Parts Three and Four of the story can be found here.
Eight liked grooming Medea. Mindless as it was, he could still focus on it and push his worries - about Angelo, and Jessica, and the growing black stain spreading across the reddened sky - to the back of his mind.
He didn't have any ideas. As far as they had come, as hard as they had fought, the world was going to be lost because he didn't have any ideas.
Medea whickered, nudging him with her nose, and he realized he'd stopped brushing, lost in thought.
"Sorry," he said with a smile.
She snorted and shook her mane; he suspected she was laughing at him, until she raised her head to look skyward.
There he saw Empyrea flying toward them, faintly luminous against a darkness the newly-risen sun couldn't penetrate. He felt a surge of relief and hurried off to gather the others; they returned to the deck just in time for Empyrea to land in a rush of wind.
"Rhapthorne's power is growing more quickly than I feared," she said. "Are you prepared to face him?"
Eight raised his head. "The three of us are."
"Rhapthorne's control of your friend is so complete?"
Something in her tone smacked of accusation, though Eight couldn't decide if she was finding fault with Angelo for succumbing, or them for not being able to reach him, or perhaps for leaving him in the first place. He felt a surge of anger and guilt, but it was Jessica who snapped, "If you have any ideas, we'd love to hear them."
Empyrea didn't answer, and Eight's last hope - that Empyrea, older and wiser and more powerful than any of them, would have some solution - was dashed. "We'll fight without him," he said. "We've beaten Rhapthorne before with just the three of us, and you said he was weakened by having to change forms too soon. Just tell us what we need to do."
"The three of you cannot hope..."
"Then we'll find someone else!" Eight exploded. "We'll gather as many people as we can, as we need to. Just tell us how to stop this!"
There was a clatter of wood on wood, and Rhapthorne's sceptre, released from Empyrea's taloned foot, rolled across the deck toward them. Yangus shouted and jumped back, while Trode exhorted them all to be careful, and even Jessica flinched and took a step away.
Eight watched the carved wood roll to a stop, then raised his eyes to Empyrea again.
"You could gather an army, and it would not help," Empyrea said softly.
"I don't understand."
"Now that Rhapthorne is no longer imprisoned within, the Godbird Sceptre houses only the souls of the seven sages. Only they can break through the barrier which protects him. But without an outside will to summon them, they are trapped far more surely than Rhapthorne was. You do not need merely force of arms, or magic. You need force of will, and no one who has not fought and bled and hungered for Rhapthorne's defeat can be of any use to you now. "
She looked from one to another, and to Eight her words sounded like a pronouncement of doom. "You must find a way to reach your friend."
He was not surprised when the woman arrived later than was usual for her. He had heard the commotion above, and wondered if she, or anyone, would bother with him at all.
He was surprised by the relief - not pleasure, he refused to be pleased to see his captors - he felt when she finally appeared silhouetted in the doorway.
It troubled him, just as the occasional urge to respond to her overtures troubled him. He had not expected to have difficulty remembering they were his enemies.
But then, he could not have expected them to treat him as a friend.
Rationally, Jessica knew Empyrea had only told them what they needed to know, but still the words felt like an indictment. They had failed Angelo, not once, but twice, just as they had failed so many others in their pursuit of Dhoulmagus, and then of Rhapthorne.
She had failed. Never mind that she had been the only one to try, she had still failed.
It was tempting to give Angelo his meal and leave him in peace, tempting to acknowledge that nothing she could say would reach him, that he didn't see her, but only a stranger. So tempting that after she slid the tray toward him, she turned toward the door.
Only she couldn't. She may have failed, but she wasn't going to compound that failure by quitting.
Swallowing hard, she moved to her stool in the corner of the room, and began talking.
She was distracted, as she had been the past few days, but now there was something else in her eyes and voice, something which made her words trail into silence. Something which made her avoid looking at him.
That last didn't bother him, though it was unusual, and enough to make him uneasy; normally, she studied him as carefully as he studied her. Today, she did her best to keep her gaze on the walls, the floor; when it did stray to him, her voice would catch and shake, while the lamplight revealed the glimmer of tears on her cheeks.
"Are you all right?"
Jessica broke off in mid-sentence, turning to Angelo in shock. "What?"
