Abyssal Arcanist [Chapter 15]

Hey peeps!

Another chapter. This time with extra villains!

Shami

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CRACKS IN THE CAGE

It didn’t take long for the others to fall asleep. My brother’s even breathing, and Raaza’s snoring, were telltale signs. Once I heard their symphony of slumber, I sat up on my bed and shook Twain awake.

He stretched, and yawned, and then rolled onto his back. With a paw, he patted his belly. “Scratch me,” he whispered.

“It’s weird when you command it like that,” I muttered.

“Your little nails feel nice. My claws are too sharp.”

I scratched his fuzzy tummy for a short moment before placing my eldrin on the stone floor. “Okay, enough. I need dream manipulation powers, so I’m going to transform you into an ethereal whelk.”

Twain frowned, his whiskers drooping. “Fine. But at some point, I want to be a big dragon again. I like it better when I’m gigantic and intimidating.” He twitched his ears and purred. “I was running around the Academy as an abyssal dragon when you were fighting Deimos. That was so fun.”

“All right. We’ll do it again. At some point. I promise.”

Twain purred in response.

I closed my eyes, and felt the many threads of magic in the Academy. There were the standard eldrin of the people near me—and even the abyssal dragon, from Death Lord Deimos—but I had to really search for distant creatures. Astra Academy had hundreds of arcanists, after all, and many of their magical threads were a mystery to me.

But I would never forget Professor Helmith’s.

Her ethereal whelk, Ushi, had transformed from an iridescent sea snail into her true form… And I couldn’t wait to see Twain as a true form ethereal whelk. When I found the string of magic that led back to Ushi, I tugged on it.

My forehead burned as my arcanist mark shifted. I opened my eyes and watched as Twain’s orange kitten body bubbled and shifted. In a matter of seconds, he went from small, to medium sized. His fur hardened into a spiral shell, and his coloration changed completely. He resembled a puddle of water with oil across it—a rainbowy hue of magic and wonder.

He glowed rather bright, which I hadn’t considered. I glanced over my shoulder, hoping the others wouldn’t wake. In my desperation to remain incognito, I grabbed Twain and pulled him under my blankets.

But Twain’s body in the shell… was just a sea snail with tentacles.

That was the form of a standard ethereal whelk.

A true form ethereal whelk looked like a dream given flesh. It had the body parts of several animals, all merged together to form a single being of wonder.

But Twain wasn’t that. He was standard ethereal whelk, and it irritated me slightly. I grabbed his shell and rubbed the spiral shape with my palm.

“Why aren’t you transforming all the way?” I whispered.

Under the blankets, with Twain’s body glowing bright, it felt like we were camping all over again.

“I have transformed,” Twain replied, his voice identical to Ushi’s. He wiggled his tentacles. “See?”

“No—transform into Helmith’s true form eldrin.”

“Um. I don’t think I can.” Twain’s snail body sagged. “This is the only form I can take.”

I frowned as I turned him around, examining his shell from all angels. He was surprisingly light—like he weighed almost nothing at all. That made sense. Ethereal whelks could float through the air, and supposedly, they were made from nothing but light.

“If you were a true form mimic, do you think you could transform into a true form ethereal whelk?” I asked.

Twain used his tentacles to shrug.

That was disappointing. If I had access to Helmith’s ability to permanently put someone to sleep, perhaps I could handle the Death Lord without involving anyone else. That way, Professor Helmith wouldn’t ever have to put herself in danger on my behalf.

I needed to find a way to transform Twain.

But that would have to wait.

I rested back on my bed and placed Twain on my chest. “Okay, here’s the plan. You watch over me while I sleep, and if anything happens, wake me.”

Twain gently cuddled me with his tentacles. “I’ll protect you, Gray.”

I smiled as I patted his shell. Then I closed my eyes again and forced myself to drift off into the realm of sleep. Nothing about the process was new to me. I had dreamwalked hundreds of times before, so when I opened my eyes afterward, I knew exactly what to expect.

Which was why I was shocked when the dream wasn’t anything like before.

I sat up and found myself in a dark coliseum. Somehow—perhaps through dream logic—it was underground. The ceiling high above was dark and marked at a few locations with stones jutting down.

The stands were mostly empty, and I stood between two benches.

The oval-shaped coliseum had stands that overlooked the fighting pit in the center. It wasn’t a normal arena, where the fighters were cheered and the stands filled with people from all walks of life. The arcanists in the pit came out of caged areas, their eldrin chained to them, so that neither could leave easily.

In the fog of the dream, it was difficult to make out details.

I heard the rumble of booing, though. People threw things from the stands, their anger infectious. They hated the arcanists in the arena, and when the clash of iron rang out through the coliseum, there was cheering.

I rubbed the side of my head, confused by the spectacle. It seemed the audience wanted the gladiators to die. I had never heard of something like that. Most coliseums I knew of were for sportsman-like competition.

After I took a breath, I held up a hand. I could manipulate the dream—and change my surroundings—but I paused once I realized the stone of the coliseum resembled the stone found in places of the Academy. Black rocks that shimmered as if perpetually wet were dotted throughout the coliseum. Some walls were made of the material, and even several of the benches.

That was odd.

The cheering and bloodlust echoed all around me. If I could see the fights, perhaps this would’ve been interesting, but all I sensed was the violence and hate.

“Mimic arcanist,” a voice said, so gruff and hostile, it caused a shiver to shoot down my spine.

I turned on my heel and caught my breath.

A stone cage was built into the stands. It was bizarre, and clearly a product of the dreamscape. The bars of the cage were fused with the ground, and the three walls of the cell were attached to the stands and even the awning above.

The interior of the cage was steeped in darkness so thick I couldn’t see the individual inside. Despite that, I knew who it was.

