Black clouds heavy with the threat of rain marched in towering columns across the moonless sky, cutting off the light of the stars. They merely heightened the already oppressive silence that lay across the castle.
Krall snarled with impotent fury as he dragged the unwilling horse into the courtyard. "Dumb beast," he growled, "You shall not keep me here!" Though it would be hours yet before his dread lord would begin the summoning Krall knew was coming, his senses were already pounding with the hypnotic pulse of his lord's blood.
He had to escape, to flee the keep before his darker impulses overtook him. It enraged him, this impotence he felt as he was forced to restrain himself. Krall was a self-serving man and he was ill-used to holding back the dark beast that slept but lightly within his breast.
Indeed, he had freely embraced the dark gift and reveled in its bestial power and never did he feel more alive than on the field of battle where he could race before his troops, all thought abandoned as he fought with fury and natural cunning, falling upon the enemy as a bloodthirsty fiend.
The horse reared, fearing the scent of predator that surrounded the man and it whinnied in its panic, its eyes white with terror as flecks of white foam speckled its mouth. Krall growled from deep in his chest but he restrained the desire to tear the horse's throat out and drink its blood. He had to escape before the sound of his lord's powerful blood sent him wholly into the frenzy. His eyes flared red and the horse calmed as his mind overwhelmed it.
The powerful muscles in his legs and calves bunched and he sprang from a standing start to land easily upon the horse's back. Taking up the reins he whipped it hard, driving it into a run, the clatter of its hooves on the cobblestones ringing out loudly in the empty courtyard.
As he passed beneath the archway through the open gates to the outer courtyard and raced down the paved road that split the training grounds and led to the outer-most wall and the gates of castle, the sound of his passage was muffled by the sudden fall of rain from the swollen clouds overhead.
The training and alertness of the guards in the twin towers that stood tall one either side of the gates was attested to by the immediate outward swing of one of the two huge thirty foot wide gates. They began their motion the very moment that Krall appeared from within the darkness of the inner archway and by the time he reached the opening it was more than wide enough to pass through. The gate's motion reversed the instant he passed through.
Halfway to the cover of the trees the horse reared again and Krall raised a hand to the sky. Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance and for a moment the blue light filled the world, reflecting dully from the red liquid dripping down Krall's hand even as he brought it to his lips, drinking it with relish.
He spurred the horse, his dark eyes flashing redly again in the gloom and they raced off into the dense forest that hugged the castle grounds, not bothering to hold to the road. Krall had already decided that this beast of burden would not survive to take him to the town.
---
Krall was not the only person to feel the strange air of the castle as the castle's lord prepared himself for the task he had set himself. All within the walls felt a sense of heightened anticipation and uncertainty, a sense of waiting and tension, as if all the world were focused on an event imminently to occur.
One such stood upon the battlements in the dark night, resting his arms against the heavy stones that lined the edge of the barrack's roof. The wind whipped at his long brown hair, lashing it against his face, and tugged at his dark cloak. He might under other circumstances have reveled in the sensations. Not today and not now, for now he was here not for his own pleasure but for the observation of his foe.
Torhm was the general of Lord Fey's armies, the guiding intelligence behind the campaigns that had been so close to seeing the downfall of the high-born self-assured holier-than-thou bigots of the kingdom of Farallon. Few indeed were the men who knew the reason for the sudden cessation of that campaign and Torhm was one of the few.
Lord Fey's quest to defeat the vile betrayer Arkus and some idea of the power it would grant him when he achieved his goal were known to Torhm, but they were not that which brought him now to stand upon this windswept precipice. That honor fell to the one who was even now skulking about the mostly diamond shaped inner courtyard below.
Krall. The man's name was enough to summon bile to Torhm's throat. Where Torhm was the brains of Fey's forces, Krall was their heart and what a black heart it was. Krall did not lead his men by love or honor; he drove them with fear. He also led by example, an example of vicious savagery and unrelenting hatred. Recently Krall had become insufferable. With the war ceased, his hunger for violence had gone unsated, until he began taking it out on the townspeople.
Fey might have let this pass, but Torhm brought to Fey's attention the negative effect it was having on his forces. Many of the men Torhm was given to work with were conscripts torn from lives in the villages and towns of the lands Fey claimed. Difficult as they were to mold, the idea that they were protecting their families, that by their actions, their families might be safer in the face of the harsh taxes and harsher laws made them tractable. If the townsfolk were under regular and vicious attack, however, the troops would quickly grow restless, wanting to be with their families to guard them.
