Life: 13. Klarion

Chapter 13: Klarion

Rigal Phenex
Tower of Fate, MA, USA

Absentmindedly, I sent the fool’s corpse away to the Phoenix Roost. I vaguely remembered him as the idiotic time traveler who came from the future so he could pass his tech off as magic. Maybe Serling or Victor could make use of his wares.

But right now, my attention was on Zatanna. Her request was basically the same as handing me a blank check. She had to know that, just like she knew what I wanted most from her.

A voice in my head crowed with delight. She was my ideal Bishop, with both power and knowledge to take her far. Ultimate class? No, she’d easily become a divine entity if given enough time. The raw potential she represented had me salivating.

And yet, I held back. There was another, larger voice that kept me from snatching the offer on the table. I’d always been greedy, devils generally were, but that made learning to curb our instincts all the more vital. And, as dad said, the best way to do that was to aim for something even bigger. Curb greed with more greed.

I could take Zatanna now, demand she join my peerage, but this would be a thorn in our relationship forever. I wanted her. As Bishop, friend, and yes, lover, too. I wanted to see the heights she could reach, to help her along even as I elevated myself in turn. I wanted so much more than a pretty, human pet.

If I claimed her now, her joining my peerage would always be seen as a poisoned chalice. She’d always remember this day as the day she made the ultimate sacrifice, the day she gave up her humanity to keep the Helmet of Fate safe.

I refused. I refused to be the bad guy here, even if it meant letting her go. Being selfish wasn’t the same as being short-sighted. This wasn’t forever, just for the moment.

“The Amulet of Aten,” I said finally. Just because I was underselling my services didn’t mean I’d do this for free. “It’s mine now.”

“D-Done,” she replied with a sniffle. “I’ll get it for you, one way or another.”

We both felt it. The air shivered as the magic of the contract took hold, binding us together.

Strictly speaking, the amulet wasn’t hers to give. We both knew that. But… But was there a world in which Giovanni Zatara, the man who would willingly don the Helmet of Fate to spare his daughter, would choose a trinket over Zatanna?

No, of course not. He’d rather die. With this, the amulet was mine, and with it, hopefully, the rainbow flames that my old man wielded.

I touched the bell and allowed the tower’s teleportation magic to take hold. Klarion scared the shit out of me, but maybe there was something I could do here. If nothing else, this canary was about to catch the cat.

I sighed. I wanted to be Tweety again…

X

I emerged atop the Tower of Fate. The roof gave us a panoramic view of Salem and its surrounding countryside. WIth the stars shining above, it was a beautiful, tranquil sight that I would have been happy to savor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford such a luxury at the moment.

Off to the side, Wally was doing his best to keep Teekl busy. The orange cat had turned into a beast the size of a hippo, but with considerably more speed and murderous intent. The two played a very literal game of cat and mouse, in which Wally could outrun the familiar, but lacked anything to harm her.

The main attraction was a duel between Kent Nelson, master magician, and Klarion the Witch Boy, the fucker who sank Atlantis. And surprise, surprise, Kent was getting his ass handed to him. He was a mage with very few equals, but he also wasn’t a spring chicken anymore.

Worse, he had to keep Wally alive and guard the Helmet of Fate simultaneously. I saw a few bolts of sinister, crimson flames scatter. They seemed like harmless strays, but bent to target Wally. Because Wally was being chased all around the rooftop by Teekl, Kent had no choice but to shield a large area.

Klarion used Kent’s momentary distraction to finally pierce the magician’s defenses. I was too far away to stop it and Kent Nelson fell with a shout of pain.

“Mr. Nelson!” Wally yelled, only for that to turn into a yelp of fear as Teekl lunged for his throat. He blurred and appeared beside the old mage.

Klarion cackled and raised his hands. A gout of crimson flames spewed forth, hot enough to make the air shimmer. I’d arrived just in time.

I leapt forward, putting myself between them. A ball of hellfire formed in my hands. It ballooned until it was as large as a man and took the shape of a long, stilted bird. “Hellfire Heron!”

My attack collided with Klarion’s, a vibrant orange meeting a tide of blood-red. Corruption and Chaos met in the middle. They melded even as they sought to devour the other, creating something completely brand new. For a moment, both of us lost control over the conflagration.

The Witch Boy looked surprised, then grinned with manic glee. It was the smile of a child who’d received his Christmas gift early, a predator who’d received fresh prey to toy with. 

“Wally! Feed him the tear!” I grunted as I poured more and more mana into my construct. The heron screeched. Its wings flared protectively, shielding the two humans from the heat.