"I'm sorry. I know it's not my place, but..." He glanced away with a reticent expression which was wholly unlike him, yet infinitely better than the passivity she'd met for the past week. "You look like you'd be better off with your friends, than spending the day with me."
"No, I'm fine." She tried to quell her rising excitement. "In fact, if you could remember me, you'd know how much I like spending time with you." A smile escaped before she could stop it. "Or maybe you wouldn't. I have to admit we probably argue more than we do anything else."
An answering smile, still not his, but a smile nonetheless. "And yet, you're here."
"Of course I am. I couldn't be anywhere else."
Caught up in both her words and her smile, he didn't know how much time had passed, how long she'd been incautiously near him, her guard down. The realization horrified him; he struck without thinking, caring only that this was a chance he might not get again, an escape from their tricks and honeyed words.
He pinned her against him before she could utter more than a startled cry which spooked the horse, but drew no other response.
She tried to speak; mindful of her magic, he looped the chain of his shackles around her throat and pulled, silencing her.
The suddenness of Angelo's attack caught her off guard, delayed her reaction for the few crucial seconds he needed. Even then, she wasn't helpless; she knew ample spells she could cast without speaking, a fact Angelo had clearly forgotten along with everything else.
But she couldn't make herself use them, not yet.
"Angelo." Even producing a shadow of a whisper hurt; she forced the words out anyway, determined to reach him. "Please. You're our friend."
He didn't answer, but the chain pressed just a bit harder, confirming he could hear her. Her eyes filled with tears, that he'd reverted to his stubborn silence.
"What I told you..."
He jerked slightly, and the chain pulled too tight before he recovered and eased it. "No more lies."
"Not lies." She was lightheaded and beginning to shake, and she needed him to listen, to believe, because soon she'd have no choice but to use magic against him. "You matter too much for me to lie to you."
The pressure eased, just a fraction, and she wondered if he even realized he'd done it as she waited for him to respond.
She trembled, breath quick and short with terror and the pressure against her throat. "Let me go," he whispered in her ear. "I don't want to hurt you."
"I can't." The words were nearly soundless, but he was pressed against her like a lover, and he heard. "I haven't got the key."
Truth or lie, it mattered little; he would not get another opportunity. She undoubtedly carried something he could use, be it a blade or a hairpin, and he couldn't afford to let her warn the others of his betrayal.
He shortened the chain between his hands, and pulled.
The frantic screams of a horse brought Eight on deck at a run, his sword drawn in anticipation of a monster attack. He saw nothing but Medea, though, her hooves tapping nervously at the deck, her neck extended toward the steps leading down to the cargo hold.
"Wot's happenin'?" Yangus demanded; he still had a mouthful of food, and half a loaf of bread in one hand. "Wot's wrong wif the 'orse-princess?"
"I don't know." Eight sheathed the sword and went to Medea's side, trying to calm her. "There has to be..."
Without warning, her head whipped around and she bit him, teeth scraping over skin before closing on his loose sleeve and yanking. He stumbled, from shock as much as the sudden tug, and she shoved him with her nose, hard enough that he would have fallen down the ladder if Yangus hadn't caught him at the last moment.
"What are you ruffians doing to upset my precious daughter?" King Trode demanded, hurrying up. "There, there, Medea, daddy's h..."
Medea stamped a hoof and backed away from his attempt to touch her, then let out another ear-splitting whinny and swiveled her head back toward the hold.
Angelo. The storeroom they had turned into a makeshift cell was practically at the bottom of the ladder; Medea's sharp equine hearing could have picked up sounds none of the rest of them would have noticed.
A chill swept through him when he realized Jessica hadn't joined in checking on Medea.
"Something's wrong," he said, and was down the ladder before Yangus could ask what, or Trode could point out that of course something was wrong. Lantern light spilled from beneath the door - not that that meant anything, they weren't monsters, to keep Angelo trapped in darkness - but the knob turned at his touch, the door swinging easily open.
Eight shouted in horror as he took in the scene before him, the chain binding Angelo's manacles looped around Jessica's throat, the desperate, almost mad look on Angelo's face. He was knocked aside before he could draw his sword by Yangus, who charged into Angelo without slowing. Angelo's head bounced off the wall as he was driven back, then again when Yangus's meaty fist slammed into his face.