Fey was not a particularly cruel man, though he was remarkably cold and cared little for people's suffering. Still, if he was unmoved by suffering, at least he did not take pleasure in it, did not revel in it as did the bestial Krall.
Since the end of the war and the lapse of the strong focus on the enemy, the two generals had turned their attention to one another. To Torhm, Krall was disgusting, a vicious pig of a man ruled by desire and cruelty, while in Krall's eyes, Torhm was a weakling, a pathetic wimp bound by self-forged chains of honor.
Torhm watched with weary eyes as Krall whipped the horse he'd taken, riding hard out of the castle as the clouds finally released their threat of rain. Though the senseless slaughter of people had been halted, Torhm still received regular reports of animals found in the wood. Generally little remained but bones and blood. The blood often coated entire clearings and the townsfolk no longer ventured into the wood that surrounded Fey's castle, considering it haunted.
In the castle too, no-one would venture beyond the walls at night except Krall himself and it was no surprise to Torhm that every report of new atrocities found in the woods followed shortly on the heels of one of Krall's nighttime expeditions.
Torhm took care to note Krall's activities, expecting that at some point in time Krall's confidence in Fey's opinion of him would rise to the point that he would feel safe in taking direct action against Torhm. He intended to be ready when the time came. He would not depend on Lictor, the scrawny master thief that ran Fey's intelligence gathering networks. He couldn't be certain but at times he felt certain that there was an arrangement between the two and he would not risk his safety.
He kept his own watch and his own counsel.
When Krall had finally vanished from sight beyond the archway of the inner courtyard where it blocked the meeting of the two stables, Torhm sighed and turned away. He stopped in surprise when his eyes met not the empty roof he expected but the grinning countenance of Simnir. He was wearing an oil-coated cloak upon which the rain beaded and ran. The hood was down leaving his blond locks flat and slick with rain.
"Figured I'd find you up here," commented the rascal, his grey eyes glinting with humor. "Why so dour, Torhment?"
Torhm sighed again as he strode past his friend, Simnir falling neatly into step a half-step behind him to his right. Torhment was Simnir's private joke, a regular jibe brought out when he felt that Torhm was being too melodramatic, too brooding or gloomy.
"Lord Fey was not in council today," replied Torhm, "and Krall just headed for town." Simnir nodded, frowning slightly. It was well-known amongst the uppermost ranks of Fey's troops that when Fey skipped council, he was engaging in a private activity. Of late, according to rumour, that had consisted almost exclusively of attempts to defeat the Lord Arkus. When Krall left on a day that Fey came not to the council chambers, chances were good that Fey was going to the summoning chamber.
Few of Fey's troops were really comfortable with the knowledge that their Lord summoned and consorted with demons and the like but at least the regular troops didn't know when he was doing it. Simnir rather wished he didn't either. The thought that some otherworldy being, some creature of demonic power was soon to be present in the castle with him was not pleasant and he could never avoid picturing what would happen when eventually Fey failed to keep the summoned being contained.
Picturing a hell-spawned beast capable of slaying the Lord Fey running rampant through the castle was enough to make almost anyone somber. Torhm always wondered why Krall fled when Fey performed a summoning. Much as he disliked the fellow, he wouldn't object to having a strong regenerating fighter on his side when a demon finally did make it past Fey's barriers.
---
The oppressive and brooding silence matched well with the darkness deeper than pitch that shrouded the immense rectangular room, concealing its purpose and design.
Its walls were formed of massive stones cunningly placed. Though mishapen, irregular, and far from uniform, they fit together with remarkable precision. In no place was the mortar that bound them forced to fill a space of more than a quarter inch. The walls were a testament to the skill of the ones who had built the chamber, gifted as they had been with an inhuman talent.
The ceiling arched high above and it too bore mute testimony to the skill of its architects. High and vaulting it was nonetheless formed of smooth stone that seemed of but a single piece, so precisely were the pieces mated one to another. Unlike the walls, the ceiling was not unadorned but bore all manner of markings, runes and intricate designs that held power in their very shape.
