03-07-2019, 01:23 AM
How easily those dreyken died. At the time, Nikolai quivered with what was miniscule amount of power compared to his present capacity. He was certain that if he wanted, he could crack the core of the planet – even if the effort killed him to do so – but in the infancy of his powers, those three creatures burned a gruesome death. He would have been a poor Atharim, he reconciled with himself. The thrill of that only chase did not spur him toward more action. Others, on the other hand, were more suited to the job. Unbidden, like a virus, Nox’s face came to mind. An Atharim and a channeler, powerful from what he witnessed at the ball, the boy could do more for the safety of mankind than a hundred Atharim living a hundred lifetimes. Perhaps he had been too harsh in his treatment of the boy, but the Ascendancy would not come to rule the world through underestimating opponents. Something to think on later.
It was an intriguing thought that while Nikolai and Garret Ravid cornered dreyken in a car park, young Armande sought his own adventures out there in the great, uncivilized wild somewhere. It humanized his enemy somewhat, the story that followed. A man shaped his whole life for this moment. More stunning revelations. He almost felt sorry for him: a child’s destiny carved from the cradle. It framed Armande’s disposition into the context of a compulsion. He knew no other way of existence. He would never relent while his body drew breath.
They were greater opposites than Nikolai ever appreciated. He blinked, stifling a chill at the recognition of his status as Apollyon, Lord of the Grave, and realized that Armande truly believed him to be the god he knew himself to be. The Atharim didn’t seek to prevent him from conquering the world because he was an evil ruler – Atharim did not intervene during the atrocities of Hitler or Stalin nor depose the reigns of Bloody Queen Mary I or Timur the Lame – they sought his downfall because he could channel. That was all. They didn’t care that he was a fair and just man; that he fostered peace and prosperity; that he was beloved. It was so simple. So obvious.
Nikolai laughed at the absurdity of Armande’s question. The darkness coiling about his feet was snuffed as he sat across the table. “Whom would you suggest is this great diviner? Has Patricus' faith influenced you? I did not take you for a man of the Cloth.”
They were eye to eye now. Fate, design, pattern; they were all the same to Nikolai: irrelevant. But they mattered to Armande. He let his expression fall serious, seeming to consider the question in its significance. “If what you suggest is real, then the end is already decided…”
”…For us both.”
It was an intriguing thought that while Nikolai and Garret Ravid cornered dreyken in a car park, young Armande sought his own adventures out there in the great, uncivilized wild somewhere. It humanized his enemy somewhat, the story that followed. A man shaped his whole life for this moment. More stunning revelations. He almost felt sorry for him: a child’s destiny carved from the cradle. It framed Armande’s disposition into the context of a compulsion. He knew no other way of existence. He would never relent while his body drew breath.
They were greater opposites than Nikolai ever appreciated. He blinked, stifling a chill at the recognition of his status as Apollyon, Lord of the Grave, and realized that Armande truly believed him to be the god he knew himself to be. The Atharim didn’t seek to prevent him from conquering the world because he was an evil ruler – Atharim did not intervene during the atrocities of Hitler or Stalin nor depose the reigns of Bloody Queen Mary I or Timur the Lame – they sought his downfall because he could channel. That was all. They didn’t care that he was a fair and just man; that he fostered peace and prosperity; that he was beloved. It was so simple. So obvious.
Nikolai laughed at the absurdity of Armande’s question. The darkness coiling about his feet was snuffed as he sat across the table. “Whom would you suggest is this great diviner? Has Patricus' faith influenced you? I did not take you for a man of the Cloth.”
They were eye to eye now. Fate, design, pattern; they were all the same to Nikolai: irrelevant. But they mattered to Armande. He let his expression fall serious, seeming to consider the question in its significance. “If what you suggest is real, then the end is already decided…”
”…For us both.”