Yangus dragged him forward; bone snapped as the bandit roughly released the chain from around Jessica's throat.
The dull thump of Jessica's body hitting the floor drew Eight back to what was going on. "Don't kill him," he shouted, nearly choking on the words. Yangus ignored him, punch after punch pinning Angelo against the wall. "Yangus, don't! We still need him!"
"After wot he's done..." Yangus had his hand fisted in the front of Angelo's shirt, keeping him from collapsing, but the waiting blow didn't fall.
"We need him," Eight repeated.
"We need Jessica, too," Yangus protested, giving Angelo a shake.
"I can bring her back, you know that." He gathered Jessica into his arms, praying he was speaking the truth. "Just...leave him."
He turned toward the door, an ache in his chest, and pretended not to hear the sound of Yangus's fist striking Angelo one final time.
He lay in the dark, unable to see, barely able to breathe, and let the pain consume him. Far better, that, than to contemplate his failure.
The door opened; the footsteps told him it was their leader who entered and stood so silent that his arrival might have been mere hallucination.
A healing spell finally confirmed the leader's presence, so much hatred behind the incantation that he was surprised it didn't twist into something else and strike him dead.
Silence again, but now he could see the glare leveled at him.
She's dead, he thought.
"She's alive," the leader said.
"You think it's hopeless, don't you?" In spite of his healing spells, Jessica's voice was still low and rough, and Eight thought it must hurt her to talk; she'd certainly been quiet enough up until now. "And that I'm a fool."
"I can't think it's hopeless; we need him. And you aren't a fool." Eight sat beside her at the table, his chair nearly touching hers, and set two cups of tea on the polished wood. She didn't look at him, or at the cups, her gaze remaining steady on her clasped hands. "It's hard to think of him as the enemy. I know that."
"I thought I'd finally reached him, that he was finally starting to come back."
"I'm sure that's how he planned it, too." He slid one of the cups closer; she continued to ignore it. "It's not your fault, Jess."
"If I'd had the key, and he'd kept talking, I probably would have let him go, you know."
Eight put an arm around her; she pressed her face into his shoulder, and he could feel tears soaking through his shirt. She cried silently, and he wrapped his arms tight around her and waited.
Finally, she pulled away; Eight once again nudged the teacup in her direction. This time, she wrapped her hands around it, though she made no move to drink. "It's not your fault," he said again. "It's hard to remember he isn't really Angelo right now."
"How will we know when he is?"
"I wish I knew. I guess if his magic comes back, we could trust that; he's not likely to relearn any spells where he is now."
Jessica nodded.
"Are you going to be okay?"
"When we have him back."
"And until we have him back?"
She bowed her head. "I'll have to be, won't I?"
After his impulsive attempt to escape, the woman didn't come back. He didn't blame her; she feared him, as she should have feared him from the beginning.
He found he missed her presence, the sincerity with which she spun her tales of travels and adventures they'd supposedly shared. Oddly, what he missed most were the glimpses he'd gotten only in those last few hours, when she smiled and laughed and spoke with such animation that he'd forgotten she was his enemy.
Alone, his mind conjured up ghosts from a past he didn't have.
And at night, he began to dream.
"May I see her?"
"No," Eight said reflexively; there was no way he was letting Angelo anywhere near Jessica.
"Please. Not alone; I don't even need to talk to her. I just want to see her."
Angelo hadn't spoken to him or Yangus at all, not even when they'd pinned him down and added the weights to his shackles; the quiet persistence took Eight by surprise. "Why?" he asked, sliding the dinner tray near enough for Angelo to catch the edge and draw it toward him.
"I just..." Angelo's voice faltered. "I want to know she's all right."
"She's alive in spite of you. That's all you need to know."
Angelo looked, for just a moment, like he wanted to say something else, then he fell silent, his attention on the stew and bread Eight had brought him. Eight felt a twinge of guilt, made worse because he knew how badly Jessica wanted to see Angelo.
Grimly, he reminded himself of the panic he'd felt when spell after spell failed, while time and his magic trickled away. He'd lost track of how many attempts it had taken to bring her back, while her skin grew cold and stiff beneath his hands, and every failure, every minute, made the odds against him worse.