The floor was far from plain itself being formed of immaculately polished marble. The patterns of the marble could readily be traced and made plain by their presence that the floor itself was composed of a single immense slab. On this remarkable stone were carven grooves and paths that twisted and wound their way about the floor in seemingly random patterns. Drawing back and taken as a whole, they formed intricately interlocking circles and geometric patterns. As a puzzle it might seem, for the obvious circles and pentagrams would, after sufficient study, give way to yet more overlapping circles and shapes.
At many of the intersection points the marble was cut just slightly deeper and wider, making a circular socket. Elsewhere tiny grooves were carefully aligned on either side of a channel where it met a second channel. Stacks of small metal squares on a table told the tale. The slots would allow a particular pattern to be cut off from those it intersected.
Minute holes along the sides of some of the channels matched the teeth of tiles stacked in a corner. On each tile runes were graven with a precision equal to that which had formed the room.
Not the least sign of use could be seen in the room; not the slightest speck of dust nor the least drop of liquid marred the cold perfection of the stone carving.
The sense of tension and expectation that filled the castle surrounding the room failed to penetrate to its interior, shrouded in dark silence. Wards of great power shielded this room against all manner of external contaminant or observation and though this room itself was none other than the Lord Fey's summoning chamber and the focus of the castle's tension, it was itself impervious to the atmosphere that encompassed it.
The evident appearance of disuse, given the perfectly clean floor and the complete absence of cracks, stains, and other indications of wear, was in fact misleading. The cleanliness and general state of perfection resulted from magical cleaning spells. Indeed, the sole user of the room crafted a cleaning spell of a power far in excess of the traditional cleaning cantrips mages used to tidy their belongings. The cleaning spell regularly employed on this room expended as much magical energy and was as complex as most mage's siege spells, wielding as much force as spells designed to penetrate the defenses of castles and fortresses.
The primary circle on the marble floor was fifty feet across and the ceiling more than a hundred feet high. Rare indeed were the summoned beings that could attain such stature and the size of the circle alone would thus be a sign to the knowledgeable that the summoner that designed this room was one of the truly powerful.
The racks between the tables along the walls of the room contained apparently haphazard collections of books and scrolls and sheets of parchment, along with the occasional oddly shaped object or device. Tempting as it might be to take this as an indication that the summoner was a untidy or lazy man, or even a disorganized one, it would be a mistake. In truth is was merely the result of a man with a prodigious and phenomenal memory, so clear and potent that he could easily remember the precise location of every item within the room. No summoner who dealt with the sorts of beings and powers this room was designed to handle could be less than completely scrupulous and meticulous and survive for long.
The tables, filled with complicated structures of glass tubes, piping, and containers all holding strange mixtures of liquids resting in silence, fit the very image of a mad scientist's lab and in point of fact gave the accurate indication that the summoner was possessed of a considerable alchemical talent.
However they could easily be misleading. This room was not meant for alchemical research and the related materials present therein were not sufficient for actual research and experimentation. The accurate conclusion to be drawn therefrom was that the summoner was so powerful and confident as to summon powerful beings for the sole purpose of obtaining an ingredient such as a horn or hair to complete an alchemical formula, whether directly from the summoned being, or by forcing the being to obtain it, and therefore was prepared to have the formula on hand, ready for the addition of the latest acquisition, and the swift punishment of the summoned if the component was not as requested.
Indeed, an observer could have learned much if any had been there, or even been able to obtain a description of the room. But the massive iron door that rose twenty feet high on one wall, and stretched ten feet wide, had never witnessed the passage of any but the summoner and his closest servants. The builders of the room were long dead and no description was left by their hands. The room itself was so powerfully warded against all forms of scrying that even a god would have had difficulties observing the summonings that went on therein. Indeed, the only beings aside from the summoner and his servants that knew the layout or appearance of the interior of the room were those that he summoned.
So the silent darkness was yet undisturbed when the summoner approached. As the door swung inward in utter silence, torches set in brackets on the walls flared to life, casting a flickering light across the room, though they neither burned nor released smoke.
The massive iron door gave easily under light pressure from long fingers on a slender hand belonging to a tall lean figure, almost human in appearance, save for the pointed and unusually long ears. His hair glittered silver in the torchlight, at odds with the apparent youthfulness of his unlined and hairless face, with its delicately arching eyebrows, thin fine lips, strong but slender nose, and high cheekbones. He had sparkling green eyes framed by long black lashes that glinted with a cold, hard light. A single fine white scar trailed down one cheek.
