Jackal Among Snakes

“You should know, beforehand…” Raven began to caution Argrave. “I’m intimately familiar with this process.”

“A battle of souls?” Argrave stared up at him as he laid down on the table, waiting for the stamp to land on his passport and send him to the dream world.

“Indeed.” Raven looked at the implement in his hand. “When I was the Smiling Raven, every time I subsumed a living thing, I had a battle.” He turned his inhuman gray eyes toward Argrave. “And still I stand before you. Lorena has clarified that it is because I have an undying soul that I was able to potentiate so many living beings. She is… knowledgeable. Despite how she acts.” He could sense a vague hint of annoyance on Raven’s noseless face—then again, annoyance was his default state of being.

“Is that so?” Argrave took a deep breath. “That’s neat. I’m glad she can help you.”

“Indeed. Her kind can potentiate just as I can, but never before was a dragon of her kind born with an undying soul. Their souls would die, or fracture, when they bit off more than they could chew. Mine, however, would not perish so easily. It could bear the burden of being Smiling Raven.”

Argrave felt it was some revelation, but didn’t know if the information would help him. He started jokingly, “Well, you’ve never gone up against an undying—”

“On the contrary,” Raven interrupted. “I have gone up against one like you. The result stands before you.”

“Okay…” Argrave closed his eyes, digesting that. “I’m starting to see why you think this is a fitting test, then. Let’s—”

Raven slammed the implement against Argrave’s chest, and Argrave’s vision blurred as he drifted away.

Argrave opened his eyes with a gasp, and felt familiar ground touching against his face. He rose, quickly, coming to terms with this process of leaving the body. At the beginning of departing his body, Argrave always appeared in the same location—a reflection of his inner self. Durran had said that he appeared in the Burnt Desert in his battle against Garm, while the High Wizard himself had appeared in a field of black roses.

Argrave’s inner mind was Blackgard, but not as it was at present—rather, it was how he hoped it could be many years in the future. A blend of both the fantastic world that he found himself within, and the modern world he’d come from. His Blackgard of the mind had both elves and supermarkets, both electricity and magic, and both wyverns and planes. It tended to go off the rails pretty quick as the world fought against him, twisting his imagination to its own ends.

Standing in opposition, however, was a nightmarish scene vaguely familiar to Argrave. A black bird as large as the skyscrapers on Argrave’s city stood opposed to him. On its chest was a face—Raven’s face when he had been human, wreathed in the black feathers of the bird. The Smiling Raven didn’t have that haunting smile Argrave remembered, nor did it hold the orb that contained Hause. Countless stakes had been driven into its body, chains attached to the end of each. Statues embedded in the abyssal landscape around held the chains tightly. These statues were brilliant, golden, heroic—almost angelic. Argrave recognized most of the statues—he was one of them. His statue held the largest chain, its gargantuan stake embedded directly into the bird’s face.

Argrave stared the face down, until…

“Here we are,” the face spoke. “Your enemies will not allow you to gawk as I have. I am nothing if not generous. Remember that, in the pain to come.”

Argrave realized it, then. In Raven’s mind, he was still the Smiling Raven. This was how he viewed himself. He believed he had merely been chained down by Argrave and others, not fully changed. The statues were the only things inside his head that resembled something heroic, something decent. And they all depicted people that were not him.

“There’s something we should talk about, before we begin.” Argrave held out his hand. “Here, the Heralds won’t hear us speak. We’ll communicate soul-to-soul. Best encryption I can ask for.”

“I suspected you wished to convey something. That is why I waited.” Raven’s chains rattled as she shifted. “Speak.”

“Buckle up.” Argrave took a breath. “Anneliese and I are in a little deep…”

#####

“You may be overreaching,” Raven cautioned. His face loomed high over Argrave, at least eighty times his size. “But, I agree in one thing. There is no harm in going along with the Heralds and seeing what they plan. You allow us time to position ourself advantageously.”

Argrave raised a brow. “I honestly thought you might’ve suggested taking their deal.”

“Because you don’t know me well at all. I am many things, but stupid is not one of them. The Heralds are what they accused you of being—a parasite. They benefit from our suffering and misery. In what way, I cannot begin to guess. The only way to deal with something of that nature is not to strike a deal; it is to purge them with every fiber we possess.” The chains rattled as Raven’s colossal form shifted. They strained, then snapped, the harsh sounds of ringing metal echoing in his ear.

“But you will come to know me,” Raven declared, spreading his wings wide. He was of such size that Argrave could not fit him in his vision. “You will know me very well, Argrave. I will leave who I am emblazoned in your very soul, for better or worse.”

