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    TWENTY-ONE


    <h2 style="text-transform: uppercase">SARIEN</h2>


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    In the end, the Council never came for them and the few guards they spotted must have taken them for drunks. They stumbled through the streets with Kax following close behind them. By then, both his normal appearance and clothes returned to him from within his own void.


    By the time they found safe refuge in a busy tavern, Sarien’s chest heaved and his headache had only grown worse. When Kax placed tankards of beer in front of each of them, his stomach turned at the yeasty smell.


    Sofia returned from the far corner of the raucous tavern floor where she had been speaking with a man. “We’ll have the location of a hideout within the hour.”


    “You don’t know where the resistance is located?” Sarien asked.


    “It changes often. I’ll come get you in a while,” Sofia said before heading out again.


    Ein glanced between Sarien and Kax, then cleared his throat and stood, grabbing his drink. “I’ll be nearby. Shout for me if Wayfarers start appearing out of nowhere.”


    “Father, wait,” Sarien said. “How long was I gone? Did you get the medallions?”


    “Five hours,” Ein said, rummaging through his pockets and coming away with two of the medallions they needed to come and go through the barrier around Nexus. He tossed them to Sarien, who fumbled and dropped both to the floor.


    Before they hit the ground, Kax’s hand blurred, and then he was holding both out to Sarien. He still wore his own from before. “So, what did I miss?”


    “Daisy is a person, well, Spawn, and is my half-sister. Her father is Wyndemir. The Council who rules here is on Wyndemir’s side and they’re working with the high priest from Rhinerien. They’re using the Prime’s power for their own goals and have taken over both Nexus and Sanctum. Maydian is next. They plan to give our world away. My mother is on the council and is actively working against us.”


    Kax blinked. “You have a sister?”


    “Half-sister.”


    “Who is a dog?”


    “I’m not actually sure myself.”


    “Where is she?”


    Sarien held up his palms. “More importantly, are you well? What happened to you?”


    Kax’s familiar grin fell away for a moment before it reasserted itself. “You know, I’m not wholly sure about that myself. Those Slayers were able to grab me and toss me into the void.”


    “But then you weren’t there.”


    “I was there. It’s difficult to explain. The void they put me in was small and cramped, then its walls sort of bled away as my own void expanded across an infinite nothingness.” Kax paused to think on his own words, then shook his head. “I’m not explaining it right.”


    “No, I think I understand. Please continue,” Sarien said.


    “It spoke to me.”


    “The void?”


    Kax scratched the table with the tip of his finger, making a shallow groove in the wood. “Not exactly. The void is one thing, this other is something else, but still part of it. Like an aspect maybe? I’m not great with words.”


    “What did it say?”


    “That’s the thing, I’m not sure. It has called me its avatar, like I’m supposed to do something for it. Those I killed used to line up in here,” he pointed at his chest, “but they’re all gone. It’s empty now. I’m empty. That’s what it wanted, for me to be empty.”


    “Why?”


    “Something about making room, and about me being a vessel. Found it kind of hard to focus when I didn’t have a body. Strange experience, I have to tell you.” Kax paused. “I think it just wants me to be more like it.”


    “I have a bad feeling about this,” Sarien said.


    Kax shrugged. “I don’t feel any different, so it’s probably fine.”


    Sarien was about to reply when the tavern door blew off its hinges and into a table full of patrons. Voices raised in alarm and the men scattered.


    “Sarien!” Ein shouted as a person dressed in a white tunic with a matching mask entered. Soldiers with drawn swords rushed in.


    “Sarien Wald. Ein Wald. You will come with me. Quietly and peacefully.” The voice of the masked man was not one Sarien recognized among the council members who spoke the other day. This one sounded young. Arrogant.


    Fire blossomed in Ein’s hand. “I don’t think so.”


    The Council member scoffed. “Do you expect me to believe you’d use your powers here, in such a crowded room?”


    Ein lobbed a roaring flame in an arc above everyone’s heads. To Sarien’s surprise, it hit the man. Fire burned through his tunic but was immediately extinguished by means Sarien couldn’t see.


    “You dare attack me, Slayer?” their opponent hissed. “I am Francesca de la Truz. Submit to your betters!” Where the fabric fell away in ash, Sarien saw writhing masses of pink and purple flesh oozing with clear and grayish pus. A stench filled the room, and it only grew worse when Francesca’s arm elongated and then split into multiple fleshy tendrils. One of them whipped for Ein but struck a bystander. The man screamed, but by the time he hit the floor, he was already dead.


