unseen light on the ground around them. Suddenly the light vanished, along with Lancers sense of nearing victory as Millaians eyes flicked open and his teeth began to grit against his moulding exposed jaw. Lancer removed his hand, clenching it tightly as Millaian rose before him. “Oh no,” he whispered gently just as he was thrown back down the steps with Millaian raising his arms harshly releasing a shimmering wave through the air which knocked everyone before him to the ground and lighting the crypt with a blinding light.
Slowly the light began to fade and Richard looked about, blinking, eyes stinging as his sight started to return to him. At first he thought it to be his eyes adjusting but eventually as he was sure they had returned to normal it became apparent that the entire crypt was illuminated. Not just as though a light were now shining but with every wall, every surface now glowing a pale but off tint approximation of their initial colour. He looked around again to see Michael and Lancer but they were gone, all there stood was Millaians true, twisted form atop the platform, seemingly glowing brighter than anywhere else.
There was silence for several seconds with Millaian stood motionless in an atmosphere which, its self appeared to be drifting like an early morning mist. “Such ignorance,” stated Millaian in a hollow, dark, terror inducing tone, “you’re failure shows your weakness…” he leaned forward, every part of his tall, tattered cloak baring body moving distinctly independently to the next giving his movement a serpent like quality. “It is futile to use my own incantations against me…For I am immune,” he straightened back up again and grinned a terrible toothy grin against his washed out, withered face, “and you have not the intelligence to devise something original, for this you have already proven.”
“I demand you give her back to this world and return to your own!” shouted Richard, getting to his feet, “I know what you are and you cannot belong here anymore!”
Millaian grimaced slightly, almost grinning at Richards’s statement. “That’s exactly what he said…Just as he let me slip away into that hell. You know nothing about me!” he stepped off of the platform and slowly began to move towards Richard, “but I know much about you and for that reason I have already triumphed,” he grinned again turning around and heading back to the platform.
Richard watched the hollow being for a while and then decided to take a bold step. “Christophe Guillaume…” he stated flatly making Millaian stop abruptly and swing around, “he was the one, wasn’t he? The one who couldn’t let you do those things anymore. He knew this would happen so after you were gone he took your notebook and published it so that there was at least a chance to stop you.”
“That book is nothing…Just words. Mine has imbedded power, merged to my very being. It awoke me finally and I could be rid of that peony text,” he stared sternly but something in his face gave away some deep part of humanity still residing within him and it was pain. Merely hearing Christophe’s name invoked this thread of feeling and Richard imagined that having to use the published work, the very thing intended to betray him, to conduct his deeds hurt more than anything. “You remind me of him,” Millaian said subtly at last, “that is why I brought you here…I wished you to be the first I destroy when I regain my majesty.”
“Regain your majesty?” repeated Richard disapprovingly, “you never had any in the first place! By all accounts you died. Committed suicide because life got too much for you.”
“Exactly what I intended the weak minded to think,” he straightened up to his full height in the centre of the platform and began to laugh hauntingly. “I could not go on living a normal life, constantly seeing these things! After my supposed death I travelled to France and spent years working with the best Median I could find trying to discover the truth of life and existence its self…”
“Christophe,” Richard said gently.
“Yes. But I eventually came to realise there is nothing! Nothing at all…Only power. Power the strong should take and the weak should obey! My old friend…He disagreed and, lying to me every day we worked from that point, he eventually betrayed and tricked me!” Millaian threw his arm down in disgust and growled darkly. “Never again. This time my victory will be complete,” there was a shimmer in the air beside him and a shape began to form. It wavered and rippled until it was all but discernable.
“Hollie!” Richard tried to rush forward but was stopped as more figures started to appear all around him. But these were Reavers. “This is A Merge, isn’t it? A point between the worlds where, on this night, they become one in the same?”
