CHAPTER 589: A TRULY LUCKY MAN

Blake ran (and sometimes flew) through the emptying streets of the holy city, chasing the emperor’s scout. His enemy was fast, too fast, but he didn’t seem nearly as frightened as he should have been. Yes, he was keeping ahead, but not by much. His arrogance was Blake’s main hope.

The goblin assassin was somewhere out there warping after their target. Blake’s spells weren’t doing a damn thing—when he could even get in range. But he had a feeling a dagger shoved in the bastard’s back might do the job.

Except there were more players coming into the streets now. And those undead monstrosities. Blake knew he was running out of time. In fact, he soon began to accept he wasn’t going to be able to catch this rogue at all. Not without getting completely compromised.

With brief hesitation, he decided he had to leave the goblin on it, and run. He circled back to the others, out of breath by the time he reached an even more panicked Carla.

“Navi, have you figured out how he’s marking and following us? Can you get rid of it?”

“Yes, Master. And no. He isn’t ‘marking’ us. I believe he has a kind of map power that shows his targets. It’s internal. Nothing that can be dispelled or disrupted.”

“Super.” Blake grabbed Carla’s arm and pulled her towards her apartment. If this scout had a map power with targets displayed, it had to have some kind of limited range. He was hoping the assassin would keep him far enough away he’d lose track of the others.

Players were calling out now in the darkened streets. Guards and patrols were learning about some kind of disturbance. Telling stragglers to get inside. They were almost out of time.

Blake and the others rushed for safety, but kept from flat out running. They saw no sign of the scout, or of anyone chasing them specifically. Blake asked Navi to float out and detect fast moving players, to give him a heads up. His familiar watched, and was silent.

He relaxed a little a block from Carla’s apartment. They stopped and looked around, seeing no sign of anyone following.

“OK,” Blake took a breath. “We get inside. The assassin can handle himself in the dark. I’ll try and find him when we have a moment. For now let’s just…”

Navi chirped as a strong gust of wind blew back Blake’s hair. He squinted and turned, seeing a blurry shaped object streak past his face. It slammed into Malik Earthsoul, the crack of force sounding like a shattered slab of concrete.

The big orc stumbled back with a grunt. Then Blake saw the white robe, the golden light.

He watched Jeong move with disjointed speed, almost warping as he struck Malik again and again. The emperor had come personally. He’d found them. He was here. And Blake was pretty sure they were all fucked.

But there was no time for misery. They had to try and do something.

His Partitions got to work as he stopped thinking, and attacked. He took the javelin hidden in the folds of his cloak; started an Arcane Blast; and reached for his demonic amulet.

He didn’t have time for a construct. All he could do was throw everything into that golden shield, and hope somehow to break it. Or at least get the man worried enough to run.

The orc lords had drawn their weapons and begun to fight back. They swung but failed to connect. Malik’s dragonscale armor shook and cracked beneath a series of Jeong’s blows. The powerful orc stumbled and tried to find his target, but his eyes were wide with panic.

Blake’s spells landed. He swiped his Blast across Jeong’s back, bounced his javelin against him, and centered a Mind Rend right on him. He watched the golden shield eat it all.

Chillik the goblin wizard lord vanished in a puff of arcane power. Pliny the engineer was nowhere to be seen.

Goblins running off wasn’t exactly surprising, but somehow it still felt like a betrayal.

Then Malik was dropping to a knee as his legs buckled. Jeong spun around him, grabbed his thick neck, and twisted. The crack of bone echoed down the street. Just like that, the old lord of the orc towers fell.

Halvar cried out in rage as he charged, his mace held high, muscled arms rippling with power. Jeong crossed the road as a blur, striking him in the chest so hard the young lord flew a dozen feet, collapsing like a doll with cut strings.

Blake turned on his Adaptive Veil, and launched himself into the air with Telekinesis.

There was no winning here. He’d escape and hide somewhere, anywhere. He’d continue with his plan alone, doing whatever he had to. But he had to get away.

The human blur leapt. Blake tried to move, to alter his course with Telekinesis. But it was too fast. His mind and body couldn’t keep up. A vice clamped around his ankle, and he grit his teeth and cried out, thoughts scattering as his Psionic Shield shattered in an instant.

Then Blake was lying on the street, not sure how he’d got there. His air cut off as a hand wrapped around his throat, lifting him up.

“A flying rat,” said Jeong, as if amused, golden eyes not even looking at Blake. “Your power is truly wonderful, sister. It’s almost perfectly suited to mine. I’ve never moved so fast.”

“Please don’t kill him,” whispered a familiar voice.

Blake closed his eyes and tried to breathe, tried to swallow. He used Telekinesis to hold himself up, so at least it was only the emperor’s grip strangling him and not gravity, too.

Trying another Mind Rend was tempting, but didn’t seem like a great life choice. What could he do? Something with Primordial Making? He honestly didn’t see how he was getting out of this. Panic was overtaking his senses.

“Hmm?” Jeong turned, still squeezing Blake’s throat with no effort at all. They both looked across the street. Beautiful Seul-ki stepped out without her disguise, not quite looking at him. She looked distressed. Upset. Strange how it bothered him.

“That is Blake Nimitz, oppa,” she said, her voice controlled but emotional. “He’s…one of the reasons I came to you. I…don’t know what he’s doing here. But I don’t wish him to die. I…care for him.”

Blake didn’t have enough oxygen to tell if he was being helped or betrayed again. Jeong was staring at his sister, those golden, calculating eyes boring into her before they turned upwards.