The cage was a representation of Professor Helmith’s true form magic. Her ability to trap Death Lord Deimos in a permanent slumber clearly took the form of this imprisonment.

I walked to the stone bars, the dream coliseum solidifying more around me. The smell of sweat and burnt flesh permeated the space. Everything was cold, and the air thick. When I stopped in front of Deimos’s prison, the scent of blood mixed into the aroma, creating a terrible musk.

What was this place? It didn’t look like anything I had dreamt of before.

“Release me,” Deimos commanded from within the cage. “Keeping me here only delays the inevitable.”

He always sounded confident, no matter his hand or situation.

I ignored him, though. Instead, I examined the bars of the cage. Obviously, something about his presence was influencing me. I knew an archery style I had never even heard of, and my dreams were filled with foreign people and places. This was all Deimos’s doing, I’d bet my life on it.

So I focused on the stonework of the prison, and it didn’t take me long to realize there were cracks at the base of the structure. They spread across the stone like spiderwebs—tiny and subtle, but clearly there.

Was Helmith’s magic not strong enough to hold Deimos? His abyssal dragon magic was powerful, just as the headmaster stated.

What was I supposed to do about this?

“It’s only a matter of time before I free myself.”

I glanced up, shocked to find Deimos standing just a few inches on the other side of the bars. This was the first time I was just next to him, like we were chums having a pleasant chat. He was just as intimidating as I remembered, his posture stiff, as though he were tense and ready to strike at any moment.

He wore armor made of white bone and dark gray metal. Up close, I realized it was intricately woven together, forming “scales” of bone that accented his formidable physique. The iron and crude steel was interesting in a horrific way.

Parts of Deimos’s armor were just… hooked into him? I stared for a long moment, almost disbelieving what I saw. It was as if the armor had been sewn onto parts of his body. Was that to prevent it from being removed? Was that even effective? He wasn’t actively bleeding, and I wondered why.

The Death Lord had his black hair slicked back, showcasing his arcanist mark. The seven-point star was laced with the creepy visage of the abyssal dragon.

His eyes were dark—nearly black—but a hint of yellow circled his irises. What a strange coloration.

Deimos didn’t seem to mind me staring. He just met my gaze with something icy. In the resulting silence, I could’ve sworn he was bored with me.

I didn’t know why, but the fact he was taller—like my brother—bothered me more than anything else. I wondered if there was any way I could just kill him inside his cage, but I didn’t know where to start. This was just a fragment of his soul, and I had fought it before. Even when I damaged him, Deimos seemed unconcerned.

“Mimic arcanist,” he said again.

“Gray,” I corrected. “My name is Gray.”

Deimos clicked his tongue in dismissal. “Tch. Never choose your name if you can use a title instead, child.”

Child?

Right. Deimos was ancient.

“Listen, old man,” I said, unable to restrain my sarcasm. “Why don’t you just sit tight and stop trying to break out this.” I gestured to the cage.

“I have promises to fulfill—arcanists to lead—and you’re standing in the way.”

With a chuckle, I said, “Obviously, no one wants you around. You were locked in the abyssal hells, and now you’re locked away in a dream. Maybe you should take a hint and stop.”

I knew that being sardonic wasn’t the best way to handle this, but what was I supposed to say? At least I could amuse myself while in this dreamworld. Then again, perhaps agitating him wasn’t the best move.

Despite my goading, though, Deimos remained unfazed. He didn’t even appear bothered or upset.

“I never relent,” Deimos stated, his tone low. “That’s why they’re afraid—why they’re all afraid—because they know they can never win.”

“Well, I would really appreciate it if you at least took a break.” I placed my hand on the cage and imagined it strengthening. Perhaps normal ethereal whelk magic could fix some of the cracks. “I didn’t want to get wrapped up into this, ya know. You forced all this on me, and it’d be great if you just let me attend Astra Academy in peace.”

I tried to manipulate the dream—this prison—to be stronger than before. However, the more I focused, the more I realized it wasn’t working. Helmith’s true form magic was just stronger than anything I had access to.

It was like trying to repair a brick wall with water. Splashing the holes in the structure wasn’t going to do anything. It could even make things worse.

I removed my hand from the cage.

“Release me,” Deimos commanded again. “And I’ll leave you and your Academy alone.”

I huffed a single laugh. “Nice try.”

“I have no interest in your education or that pathetic institution. I must correct the balance of the abyssal hells—and then I’ll take my rightful place as ruler. Just as I was promised millennia ago.”

“Uh-huh.” I rubbed my ear and then shrugged. “That’s great. Look, you can’t trick me that easily. I’m not letting you out of here. Ever. And once I find the magic to permanently seal you away, I’m going to use it.”

I thought this would anger the Death Lord, but again, he made no indication that I had rattled him. If anything, it was the opposite. The man smirked.

“You got something to say?” I asked.

“You act as though I’m a fiend. It amuses me.”

I shook my head. “You are.”

“Believe whatever you want to believe, because I don’t mind being the villain in your story—you’re just a corpse in mine.”

I huffed another laugh and then turned on my heel. Big talk. However, if Deimos ever got free, he would probably make good on that statement, but if I managed to keep his confined… These were all empty threats.

The roar of the coliseum shook me. I had almost forgotten where I was. The dream maintained the details, right down to the thick and sour smells. This was more of a memory than a proper dreamscape.

Something Deimos once experienced.

However, there was a second reason I visited my dream—more than just repairing the cage. I slowly turned back around, wondering if I ruined my chance to get a straight answer.

Death Lord Deimos remained near the bars. He watched me with his keen gaze, and I wondered what he was studying.

“I have a question,” I muttered. “You once… mentioned that you would harm my mother’s soul. I need to know—did you?”