Millaian nodded and opened a bony hand towards Hollie. “Blood is thicker than water, as they say. Her blood is very thick and it shall be my conduit to this world…” he turned his head towards her with a crack and gazed down on her with deep set eyes. “My lineage is strong in you.”
“No,” said Hollie softly, “I can’t be,” a tear slowly ran down her face as she shook with morbid terror.
“Millaian!” shouted Richard again, past the Reavers, “I’m giving you one last chance! Stop this and return to the Other Side!”
He laughed again with the Reavers looking back, apparently surprised at what he was doing. “You have no way to command me…I do as I please.”
“As you wish,” Richard said quietly, “Lancer was only beginning the process. I had to wait until now, when the worlds were merged…” he looked up at Hollie, “because I’m not leaving without her,” Millaian looked down, bewildered at what he thought to be an inferior specimen as he bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Licentia est vestry, meus amicitia,” the words echoed around the building and fell gently upon all who heard it like the fresh spring rain until it faltered and finally drifted away to nothing.
“That’s it?” said Millaian harshly, “some Latin?”
Richard raised his head again, opening his eyes. “I command you…” he raised his hand to the sprawling crowd of Reavers before him. “Leave this place,” the words moved forward with no force or malice, only the pure presence of true thought to direct the spirits that walked his world. As each comprehended the meaning of the words they turned and vanished into the ether. “You choose to bring it to my plane, I use the power I have on this night alone to command all who would infringe on the living and this night I decree…” he started walking towards Millaian as the last remnants of the Reavers vanished into nothing but mist, “freedom is yours, my friends.”
There was silence for a few seconds and Millaian was about to belittle Richards’s attempts at grandeur but suddenly Hollie gasped and she herself vanished into to a mist, drifting towards the door where the body had been dropped stating as she did simply. “Life.”
Milliaian went to open his dried lips to speak but instead slowly looked around to six pale, translucent figures standing behind him who each, one by one, dissolved away leaving nothing but a fading embossed imprint in the air.
“Your power has gone; you have no choice anymore,” Richard continued softly, “leave this place.”
As Richard spoke, Millaian fell to his knees, gritting his teeth, trying to hold on to the world but with every passing second another part of his being slipping away. “I cannot be destroyed,” he managed to say, his voice gravelly nearly covered by his heavy breathing, “I will have my triumph!” he growled finally before clutching his chest and exploding outwards into a dark powder that drifted to the ground, fizzling as it did. Richard took a deep sigh and rubbed his face, hardly able to believe that it may be over.
“Thank you,” came a gentle feminine voice from the platform making Richard look up again. It was one of the spirits who Millaian had enslaved still standing in place where the rest had left, “from us all and for everything we give you this,” she smiled brightly before lowering her head and vanishing like the others leaving the distorted but solid shape of Chris behind her.
“It can’t be…” Richard walked, unfaltering towards him, “are you-”
“Real?” finished Chris, his shape becoming truer as the spirits imprint faded, “as rea
l as I can be,” he looked around at the building as its walls started to fade back to their normal colour. “I don’t have long, the worlds here are already beginning to move apart and we are on either side of a vast divide,” he nodded towards the doorway where very faint figures of Michael and Lancer were tending to Hollie who was sat up, staring at Chris’s body lying on the ground just in front of Richards spiritual self.
“So much to say…” tried Richard, “come with me.”
“I can’t,” he looked down at his feet and the mutilated body of his real self, “but you can. Your time in the mortal realm has been true and just but now it is time to leave,” he reached forward a hand. “Come.”
Richard looked down; thinking for a second but slowly raised his arm and stretched it out to take Chris’s hand. Behind him the ever more solid figure of Hollie pushed Michael and Lancer away, getting up and rushing towards Richard. Distraught, she tried to reach for him but eventually took a deep breath, realising why everything had happened to her and embraced what she truly was. As she did she stepped across the divide, becoming solid again. “Richard,” she spoke with caring force and reached for Richards shoulder making him withdraw his hand from Chris and turn around,