Chapter Fourteen: Davriel

Davriel had used the power of the Entity only once.

It had been five years ago. By that time in his life, he’d been comfortable with his powers—and with his strange ability to walk between different planes of existence. He’d spent years traveling, exploring, learning how enormous the multiverse was. He’d suffered enslavement and found vengeance. He’d become expert at dealing with demons. He’d come to realize just how special he was.

And he’d decided, at long last, to claim himself a throne. It had been during that struggle—a desperate, climatic clash between armies and ideologies—that he’d finally relented, and drawn upon the Entity.

As they rode toward the Bog, he let the Entity control his senses. Instead of seeing the inside of the carriage, he saw himself standing on a field of corpses. Men and women in bright red lay scattered in heaps, spotted here and there with the black and gold tabards of his guard. Banners flapped in the wind, a forlorn sound. The air smelled sharply of smoke, a scent that barely covered the stench of blood.

Enemies had come to crush his defending army. And so, in desperation, he’d reached for the power. Even he hadn’t been prepared for the result.

I can give you everything, the Entity promised. Worlds upon worlds can be yours.

It had been standing on that bloody field that Davriel had first sensed others hunting him. They’d arrived on the battlefield, drawn to the plane by his use of this power. Like moths to a flame.

He didn’t know who they were. Likely, they were allies of the dying man from whose mind Davriel had originally stolen the Entity. But he knew that whoever they were, they’d hunt him through eternity for this power. They’d destroy him.

And so he’d fled, and left the corpses of both those who had opposed him and those who had believed in him. Their blood mingling on a battlefield that would know no burial.

The carriage rocked, shaking Davriel out of his reverie. The memory faded, leaving him with only the feeling of having used the Entity to power his spells. The sudden and awe-inspiring sense of strength that had come from touching something much, much larger than himself.

He’d felt that exact emotion minutes ago, after reaching into the girl’s mind. His head ached from that encounter, but the ramifications were far, far more troubling than the pain.

He looked at Tacenda, who sat on the seat opposite him, her legs tucked beneath her. Miss Highwater pretended be reading a book, but he suspected from the infrequency of her page turns that she was actually watching Tacenda. With good reason.

There is another of you, he thought to the Entity. And it is inside the girl.

Yes, the Entity said. Part of it is, at least. It is not fully alive. It cannot speak to her, except in the crudest of ways.

Why didn’t you tell me there was another of you? Davriel demanded. All these years, and you never said anything!

The others should not have mattered, the Entity said. I am the strongest. But after sensing what you did—that those who hunted us would destroy you—I realized. You needed more than just me. Strongest though I am, I have weaknesses.

You brought me here, Davriel realized. You planted the idea in my head—you wanted me to come where another of you hid. So that...I would take that power as well.

Yes, the Entity replied. This Entity, like myself, is the remnant of an ancient plane. Destroyed, consumed, its power condensed. It is the soul of an entire land, you might say. The majority of its power hides in the Bog. You can take it and become mighty enough that none will ever dare challenge you.

You still haven’t answered my question, Davriel thought with frustration. Why didn’t you tell me there were two of you?

I am bound to protect you, the Entity said. You are my master and my host. But it was...hard to admit that I must share you with another.

You could still have told me.

Perhaps you would have fled again. I do not understand you. To claim me, to use me, is obviously your destiny. And yet you hesitate. I can sense your ambition. I know you understand the glory that awaits you. Your delays confuse me. And so I waited for the right crisis to arrive, to make you move, act.

A spike of worry struck Davriel. Are you behind this? he demanded. Did you kill the people of Verlasen?

No, the Entity said. But this is the moment. When you confront the Bog, you will see. You will draw upon me, and together we will consume and absorb the power of the second Entity.

And the girl? Davriel asked.

She has but a bit of the power, the Entity replied. I worried, at first, that she held it all—but when you saw into her just now, I knew the truth. She has a fraction of the power. I do not know why...or why the souls of the people are acting as they are. Perhaps the Entity of the Bog senses that we are coming for it. But once we confront it, and claim its power as our own, we can deal with the child.

The implications of the conversation shook Davriel. Perhaps, then, he was behind all of this. Could the Bog have attacked the village in order to gather its power? Was it preparing to fight Davriel?

Could he truly confront and defeat an Entity like the one in his mind? A rogue power? The fraction of it within the girl had been enough to blast him forcibly back. How would he win a fight against an even greater power?

You will need my help, the Entity said. You will make the choice, at long last. You will become as a god.

These people, Davriel thought, have already been failed by enough gods.

A choice, the Entity repeated, its voice trailing off as the carriage started to slow. Tacenda perked up. At the sudden motion, Miss Highwater’s hand moved—ever so slightly—toward her knife.

“We’re here,” Tacenda said, opening the door before Crunchgnar had time to fully stop the vehicle. Light spilled out, illuminating an old keeper’s shack and a dark watery pit.

Tacenda hopped down, her dress catching on underbrush as she picked her way toward the Bog. Davriel stepped out once the vehicle had stopped, then rested his hand on the place where his body had smashed against the wood.

He didn’t relish the idea of a conflict. He was exhausted, and his head pounded. The Entity could heal most normal ailments, but it never removed headaches. Perhaps Davriel needed the reminder that despite it all, he really was human.

Crunchgnar’s feet thumped against the ground as he leaped from his place atop the carriage. His body healed at an incredible rate—already the wounds he’d taken at the church had shrunk to mere scratches, barely visible as the demon held up his lantern and bathed the area in orange light.

“I knew that we’d end up here,” Tacenda said from closer to the Bog. “I knew it somehow.” She turned toward him in the shadows. “You did too, didn’t you?”

Davriel approached the Bog, pulled as if by invisible chains. Tacenda knelt beside the black pit, staring into the waters—which didn’t reflect light as water should. Neither did the light penetrate. The Bog seemed to somehow sit outside of the scope of illumination.

Spells. Davriel needed spells. But what did he have? A few minor charms? Some pyromancy that was dying away, barely strong enough to light a candle at this point? He should have prepared for months, leeching and stowing away the most powerful magic of the multiverse to confront this.

You don’t need any of that, the Entity said. You have me. The power you took from the prioress can contain rogue entities, like spirits—and it will work here. With my strength powering that ability, we can contain the Entity of the Bog.

Flee. Davriel’s instincts screamed at him to run. To scramble back to his carriage and race the horses to his mansion. Or, better yet, he should leave this cursed plane.

Let someone else deal with the Bog. Let them be heroes or tyrants; both were virtually the same. Numbers in a table, one with a plus before it, the other a minus. And this land? What was it to him? A temporary home. He could find any number of dominions identical to it across the multiverse. He should leave it. Right here, right now.

And yet.

And yet...he continued forward, stepping over a fallen log, to join the girl at the edge of the Bog. Like a black void, a hole puncturing reality.

“I knew we’d end up here,” Tacenda repeated. “It was our destiny.”

“I have no destiny,” Davriel said, “save the one I make for myself.” He raised his hands, gathering his power. “But your village is mine. These people are mine. It is time the Bog understood who rules the Approaches. Best you stand back.”

She didn’t retreat, though Crunchgnar and Miss Highwater wisely remained near the carriage. Suit yourself, Davriel thought. He took a deep breath, then plunged his magical senses into the Bog.

And found it empty.