Chapter 16

My people were already opening portals as Hakan and War disappeared and the people of Ceres were flowing through them at fair old pace, hastened by the barked orders of Inez. I doubted they needed all that much encouragement after what they’d just witnessed.

Meanwhile, Dawnsinger had flown up towards me and a haggard-looking Peace, her eyes darting between us. She said nothing and neither did Peace, who only had eyes for me.

Unable to bear the uncomfortable silence for long, I cracked and spoke. “Well that was a big bag of bollocks. The bastard clearly has no qualms about using and abusing mind control.”

“He does not. And I cannot…” Peace started, then trailed off, back to silence.

“What did he do to you?” Dawnsinger asked with surprising tenderness.

Peace ignored her, finally finding words again. "Why did he run?”

“Well,” I said scratching my head thoughtfully. “I’m not entirely sure. Since we last met, he’s grown in power a lot. I don’t thinkhe could take me yet, but there’s not much in it. He may have left because he wants to kill everyone else first to make me suffer. But, that doesn’t seem like a risk he’d take for something so petty. He has a goal and he’s heading towards it. If I had to make an educated guess, I’d say it’s because he wants to be strong enough to beat me with overwhelming odds. No risk, and total embarrassment for me to demonstrate his power.”

Apparently my reasoning wasn’t well received. Peace frowned and Dawnsinger looked terrified. I pushed on regardless. “Did you have any defense against his mind attack whatsoever?"

Peace shook her head. "Under better circumstances I may have, but he created the servant bond first and so I had no choice but to allow him access."

“Urgh.” I winced. Then steeled myself for what I had to say next, but she held up a hand to stop me.

“You don't have to say it, Clive. I already know. I can feel what I have lost when you severed all of my bonds, but I can feel myself open in a way that I never have before. It is terrifying yet liberating and I will not be retaking the bonds of my followers."

Dawnsinger gasped, and Peace turned round with a gentle smile for her descendant. “I will still be your patron. I am still here for you completely. But having follower bonds weakens us all. The Goddess of Destruction has already given up her followers. Lord Clive has taken them on because he is the only one not weakened by them other than Hakan of course. The Chosen of the other gods have also remained unbonded, and Lord Clive is building a team capable of fighting him. If you wish to help in the fight against Hakan, you should too.

Dawnsinger's face went through a series of emotions until finally settled in firm resolve. “This team of chosen. Do you honestly think that they will be able to fight again, Hakan?”

“It's not just Chosen. Destruction, Lord Clive and I will all be part of the group. And yes," Peace said far more confidently that I would have expected after what had just happened. “We will stand against him. And we will win.”

Dawnsinger bowed deeply. “Then there is nowhere else I would rather be, My Goddess. I am with you. The conversion of our bonds to Servant Bonds was a truly horrid thing and I never want to be under someone's power like that again.”

Peace nodded. “Nor I, and I am sorry for falling foul of such an insidious attack. I do not think I could bear to hear how many of my beloved followers I killed under Hakan’s control.” Then she turned to me, a light of determination in her eyes.

“I will train with your team, but I will be putting time aside to work on defending against being forcefully bonded and against mind attacks.”

My mind spun at her words. She didn’t know about the division of labour we’d created among those preparing to fight against Hakan, but she’d touched on something I hadn’t even considered before. I quickly explained what each team was doing, and she listened intently.

“Which means, you can either join one of those teams, or, if possible, you Dawnsinger and Inez focus on the mind control in depth. Develop the ability to both control minds and defend against attacks… damn, that could be invaluable. I want you to focus on preventing servant bonds as well. Or any forced bond."

Peace beamed, but there was an evil glint in her eye. "There is no area I would rather focus on. This will be done. I may have to ask you many questions about the matter though, Lord Clive. I mean, how did you manage to remove the hold Hakan had over me? I don’t know the details, but from what I saw, you were being attacked from all sides, holding a shield around me, holding a shield around the city and you removed the mind control bond and I can only guess he was trying to prevent you from severing the bond?”

“He was. And I couldn’t free you. Not until I remembered something. A little link to you that superseded his bond. Can you remember that little bit of your core that I took to be able to teleport to you?"

“Of course I do. That’s not something forgotten easily. But how would that help.  I thought it was a useless empty fragment."

"Well, it's very small," I said sheepishly. "Not exactly empty, though. It's pretty much like," I rubbed my chin, mulling over, "Do you know what DNA is?"

"I do Clive. Yes,” she drawled as if I was being patronizing, which I didn’t think was particularly fair.

"Well, the fragment is kind of like a miniature, very, very small, very exact version of your core. So by pushing power through that and onto you, I was able to recreate the Soul Mate bond and override Hakan’s."

Peace replied, deflated. "As amazing as that is, it’s not something I could really replicate, is it?"

"No. But it's certainly something to work with. I mean I have a piece from everyone involved in our training camp. So we have that, but if anything happens to me… I don’t know. But you get the point.”

“I do. And perhaps we could replicate the steps in a different way.” I could see her brain whirring into action. A moment later, she snapped her fingers. “We could have each team member create a token avatar with a tiny amount of their selves inside and then we store those away for safe keeping? Then if anything happens we have options.”

I opened my mouth to voice the obvious. None of them could create Avatars yet, but I stalled before the words left my mouth. An uneasy sensation roiled in my stomach.

“What do you think?” Peace asked when I didn’t answer immediately. It was too late. I was already focused on my core, inspecting the anchors I had made so far.

There, I saw what I dared not hope for and my heart leapt. I had no idea what it could mean but there, alongside the little glowing anchors of my friends sat both Devotion’s and Life’s. They glowed to. They both still existed inside of me.

My mind jumped to the next vain hope. Their bodies were inside my Void Storage and though they were dead, they hadn't disintegrated like Death's…

"Holy shit! I need to go back to Far-Reach now!"

Too agitated from my vague hope to explain myself any further, I teleported back to my temple. Once there, I took a long, deep breath and opened my void portal storage.

I knew it wouldn't work.

I knew I was wrong.

I had to believe that, for if I failed it would be like losing them again. I couldn't let hope in. Not yet.

I headed straight to the auto cabin where Devotion and Life’s still intact bodies lay on the carpeted lounge floor. My heart lurched as I knelt down and placed a hand on Devotion's stomach, above where the physical part of her core should be.

Next I focused on the fragment of her core that I'd taken and I pushed the Neuma’s she was compatible with, into it. This time I wasn’t intending to go through it. At least not yet. This time I wanted to feed it.

The Neuma didn’t stick at first, and just floated away from the anchor. But after a little perseverance it began to grow. Again I fought down the hope. I also fought down the voice in my head that sounded a lot like my fathers. You? A god of Creation. You can’t even bring a friend back to life! Bloody useless.

And though that internal battle the fragment continued to expand and before long it begun had begun to look like a small core. Satisfied with my work so far, I made my next move and I pushed it along the Meridian of my right arm, into my hand and finally into the dead core inside of her upper abdomen.

Nothing happened.

Panic rose.

I kept pushing more and more power into the core, but it remained attached to me. Frustrated, I tried send out a Soul Mate Bond to the core directly from my chest. It wouldn’t latch on and I knew the reason why instinctively. That was because it was a bond of joint agreement.

I growled inwardly at what I was about to do and changed the bond to a Servant one, forcibly hooking it onto the core.

It worked this time, taking a hold, and finally I allowed hope to surface. “Come on Devotion. You wake your ass back up. You’re not finished here. We need you.”

As soon as the words were spoken the core Anchor point suddenly blossomed into life. Better yet, it settled inside of Devotions body.