The Island With No Parallel

The General of Fear (part 2)

Octavius was on the ground, screaming as if horror itself had overtaken him. Some of the Aracs moved to help him, but Lord Stretton knew better. These deals were too delicate. He held a hand to stop them. "Fear, I have no business with you just yet. You have no right--"

My terms have changed.

Lord Stretton's smile fell, his mouth twitching. "Fear, we have already discussed this. You requested the relic we recently uncovered, the necklace that the maid made off with. And as I've already told you, we will soon recover--"

The necklace is nothing to me anymore. Lord Stretton, is it not true that your previous plan to mount enough power to free my Lords was to collect powerful relics and absorb the power from them?

Lord Stretton set his jaw, pensive. He wasn't sure where the General of Fear was going with this. "Yes. That is true. What does that have to do with anything?"

What changed your mind, Lord Stretton?

Octavius continued screaming on the floor, immobilized. The General of Fear's voice was getting an edge to it. Lord Stretton would have to be careful, or all the men in the room could be trapped like that, Lord Stretton included. But he had to maintain the position of authority here, or the General of Fear would prey on any weakness. "You already know. It would take a large amount of time to recover that many relics. When we found out the the Ancient Ones had chosen another five, we decided to prevent the uniting of them and be able to unlock the Dark Lords all at the same time, we would find and capture one of the five and offer her to the three Lords to break them out of the prison that holds them."

Precisely. Therefore, Lord Stretton, this isn't your fault, the General taunted. Neither you nor I were able to divine that the Ancients had chosen another five at the time that we made our agreement. Now that we know, I now see that I was asking for too little. I have change my terms, Stretton. I want the death of one of the Ancient's chosen. I will not awake for anything less. The necklace is useless to me now.

"Now wait a moment," Stretton said, now angered. "You can't do that. We had a deal, General. We spoke with you under all of the required circumstances and made a clean deal months ago, sworn in blood. You have no grounds to change the deal, because there was no foul play on our part. The fact that you don't like the terms you made is not my problem."

Fear said nothing. The room remained in an eerie silence. Then, he suddenly reached forward, through the boundaries of the ring, grabbing Lord Stretton by his head and pulling him towards the ring, though the lower part of Fear's body was unable to leave the perimeter of the ring. Renen looked on in horror. He had never seen his uncle involved in a deal that went bad. Lord Stretton's screams filled the room, his mind being filled with the horrors exuding from Fear. The Dark Ones, when summoned from the dark country they come from, couldn't hurt or kill anyone until the deal with the summoner had been made. But that only applied to anyone not involved in the deal. The summoners were in constant danger of being at the mercy of those they summon, especially when the Dark One is angered. Renen had no idea what a Dark General was capable of in this moment.

The Dark General didn't pull him in. It's not your problem, Lord Stretton? Fear demanded. Do you know the horrors I can show you right now? You don't know true fear. True terror. I've been waiting thousands of years for someone to set me free. I can wait a thousand more. Another mortal is bound to heed my requests and set me free. That is certain. But what isn't certain is if that mortal will be you or another. Right now, I would be just as satisfied to teach you a lesson on true horrors than to hear more of your putrid insolence.

Lord Stretton didn't stop screaming. He couldn't hear anything. Fear paralyzed every part of him. Renen stepped forward. "Deal. We will find the Chosen one you are looking for and bring you their blood as evidence."