Death Lord Arcanist [Chapter 14]

Hey peeps!

Here is another chapter of Death Lord. Hopefully you enjoy!

Shami

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LORD OTO

The weightless feeling only lasted half a second. Then I emerged from within a pumpkin. Yes—a pumpkin.

The gourd exploded in white pulp, orange vegetation, dozens of seeds, and stringy goop. My shoulder ached as I hit some sort of hard surface during my emergence. With an unceremonious groan, I rolled over, my head pounding, my eyes adjusting to the new light.

Where was I?

It was a large room, ornate with a chandelier, wooden floors polished to a shine, and large woven tapestries to cover the tall walls. The ceiling was practically twelve feet above me, curved and painted to resemble a stormy night with thunderbirds sailing through the dark clouds.

I wiped the pumpkin juice off my face and immediately glanced around for the others. Twain was on the floor next to me, the stringy pumpkin innards wrapped around his cat-like body. He wasn’t moving, and I panicked.

I gently picked up Twain, held him close, and ripped away the bits of pumpkin. My eldrin took a breath, and I relaxed a bit. An arcanist’s eldrin was like a part of their body—I wouldn’t have been okay if Twain had been hurt.

“What in the abyssal hells just happened?”

The gruff and bizarre voice startled me. I had never heard this person before, and when I turned in their direction, I realized I had never met them before, either.

It was a short man. Notably short—perhaps not even five feet. He was lean and muscular, with a stiff stance that exuded his irritation.

He wore… clothing. So much clothing. The man sported a dark blue coat with similarly colored trousers, a black vest, an ivory shirt, a blue sash around the waist, another one on the shoulder, black ankle-boots, a dark blue hat with a feather, a black cane, and leather gloves. Could he breathe under all of that? He was so small, he was practically just a pile of laundry.

The man also had a dozen medals pinned to his shoulder sash. Was he some sort of war hero?

The arcanist mark on his forehead was a seven-pointed star with a lustrous bird wrapped around the points. Was it a phoenix? The peacock tail reminded me of phoenixes.

“What is this?” the man growled. His teeth shone, and not all of them were white. Some of his teeth glittered with magic—they were enchanted with blue runes. Half the teeth on the top row. I had never seen that before. “Huh? Zahn? What’s going on?”

Still baffled by the situation, I managed to take in the rest of my surroundings. This was a large room—big enough for me, Twain, Ashlyn, Knovak, Ecrib, and Starling to be sprawled out over a collection of sparkling pumpkins, mushrooms, and flowers. The others were unconscious, their faces peaceful in sleep.

Even Twain hadn’t woken, though I felt him breathing.

Had we all burst out of the vegetation?

The only other two people were the short man in his laundry outfit, and Professor Zahn.

Well, he wasn’t a professor anymore—not after he tried to kill me inside Astra Academy.

He was standing closer to the fresh bunch of vegetables and plants, his expression grim. Unlike the short man, Zahn was notably tall and wiry. He wore long robes secured with black leather belts around the waist. Like the other man, Zahn wore dark blue—some sort of favored colored here.

Zahn had darker brown hair that fell to his shoulders, darker tanned skin, and eyes that reminded me of Deimos. They weren’t yellow, like Deimos, but they were intense. He wore glasses—small spectacles, really—and glared at me through the tiny windows of glass.

His arcanist mark matched mine.

A seven-pointed star with nothing in it. He was a mimic arcanist.

And then I spotted it—the mimic. It appeared to be a sleek and beautiful cat with pink fur, one gray eye, one orange-tan eye, and puffy paws that seemed larger than most. The mimic sat next to Zahn’s feet, also glaring at me, the tip of its tail twitching.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Zahn drawled, his tone a perfect blend of annoyed and precise. I had forgotten how much he sounded like someone who knew all the answers and hated that everyone around him was complete rube.

The short man stepped forward, his black cane clicking on the wood floor with every other step. He stood close to Zahn, his lip curled upward in a sneer.

“You told me, and I quote—” the man held up a finger, “—don’t worry, Lord Oto, you will have access to an abyssal dragon soon.” Then the man pointed at me, Ashlyn, and Knovak. “What is this? What in the fresh manure is this? Children? Barely of age adults? That’s what you summoned from the abyssal hells?”

Zahn fixed his small glasses on his long nose. “Something went wrong. Deimos should’ve been the only one capable of coming through.”

“I know something went wrong,” the man sarcastically shouted. “I have two functioning eyes, you shabbaroon! You said a Death Lord and his abyssal dragon would be here, and instead, you squandered all my coin to pull off a disappointing magic trick.”

