Confrontation.
Knife at her throat, Brant pushed Kaelyn down the corridor into the room where he had held Daisy all this tiem. The all-too-familiar red mist swirled over the entrance to Daisy's cell, blood magic showing off.
“how much blood have you lost?” Kaelyn asked
“Shut up! What is wrong with you healers that you keep asking questions like that even when I have you captive?”
“professional curiosity, I guess?” Daisy said. Brant looked up. Daisy was sitting on the altar, hands on the surface next to her hips, ankles crossed and swinging her legs a little.
“Daisy!” Kaelyn screamed, delight, stress, fear, relief all fighting for control over her tone.
“Hi there Kay. Thanks for the bedding.” Daisy said.
Kaelyn didn't answer. Brant pressed the tip of his knife against her throat, hard enough that she was sure he drew blood. Irrelevantly she thought about how often he cleaned that knife and figured it was nowhere near often enough.
“Will the two of you shut up? Why? Why can't you just do what you are supposed to do? Why do you both act like I'm not even here?” Brant was sobbing now.
“I am doing what you want me to do, Brant. I'm on your altar, see?” Daisy said. She laid back, spread her arms wide. “This is what you wanted, right? This is the moment you've been dreaming about this entire time, right? Sacrificing an unwed maiden to your demon. Although I gotta say, Brant, the symbolism is a little heavy handed.”
Kaelyn felt the Brant's grip on her arm loosen. The knife moved away from her throat and Brant left her, to approach the altar. She felt her neck, there was a drop of blood there.
The cave darkened and the torches turned red. A chant, low and gutteral, started, echoing throughout he cavern, but coming from nowhere. Next to the altar a shadow started to form, darkness swirling like a fog, but coalescing, solidifying. Soon Brant's chosen demon was standing at the head of the altar.
Brant stumbled closer, his eyes bleary and unfocused, his smile growing. “Yes. YES. Finally you see that you must submit to me! For all your honor and beauty I am still destined and designed to rule over you, to spend your life for my satisfaction...” The words falling into a cadence that was all too familiar to Daisy. Shadowy bands appeared around Daisy's wrists and waist. It appeared the demon wasn't taking chances with her this time.
“The time approaches, fool, spill out her life blood on this altar that I may feast on her soul—”
“You mean Brant's soul. Brant, my son, if you kill her it will be your soul that feeds this demon, you will be his toy, not her.”
Ellis stood in the doorway, left arm inexpertly bound up with bandages from Kaelyn's satchel and held in place with his own cloak, tied.
“You? WHY? I dealt with you!” Brant screamed, shaking with rage. The knife in his hand quivering.
“Why are you talking to that injured coward, worm? Your great duty is at hand! Spill the maiden's blood, free me!”
“Her blood can't free a demon, Brant. Do you really think killing her will send her soul to the Chaotic realm? All you can accomplish by killing her is ensuring your own fate.”
“He lies!” the demon roared.
“Which of us is known for lying?” Ellis asked.
“SHUT UP. Everyone! This is my cave, my altar, my ceremony! Why? Why can't any of you, ANY of you, do what you were meant to do?” Brant slumped back against the wall, the demon started to fade a little, his voice getting quieter as he started yelling.
“Arise, worm! You disgusting little insignificant fool. She is here, she is live, she is on your altar, KILL HER!” the demon yelled. But Brant didn't seem to notice. His head ached, his body was wracked with chills and fever, he felt like he was being torn in half.
Daisy sat down next to him and put her arm around him.
“Daisy? How—” Kaelyn began but Daisy motioned to her to be quiet.
“Brant, I'm sorry that you hard to go through this. I think you know that I'll never love you that way, I'll never feel romantic about you. But you should also know that I do care about you, oddly enough. That demon doesn't, though. You know it doesn't, don't you? It can't. It can't give, can't create, can't care or love.”
Brant nodded and then looked up. for some reason this latest affront to his plan seemed to fit; all the nightmarish pieces coming together, his great conquest falling apart without reason or order...even in his half-crazed state Brant realized the irony of that thought, the idiocy of wanting his chaotic plan to be orderly.
“I've...I've gone too far, though. If I go back to town, if I give up now, the consequences will be too terrible.”
“Worse than an eternity in thrall to a demon?” Ellis asked. Brant looked at him blankly. “Your thralldom doesn't wait until you die, either, and you know that as well. Any promise of power that thing has given you is a lie.”
“What would a priest know of demonic power? What would that insignificant toady know of real might? He has spent his life groveling before the Divine for even the smallest shred of proof, or even any slight evidence that the Divine cares at all. I am offering you unlimited power, for the price of one life, and that not even your own. You know they seek to bind you by the rules of order, to reduce you to another insect, another sheep to be shorn and slaughtered.” The demon said, voice still fading.