    The soldiers charged. Kax got out of his chair and stepped between Sarien and the attackers. None of the soldiers survived Kax’s charge.


    More of the tavern patrons were struck by the whipping tendrils, and Sarien ducked to avoid being hit.


    “Franny!” Ein bellowed, fire billowing from the palm of his hand in a torrent. Before it struck Francesca, his other arm grew wide and unwieldy. The flame hit the impromptu shield, making the Council member’s skin pop and sizzle, but did little else.


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    Sarien gagged from the stench. Embracing his gray flame, he watched as Francesca summoned a white light. The Wayfarer’s eyes shimmered with purple as Wyndemir’s chaos manifested. The corrupted light consumed Ein’s flames. Sarien planted himself between his father and their opponent.


    “Stop this now!” Sarien shouted.


    Most of the patrons had fled, but a few crowded the door to escape. Wreckage scattered across the floor.


    “I’d like to see you try!” Francesca replied.


    Nausea ran through Sarien as his gray flame touched and struggled against the purple and white. His own power was far stronger, but the sickening sensation made it difficult to concentrate. He bent down to pick up a fallen soldier’s sword. He couldn’t kill him. They needed answers.


    When he straightened, Kax stood by Francesca’s side. He looked up at the hulking monstrosity with deliberation, then swung his sword.


    “Kax, no!”


    But it was too late. Francesca’s arm flopped to the floor with a thud. Pus and brown ichor sprayed from his stump. The purple tint in Francesca’s eyes disappeared.


    Sarien rushed forward. Kax thrusted upward into Francesca’s neck, continuing up into his skull.


    As the corrupted Wayfarer died, Kax held his sword in place, letting it slice Francesca’s head in two. The room fell into silence as the three regarded the carnage.


    Ein was first to speak. “Think you can get the barrier up again, son?”


    “Why didn’t he appear through a gateway? Mundane, to say the least, to kick down a door,” Kax said.


    “Very few can move through the wayfaring with the ease of Sarien here.”


    Sarien established the same barrier as before, looking down at the dead Wayfarer. “Thought they would be more of a challenge.”


    “You’ve got a legendary hero with you, as well as some sort of creature of the void.”


    “Don’t call yourself a creature of the void,” Kax said.


    “I’m the legendary hero.”


    Kax got down to one knee, rummaging through Francesca’s robe, grumbling, “<i>I’m</i> the legendary hero.”


    Sofia entered. She surveyed the broken tables, chairs, and mugs of spilled ale, as well as the fallen soldiers. Without saying a word, she backed away outside. A moment later, her head poked back in. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”


    They made it to their destination without further incident. In it, they found Rasmus, Len, and a gray-haired and steely-looking woman who sat with a posture so straight it made Sarien self-conscious about his own slouch.


    Straightening, Sarien asked. “I’m sorry, but are we waiting for more Slayers?”


    Ein looked at Rasmus and Len with a smug grin. “There’s always a resistance.”


    Kax kept a lookout outside their meeting place, a nondescript townhouse.


    Sofia fell with a heavy thud into one of the wooden chairs. “We can’t risk everyone gathering in the same spot. I’m sure you can understand that.”


    “Of course, I’m sorry.” He looked at the seated members of the Slayer resistance. “I’m Sarien and I’m going to overthrow the Council. <i>We’re</i> going to overthrow the Council, I mean. Together.”


    Doubt was plain on their faces. Rasmus turned to Ein. “You said this boy is yours?”


    “He is.”


    “Sounds like he inherited your sense of the grandiose, if not the penchant for public speaking,” the woman said.


    Sarien felt his face redden. “I’m going to Sanctum to free the Slayers.”


    “Now I’m hearing more of you in him,” the old woman said, elbowing Ein.


    Sofia slammed her palm onto the table, causing everyone to jump. “The boy is a Wayfarer, and he is willing to fight against his own. You three came here to hear him out, so let him speak and stop making fun of my nephew.”


    Rasmus leaned over the table, adjusting his glasses. “Quite the family reunion this is. I wasn’t lying when I said there wasn’t a rebellion, you know? For years, it’s only been us and a few other stragglers. We can’t beat them. The only reason we’re not dead is because they need us. Once their plans come to fruition, Slayers will be needed to deal with the fallout they’ve created.” He shrugged. “If we just wait, things might improve.”