At some point it had begun to rain. Some kind of bell tolled, probably to mark the official beginning of the curfew. Water dripped down his face as Blake struggled in Jeong’s grip, looking for any sign of life as he tried to see the young Stoneblood lord.

He wondered where the goblins were. If maybe Pliny would re-appear with some wonderful new trick. And he couldn’t stop himself from imagining Mason stepping out from the alley to save him, one last time.

“He’s very dangerous, sister,” Jeong said at last.

“Yes. But he can be our ally.”

Was she sincere? Why would she lie? The poor girl was almost pleading. Desperate. Maybe she really did care for him.

“When Mason is dead,” she went on, her words dripping like acid into Blake’s veins. “He’ll work with us. For you. He will come to your side with time. He’s smart enough to know there is no other option.” Then, after a pause: “I’m pregnant with his child.”

Had the iron grip around his throat tightened? Maybe it was just his imagination. Or possibly the lack of oxygen.

Jeong waited in the rain, no sign of impatience or anger.

“You came to me for this reason?” he said. “So I would spare his life when the time came?”

“Yes, oppa. In part. I did not think it would be so soon.”

Blake gasped for air as Jeong dropped him. He tried to set himself down gently, but his legs buckled, pain shooting up his ankle where the emperor had seized it. He took breath after breath, trying not to think about dying in the arena—about the helplessness as his damn necklace choked him to death.

“He can’t be allowed to run free and be a problem,” Jeong was saying. “I’ll have to imprison him somewhere he can’t slip out of. At least until his brother’s dead.”

“I understand completely, oppa. Of course. Thank you.”

Blake was trying to recover enough to make some kind of witty retort. But then the world was turning again as Jeong grabbed his less damaged leg and dragged him. He did his best to use Telekinesis to raise himself off the ground.

Then he was moving through city streets faster than a car, cringing and doing his best to keep off the paving stone, maintaining his shield and deflecting the occasional bounce.

It felt like he was through the city in moments, dragged/floated into the palace, past staring guards and servants through a series of doors.

He watched it all, memorized it all, mostly still shocked he wasn’t dead. Jeong dropped him in a circular room that looked like a Maker’s Hall. There were arcane runes everywhere, old artwork and paintings of wizardly looking men of a dozen races.

“I assume you had something to do with the death of my spymaster,” Jeong said almost affably. “A competent man. But far too arrogant. Are you working with the Swede, perhaps? I’ll deal with him soon enough. Tomorrow, maybe, right after I deal with your brother.”

Blake tried to find some position to lay in that didn’t hurt. He had ripped open skin from the pavement all over. And his legs both hurt now. Still, he did his best to give no expression. Jeong looked down at him and laughed.

“You knew I’d beat him, didn’t you? Your brother. That’s why you came. To try and help. But help how, is the question. And why bring orcs and goblins?”

The Korean put his head back with an ‘a ha’ kind of expression.

“You were going to kill my devotees, weren’t you? Clever. Completely without chance. But still. Had you figured out where they were?”

Again Blake gave no expression, desperately trying to think of some way out of his terrible situation. Jeong shook his head and laughed again.

“You had! I can only imagine how you’d planned to get in. Extraordinary boy. One day we might even be friends. But I doubt it will be today.”

Jeong crossed the small distance between them in a flash, looming large before a horrible pain lanced through Blake’s arm. Then his other leg. His other arm.

He tried to roll away, to cover and protect himself. But he knew there was no chance. His limbs were all numbed and probably broken with a single strike. He stayed with the pain and ignored his Partitions, crying out from the agony. But he didn’t want Jeong to know he could dull it.

“You have very clever powers, I know,” said the emperor. “But this room nullifies most magic the Makers knew about. An old relic they left like so many others. I keep it outside my private dungeon. The place you thought to go to destroy me. It wouldn’t have worked, I’m afraid. Later I’ll send you a healer, and some food and water. Divine magic still works. I don’t suppose you have any of that?”

Jeong met his eyes and smiled, and Blake groaned again in agony as he rolled away and curled up. He listened to the emperor’s footsteps walking away.

“We’ll speak tomorrow, Mr. Nimitz,” the older man called over his shoulder. “I should kill you. But you are truly a lucky man. I’ve always had a soft spot for my sister.”

The door slammed shut and locked about a hundred times, the room going completely dark. Blake lay there on the cold stone, staying with the suffering to keep his mind off his reality.

He’d try everything, of course. Explore every possibility. But he couldn’t stop a repeating thought: you’ve lost. He’s beaten you. You’ve failed.

Jeong knew his brother was coming. He was ready for it. Seul-ki had betrayed them because she believed Jeong would win, and she was sacrificing Mason to save him. But there was no Blake without Mason. He’d known that all his life. His brother was the foundation he had re-built himself upon. He had to escape. Had to help him.

He tried activating Primordial Making and felt a complete hollow void in the air—like it was sucking out his magic before he even conceived of using it.

But his internal powers were working. He split his mind into a dozen Partitioned pieces, hiding the pain and suffering in a separate piece, floating Navi out as a single light in the dark.

“Are you alright, Master?” she chirped, her voice sad.

“I’ll live,” he said, trying to think with a dozen brains. “We have to get out of here, Navi. We have to…”

His construct made a strange sound, like a computer shutting off, then blinked out with a flash of ‘temporarily unavailable’ in his profile. He took a breath, and put away the panic as he’d put away the pain.

His brother needed him. He had to think. Had to escape and be useful. Continue with his plan. There’d be a way through, an answer to the puzzle. There always was. And Blake would find it.

----------------------------------------