“R-Right!” he stammered. He almost fumbled the vial but got the contents down Kent’s throat in time.

“No! That’s cheating!” Klarion screamed as he watched Kent’s wounds heal. “You’re cheating! Revival items aren’t fair!”

He screamed and pouted, throwing tantrums like a spoiled brat, but this was Klarion, a Lord of Chaos. His eyes met mine. Pools of ominous red pinned me in place. And, for a moment, I glimpsed the eldritch horror behind the juvenile facade.

My body retched involuntarily. I felt every muscle seize with primal terror. I felt as if I was staring down an eldritch god. In this universe, I may as well have been. I tried to tear my gaze away, but it was impossible.

Many people had the misconception that Order was Light and Chaos was Darkness. They were wrong. Chaos was not the endless abyss. It wasn’t an empty void that stared back at you. It was sheer, boundless potential, the concept of Change given form.

I realized then just how much Klarion was holding back. Maybe it was because he couldn’t afford to bring his full power to bear right now. Lords of Chaos and Order were somewhat limited in the material plane, though the exact laws each abided by were a mystery to me.

Or maybe Klarion felt that this too was part of the game. He was an actor and spectator both, and a “member of the Light” was just a mantle he wore for fun in the end. The frustration of loss. The introduction of an unpredictable variable, me. The Change that this variable brought to the table. I genuinely wasn’t sure if he cared about Nabu’s helmet beyond wanting it for bragging rights.

He smirked and I felt his magic flare. Red seeped into the melded inferno, spreading like blood across canvas. His magic began to eat away at mine, reasserting dominance between us. 

I reached out and tried to match him. Chaos though it was, fire was fire. It was my element, the one thing I was supposed to be good at. I was a high class devil, one with enough power to blow up a mountain. I should have been able to usurp his control, or at least deflect it.

But no. There was something different about those red flames he favored. They crawled and grasped and ate away at any hold I tried to assert like termites. I quickly let go, reeling back as if I was a toddler who first touched the stove.

Our combined attack came my way. I detonated a man-sized fireball in front of me to try to blunt some of the damage. Behind that, I forged a shield of condensed air over my arm and held it out. It wasn’t nearly enough.

I screamed in agony as flames tainted by Chaos ate away at my body. I felt my eyeballs pop. My blood boiled in my flesh. Searing heat scorched both my body and mana and I felt my left arm and half my torso turn to ash. I’d contested a Lord of Chaos in a duel of flames, and got burned for it.

The irony was not lost on me.

“Hehehehe. A new player, a new piece on the board,” I heard Klarion call. “You’re a devil, the real deal! And working with the goody two-shoes! How fun!”

“Fucking hell, so this is what being cremated feels like,” I groaned. Wally tried to give me a few drops of the vial that was left but I pushed him aside.

Klarion laughed and petted his cat. “Now, tell me, why is a devil working with the good guys?”

“What can I say? I was bribed.”

“Bribed? Naughty, naughty.”

“Or maybe I think this is more interesting,” I croaked out. “You getting the helmet would end the game, wouldn’t it?”

He paused, as if the thought only struck him now. “Hmm… You do have a point…”

“So you’ll leave?” Wally asked hopefully.

“Nah.”

He fired a few smaller bursts of magic that I deflected with a spray of burning feathers. That was the best I could do at the moment; the pain made focusing on a construct damn near impossible.

He definitely didn’t take me seriously. That was good. My body knit itself back together, slower than it would have otherwise. Whatever Klarion’s flames were made of exactly, it left a lingering stain on my magic that slowed down my natural regeneration.

I could recover, but it’d take time. Already, I could feel my magic breaking down the Chaos like an autoimmune response against a virus. It just wouldn’t be fast enough.

Then, as Klarion raised a hand to finish me off, a pulse of mana passed through us. It made my hair stand on end, but in the exact opposite way Klarion’s did. It was Order, structured, pristine, and static.

Kent Nelson had finally recovered enough to put the helmet back on. His body was shrouded in a burst of golden light that formed the shape of an ankh. If I remembered right, that was Egyptian, a symbol of life. His frail, old form was replaced by a well-muscled man in blue and gold armor, the Helmet of Fate resting prominently over his face.

Except, this wasn’t Kent Nelson anymore. This was Nabu, the Lord of Order.

“You have done enough, Klarion,” he declared. His voice rang with an undercurrent of authority, as though simply speaking could impose structure upon the world around him. Because it could.

“Damn it, Nabu! We were having fun!” Klarion whined petulantly. “How am i supposed to burn a phoenix to death if you keep interfering?”