With the opening of the door that intense sense of waiting and anticipation seemed to flood the room. As he strode inward he seemed to exude an air of power that was an almost visible emanation, warping the light slightly as if the air about him was alive with heat, though in fact it was colder still than the air within the room.
Following close behind the man, a cat with deep black fur that seemed to drink in the light loped into the room. At nearly four feet long its powerfully muscled body made it seem a far cry from an ordinary housecat. Its eyes, green like its master's, were lit with an air of intelligence as if it might actually understand what it was seeing in the manner of a man.
The cat was followed by a peculiar two-foot tall creature. It was somewhat human in appearance, standing on two legs, having two arms, and a nearly human face. But its legs had two extra joints, looking much like the back legs of the cat, and two bat-like wings sprouted from its back. Its facial appearance was ugly and twisted; it had two horns and fangs that protruded from between its lips giving it a bestial appearance.
The tall figure set quickly to work, moving with swift, silent assuredness to one of the tables, where his elegant hands and long delicate fingers caressed an elaborately carved oaken box, before flicking it open, with but a mumbled word to disable its many magical protections. He drew forth from it several pieces of chalk, unused and sharp edged.
He spoke another word, louder and more clearly. The torches suddenly stopped flickering and flared up to a brightness that made the light in the room equal that of the midday sun, though they emitted no heat. The most visible result was the almost complete absence of shadows on the central pattern in the floor. Even the grooves running through it were lit to the bottom and the four sources of light cancelled out each other's shadows.
The brilliant light and the resulting lack of shadows made the design on the floor look curiously unreal, as if it were a painting by an artist who had forgotten or discarded realism.
He set to work with an almost casual air that spoke of long experience, and yet with great care and precision, as he laid out a circle on the floor. This circle was much smaller than the large circular design of the floor, being only slightly larger than the space that would be taken by a human sitting lotus style. The cat watched in near-silence, padding about on muffled paws to eye the man's work, but carefully avoiding the chalk already laid down, purring occasionally, as if to indicate his approval of one of the more intricate wards. He stood, finally, after thirty minutes of careful and continuous work, and looked at his completed design.
"Do you think it will hold him?" he asked, his voice deep but smooth, with a hint of its underlying sensuousness. The cat padded slowly around the circle, looking at each ward in turn and considering each with an air of intelligence and complete understanding. It spoke in a smooth, purring voice, "It would hold the one we knew, Master. But how changed is he? What gifts might his Queen have given him?"
"He cannot use her gifts against me directly, for I am under the protection of another. Any divine powers he has been given will be useless. I have held her servants with a similar circle before. I think it will do." He looked at the circle and said a single word in a calm clear voice. The chalk shimmered and glowed and when the glow faded, the markings were clear and sharp edged, with none of the appearance of chalk.
Through all this the smaller semi-human figure, which any magic-user would recognize as a homonculus, a magically created servant, sat silent on a table, watching. Its time for action had not yet come. Its task would be scrubbing of the blood from the floor of the summoning room, and wherever else it splattered. This task could not be left to human servants as none were ever permitted to see this room. So it would fall to him, for he would work tirelessly and without complaint. Blood was one of the few substances that could be used to power spells and any spell that used blood had behavior and attributes far different from those that did not. Cleaning the blood up first greatly reduced the likelihood of an unexpected side-effect arising from the Lord Fey's over-powered cleaning spell.
Fey began drawing out a much larger circle, laying the chalk in the course of the design inlaid on the floor, which completely enveloped the smaller chalk circle. "He knows I have not the power to command him once summoned, so he will not be expecting me to summon him for any reason other than to gloat." he said to the cat as he carefully drew in the next ward. "I will bring him in just before I finish the last sigil in the greater summoning circle. I want him to have just a few moments to appreciate the depth of his failure and the completeness of my triumph, before I summon the demon to rip his heart out."
"Then why do you not summon him now, and give him that much more time to be miserable, Master?" the cat wondered, purring with delight as he pictured the complete despair and final misery of his Master's enemy in his mind.
"Because I have not the strength to hold him for that long and I have no wish to leave him enough time to figure a way out. I want to give him only enough time to realize the completeness of his defeat before the end," was Fey's measured response. He was careful and thorough, wanting nothing to mar his final victory. This would be a great moment for him, as he defeated his most powerful enemy, and struck a blow against the Lady that would be sensed around the world and felt for centuries to come.