Argrave stepped back, trying not to smile. “I haven’t been just talking, you realize.”

With his word, the group that he’d spent so much time creating in his mind came out of the alleys, pouring into the streets while brandishing their weapons. No longer did Argrave command an army of sword-wielding, spell-flinging soldiers. Instead, he had a well-drilled platoon of commandos, each carrying weapons that could deliver a fully-automatic load of S-rank enchanted bullets right into enemy lines.

It did somewhat embarrass him that his inner mindscape was a very heavily—and very badly—modded game of Heroes of Berendar. But he couldn’t deny that he also loved it more than anything.

“You shot me once before,” Raven noted as he looked upon the soldiers. “I think you’ll find this time goes a little differently than before.”

A fell power overtook Raven of such intensity that Argrave felt it rumble his chest. As soon as he felt it, he gave the command to his soldiers to fire. He heard gunfire, then felt a wave of tremendous energy as something stirred, something harsh enough make all the hairs on his neck stand on end.

What followed was a reminder that Argrave’s imagination could not conjure true horror.

There was a grim explosion, followed by an outpouring of nightmares that were of such intensity his mind warped to forget them as soon as he saw them. More attacks flew toward this modern Blackgard than there were bullets flying to combat them, and each of them was far more twisted than even the worst of the abominations he’d seen in the Shadowlands. His buildings, his people, his defenses…

Argrave came to understand that he was woefully unprepared to face hell itself. Then, everything ended all at once, leaving only blackness. Argrave thought death was coming… instead, a voice echoed. Raven’s.

“Return.”

#####

Argrave sat up, immediately grasping at his neck and breathing heavily.

“Less than a second.”

Argrave looked to his right. He’d grown used to Raven, somewhat, but now… even the mere sound of that voice triggered something primal in him that made him fear for his life. Argrave was no stranger to fear, and he fought to rein it in, holding Raven’s gaze as he sat there.

“With the Fruit of Being and that staff crafted by Artur, you could easily kill my physical form.” Raven rose to his feet. “But I hope this demonstrated that you’ve a soft core surrounded by a hard shell. Of course, there’s no ordinary scenario where someone could get to that soft core without going through the hard shell.” Raven pointed at Argrave. “Before I even contemplate risking your life, your core needs to be as hard as your shell.”

“Is that what it was like?” Argrave asked, barely able to speak. “The Smiling Raven, I mean. If it was that powerful, how could anyone beat that?”

Raven looked away. “No. The Smiling Raven was never that powerful. You faced my mind, my soul, my force of will. It survived the Smiling Raven. It was tempered in the most misery you can ever conceive of, and tested in battle more than one hundred million times. It is the product of an entire continent’s worth of lives, compressed into one being. My soul has both killed millions, and died millions of times. I experienced both.” He looked back. “The only person who I dare even suggest has experienced or caused more misery would be Gerechtigkeit. The calamity’s mind will be as hardened, if not more, than mine. And that is who I train you to fight, even if he would be acting through proxy.”

“Less than a second.” Argrave laughed. If he could grow nauseous anymore, he surely would be. This fear would take hours to abate, he was certain. He could only laugh in defeat as he asked, “How the fuck do I beat that?”

“I don’t know,” Raven responded calmly. “I don’t know at all. If I knew how to beat it, I would not have needed those statues you saw, chaining it down. It’s only because of you, and the chains Lindon made, that I was able to tame it.” Raven looked at the ground, and Argrave could tell there was some genuine frustration, genuine sorrow, in him at this moment. Raven looked up again. “But if anyone can beat it, I suspect it would be you.”

“Thanks, coach,” Argrave joked, falling back on that old coping mechanism. “You got lucky. A sucker punch, that’s all it was. I would’ve won if I hadn’t slipped.”

“Hmm.” Raven nodded. “I’ll give you some time. Meanwhile, I’ll do what we talked about.”

The lumbering figure left, leaving only the fear he’d caused behind. Argrave grappled with it as hard as he could. If he did this too many times too quickly, he feared he might become incontinent. The mere prospect of fighting that thing again sent shivers through his body. He punched his leg again and again to shake the feeling, but it stayed with him.

Raven… the Alchemist… he lived with that damn thing. The idea of that made Argrave feel an intense pity and sympathy for the man he’d once thought utterly despicable. Every single ounce of pain and misery that he’d caused others lived on, inside him. It was no wonder why he kept that monstrous form, and also no wonder why his mind was so powerful.

Argrave stood up—his legs were so shaky he fell to the ground. He rose, one thought on his mind.

He’s got a hundred million souls balled up into one in that soul of his. No way I do this alone. I need to do some theorycrafting with these guildmates of mine.