Who was this person?

Lord Oto?

I had heard that name before… Someone in my class had mentioned him. Who?

Zahn closed his eyes so tightly, his whole expression seemed squished. He thought for a long moment, then exhaled. “I just need to try again. Deimos must’ve been nearby… He must’ve… triggered something on the other side… And these children… somehow…” He used his thumb and his pointer finger to rub both his eyes.

He was clearly struggling to understand what had happened.

Although I was weak, and still sitting on the floor in a mess of vegetable juice, I forced a cough to gain both of their attention.

“Deimos was in trouble,” I said. I hacked up a pumpkin seed and spat it onto the floor. With a frown, I continued, “Death Lord Naiad was trying to graft his soul.”

“What?” Zahn yelled, his voice echoing all around this vast and empty ballroom. He stepped closer, his body tense. “How could you possibly know that?”

I tapped my chest, though it hurt. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. “I have a fragment of Deimos’s soul. And when Naiad was trying to rip his soul from his body, it pulled me, and the people around me, straight into the abyssal hells.”

That information didn’t sit well.

Zahn stared at me, his intense and intelligent eyes searching my gaze. Lord Oto just glared from his position close to the wall. He radiated contempt. I doubted he wanted to hear any of this.

“We were trapped there,” I said. I held Twain close. “All of us. But Deimos told us about your plan. We had to, I don’t know, get some place within the Wraithborne Orchard so you could summon us. Teleport us. Whatever you just did.”

“Eh?” Lord Oto scratched at his ear. When he sneered, his glowing rune-covered teeth seemed sinister, somehow. “The Death Lord was helping you unlicked cubs? Why?”

“I’m going to help set things right in the abyssal hells.”

I made the statement as earnestly as possible, but it only occurred to me after I finished speaking that perhaps I sounded insane. They hadn’t been there when I told Deimos I wanted to help. They hadn’t seen all the horrors of the abyssal hells—how everything was clearly wrong.

“W-Wait,” I said as I held up a hand. “Listen. I saw everything. The Death Lord fighting each other, the hells being messed up. I saw the elder creatures. They’re only supposed to be in the fourth abyss, but they were there in the first abyss, trying to eat us, and consuming human souls. A-And I saw someone else! A man who, like, was half mystical creature!”

I was rambling. I knew it the moment I started. This wasn’t adding to my claim for sanity, that was for sure.

Lord Oto’s sneer grew deeper, his eyes narrower. “Yeah, kid. It’s the abyssal hells—it’s not a field of rainbows and flowers.” He shook his head and slammed his cane onto the wood floor with a clack. “Look, I’ve had enough of this.” He shot a glare at Zahn. “If you want more coin to fund you and your Death Lord worshipping buddies, you’ll get me pieces of an abyssal dragon. I don’t care how you do it—or how many pumpkins you have to turn into children—I just want my dragon parts. Understand?”

“I understand perfectly.” Zahn slowly exhaled. “I just need a little more time. I think I still have everything I need to help my brother breach the barrier between the realms of the dead and the living.”

“Uh-huh. That’s great.” Lord Oto turned and walked toward the far door. He didn’t need the cane to walk, though it clack-clacked every other step as he slammed it on the ground to emphasize his irritation. “Like I said, just get me some abyssal dragon parts. I already have buyers—those dragon bits will make for some fun trinkets and artifacts.”

Zahn glared at the back of the short man’s head, his own rage barely in check.

Lord Oto stopped at the door. He turned around, his expression one of bewilderment. Zahn’s expression became a mask—neutral and without a hint of his anger, like he was hiding it from Oto.

“Wait,” Lord Oto muttered. “What’re you going to do with a bunch of children?”

Zahn’s arcanist mark shifted across his forehead. What was once blank became an image of a spider with a human face. The mimic by Zahn’s feet shimmered and shifted, transforming before my eyes into something I hadn’t seen in a long time.

It was a soul catcher.

A wooden puppet spider the size of a full-grown human. Its eight limbs, creepy mask face, and knife-like fingers was the stuff of my nightmares. Literally. For years, a soul catcher had been trying to kill me while I slept.

I held my breath, my heart flipping around in my chest.

“I’ll handle this,” Zahn said as he snapped his fingers. “I’ll extract my brother’s soul from this boy and then I’ll try this again. Deimos is no doubt waiting for me. I can’t fail him. I can’t.”

The soul catch reached out one of its eight limbs. I tried to stand and run, but I was exhausted. The time in the abyssal hells had taken such a terrible toll. Even standing was outside my capabilities.

And when the soul catcher touched me, its dread magic forced me into a deep sleep.