Kastori Tribulations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 3) (24 page)

With that, Typhos cast a fire spell on the chief’s head, burning all of his hair and much of his scalp. Typhos’ hand got caught in the fire, and the skin on his fingers became charred and melted away. But Typhos had become so wrapped up in the torture of the chief that he didn’t feel any pain. He didn’t even bother to heal himself. He let the hand turn to half-bone.

“Who voted for Erda?” Typhos spat.

Ramadus didn’t answer, an intentional decision, and Typhos tightened his grip on the man’s skull, crunching it.

“This will only get worse for you, Ramadus. Tell me what you know, and—”

“It was unanimous, Typhos, we all voted for Erda,” he gasped.

“WHAT?!?” Typhos said, and his fire increased to the point that some of the flames reached his own face. But the pain didn’t stop him—in fact, as he realized what would happen, he encouraged it.
Let the people see my scars and the blood on my robes. Let them know I have done this before and will do it again.

And let them know it will start with the members of the council.

“It’s, it’s true Typhos, we all know how much power you have, but we thought you weren’t mature enough to—”

“But you were mature enough to allow my mother back on the council? After the way she abandoned me and left me to turn into this?!?”

I hate hate hate hate hate… hate… HATE you!

“What, I—”

“You know, Ramadus, you idiot, do not lie to me,” Typhos said, though he began to suspect Ramadus didn’t know. “You didn’t see her eyes? The way she talked? You really didn’t see the eyes and hear the voice of Aida?”

“Typhos I swear it! She’s just a teacher of black magic! I don’t know—”

But Typhos was growing impatient. He clenched tighter and intensified the flame.

“Give me a position on the council, Ramadus, and I may yet spare you. You will be my puppet, but you will live.”

Ramadus looked at Typhos, and for the first time since Typhos had ever seen him, the man did not look confused or stupid or annoyingly happy. He looked angry.

“The council is no one’s puppet, Typhos. Kill me, I don’t care. All of the other Kastori will hunt you down.”

“You’re wrong,” Typhos said. “You’re wrong!”

“One man cannot defeat an entire race,” Ramadus said. “Your parents would be ashamed of you.”

Typhos raged as he crushed the chief’s skull with a magically enhanced grip and a powerful fire spell. In doing so, an ember launched and landed in his left eye, causing the young man to recoil in agony and drop the sound barrier spell and the chief’s body to the ground. He quickly used his powers to heal, but he had lost vision in his left eye. He reached for his mask, put it on, and had the magical vision of his left eye that only his mask could achieve.

He stared down at his robes and smelled the fresh blood of the chief on them. He looked at the body on the ground, without an identifiable face, the head crumpled into half its original size.

“Good riddance,” Typhos spat. “Pathetic.”

He turned to walk away, but just after the first step, he felt an overwhelming amount of energy course through him. It brought him to his knees and left him gasping for air as it felt like the energy would kill him. The experience lasted just a few seconds but felt like the most overwhelming sensation he’d ever felt in his life.

Then it finished.

“What just… what?”

Typhos mumbled to himself as he removed his mask and looked at himself. He still looked the same. His right hand was burned badly, with two of the fingers reduced to nothing but bone. He felt his face, and he had a big burn across his left side. His left eye still didn’t function.

But he didn’t feel the same. He felt like… he felt like his powers had just tripled.

He focused on casting a lightning spell and was frightened by the ability to summon an intense amount of electricity at once—a spell more powerful than anything he’d created while wearing the mask. He could’ve scorched Ramadus’ entire town at that moment, were it not for the fact that he wanted to do nothing with them.
They may yet serve me, anyways.

But the relationship was clear. The council’s first big secret had revealed itself to the most powerful Kastori.

“So,” Typhos said, a sadistic grin coming to his face. “This was one of your precious secrets, Ramadus. Kill a Kastori and absorb his power. It’s too bad your sorrowful excuse for chiefdom taught me that lesson. But now your powers will actually get put to good use.”

He looked back at the body lying on the ground and incinerated it to nothing but ashes with a fire spell. He stared at the body menacingly as it burned. He wanted nothing left of Ramadus. Nothing could remain. When only ashes remained, Typhos cast a wind spell that blew the ashes away, dispersing them into specks so small they couldn’t even be coughed up.

Typhos slowly laughed as he walked away, teleporting back to his home, satisfied with what he had done and in a stupor from both the alcohol and the sensation of conquering the incompetent chief.

But when he reached home, he came face to face with the realization he didn’t actually want to kill all of the council.

43

Garron trembled at the top of the hill, his eyes filled with sorrow as Typhos hiked to meet him.
Anyone but this. Anyone but this. Anyone but this.

“What have you done?” Garron asked, his eyes blatantly looking at the blood stains on Typhos’ robes and the scorched right hand.

He knows. He knows.

“I righted a wrong,” Typhos said. “I corrected the mistakes of the council.”

And in the process, demonstrated the power that I will bring to the council.

“Typhos,” Garron said, his voice weak. “Typhos. You… Why?”

“Because Ramadus was a fool!” Typhos shouted, but he quickly calmed himself as he looked at the face of Garron, the councilor’s eyes watering. He cleared his throat.
You have to ask this. Even though you know the answer.

“Garron. Did you vote against me?”

Garron gave a slow nod.
Why, Garron. Why? Of all the councilors…

“I have always believed in you, Typhos, and I still do. I didn’t become a member of the council until I was forty. These things don’t—”

“And did you vote for my mother?” Typhos said with unsettling calm.

Garron said nothing at first, but his facial reaction looked exactly like Ramadus’—confused and caught off-guard.

“Your mother?”