Nabu did not answer. I doubted he was ever much of the bantering type. He instead held out his hand and Kent Nelson’s cane morphed into a regal, golden scepter capped by an ankh. It drove itself into the ground and a dome of light formed around me and Wally, shielding us from Klarion’s Chaos.

Then, their duel began in earnest.

Klarion was holding back against me. I knew that intellectually, but it was only now that he faced his equal and opposite that I understood just how much.

Visually, very little changed. Klarion threw around balls of red fire. Occasionally, eldritch energies would gather in his hands and he’d rake his fingers through the air. Waves of cutting force would litter the sky, trying yet failing to pin Nabu in.

In turn, Dr. Fate relied on flight and a golden force field to protect himself and us. He also fired beams of golden light shaped like ankhs. Outwardly, they looked no different from any other laser fired by one of a thousand different supers in DC.

Lasers were like that. Sometimes, it seemed like everyone and their mother had them, and it was damn near impossible to tell which were dangerous and which were jokes. Victor Fries had freeze rays. Darkseid had Omega Beams. As laughable as it was to compare the two, when placed side by side, they looked more or less the same. One was blue; the other was red.

But what could be seen through mortal sight was just the tip of the iceberg. Magic trembled as Order and Chaos clashed. The Tower of Fate shook to its foundations. Ancient wards that had stood strong since the dawn of civilization shuddered each time their attacks met.

This was barely a sentence in the story that was their endless struggle. The balance between Order and Chaos was an uneasy one. Each strived to dominate the other, yet, paradoxically, each understood that both were necessary. Perfect Order bred Chaos, just as absolute Chaos bred Order.

Seeing all of this, I wondered if devils from the previous generation felt this way when they saw the Four Satans stand against Trihexa, when the Red Dragon Emperor brought Rizevim Lucifer low. There was a timeless quality about this battle that resonated within me. It reminded me that the universe was a big place; that I was comparatively a very small bird flying beneath an infinitely vast sky.

“Oh my God,” Wally swore next to me.

“Please don’t use the g-word in my hearing,” I winced. It was annoying at the best of times. Now that I was trying to purge Chaos from my injuries, hearing the no-no word made me feel like a freshly reincarnated devil.

“What the hell’s even happening anymore?”

“A war. A dance. A cycle as old as existence.”

“Mr. Nelson is winning… right…?”

“Kent Nelson isn’t here right now, Wally. Only Nabu, the true Dr. Fate,” I muttered, barely above a whisper. “And no, he’s not winning.”

“How? We’ve got to help him!”

I laughed. It was hollow. Where would I place them according to the nebulous scales of power in my world? Satan-class? Godlike? Greater, right? I could think of very few who could match a Lord of Chaos or Order.

“Wally, you saw me behead myself for fun and I don’t think I’ll survive if I get between those two.”

“W-Well, what do we do? Wasn’t Mr. Nelson supposed to be a grand wizard or something?”

“Yes, but he’s old. Nabu and Klarion should be evenly matched, but Nabu’s power is somewhat dependent on the power of his host. Even supported by the genus loci, he’s slowly getting pushed back.”

“Ideas, Tweety. How do we help turn this?”

I knew the answer, of course. The “answer” was currently eyeing us up like we were pieces of steak and prowling around her master. The minivan-sized cat had been unable to act against us now that we were within Nabu’s barrier. 

Lords of Chaos and Order were not native to the material plane. The biggest limitation on their actions was that their authorities were anchored by a focus of some kind. For Nabu, it was the Helmet of Fate, and all the troubles that came with requiring a mortal host.

For Klarion, it was Teekl. If the familiar died, Klarion would be banished out of this dimension. He would eventually return, Teekl with him, but it’d take a while. That absence would strip the Light of their major magical sponsor.

And… And I didn’t want to.

Banishing Klarion wasn’t a true solution. There was no solution, not to a Lord of Chaos. While it would grant a reprieve for a time, I had a feeling Klarion was the type to hold a grudge.

But… Counterpoint: I made a promise. The contract stated that I would receive the Amulet of Aten in exchange for securing the Helmet of Fate and repelling intruders to the tower. It didn’t matter that the intruder was Klarion the Witch Boy, only that he was still here.

Rather, I knew exactly who I would face from the very beginning. Walking away from the challenge now that I stood at the precipice wasn’t in my nature.

“You better appreciate this, Zatanna,” I muttered under my breath.

“Well? What’s the plan, Tweety?” Wally asked. So I told him. To my surprise, he just nodded and stepped up. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll distract the cat. If I do, you can take it out, right?”