No, he would not be allowing Angelo near Jessica any time soon.
He turned toward the door, and Angelo tried one last time. "Will you at least tell her I'm sorry?"
He sounded sincere, and Eight was glad his back was to Angelo, that the other man couldn't see how badly Eight wanted to believe his sincerity, how easily they were manipulated.
"I'd tell her if I believed you meant it," he said finally. He lifted the lamp from its hook and walked out the door, leaving Angelo in darkness.
It took him long minutes to remember how to put on the uniform, but finally he was dressed. The heavy fabric, boots and gloves, felt... almost right.
"Come here."
He obeyed, his body awkward with the memory of the pain so recently healed away, and knelt at the foot of the throne. An archdemon brought out a sword. Light spilled from the curved blade, and the moment he saw it, he knew that was what he was missing.
"Do you swear loyalty to me?"
"I do." His voice was still raw from the hours he'd spent screaming.
"Take the sword."
"What harm could it do for me to just see him?" Jessica asked.
"I don't know." Eight already regretted mentioning Angelo's request, but he had needed to talk to someone. It had been days since Empyrea had brought them the sceptre; every day he could feel Rhapthorne's power growing, could see the darkness in the sky spreading, and he was no closer to knowing how to get Angelo back in time to stop that darkness from extending to the entire world.
"He's not a threat if he can't reach me," she continued patiently, "and his bonds don't let him anywhere near the door."
"I know," Eight said, and didn't mention the chains had been shortened and weighted since Angelo's attack on her.
"I'm not stupid enough to go near him again."
"I know you aren't." And I wouldn't let you be alone with him anyway.
"Then why..."
"I don't trust him." You, of all people, should understand why, he thought, but didn't bother to say. He was glad Jessica seemed to have recovered from the attack, but he wished she was more rational about Angelo. "He's the enemy as long as Rhapthorne's power over him holds."
"Do you think we're going to change that by locking him up and leaving him alone for days on end? You know we need him, and you know I have the best chance of reaching him, or you wouldn't have said anything." Jessica shook her head. "I'm not giving up on him. I can't." And her eyes asked, How can you?
Eight looked away, because he didn't have an answer.
Light flared the moment he touched the sword; he closed his eyes, half turned away.
"Do you know this weapon?"
He could not summon even the ghost of a memory. "No, my Lord."
"It is unique. Made for you." Rhapthorne's hand curled around his. "And now, it shall be bound to you, as you are bound to me."
Rhapthorne slid their hands along the blade. Blood welled and mingled, dimming the light, revealing the steel beneath.
In the space between one breath and the next, light became darkness, spilling like smoke.
"Now, my knight, take up the Shamshir of Shadow."
"I'm not giving up on him. I'm just out of ideas." He caught her hand, squeezed so she would know he didn't blame her. "I don't want to give him any more information than he already has."
"We aren't going to get him back without giving him something to replace what Rhapthorne stole."
"But you can't make him care by telling him all the reasons he used to. Especially," and it hurt to say the words, as much as it would hurt her to hear them, "when he's proven he'll use those things against us."
Jessica turned away, pulling her hand free. "Until you have a better idea, I owe it to him to try to reach him."
"No," Eight said, then amended hastily, "At least, not tonight. He's probably already asleep. Besides, maybe by morning I'll have come up with that better idea."
Jessica didn't look at him, but she was moving in the direction of her cabin, not the storeroom they had pressed into service as a cell, so he didn't try to stop her. "I wish to the Goddess someone would," she said bitterly.
He closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against the rough wall, and wished the same thing.
The Shamshir felt right in his hand, balanced so it was nearly weightless, the hilt curved perfectly against his palm. It sang as he tested a few strokes against the air.
"I think," Rhapthorne said, "that you should give it a real test."
He stilled, turned, saw the Lord of Darkness look at the oblivious archdemon and give a slight nod. Obediently, the blade flashed out again; the poor creature had no time for more than a startled grunt before blood was flowing freely from its slit throat.
He reversed the stroke, gutting the dark haired leader - no, he remembered this, remembered opening the archdemon from shoulder to hip, watching it collapse while Rhapthorne applauded - but this was now, it was happening, not something that had already happened.