"Of course, Master," replied the cat, purring once again, "and what demon are you going to summon? The Enemy is still a potent wizard."
"Simple. I am going to take advantage of his fears. What does he fear most, Licius?"
"Cats!" was Licius' instant response, followed by a deep rumbling purr, and an almost laughing meow.
"Precisely. So I shall summon a cat demon, and his own fears will prevent him from defending against it."
"Master Fey, I felt the increase in your power when you made your, ahem, deal with your Queen... but you still have not told me the details of the deal... might this not be a good time?"
"Very well, Licius. It is simple, really. The Sisters have had a long-running competition... feud, actually, for some time now. They finally decided to stop wasting their power attacking each other directly, and fight through mortal champions. So they looked to the world and chose the most powerful pair of mortal enemies they could find, to be their champions."
"A great honor, indeed," Licius purred.
"Yes, quite," Fey replied dryly, examining his latest sigil. "The agreement is that they each devote a percentage of their power to us. We choose the form the divine gift takes. When I defeat Arkus the Ladies' feud shall be ended and I will be well rewarded."
"But you face many other challengers, as does Arkus. What of them?"
"The Ladies are aware of them. If either of us is defeated by a human challenger, then the Ladies will give us the power to drive out their soul and take the body. After all, if they defeated us, they must be more powerful, right? At that point in time, we will get to make again the choice of divine gift, to choose something more appropriate to the new body. That is what Arkus just did," Fey's voice was taut with disgust. "He lost to that damned white wizard, and now he's chosen divine immortality, the fool. It made him into an extra-planar being, capable of being summoned, and that will be his downfall." This forceful statement was followed by the complete absence of a peal of maniacal laughter. Not every egotistical evil sorcerer plays true to form.
Licius examined Fey's just-finished sigil, purring his approval. Looking up, the cat asked, "You think he chose the immortality because he was afraid of death, even though he had just experienced it?"
"Precisely. The fool realized he was mortal and vulnerable, so he sought to defend himself against other mortals, instead of against me. Very unwise of him. He hasn't studied the gifts well enough. Divine immortality just means he won't age, and becomes an extra-planar being. He can still be killed by a mortal, or a demon."
Fey looked thoughtful for a moment. It really, now that he thought about it, did not seem like Arkus to be so driven by fear... but then again, "I do not know. Maybe it was not that. Maybe his new body is old already, and that frightened him. If it was human, he would have to worry about dying of old age or physical disability, and there is nothing in the rules about that. Maybe he realized how close he came to losing, and feared what his Lady will do to him, after he fails."
"The one thing I do not understand, Master, is why his gifts will not work against you? Was that not the point of their gifts in the first place?"
Fey laughed then, softly. "He was ever straightforward, Licius, and so he will think as do you, and it will be his end. For he will trust in his powers and seek directly to use his granted powers against me. But I chose my gift more carefully. I have, and had before all this, the means to defeat him. I do not need gifts to do so. So the gift I chose was the ability to counter Arkus' gift, whatever it might be. It won't be enough to finish him, for it will simply cancel out his attacks, but he will not be expecting it. Granted, I must see what he is doing to act against it, but he was ever one for the direct and showy magic, with little liking for the subtler twists and designs of a true master, so I am not greatly concerned."
After nearly two hours of careful preparation the immense circle was almost complete. It lacked only the final sigil, which would name the demon to be summoned. He wanted his enemy to see his doom with utter finality. It was time to summon him.
The preparations being completed and Fey's power being what it was, it took but a single word to activate the inner circle, summoning his enemy to stand before him.
He stood straight and tall in the inner circle, though not as tall as the dark figure outside it. His robes were white as snow, and he held a tall wooden staff, slightly twisted and intricately carved. His hair was as white as his robes, his face was lined with age, but his limbs were strong, his eyes were clear, and they flashed now with amusement. "You always were an impetuous fool, Fey. Think you that you now have the strength to command me?"
Fey's eyes lit with a savage glee. "I need not command you to destroy you, old fool. Look around you, Arkus, consider what you see. Look upon your doom, old man, and despair!" Thinking he had finally discerned Arkus' true reasons for his choice of gift, Fey looked to press the knife home and so emphasized both Arkus' newly old age and his imminent failure.
