Deliverance (39 page)

“What is that?” Crystal asked.

Just then, a booming explosion was heard
outside followed by echoing maniacal laughter in the distance.

“I will explain on the way! We need to stop
Bogdan before his transformation finishes!” Bredewig cried.

“Why? What’s going on?” Crystal asked, but
the elders had already turned around and began moving towards the
exit.

Crystal then marched forward as well and
shouted, “All right, then. Rebels, follow me into the final
battle!”

The rebels all cheered in unison and before
she continued forward, Crystal stopped Gavril and said, “By the
way, Father sad to tell you ‘Thank you.’”

Gavril’s face lit up and he shook his head
amusingly. He then muttered, “I’ll be damned.”

Crystal then turned to Blaze and told him,
“And he also said that he’s planning to hold you to your promise,
although I have no idea what he meant.”

To her surprise and even further confusion,
Blaze laughed and bowed his head.

“What’s so funny?” Crystal asked him.

Blaze looked up after a few seconds and
answered, “I’ll tell you later.”

“Okay then, let’s go,” Crystal replied. She
then walked forward and Blaze and Gavril marched on either side of
her, ready to defend her to the death.

****

As Crystal walked through the castle to get
to the front entrance, she heard more explosions and screaming from
the townspeople. Elder Bredewig continued to explain the short
version of what he discovered, mainly about how the story about
Gaull wasn’t entirely true.

“I found an old diary among Saitar’s things
that was written by Gaull himself!” Bredewig shouted over the
booming noises outside, “As it turns out, Gaull was not a demon at
all, but a human! As a matter of fact, he was actually the high
elder of the City of Magi over five hundred years ago, and he was
what is known as a hybrid mage; he could command both elemental and
dark magic.”

Crystal then replied, “Malcolm told me that
I was a hybrid mage as well, only I can use holy magic along with
elemental magic!”

“That does make more sense than you becoming
a holy mage out of nowhere.” Bredewig replied and then continued,
“Anyway, I found out that Gaull became obsessed with dark magic and
wanted to become the most powerful dark mage that ever lived. Gaull
not only achieved this power, but he also became a demon. No one
knows exactly how he did it, but the one thing he still had not
achieved was immortality. Gaull claimed in the diary that he feared
death more than anything, and so he linked part of his soul to the
stone pillar to prevent his soul from passing should his body
perish.”

“You mean that pillar wasn’t a prison?”
Gavril questioned.

“No, it was not! In fact, Gaull was not
defeated by holy mages either! It was a noble warrior that managed
to defeat him, but instead of dying, Gaull’s soul became part of
the stone, and the other part materialized into the gem. I found
out in other documents that Gaull’s son spread the lie about the
holy mages and kept the Eye of Gaull hidden in the Elder’s Hall and
for several generations, Gaull’s descendants have been trying to
find a worthy human sacrifice to pass Gaull’s soul into,” Bredewig
explained.

“A sacrifice?” Blaze questioned.

“Yes! That is precisely why Saitar could not
use the Eye himself: because he is a descendant of Gaull and needed
to find the right host for Gaull to be reborn into. Bogdan will not
be gaining Gaull’s power, Gaull will be gaining Bogdan’s mind,
body, and soul!” Bredewig exclaimed.

They were now running through the first
floor corridors and Crystal could hear her heart thumping in her
head. She then shouted, “So why did Saitar choose Bogdan?”

“The host needed to be someone with a
strong, but very wicked heart. The host could not know about the
true story because they were not supposed to be a willing
sacrifice. Bogdan was the perfect choice because of his greed and
lust for power, and Saitar knew that he would find to keep his
consciousness once possessed. Now that Bogdan has Gaull trapped
inside his body, he is slowly going to lose his mind to the demon.
This will grant Gaull the immortality he lusted after for so long,
because the more Bogdan will fight the final transformation, the
stronger Gaull will be! Not only that, but he will be able to erase
any form of light in the world and throw off the balance forever!
In other words, Crystal, if you do not defeat Bogdan before he
transforms again, there will be nothing in this world or any other
that will be able to stop him from eradicating all forms of life!”
Bredewig cried.

