Revelations

Color retreated from Tomita’s face as he struggled to scream.

“I-I-Izhari?!!!!” he shouted as Mathael raised his hands with murderous intent.

Izhari registered what was happening and threw up her hands in desperation. A simple, faint barrier appeared around the two of them, and Izhari wretched as she tried to send any form of attack towards her target. But the mental anguish and physical drain of teleporting had left her spent. A solitary beam of light ruptured from her staff and hurled towards Mathael, but he simply waved it away.

“Tomita?!” Izhari whimpered in defeat as terror seized her body.

Tomita accepted that this might be the end, and he flung himself over his manager and wrapped her in whatever safety he could muster.

“Izhari, focus on me! Just focus on me! I’ll be with you!!” he shouted as his hand cupped the back of her head.

As he tensed, he felt her paws digging into his back for one final feeling of comfort. This was it.

But then nothing happened.

Cascades of energy poured around them with malicious intent, but the barrier held.

Mathael flicked his hand aside, and the energy bursts ceased. He was close now.

“All these years. All this time. I always felt some powerful concentration of mageworks somewhere in the world, but I could never find it. I knew if it was left unresolved, it would one day appear as the harbinger of my end. And now I have finally found you, voidspeaker…” he growled as his steady, measured steps approached them.

Tomita dared to look at their enormous pursuer.

The dark streaks under his eyes were more clearly visible up close. Golden eyes glinted from the narrowed slits of his crown as tired, hollow breaths pulled precious air into his mouth. He felt empty and exhausted. It was a feeling Tomita knew all too well. He was overworked and breaking.

“Voidspeaker?...” Izhari repeated.

“You are quite powerful. I tried to recall what kingdom you destroyed. I knew they were important to me, but I didn’t know why. They were gone from me. Very impressive. I will give you that. Who was your master?” Mathael asked sincerely.

“I had no master! I was alone my whole life! Then you killed them all! Why?! WHY DID YOU DO ALL OF THIS?!” Izhari pleaded.

“I do not owe a voidspeaker any defense of my actions. Do not dare question me, you base, miserable creature!” he demanded.

“Hey!” Tomita challenged without realizing.

Mathael turned to him and leaned forward.

“W-why do you keep calling her that?” he asked.

Mathael laughed.

“Do you not even know what you are? What your mage-kin were?...” he teased.

Izhari faltered. Something in his tone was cruel, but honest. If there was any more sorrow to her story, it might have been her undoing. But still, she couldn’t resist his riddle.

“No… what… what is a voidspeaker?”

Mathael knelt to be closer to her, fully confident and comfortable that she was of little threat to him. His smile vanished, and a stern look of contempt returned.

“Your mage-kin were killers. Monsters. The most despised form of maji. All other mageworks existed to create peace, healing, and new forms of reality. Voidspeakers were tethered to the arcane of oblivion. All you were ever known for was absolute destruction and terror…”

Tomita felt something sink internally and knew it was another pillar of strength falling over in Izhari’s soul. His hands stayed on her back when he noticed her paws were still clinging to him.

“No… no that can’t be it…” was all she replied.

“I slaughtered all of your mage-kin myself. You were a threat to the peace I was building. ALL maji were threats. So I snuffed their light from this world for all time. And now here you are, the last maji.”

“But you’re a maji!” Tomita shouted.

“And that is why I must be the one to end all of this. The maji and mageworks were a curse on this world. A scourge of egotistical men set on inflicting their vision of existence, no matter the cost.”

“But why did you break the world?! Why shatter everything and destroy all of the libraries and knowledge keepers?!” Izhari begged.

Mathael snarled, and suddenly, winds of white energy flowed around them. Spectres of ages past began to appear, just like the recollections of Currtasi. Only these spectres were of kingdoms far away and ages long lost. Izhari felt them drifting by, and Tomita watched as the images flowed like film reels of Mathael’s mind.

“I wandered this world for centuries, trying to find a spark of hope. Trying to help change things. But the world didn’t want to change. No matter how terrible it was, the regular people couldn’t be bothered to stand up to the maji. All they wanted was escape. As long as they were placated, that was enough. I begged them to change, to strive for something better. But they were content with slaughter- from the maji and from one another. I saw thousands upon thousands die.”

As he spoke, sounds of sorrow and screams of suffering echoed around him. His memories showed moments of horror, as mutilated bodies fell to the ground and races of all kinds impaled and shattered the other. Fires raged. Forests burned. A suffering of cataclysmic scale permeated every image and sound until Tomita couldn’t watch anymore.

Mathael snarled and waved the memories away.

“If you are so foolish as to miss that world or think it deserves to return, I have nothing else to say to you other than I will smile when I sense you are dead…”

“But… This can’t be it! This cannot be the new reality! Millions of peoples, separated and alone, selling one another out, using knowledge for only currency… This cannot be!” Izhari cried out.

Mathael scoffed in annoyance.

“By all means, then, stand and challenge me with your new reality. Let us see what the blind, abandoned voidspeaker envisions for a new reality!” he said with a mocking growl as he spat on the ground.

His words cut into Izhari’s resolve, and even Tomita realized he had no concept of what another reality could be, or what sort of reality Izhari could dare to create.

“Do you know joy? Do you know peace? Do you know tranquility? No! You know death! You know violence and The Void! Your short existence in this realm has already resulted in the total vanquish of an entire people. What could you POSSIBLY know of creating something better? No! I sense that all you have ever cared about is my death. Because all you will ever be is a weapon! A destroyed, faulty one at that…” he said in a low voice as he stood and fixed his robe.

The words had done their damage. Izhari couldn’t respond. Tomita had no retort.

“You are not worth my time, but I can feel that this hume is your familiar. So, I will at least reward you with this death. Let your last moments be in the terror of MY familiar…” he said as he held his left hand to the earth.

“CALATRAVOS! COME AND FEAST!!” he roared as a raging golden hex appeared on the ground beneath his feet.

Before Tomita or Izhari could react, the ground began to tremble all around them. Mathael was vanishing into millions of small flecks of light as he walked away. Before he was gone, he turned to give the two of them one final look of disgust.

“If you survive this, feel free to find my kingdom and witness the birth of my true reality. Though you should hurry, because there isn’t much time left…” he said as the last bits of his form vanished.

Just as he faded, a clawed, bandaged hand that was the size of a house burst forth from the ground.