    “Once Wyndemir takes over Maydian, things will go from bad to worse. I’m sure of it,” Sarien said. He couldn’t believe how little these people seemed to care. “Don’t you want to help your fellow Slayers?”


    Len fingered his wooden pole, not looking up from the table’s surface. “We don’t even know what to expect from Sanctum. They might be fine over there.”


    “Cowards!” Sofia spat, then stood suddenly, her chair falling with a clatter. “Let’s get out of here. You three better come crawling on your knees when we’ve rescued everyone and thrown the Council in a particularly nasty void cell!”


    The old woman’s back stiffened even more, and she glared back, speaking in a hissing tone full of accusations. “You led Slayers into battle against the Wayfarers before. You know what will happen. Not all of us want to end up as a pile of gore.”


    “I can fight them,” Sarien said.


    Rasmus sighed. “How?”


    “Show him,” Ein said.


    Frustrated, Sarien breathed in deep. As he breathed out, his gray flame manifested in the palm of his hand. Four sets of wide eyes stared. Their slack-jawed expressions made Sarien stand a little taller.


    “What is that?” Rasmus finally asked.


    “My father is a Slayer and my mother a Wayfarer. I was born with both.”


    “Why does it look like that?” Len asked.


    Ein’s face twisted in concentration and he brought forth a pyromancer’s flame in his left hand, a Slayer’s darkness in his right. A moment later, the darkness flickered and danced, almost like a flame. “He was born in Maydian. Fire mages, you know?” Sweat poured down his father’s face and he closed both fists. Both flames disappeared.


    The old woman held out her hand. A surprisingly powerful orb of darkness manifested, but no matter how much she concentrated, she could not change its shape. Sarien felt the woman’s slaying through his gray flame, and, without thinking, reached for it.


    Just like with Thys’s form of wayfaring, Sarien felt the power in front of him, but he could also sense it coursing through the woman and the others in the room. Carefully, he began to siphon some of the flow. He only took a little, but soon found more and more pouring from the woman into himself, like a dam that’d burst.


    Her face turned white and Sarien forced his gray flame back. The woman’s power surged through him.


    “I can do the same with Wayfarers, and use it against them,” he said, trying to sound calm and collected when the energy crackling through him made him want to run, jump, and fight.


    Kax entered the room, swords in hand. “What is happening in here? I felt it outside!”


    “Might have been me, sorry,” Sarien said, forcing the last of his gray flame back inside him.


    Kax gave him a wary look but dismissed his swords and prepared to leave.


    “Hold on,” Sarien said, gesturing to the three Slayers. “We’ll be leaving now. Will you come with us and help free your brethren?”


    Rasmus’s glasses were dangerously close to falling off his nose again. He leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms. “No.”


    “No?” Ein asked through clenched teeth.


    Len looked from Rasmus to Ein, then to Sofia, and finally to Sarien. “No.”


    “No,” the old woman agreed. “You can take my power, boy. So what? Throwing my lot in with a young man barely past boyhood just because you have a strange new power? I don’t think so.”


    Sofia’s face was a mask of disbelief, and her voice wavered when she spoke. “The last act of the resistance is an act of cowardice. Shameful.”


    The three glared at her, but none spoke.


    Kax leaned against the doorframe. “We’re done here then? Can we go now? I didn’t come with you to go around talking to people, Sarien.”


    “The time for talking is over,” Sarien agreed, opening himself up to the wayfaring. The medallion he wore allowed him passage through the Council’s barrier. Beyond that, it was easy to locate Sanctum through the collective bond of the Slayers in the room. It stood out like a beacon of light, perhaps because they all thought of it as home.


    He opened a gateway to the home world of his father. It hung in the air, shimmering with a border of glowing silver. “Let’s go find the Slayers.”


    Kax jumped through before it fully opened, and Sofia wasn’t far behind. Ein gave the Slayers a look of contempt before following.


    “Good luck,” Rasmus said as Sarien stepped through last. It sounded genuine, but with a tone of resignation.


    Wind whipped through his hair and rain splattered against his face. They stood on a hill overlooking a city. All appeared normal except that it was night and not a single flicker of light could be seen below. The overcast sky meant there was very little natural light to see by, and Sarien’s first thought was that the entire city was painted black, like much of Nexus was painted white. However, on closer inspection, he realized he was wrong.


    The city was deserted.