"Well done, my knight."
He looked away from the body sprawled at his feet, disturbed rather than pleased by the death of his foe.
Something was wrong with the floor, with the steps leading to the throne. He blinked, trying to clear his vision.
Pieces of the fat man were scattered around the base of the throne; he had done that, must have done it, but when? And why such butchery, rather than a clean death?
Feeling ill from the blood soaking the floor and his uniform, he looked up.
Dark energy pulsed around Rhapthorne, nearly concealing that the Dark Lord was growing, changing shape. For a moment, it did conceal the staff he held, so that at first he didn't realize the glowing orb had been replaced.
Then a flash of red caught his attention, and he looked up, straight into the eyes of the head now adorning Rhapthorne's staff.
He woke himself with his screaming, and at first, in the pitch blackness, he couldn't be sure he was awake. Then the door slammed open, and the light that filtered in silhouetted Yangus, holding his axe and demanding to know what was going on.
Angelo dropped his head to his arms and sobbed.
The screams began before she was halfway to her cabin. Jessica turned, ice running down her spine, no doubt in her mind that the sound was coming from Angelo. Angelo, who was in a cell, chained, guarded by Yangus, who would surely never do anything to inspire such sounds without provocation.
Rhapthorne, she thought, starting toward the stairs to the deck. Ahead of her, she could hear boots on wood, as Eight hurried in the same direction. Goddess, if he's sent something after Angelo...
The sound of wood striking wood echoed down the corridor, and the screaming abruptly stopped.
Jessica ran.
The cell door was open, and Yangus nowhere visible in the light spilling from the oil lamp. Eight swore, reaching for the sword on his back. If that bastard's done anything to Yangus...
"Is that you, guv?"
Eight nearly ran into Yangus in the doorway. "What happened?" he asked, releasing his sword.
"I don't know. I figgered he was asleep, but the next thing I know he's screamin' like. I about bust the door down, comin' t' see wot's wrong, an' he gives me a look like he's expectin' me to finish 'im off and starts cryin'." He looked a bit defensive as he added, "I di'n't touch 'im none, though."
"Well is he all right?" Jessica pushed past them both; Eight heard her gasp as she caught sight of Angelo, curled on the floor and weeping.
Eight caught her arm. "Jessica, don't."
"I should hope the two of you would be a match for him," she snapped, and pulled free to go to Angelo.
Eight followed, not quite close enough to hear what she said when she knelt by Angelo's side and spoke to him, but close enough to hear Angelo whimper her name.
"I'm here," she said. "It's all right, I'm here."
Angelo jerked upright so quickly that Eight moved to intervene, and Jessica pulled back, a fireball springing to life in her hand. Angelo stared at the flames for a moment, then his gaze moved to Jessica's face.
"Goddess," he whispered. "Dear Goddess, I actually...Jessica, I..." He started to reach for her, chains scraping across the floor, then buried his face in his hands with a moan.
The spell vanished, and Jessica pulled him into her arms, heedless of the lengths of chain and metal which hung from his wrists and struck her when he reached out to cling to her. For a long time, they stayed like that, Angelo sobbing brokenly and Jessica whispering things Eight couldn't hear. Once or twice, Angelo shook his head; Eight couldn't tell if it was in answer to something Jessica said, or in response to the things he'd done under Rhapthorne's control, and then wondered when he'd decided this wasn't an elaborate trick.
"Let him go," Jessica said at length.
"Jess, we can't..."
"Let him go, or I'm going to blow a hole in the wall he's chained to."
Eight shook his head, but when Jessica released Angelo he knelt, moved the makeshift weights out of the way, and fit the magic key into the locks securing Angelo's bonds. It was the first time he'd really looked at Angelo since he and Yangus had added the weights; and the bruises and blood on Angelo's arms embarrassed him, as did the time it took to remove everything. Through it all, Angelo stayed motionless on his knees, as if expecting any movement to be interpreted as an attack.
Eight finally finished and climbed to his feet, shoving the chains out of easy reach with his boot. He thought he was ready for anything, but he was utterly unprepared when Angelo collapsed silently forward into Jessica's arms.
