Chapter 19: The Shattered Mind
High Priest Malakor plunged into the soul of the new consort expecting to find the terrified weeping spirit of a broken poet. He expected to find secrets of stolen manifests and petty treason.
Instead Malakor stepped into an abyss of absolute terrifying scale.
The magic of the soul binding elixir worked perfectly. It forced Malakor to experience the true nature of the soul he was probing. But the soul inside this body did not belong to this world.
Malakor’s mind was instantly flooded with the memories of Earth. He saw towering monoliths of glass and steel that scraped the sky. He saw metal machines flying through the clouds. He saw the cold ruthless flow of global stock markets digital data and corporate warfare. He felt the sheer crushing weight of a world built on logic mathematics and absolute predatory capitalism.
And then Malakor saw the System.
The slate grey interface materialized in the High Priest’s mind. It was a construct of pure alien logic. It was a power that did not rely on the dark gods or the shadows. It was cold calculating and infinitely vast.
Malakor was a man who worshipped the dark but he was still just a man from a feudal kingdom. His brain could not comprehend the sheer volume of information the digital architecture or the terrifying alien nature of the reincarnated soul.
The connection overloaded.
In the grand banquet hall Silas opened his eyes. They were completely calm.
High Priest Malakor let out a sound that was not human. It was a high pitched shrieking wail of absolute mind shattering agony.
The skeletal man ripped his hand away from Silas’s forehead as if he had touched a burning star. Malakor stumbled backward knocking the Chalice of Shadows to the stone floor. The dark wine spilled across the flagstones like blood.
"No!" Malakor screamed clawing at his own face. Blood began to pour from his blind white eyes and his nose. "The void! The metal towers! It is not human! It is a machine of cold iron!"
The entire banquet hall erupted into panicked shouts. Lords and ladies stood up knocking over their chairs.
Lady Seraphina stared in absolute horror. The trap had failed. Silas had not confessed. Instead the magic had somehow broken the most powerful sorcerer in the empire.
Queen Ravena stood up her silver eyes wide with shock and sudden intense fascination. She looked at Silas who was sitting perfectly still watching the High Priest thrash on the floor.
"Guards!" Ravena shouted her voice cutting through the panic. "Secure the High Priest!"
But before the royal guards could reach Malakor the second trap was sprung.
The heavy wooden side doors of the banquet hall burst open with a deafening crash.
Two dozen men flooded into the room. They wore no uniforms and carried rusted brutal weapons. They were the unregistered mercenaries from the fighting pits. General Draven’s secret assassins.
"Rebels!" someone screamed from the crowd.
Chaos consumed the hall. The mercenaries charged forward flipping tables and swinging their blades. But they did not attack the nobles. They carved a direct path toward the consort table. They were looking for Silas.
Lysander scrambled backward a triumphant grin breaking through his panic. The magic had failed but the blades would not.
Silas did not draw a weapon. He did not have one. But his upgraded Perception stat allowed him to see the chaotic battlefield in slow motion. He saw the lead mercenary charging at him with a raised battleaxe.
Silas simply stepped to the right.
He moved with perfect calculated precision. He grabbed the back of Lysander’s pristine white tunic and violently shoved the golden haired consort directly into the path of the charging mercenary.
Lysander shrieked as the mercenary collided with him. The two men tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and spilled wine.
Silas did not wait to see if Lysander survived. He vaulted over the obsidian table and sprinted directly toward the raised dais. He was not running away. He was running toward the Queen.
Two mercenaries broke from the pack and charged up the steps of the dais aiming their weapons at Ravena to make the rebel attack look authentic.
Ravena raised her hands her fingers dripping with dark shadow magic. But before she could cast a single spell Silas threw himself in front of her.
He tackled the first mercenary sending them both crashing down the marble steps. Silas used the man’s own momentum to snap his wrist disarming him instantly.
The second mercenary raised his sword to strike Silas down.
Suddenly a massive spike of solid black shadow erupted from the floor piercing the second mercenary straight through the chest. The man dropped dead instantly.
Ravena stood at the top of the stairs her eyes blazing with lethal magical power. She unleashed a wave of pure darkness across the hall. The shadows wrapped around the remaining mercenaries crushing their armor and snapping their bones in a symphony of brutal violence.
Within seconds the attack was over. The banquet hall was a graveyard of broken mercenaries and shattered glass.
Silas stood up brushing the dirt from his tunic. He looked down at the mercenary he had disarmed. The man was groaning clutching his broken wrist.
General Draven and his City Guards finally burst through the main doors weapons drawn. They were intentionally late.
"Secure the room!" Draven roared marching toward the dais. He looked at the dead mercenaries and then at Silas. The General’s scarred face twitched with absolute fury. Silas was still alive.
"Your Majesty," Draven said kneeling before the Queen. "I apologize for the delay. These rebel scum must have picked the locks on the side doors."
Silas stepped forward standing right beside the Queen.
"That is a fascinating theory General," Silas said his voice echoing clearly in the silent blood soaked hall. "But the side doors of the banquet hall are secured with heavy iron deadbolts from the outside. They cannot be picked. They can only be unlocked by someone who holds the keys."
Silas pointed a steady finger at Draven.
"And the only men who hold those keys," Silas concluded his voice cold and absolute, "are the officers of your City Guard."
