Page 84 of The Endless One

But then there was a hand on his back. Cool and calming, a touch that eased some sharp part of his soul that had been dripping with blood for too long. Jessamine’s touch always appeased the monster in his head. It convinced the beast within him to calm for a few moments, enough for him to see reason.

“Elric, there is one who has more information than the others,” she said quietly. “They seem to claim that they are one of the few that Ajax is asking to become one of the gods.”

Just like that, all the goodwill he’d gained from her touch disappeared. This was one of the humans who wanted to betray him. Whoever it was, they wanted to betray their entire world for power, and that was someone who deserved a slow and painful death.

He stalked away with Jessamine, ignoring Sybil’s warning that rang in his ears as he walked away. “Some of them still deserve mercy, Elric!”

None of them deserved mercy when they could still serve a purpose. They could still sacrifice themselves to him, and he could still use them, at least for a little while. But as they rounded the dungeon hall and down into a smaller section where they had built the portal, he paused when he saw the man there, surrounded by a coven of witches.

Elric had expected a nobleman. A man who had grown up surrounded by beauty and wealth. That was usually who had worshipped his brother in years past. But this man was nothing like that.

His hair was grimy, as though he hadn’t washed in weeks. There was a film on his skin as well, like the finest sheen of sweat that just never washed off, no matter how hard he tried. If he even tried. His clothing was old, moth eaten, with holes in it that seemed like they had been there for quite some time. And no one had tried to patch those holes. Not a single one. His skin was aged by the sun, wrinkled and tanned, with spots on it that looked concerning even to Elric’s eyes.

This man was not who Elric had expected to see. And that was concerning by itself.

Elissa stood behind him, twitching her skirts back every now and then so the man’s dirt didn’t get on her. “This one claimed to have been invited to the pantheon. He said that Ajax promised him a god if he behaved, which… Well, I’m not sure this one knows what behaving means.”

The man snarled like an animal, trying to rise to his feet before the six women surrounding him pointed knives at his throat. Then he calmed down, remaining on his knees in the dirt among them, although it was very clear he wasn’t happy about it.

Elric walked closer to him, his hands tucked behind his back. “You? My brother thought you were worthy of being a god?”

“The god of disease,” the man said, revealing missing teeth through a grin that was equal parts terrifying and sad. “He said I would be able to make anyone that I wanted sick. I could infect the entire realm, sowing chaos with pain and growing ever stronger from it.”

Of course that’s what Ajax would promise this man. Look at him. His entire life had been one big disease.

And yet, they needed to know more. Elric couldn’t just kill him, even though he desperately wanted to. The knives were right there. He could make this man’s blood spill out onto the ground and no longer worry about what poison would spew from his tongue or just how awful the future would be if this man was given godhood.

But he didn’t. He crouched in front of this grubby, small man and said, “Why don’t you tell me everything you know about that? If you do, I’ll give you everything you have been desiring.”

“There is nothing you can give me that Ajax cannot,” the man crowed. “He saw something in me that even you, Deathless One, cannot see.”

Elric frowned. “How do you know who I am?”

“The God King knows all! He knows that you are searching for him. He knows that you have taken the time to hunt him down. He wants you to know that he has been following you, just as you have been following him.” The man licked his tongue along the holes where his teeth used to be. “And he sent me with a message. If you don’t stop trying to find him, then he will send a plague to this kingdom again. He will wipe out the rest of your little coven and leave you worthless, weak, and alone. Then he will come and take your bride, just as he did before.”

His entire expression tightened. Shadows uncoiled from his body, reaching for the man. “My brother has forgotten much of my magic, that is obvious. But he will remember as soon as I rip the memories from your body.”

He tore them free, one by one. The image of a field. The barest flicker of men working there, which was how Ajax had found him. This man had been willing to work for whatever anyone wanted to pay him. He’d lost his teeth in the weeks they had labored in building a new pantheon with pretty white stones and so much gold it was hard to look at in the sunlight. That was all by design.

Those who had worked on the pantheon and the ritual site, they were the first ones who would be able to join Ajax as gods.

The nobles didn’t trust him. They had said time and time again how dangerous Leon Bishop had become, but they didn’t see Ajax inside of him. All they saw was a king who had fallen into madness. They didn’t believe that a god had taken over their king. They were the ones who were telling the peasants to not even look at Leon Bishop, to not fall for the spell he had cast over their kingdom, but they were underestimating the god who would soon destroy them all.

Elric flung the information out into the open, allowing the coven members to see what he was seeing, so they could understand what they were fighting as well. And when he was done, something else bloomed inside of him.

Something dark and deadly and covetous because this was a new era for him. Elric wasn’t the same Deathless God who had bowed to the others on the pantheon. He was something else entirely.

“Brother,” he called out, his voice a melodic song wrapping around the word. “I know you’re in there. You followed this man, trying to see what I would do with the information you sent, but I want to see you. You have a connection in this dungeon. A thread.”

He found it easily enough. Ajax’s magic was still weak. He was holding most of what he had gathered to raise up other gods, but that left him diminished. Still strong, still capable, but less than he should have been.

Elric grabbed onto that shimmering thread, the one that looked like a crimson banner flying in front of his face. He held on to it, tugging with his own magic and forcing Ajax to stay with them.

“The amount of power it took for you to bring this man here, I will give to her.” He wrapped that crimson thread around his wrist, wincing as it cut into his flesh. Another wrap, another, winding it around his arm and not caring how much it hurt to twist it over and over through his flesh. “It’s not yours anymore, because you gave it to me.”

The man shouted, his hands going around his throat as Ajax desperately tried to end the spell. But Elric wouldn’t let that happen. He was the god of the dead now. He was the night and the nightmare, the darkness and the bleak end that raced toward everyone. He would tell this man when and if he could die.

Soon he felt Ajax fighting back. The spell he had cast on this man turned on Elric, slithering around his ribs and back, leaving red welts and broken, bleeding skin in its wake, and still he fought. He wrestled with it, knowing the witches watched him, proving to them all that he would not bend or yield. Not even to his brother.