Crystal now began to run through the front
entrance of the castle towards the drawbridge, and once she was
across, she came across a familiar, yet unnerving sight. The same
monsters that they had seen in the mansion ruins were now swarming
the streets of Cartigo and attacking the townspeople. Several
Daldussan soldiers tried to defend themselves, but many of them
were killed quickly.

Crystal turned to a group of rebels on her
right and shouted, “Go and protect the villagers from those
monsters!”

After informing the elders to use thunder
spells to weaken the monsters, Crystal then asked them to do the
same. After wishing Crystal good luck, the five elders then entered
the battle as well.

The sun was setting in the sky and turning
the horizon an eerie red color. Dark clouds had formed and the land
trembled at the sound of Bogdan’s booming, sadistic laughter.
Crystal spotted Bogdan flying around overhead, shooting dark fire
beams at the buildings and cackling madly.

“It’s almost like he thinks this is a game!”
Gavril exclaimed in disbelief.

“I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he
did,” Blaze remarked.

“What do we do now, Boss?” Taryn asked
Crystal.

Crystal stared up at Bogdan and thought up a
plan. She then answered, “We have to get him away from the
townspeople. I need to get his attention focused on myself
somehow!”

“Let’s go to the town square.” Gavril said,
“It’s a large area, so we can get the rest of the rebels to
evacuate the villagers out of that area.”

“Good idea, Gavril. Let’s go!” Crystal
replied.

The rebels ran through the town slicing
through monsters on their way there as Crystal used more thunder
spells on them. She passed the word along to all of her friends
what they were going to need to do in the battle and instructed
them to wait for her to command them to start. She would initiate
the battle and only asked that everyone covered her while she used
her power, and not a single person was against the request.

The rebels made their way to the town
square, which was already empty, and Crystal walked into the middle
of the wide street. She told Blaze and Gavril to stay behind and
wait for her to make her move when they tried to follow her, and
they grudgingly agreed and stayed their ground.

Crystal now stood all alone and exposed in
the middle of the square, which is exactly what she wanted.

“Bogdan! I am here to bring your demise!
Come down here and fight me!” she called at the top of her lungs.
She then sent a flare signal in the sky with her hands. The ball of
fire shot up over a hundred feet in the air and exploded in the
sky. Though this did not cause any harm, nor did it even touch
Bogdan, it did alert him of Crystal’s presence. Once he saw her,
Bogdan swooped down from the sky and landed with a crash on the
ground in front of her.

The force of his feet landing onto the
ground caused a huge gust of wind to blow Crystal’s hair and the
bottom of her robe backwards, but she did not even flinch.

“How many times are you going to cheat death
before I can finally be rid of you!” the monstrous Bogdan bellowed.
His voice was deep and distorted from the transformation, and his
body had become bigger and uglier since the first phase. His eyes
were still the same colors except for the white part of his right
eye, which was now black. His black hair no longer had any gray in
it and had grown much longer. His skin was rough and covered in
spikes and scales and was a dark gray color now. His enormous wings
had a span of at least twenty-five feet and he now had a long tail
with spikes on the end.

“I will never be gone until you are, Bogdan,
or should I say Gaull?” Crystal rebuked.

Bogdan roared with laughter that was so
loud, the ground almost felt like it shook from a quake. Bogdan
peered down at Crystal with a fanged grin and retorted, “Gaull is
no one anymore. His power is mine now!”

Just then, Bogdan’s body began to shift and
distort again. He glowed with an eerie black aura and began to grow
even bigger. He laughed more and muttered, “Yes . . . here it is,
the final transformation!”

“NO! Bogdan stop!” Crystal yelled.

“Silence! Now nothing can stop me!” Bogdan
screeched. He laughed maniacally over Crystal’s warnings until he
finally stopped and stammered, “Wait . . . what’s happening?”

Bogdan stumbled around as he continued to
shift form, and suddenly a different, more menacing voice came from
him and growled, “FOOLISH MAN! I WILL BE FREE!”

Bogdan’s lips moved with the voice, but he
was clearly not the speaker, for he then replied, “NO! I have your
power now! You will stay imprisoned where you belong!”