“I can. I’m surprised, though. Nothing about how magic doesn’t exist?”

“Hey, if beating up a cat can make the freaky goth boy disappear, I might have to change my tune.”

“Heh. So be it, Wally. On three?”

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

We sprinted out of the barrier formed by Nabu’s scepter. Kid Flash ran to the left and I flew to the right. I stayed low to the ground, wanting no part of the duel between the two Lords.

Wally was fast. In a straight line on the ground, he was faster than me. Even better, the Speed Force allowed him to selectively interact with the world at that speed without compromising his perception. It was the kind of bullshit that made even me, a Pillar devil, envious. 

He quickly outpaced me. Faster than I’d ever seen him move. He became a yellow streak before his fist found Teekl’s nose.

“Come here, pussycat!” He taunted.

Teekl yowled in rage and lunged after him. Her master snarled before diverting some of his magic to strike down the speedster. It looked like a small rain of meteors falling down on Wally.

Wally did an admirable job of dodging. He avoided the first four even as they exploded like grenades around him, but his inexperience showed itself. He’d allowed himself to be herded towards Teekl, who batted him aside with a paw the size of a small refrigerator.

I bent the wind to catch him before turning my focus upward. A flock of Hellfire Sparrows took flight, meeting Klarion’s rain. It was… not as lopsided as our first clash. Klarion’s attention was divided between me and Nabu, and it was clear he was more concerned with Nabu.

Then, Teekl saw her chance. She snarled and leapt for my throat, intending to remove my head and present it to her master.

She overestimated herself. It was exactly what I’d been waiting for. 

I tossed Wally aside with a gale of wind and dropped my own attack. Instead, a swirling wind gathered around my right leg, forming a hollow sheath. It was swiftly filled with hellfire that condensed into a solid talon, one belonging to a bird best known throughout the world for disemboweling the particularly stupid.

I couldn’t beat Klarion. Even my old man wouldn’t be his match. But I could sure as shit kill his cat.

Teekl lunged. Mid pounce, she had no way to dodge. Her eyes widened in dawning realization as my foot rose to meet her.

“Hellfire Cassowary!” I shouted even as I felt Klarion’s Chaos burn into my body.

My talons ripped into her belly from below like a hot knife through butter. For a moment, I saw her innards spill out along with cauterized flecks of blood. The scent of burnt meat and fur filled my nostrils as a shriek of ungodly agony pierced the air.

“Teekl, no!” Klarion cried.

It was disturbing to hear, not because he sounded demonic or eldritch, but because he sounded so human. In that instant, I could almost have believed I’d not killed the familiar of a Lord of Chaos, but a child’s beloved pet.

And then, it was over. The gore that rained down around me faded, phasing out of the material plane. With Teekl went her master. Klarion the Witch Boy was expelled from this side of existence, face locked in a rictus of grief and hatred. His oppressive magic vanished from the tower, leaving me alone on the roof with Nabu and Wally.

I gazed up at the stars. My entire body hurt worse than any beating I’d received in the name of training. I felt as if thousands of Aunt Xenovia’s holy swords were jabbing into every inch of my body. It was an all-encompassing, scouring burn that made even screaming impossible.

And yet, slowly, my magic began to knit me back together. I gave thanks to the First Phenex for this completely bullshit bloodline. Soon, I’d be better and only the memory of this agony would remain.

Dad always said that pressure was what made diamonds. No one ever just became ultimate-class without a reason. Strength was earned, and without a reason to strive for greater heights, we would stagnate. That was what it meant to have a devil’s ambition.

Maybe he was right. I’d been stuck at the pinnacle of a high class devil for a while now. He told me that I needed a proper challenge, something to motivate me past the threshold.

A Lord of Chaos with a personal vendetta wasn’t my first choice, but damn did I feel motivated. Because I knew something Wally likely didn’t: Klarion would be back. Maybe not next week. Maybe not next year even, but he’d be back. And I had a feeling he wasn’t the type to “let it go.”

Author’s Note

Rigal got rocked. Young Justice is about as low-powered as you could get when it comes to DC continuities, but a Lord of Chaos is a Lord of Chaos.

Even so, he did fulfill his end of the contract. The helmet is safe. The intruders have been repelled.

Animal Fact: Scorpions glow blue/green under a UV blacklight. Some of you knew that, but I bet you didn't know that squirrel skulls (specifically fox squirrels) glow pink.

This is because they overproduce a compound called uroporphyrin that builds up in their bones. Uroporphyrin is an intermediary byproduct of heme (as in hemoglobin.