Fey waited as Arkus considered the runes about his feet. Hmmm. Fey has done well. Were I solely stronger in what I had known, I should not be able to break this. He has protected himself against the divine powers my Queen has given me, but he is clearly unaware of the other gifts that came with my last request. He has placed no protection against the power of the mind here. Not surprising, considering how uncommon it is in this world. Arkus considered the runes for another moment then scanned the outer circle. He means to summon a demon to destroy me, the fool. I'll have to arrange a surprise for him. Even as he thought this, his eyes had come full circle, and were again observing Fey.
Seeing Arkus' eyes again upon him, Fey dropped lightly to his knees, and began drawing the last sigil. Instantly Arkus realized his intent. The fool doesn't realize my fear of cats is gone. Well, I'll use it against him then.
Arkus focused his mental power and cautiously reached out to Fey. Determining that Fey had no natural defense and that there were no spells focused on defense against mental attacks, he reached into Fey's mind, and slightly adjusted Fey's mental image of the sigil.
Fey completed the sigil, unaware that he had been manipulated and stood with a flourish. Arkus carefully schooled his features into the proper rictus of despair and dismay. It was calculated to reassure Fey that all was perfect, and that Arkus truly believed that the summoning would have the desired effect. He needed to prevent Licius, Fey's familiar, from having time to examine all the sigils. His ploy worked.
Fey immediately snapped out two words, the first solidifying the chalk circle, to which Licius gasped out a concerned, "But Master," only to fall silent again at the second word.
Fey had already activated the summoning.
---
In a forest on the island of Hokkaido, in Japan, a young boy of seven paced steadily through the woods. Some twenty miles from him an older man wearing a bandanna around his largely bald head tramped after him, following the trail of deep scratch marks through trees, underbrush, and soil.
Occasionally the old man would stop to feel the scratches in a tree, sensing the residual ki signature to judge from its strength how far behind he was. While he didn't know for sure how strong the boy's ki claws were, he had felt a tree just moments after the boy had sliced it, so he knew how strong the residual should be.
Each time he felt a tree, he would sigh. The boy was steadily getting further and further from him. At least this time the boy hadn't attacked him first. The last several times the boy had gone feral he had nearly killed him, the boy's own father. Ungrateful wretch.
Surely this wild behavior wasn't the legendary Cat-fist! It was just another example of the boy's failure to learn the style. After all, surely it wouldn't be called an ultimate fighting style if it made the martial artist chase butterflies and lie in sunbeams? No, impossible. The Saotome school of Indiscriminate Grappling was about controlled application of skill and power, as were the other martial arts. No way this uncontrolled, wild behavior could be the expected result of a martial arts training technique.
Meanwhile the boy continued his steady pursuit, following the scent of the deer he had picked up. Every now and then, he would casually slash at a tree as he went past. He wasn't marking his territory, merely announcing his presence to any potential competitor in the area. A cat of his human age would be ready to mate and therefore would be announcing himself to potential mates, but the body he was in was not ready and so this possibility did not make itself known in the cat's mind, whose maturity matched that of the body, and not its chronological age.
Suddenly he paused, crouched in the underbrush, tense but still. There, in the clearing ahead of him, head down, grazing, was the doe he had been tracking. He was not yet old enough to hunt for real. He was still at that stage of maturity where little kittens or cubs are playing mock games with each other and their parents. But he had the instincts that rule kitten's behavior and his instincts were telling him to sneak stealthily up behind the deer, spring out from his concealment, and grasp its neck in his jaws, suffocating it and breaking its neck. Even as he leapt from concealment, there was a flash of light. The deer bolted away from the now empty but strangely disturbing clearing.
Several hours later when Genma finally reached the clearing he spent nearly an hour puzzling over the signs. He could see the deep impression of claws in the dirt beneath a bush where Ranma had pushed off into his leap, but for the life of him, he couldn't find where Ranma had landed. He saw the tracks of the deer, but no blood. If Ranma's claws were digging holes in the dirt there was no way he could land on a deer and not spill blood. Besides, the deer's tracks were not suddenly deeper, as they should have been had a sudden weight been introduced to its back.
He then tramped out a half mile from the clearing, and using a few distant mountains as landmarks he walked slowly in a massive circle around the clearing looking for signs of his son. Finally, he reached the original trail where his son's tracks had ended and set up camp. Perhaps his son would return here. Perhaps he was here still, watching from high up in a tree. He would have to let the boy sleep off the cat. The boy would then return to his father. He was sure of it. The boy would not desert him. Surely not. Or his wife would kill him. He shivered as if a sudden cold breeze had blown past him, as in his mind, he saw his wife's katana flash before him.