“THAT’S IT, HUMAN,” Gaull’s booming and
sharp voice taunted, “FIGHT ME WITH ALL OF YOUR WRETCHED SOUL!
STRENGTHEN ME!”

“Never! I will be the new dark god of this
world!” Bogdan screamed. He placed his clawed hands to his face and
continued to scream and fight the transformation.

Crystal desperately needed to act fast, so
she called out to the beast before her one last time.

“Bogdan! Gaull! Whomever I am speaking to!”
she yelled. Bogdan stopped struggling momentarily to stare her
down, but she looked up at him with fearless confidence and said,
“Bogdan, you are a selfish, heartless, and ruthless man. You have
destroyed countless lives and now you stand here at the brink of
destruction. I have come a long way and learned many things in the
past ten years. The people I have encountered have strengthened me
beyond belief; you say that having a heart makes a person weak, but
in truth, it is the contrary. Caring about others makes me
stronger, because when my loved ones’ lives are in peril, I stop at
nothing to protect them.

“But despite all that you’ve done and all
that you’ve taken from me, I would never have those people
supporting me and making me stronger. I would never have developed
the strongest traits I have if not for you, and so Bogdan, I am
here to tell you that I forgive you!”

Crystal lifted her arms in the air and
suddenly, a white light appeared in between them. Bogdan stepped
backward out of shock and fear, and in a split second, Crystal’s
body glowed with a white aura again and the light in her hands shot
towards Bogdan. The light surrounded his entire body and he
shrieked with pain as if he were being swallowed by flames. Crystal
kept her concentration on him as he struggled against her
power.

Crystal continued to glow and as soon as
Bogdan tried to fly again, she shouted, “Kerali, attack his
wings!”

On cue, Kerali led a dozen elven and human
archers in an attack with a swarm of arrows that penetrated his
enormous wings. The arrows kept him steady and close to the ground,
but he was still able to stay afloat.

“Maryn! Taryn! Get him out of the air!”
Crystal cried.

The twins and several rogues, mostly other
halflings, began throwing darts and knifes at Bogdan’s wings, and
that did the trick. He fell to the ground still surrounded by the
light. Several knives hit his torso and stuck into his skin as well
as his wings. Bogdan’s spiked tail then thrashed around and he
swung his arms madly.

“Sigurd, get him on the ground!” Crystal
commanded.

Sigurd let out a battle cry and brought his
axe down on Bogdan’s tail, slicing the tip off. Bogdan then tried
to charge at Crystal, but as they promised, the other swordsmen and
axe wielders defended her and struck Bogdan’s arms and legs with
their blades. As the monstrous King fell to the ground on his side,
Blaze and Gavril readied their swords for their turn to strike.

“So why didn’t you tell me?” Blaze asked
Gavril.

“Tell you what?” Gavril asked.

“About you and my mother and how she died.
Why did you hide it from me?” Blaze clarified.

“Would you have believed me?” Gavril
answered.

Blaze shrugged his shoulders and replied,
“Probably not.”

“Then that’s why. The first time I saw you
in the City of Magi, all the memories of your mother came flooding
back to me. I couldn’t believe how much you looked like her and
every day you were at the hideout, it took everything I had not to
tell you what happened. I knew you wouldn’t believe me and even
though I tried to hate you because of Bogdan, I couldn’t help but
want to like you. I wanted to trust you for that reason too, and
even when I had the chance to kill you, I could never betray your
mother’s memory by doing so,” Gavril said.

Blaze let Gavril’s words sink deep into him.
He focused his entire mind, body, and heart into his next task, and
when Crystal called their names for them to charge, he said to
Gavril, “Well, let’s do this for her, Father.”

Gavril smirked and replied, “For her and
everyone else who counts on us.”

Then, father and son charged for the monster
side by side and with no hesitation, plunged their swords into
Bogdan’s chest and ended the battle.

CHAPTER 25

Everyone backed away from Bogdan as his
still body shifted back to its normal size. The light faded from
his body and Crystal stopped glowing. After seeing her legs tremble
slightly, Blaze realized that Crystal was about to collapse and
rushed over to her as she fell to her knees. He knelt beside her
and held her up while she regained her energy.