“Everything that thing says is upside down; it's a mirror image of reality,” Ellis began and Brant arose, growling.
“I told you to SHUT UP,” Brant screamed and punched Ellis in the mouth. Ellis took a step backwards, hit his head on the wall and slumped down.
“My whole life people like you have been preaching to me! Telling me what to do, what to think, how to behave, how to be good.” Brant kicked Ellis hard in the ribs.
“And what has it gotten me? Ignored, passed over, forgotten! Even now, especially now, what will happen if I listen to you? I'll be locked up, sentenced, punished for my crimes.”
“For a time,” Ellis said, lip bleeding. “But then your punishment will end. If you listen to a demon, if you obey that thing,, if you kill anyone, you'll get no such promise. There will be no end.”
“Enough. I've made my choice. Where is that girl—” Brant turned but Daisy was no longer beside him. Brant looked to the altar.
“No, Daisy doesn't die today,” Kaelyn said. Brant looked up. Kaelyn was sitting on his altar, his knife in her hand, pressed against her own throat.
“Someone told me that the intention of the act changes the act. You brought Daisy here to use her blood on this altar to bind your soul to a demon. I came here to save Daisy. Ellis came here to save you, it seems. Very well. If I give my own blood, freely, by my own hand, Daisy will be free, and so, I think, will you, Brant. I can sanctify this altar, and nullify the demon's grasp on it, and you.”
“Kaelyn, that's noble, but I can't recommend or even condone suicide—” Ellis said, trying to rise again with only his good arm.
“I didn't ask you to, Ellis.” Kaelyn said. Something about Daisy, something about this whole scene was affecting her. She felt, more than ever before, that her duty was do help and heal others, regardless of who they are, regardless of the cost to herself.
“Healer first,” she said quietly and pressed the knife deeper. Blood ran down her neck and she leaned forward, letting it fall onto the wood of the altar. Her blood steamed on the wood, the demon screamed. The red tinge faded from the torchlight, and the demon's shadowy presence seemed more insubstantial than ever.
Brant also screamed, and it felt to him like his blood was on fire, but not like it had been before; something else, something from outside was in his veins, and it hurt, but wasn't hurting him.
“No, Kaelyn, enough blood has been spilt.” Daisy said and gently took the knife from Kaelyn. Daisy opened her satchel and pressed an herb infused pad of gauze to Kaelyn's neck and said “hold this here until the bleeding stops, miss.”
Daisy dropped the knife to the floor where it embedded itself blade down in the rock. She walked up to the demon. “I thought I told you I don't want to see you here again.” She passed her hand through the middle of its shadowy form and it split like a steam cloud, fraying and evaporating at the edges.
“And what about me? What are you going to do with me?” Brant asked. Whatever had been happening to his blood had stopped. He felt shaky and weak, but no longer felt like his mind was divided. “Are you going to cut me in half as well?”
Ellis spoke first. “I'm going to forgive you. For your offenses against me, at any rate. You have been in pain, you have been deceived, and I forgive you for attacking me.”
Kaelyn looked disgusted for a moment, but the effect on Brant was surprising. “Wha...really?” Ellis just nodded and winced, for Daisy was now tending to his arm.
“For my part, I hold no malice against you any more, Brant. But you have done wrong, and there is a cost,” Daisy said, carefully cutting away what was left of Ellis' sleeve. “I think you will spend some time repaying your wrongs, Brant, but you will be the better for it. The demon is gone; it cannot come back. Your blood, I think, is freed now from its possession.”
Brant looked down and closed his eyes. Tehre was more peace inside him now, he felt exhausted but whole. “How? How did you do that? What did you...”
“It wasn't me, Brant.”
“It was Mason,” Kaelyn said, realizing that his work had continued beyond opening the door.
“Kaelyn? Are you there?” Mason's voice came echoing down the tunnel. “I see the spell worked, the door is open, that's—-what happened to you?!?” Mason yelled and rushed to Kaelyn.
“I'm fine, I'm fine, just a little cut,” Kaelyn said, but didn't stop Mason from making a bit of a fuss about her, inspecting the wound and holding her head in his strong hands.
“Odd way to describe an attempted suicide,” Ellis said quietly and Daisy shushed him. “She'll tell him that story in her own time.”
After a long while, when Mason was convinced Kaelyn was all right and Daisy had finished tending to Ellis, Daisy turned to Mason and said. “I assume you have some rope in that pack of yours?” Mason nodded. Daisy turned to Brant. “I'm sorry about this, but it's required. Mason, tie him up and deliver Brant to the Mayor. He kidnapped me and practiced demon magic. These crimes are to be judged by the laws of the land.” Then she knelt and said to Brant. “But for my part, though I will be the main witness against you, yet will I sue for mercy.”