---
The cat blinked at the sudden brightness, then bounced off something, and scrabbled to his feet on hard stones. He uttered a deep plaintive wail at the loss of his toy. Fey was turning red with fury at the utter failure of his spell when the summoned boy mewed and Fey noticed the deep gouges in the floor where the boy had first landed. A strange and utterly peculiar cat-demon, but a cat-demon nonetheless. Fey stood tall and straight, knowing the importance, when dealing with demons, of having complete confidence in oneself. He uttered, in a strong and commanding voice, towering menacingly over the demon, "Kill him now!" He pointed towards the entrapped Arkus.
Arkus, meanwhile, had been expecting the summoning to be a complete failure, but recovered his composure quickly. He reached out mentally. Finding the mind of a cat, he adjusted its perceptions so that it would see this menacing figure as a male cat, invading his territory, and threatening him. It was harder than he expected, due to the cat-mind's relative immaturity, but Arkus managed to implant the suggestions in spite of the difficulty.
The cat hissed and slashed at the intruding tomcat. His hand hit the spell-wall, and went no further, but the bindings were meant to hold a being of magic and demonic power, and did not stop Ranma's ki. The power of the human spirit is not a common thing to find in demonic beings, so it came as a complete and utter surprise to Fey as he felt the claws rip into his face. An instant later he was dead, his face completely ripped off. Licius, Fey's familiar, collapsed in pain, dying as the bond to his master pulled him as well.
As Fey died the binding spell on Arkus failed and he disappeared in a flash of light. But the spell around Ranma was far stronger than it needed to be, meant to hold a powerful demon, and so had not yet failed by the time Fey's body collapsed across the spell-wall. This caused the spell to fail in a completely different manner. Rather than releasing Ranma back to his home plane, he was released into this plane.
The cat growled at the dead man, still seeing him as a tomcat intruding in his territory. In a peculiar way, this action of Arkus had an unexpected side effect. If the male cat was intruding in his territory, then this place here must actually be the cat's territory. He padded over to the dead man, nudging him to be certain he was dead, and then reaching down to grasp the dead man's neck in his jaws.
The cat intended to drag the man away, but before he could act on it, the black clothing of the man disappeared, and reappeared on him. The clothing was responding to the cat's utter belief that this was his territory, such that it recognized him as the legitimate master of this place. This place was his, so he must be the master. This was a necessary addendum on Fey's part. The divine gift had gone to Ranma immediately, but most of Fey's magic would not bind to him until it felt Fey's will, to ensure the inability of the body to resist Fey's takeover of it. Arkus' actions had ensured that the spells were convinced this had occurred.
The cat panicked, and whirled around the room, hissing and snarling as he tried to get rid of the tight fitting black clothes. In the process most of the room's contents were damaged until he finally found the iron door, tore a hole in it, and fled down the hall. He came to a stop as the hall ended in a turn that led to more stairs that led down still further. Exhausted, panting, he collapsed in a heap, and fell to sleep. As he lay sleeping the ripped and tattered shreds of black cloth clinging to him began to slowly mend, and the minor cuts and abrasions he had received quickly faded, his skin becoming smooth and unbroken again.
---
Arkus floated in an infinite blackness, lacking even the slightest variation in any direction to provide a reference. There was no air, and so no movement of it against his skin to anchor his senses, no scent to touch his nose or mouth and guide him. The only sensation of location or motion came from the confused signals his inner ear gave out. He had long since learned to tune them out. There were no references here to use, because there was no need. He drifted in silence, waiting for his Lady's attention.
He was caught up in a pleasant daydream of what his reward might soon be, for defeating his enemy so soundly. Though Arkus knew well the dangers of assuming his enemy's defeat... Fey had come back from much more serious wounds... a wound that took his life would take little more than a day to heal... but this death had been so unexpected, that Arkus allowed himself the luxury of imagining that Fey had had no defenses up, and so would have been torn from his body before his powerful magics could begin to heal him.
He was still drifting in this gentle reverie when finally a voice sounded in the darkness, seeming to fill it. The voice was feminine, but utterly hard and cold, and from the first word, the way she said his name, he knew suddenly that he had failed.