Typhos sighed.
He really doesn’t get it. He’s… he’s as close to an innocent councilor as we have.
Typhos thanked himself for wearing the mask, as the emotions of the encounter and Garron’s innocence had begun to overwhelm him.

“Erda Orran is not a teacher, Garron. She’s my mother. She’s returned from Monda, for whatever reason. Maybe she had some husband die on that planet. Ramadus said no one recognized her. I find that very hard to believe since I recognized her and my red magic is not that powerful.”

Garron breathed slowly, his eyes still watery, looking at the young man who was once his child’s best friend and now a man who would wind up in jail or face execution.

“Typhos… this is hard for me. I want to believe you. I know you are not the boy who just… did what he did. I can sense the alcohol and anger in you. You’ll have to face the consequences, but we can mitigate those. But on the other hand, you seem so unrepentant for what you’ve done, and we know your mother is gone. No one has sensed her since she left and gave you that suicide note.”

Oh. No. I did tell him it was…

“Garron, that wasn’t a suicide note,” Typhos said, his voice cracking. “It was a note saying she had a child on Monda, and she had chosen him over me.”

He mumbled a swear toward his mother, but Garron made no attempt to censure him for the curse.

“Why didn’t you—”

“Because she was dead to me,” Typhos said, hostility mixing with grief. “But then she showed up at the councilor election and has such power over all of you that no one even considers it, except me, whom she either isn’t powerful enough to control or didn’t want to. But…”

He had no more words.
She’s still dead to me. Nothing changes that.

“I still cannot believe you, Typhos, but let’s go with it. If she is, in fact, your mother, Typhos, remember her power. She was more powerful than you when she left. She may have grown in power. It is not out of the question that she gained enough power to fool the minds of all of us. We are the most powerful Kastori, yes, but we are not perfect. We are not gods.”

“Some of us aspire to be, Garron,” Typhos said menacingly.

“Some of us can acknowledge that we have limits,” Garron retorted.

“Well, I’m sorry you have such things. The last person to suggest that…”

Typhos looked out to the open plains, where not even a pillar of smoke remained of Ramadus.
Stay calm. Garron may yet join you. Don’t do anything stupid.

“Whatever you are becoming, Typhos, I beg you to stop,” Garron said, speaking as Typhos looked down at his hand. “Where is the boy who was so funny and playful with my son? Where has that boy gone?”

“He died the day my father died,” Typhos said.

But anger started to boil over as he thought about what came after that.

“Why don’t you ask my mother?” Typhos snarled. “In fact, call to her now. I’m sure she would love to come and see what her son has become.”

“OK, well, if Erda is, in fact, your mother, there’s no doubt she already knows you’re here, talking to me. In fact, I’m sure the entire council intends to come right now.”

“And what do you intend to do, Garron?”

“Arrest you.”

“And then?”

“If you’re found guilty, well, you know that the only crime that we punish with death is the murder of a member of the council. I will do everything I can to get you a prison sentence, but in the best case scenario, if you show true repentance—which you are not right now—you might get out after a couple of decades.”

Typhos sighed. Through his mask, he felt no panic. With the amount of power he had, no prison could hold him down.

And if I kill Garron…

“You should run,” Typhos said pleadingly. “I will not accept my arrest. I will fight back. And I will kill anyone who stands in my way of this. And Garron, that includes…”

“Don’t do this, Typhos,” Garron said, the tears flowing. “You have so much potential. Your power is being used right now for destruction. It can be used for good.”

“In a container where I won’t be able to use my skills?”

Garron fell silent.

This is bad. So sad. Garron, I like you. And now you’re going to take the stand with the rest of the council?

Please. Please don’t.

“Garron, please, just go. I can’t be stopped, and I don’t want—”

“I have to stand up for what I believe is right,” Garron said. “Even at the risk of my own life.”

Typhos sighed as he slowly took off the mask. He knew the emotions would come to a head, and he sniffled once he had his senses back. Garron gasped at his dead eye, but Typhos ignored it.

“You were always the council member I looked up to the most,” Typhos said. “Garron, you were more of a father to me than my father was. You were a great councilor. But the council is corrupt and past its days. I, as the greatest of the Kastori, can lead our people to heights greater than they ever envisioned.”

You keep saying were. Are you ready to go down that path?

“Not all Kastori want to climb, Typhos.”

Typhos bit his lip. He knew it was true. Some Kastori would resist him, and not just on the council. Some would want to remain on Anatolus, just going about their boring lives.

“Where will you go, Typhos?”

To the place that took the mother I knew and love away from me. And I will destroy that place. Destroy. Destroy!

“Monda,” he said. “I am certain that that is where she disappeared to.”

“And what will you do there?”

“What I did to Ramadus.”

Garron sighed.

“The people of Monda are good people, Typhos. I cannot allow you to do that. I am asking you to give yourself up. I will let you live as free—”

He took a step forward, and Typhos froze him with a magic spell. He released the spell shortly after, letting Garron free, who did not take another step forward.

“Typhos!”

“I don’t want to do this, Garron, but if you try and arrest me, I... I will have to…”

You’re going to do something you can’t even bring yourself to say?

“So be it, Typhos. I love you and will always love you, but I have an obligation to the greater good. Not just for Kastori, but all life. If this is where you want to go, I must stop you from taking that journey.”

A pause came as both men stood their ground, observing the other, trying to decipher what the other was doing. Who would flinch first?

Quickly, Garron threw an electric spell. Typhos immediately blocked it and threw a fire spell at Garron, which Garron could not resist. Typhos used his red magic to bring Garron to him. In one swift motion, he reached down for the knife he had used on Ramadus and drove it straight through the heart of Garron.