse.

This went on long enough that Quil and Leshac lost all sense of time.

Finally, when the turquoise mist was nearly spent, the blue pillars nearly crumbled to naught, the red ones almost fully dyed blue, and the cloud of lightning only possessing a few bolts left, Balreah yelled out one last call.

“I see sundering, I see destruction, I see the cracks complete, and I see Judgement complete. Let loose the child of man and beast and woman’s faith, fledgeling host of spirits, unbind her and reduce this to dust. So I see, so I call Judgement.”

The last of the lightning rushed as a body and tore through the eye then to the petal eyes almost blowing them to pieces, from those it leapt to the pillars, the blue ones were indeed blown to dust, but shining cobalt bolts sang out into the eye all the same, and the red ones were fully dyed.

The moment the bolts hit the crimson eye, it flew apart and floating in its place was something that looked more like a cocoon than a little child, a crimson shadow wrapped up by a serpentine shadow.

Liohk Balreah gently floated away from the onyx pool, which had remained still throughout, the cocoon followed him.

Then, Leshac saw something he had never seen before. Liohk Balreah’s feet touched the ground and he walked.

“My, quite a precocious little girl, picking up two familiars of such high potential, I must say Ira, I think your apprentice may be better than all mine combined”

“Hey!” Quil objected.

Ira’s vague form twisted and in the place of her projection was a being that seemed to have the upper body of a monkey though with the mane of a lion, the hindquarters of a lion and the wings of some eagle, though, the whole being looked to be made of glass rather than flesh.

Silently it took hold of the cocoon and then coughed up a crystal. This expanded out into a clear mirror, which it passed through. That same mirror then blew away into dust as if it had fallen apart to a gentle breeze.

“I will not forget this” Ira’s voice resounded, as if she had been done an ill turn.

Liohk Balreah shrugged.

“I guess you can’t do some people a good turn these days”

Then, he turned to Quil and Leshac, and affected surprise.

“Oh my, still here? Do run along now”

Leshac and Quil not quite having taken in what had happened, could only blink and in doing so, when their eyes opened, found themselves outside the Magus of Eyes’ abode. In the cold winds and snow.

“How about we just go home and forget about this whole part of our lives?” Quil asked

“I’m sorry? What are you talking about? Why are we even here?” Leshac joked.

They both laughed and left, glad to have nothing more to do with the crimson eye.

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THE END

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Epilogue: Safe again, and claimed.

Olice looked at the image of her teacher with tears in her eyes.

“Honestly, I can’t go anywhere, just don’t do anything till I get back, ok?” Ira said.

Olice nodded.

Ira sighed.

“I’m glad you are fine, really. I’ll be back soon. Get more familiar with your familiars or something like that.”

Olice nodded silently again.

Ira sighed once more, then she smiled lightly.

“You know, after I get back, I was thinking of going on a little trip”

Olice tried to contain her horror and Ira continued seemingly heedless.

“I’ve not been inside a city built inside a behemoth that many times. I might even take you with me, if you get some more of your reading done”

Olice was confused for a moment, but then realised what Ira was proposing.

“Oh thank you mistress!” Olice said, sadness obliterated by glee.

Ira actually laughed, though it was a bit awkward.

“Y-yes, well, make sure you do some more reading. The seventh volume of common magical mishaps is probably something you should take further to heart”

“Yes mistress!”

A bit taken aback, Ira cut off the image from the mirror she was using, while muttering something intelligible.

“Gander, Gander! Did you hear that? I’m going to see Mother and Father again, You can even see Uncle Baylthom!”

“Yay” Gander, her serpentine and shadowy familiar said unenthusiastically, trying to pretend he wasn’t excited at the idea.

* * * * *

Liohk Balreah, Magus of Eyes stared solemnly at the remains of the ritual.

“Well, I think everything went better than planned” he said to nobody.

He extended a hand over the pool and its rings.

“I see my claim, my dominion”

The pillars that had been dyed blue sailed into the onyx pool.

“I see reconstruction, recreation, alteration”

The rings were drunk up by the pillars, which began to shine.

“I see a connection between the Red Crystal Realm and my part, dyed blue”

The bronze-like barrier crumbled and the dust swept itself into the onyx pool.

“I call Judgement”

The pillars began to swirl together and extended to the air, turning into liquid and creating a sphere in the air.

A cobalt eye.

In short order it was finished and plopped heavily into Liohk’s hand.

The cobalt eye radiated purpose, hope, and a sense of pleased accomplishment.

“Her joy at being freed was better than I expected” He murmured.

A yellow flicker appeared in the depths of the cobalt eye.

“I just need to get rid of you somehow, irritating chlan spectre”

-Just Free me-

“Now now, how could I possibly do something so irresponsible, no, you must be disposed of properly, and I think I can see how to do it, though, I must say, it must be quite painful for a being such as you to be inside this now”

The chlan spirit howled in frustration and Liohk Balreah in turn laughed.

Really, everything had worked out very well.