"Arkus, you are a fool."
"Fey did not die then, my Queen?" Arkus queried, and was about to continue, to point out that it was at least a setback for Fey, when she interrupted him.
"Of course he died, you imbecile!"
"But, but, my Queen, if he died, then wh..." Arkus was at a loss. The sudden surge of triumph at her words fell quickly to ashes within him, as he realized that there was something still very wrong. He had not just been the catalyst for Fey's rise to demi-godhood, surely?
"Silence, cretin! Speak no more." Arkus felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, silencing his imminent plea. "You changed his summoning, and tricked him into allowing himself to be defeated. I would commend you, had you not been such a complete idiot!" She was screaming in fury now. "That cat-thing that killed him, Arkus, you putrescence, that was a human boy!"
Now, suddenly, the terrible consequences of his success fell home to him. She had said Fey had died... that meant he had not taken the body, even though it was now his. That meant... oh dear. The boy was now a champion, recipient of a divine gift, and inheritor of all Fey's power... but wasn't in service to either of the Sisters?
She spoke again, calmer now. "We've won, Arkus. What a bitter way to win. Fey lost, and by rights, all of his power, and my sister's gift, should now be yours, and mine. Instead, they're in the hands of this outworlder. You've won the game, and thrown away the prize."
Arkus was about to swear to the lady that he would slay the child, and take back the gifts, when she screamed in fury, then spoke again in a cold voice vibrating with anger. "You fool! That boy destroyed Fey with a single blow! The agreement was with Fey, not him. If you kill him, he simply dies. You won't get his gifts... but if he were to kill you, he would gain all you had!" She was shouting now, in her rage. "You will not go near that boy, Arkus!"
Then her voice was quiet and soft again. "You are still my champion, Arkus, and I have your power and gift, while my sister has nothing of Fey left to her. We have won, even if it is a bitter victory. I am not wholly displeased with you. I can feel your desire, and I grant it. You may watch the boy. Put no influence on him directly, but if through indirect means he comes to worship and follow me, you will be well rewarded."
Her voice faded, and he found himself once again in his own castle. He moved quickly to his scrying room. "I must know what form the gift takes with the boy."
---
He had been sitting there most of the night. He always had to leave the castle when Fey went to do his summonings... he was simply too sensitive to the emanations the spells put out. So he hunched over his mug of ale, his seventh that night, grumbling to himself. Fey had told him that he intended to complete his long-term plan to remove Arkus that night. Then the wars could be renewed without outside interference, and Fey would soon rule the Five Kingdoms with Krall at his right hand.
Krall felt a sudden burning, searing pain in his face, as if he had just been clawed. He was not unfamiliar with the sensation... he had in fact had his face ripped open during fights for dominance before. But this time the pain was there, but not the damage... he put a hand to his face and it was whole. Krall jerked upright knocking over his mug of ale as he felt the touch of his Master leave his mind. Fey was dead! Now was his hour of triumph come! Arkus must have defeated Fey, but he would not know of the arrangements Fey had made, that would soon invest Krall with Fey's power, and bind the dragon bitch to him!
He stood suddenly, knocking his table aside, anger vibrating in his taut form, as the other patrons of the inn backed away fearfully. He growled, threw several coins down, and raced through the door onto the streets. He didn't slow until he was outside of the small village, and into the forest. There he let out his rage, howling into the night, into the blackness of the sky.
It was his! It had been promised to him; for slaving his bloodthirst to his master, it was to be his, but his master was dead, he felt him die, felt the slash across the face, the sudden searing pain and the almost instant absence of the master in his mind, but nothing had come for him. He stood in the darkness, waiting, tense with rage and still nothing came. It had been promised to him! Why was it not coming?
He roared his fury and his body rippled, clothes disappearing as his already impressively muscled form grew still larger and stronger, sprouting thick black fur as he swelled into his hybrid form. He was the master of Lord Fey's forces, the general of his army, Fey's right-hand, the promised and chosen successor of the Lord upon his death. To him was to have come the great power of the Lord but it had not! He felt nothing... not true... he felt diminished! The power lent him by the Lord as his General was gone, stolen from him, as was what had been promised to him.
The thief, whoever it be, would pay and pay dearly for this, the beast swore, howling his rage and fury. Arkus, he decided, it must be Arkus who had done this. Well, then Arkus would die.