Lex knew that his remaining life could be measured in seconds.
His vision was already dimming, and everything had gone strangely silent. He could vaguely hear Xiriel’s chorus of voices – with one less vocalization than before – saying something, but the words were unintelligible. At the edge of his vision, he could see the ring of fangs that surrounded the monster’s lower maw tearing into his abdomen, but he couldn’t feel the punctures or scratches. His right foreleg remained pinned to the ground by the belier’s tongue, unable to touch the thing’s body and discharge the unknown spell gathered at his hoof. Despite the creature’s impressive spell resistance, it quite clearly had no intention of letting Lex even attempt to use another spell on it.
It was that determination on the devil’s part that brought a smile to Lex’s face, despite knowing that he was about to die. The thought that he’d be able to confound the thing’s efforts once again brought a spiteful satisfaction to his fading consciousness. He held onto that, pushing everything else out of his mind as he focused on his loathing for Xiriel, and utilized his last remaining tactic.
Although Lex had been unable to formulate an effective plan to combat the belier, he had put the brief lull that Nosey had bought him earlier to fullest effect. In the few moments between when she had managed to distract the thing – giving him just enough space to turn back into shadow-form and drop down into the ground – and when it had begun to torture her in response, he had managed to cast a single spell. It had been little more than an act of desperation on his part; an attempt to lay down groundwork for a tactic that he hadn’t fully formulated, let alone expected to create any worthwhile results at the time…but which was his only hope now.
The single spell that Lex had used had been to conjure a spectral hoof.
He’d used that spell before, during his fight with Lirtkra and his companions, to touch a wall on the other side of the building they’d been fighting in and unleash another spell that had opened up a large hole, allowing a horde of ghouls to come pouring in. That was the point of the spectral hoof spell: it temporarily shaved off a piece of his own life force and used it to create a ghostly, disembodied limb that could deliver touch-range spells at a distance, allowing for greater tactical maneuverability during a fight. Before, it had been instrumental in surprising his enemies, even if flooding them with ghouls hadn’t worked. In this case, he had cast it as little more than an attempt to expand his rapidly-dwindling array of strategic options…and now, it was the sole remaining action he could take.
…I got you…
“I…g-got…you…” Lex couldn’t tell whether the thought came from the tulpa or was his own, could barely remember what was happening, but he somehow managed to force the words out. As he did, he mentally commanded the spectral hoof to rise up from the ground. Normally, it would automatically return to his side if it ever left his sight, so Lex had been devoting a small part of his focus to keeping it under the ground, not wanting the devil to notice it. Now, he let it float into view, and felt the magic transfer from his fore-hoof to the spectral one as it rushed toward the belier…and pressed against it.
An instant later, the spell discharged successfully, punching through Xiriel’s spell resistance as though it wasn’t even there.
But Lex was no longer capable of comprehending what was going on, his head falling back as he let out one last wheezing breath, everything turning black as his awareness finally faded away…and then came rushing back. Shocked, he almost choked as a sudden rush of air filled his lungs, gasping as he was suddenly able to breathe clearly again. Confused, he looked down at his chest, trying to figure out what was happening, but the next moment his confusion turned into complete and total shock at what he saw.
His wounds were moving.
The sight in front of him made no sense whatsoever. The hole that had been punched through his chest was rippling and shimmering as though he were viewing it underwater. Around it, his body was completely solid, and he couldn’t feel any sort of sensation coming from the injury itself…in fact, he belatedly realized, he couldn’t feel the injury at all anymore, his breath continuing to come easily. It was like someone was pointing an image of that injury from a film projector onto his chest, rather than an actual wound he’d sustained. But as surprising as that was, it was nothing compared to what happened next, as the hole in his chest removed itself from his body entirely – leaving his upper chest completely unblemished – and flew across the few feet separating him from Xiriel, attaching itself to the belier devil’s emaciated body.
Instantly, Xiriel let out a cry of pain, and Lex saw black ichor spurting from the new hole on the creature’s body. The wound no longer shimmered, looking like an ordinary injury that the creature had sustained, and it took Lex a moment to realize what had happened: that spell had transferred the damage he’d taken to Xiriel!
Nor did it stop there. A moment later Lex felt the throbbing pain in his left foreleg vanish as the broken bone was suddenly whole again, a corresponding scream ringing out of the monster that was engulfing him. Then the puncture marks on his abdomen were gone, and Lex felt the devil’s throat spasm around him as it took the damage that it had dealt to him moments ago. Then the same thing happened with the deep gouges it had left on his legs. Even the residual soreness where it had squeezed him by the neck was gone. A second later Lex couldn’t feel any pain whatsoever, and he scrambled backwards, pulling himself out of the creature’s maw as the full scope of what had just happened settled over him.
He knew this spell. He’d learned it back on Everglow, as part of his attempts to learn how healing magic worked. It was designed to heal the caster by forcibly transferring the damage they’d taken to someone else…whether or not the recipient was willing. Despite the potential battle tactics that it offered, Lex had ultimately decided that the spell offended his sensibilities; the parasitic nature of making someone else bear his hurts in order to refresh himself ran directly counter to his desire to endure hardship for the sake of others. He had subsequently not bothered to prepare it, and hadn’t given it a thought since. So why had that it activated now, when-
…when he’d repeated the words from his shadow.
Suddenly, he knew what had happened, and the realization was enough to rock him back on his hooves. He hadn’t prepared that spell, but his tulpa – that rebellious fragment of his own mind that the Night Mare had stricken him with, and which materialized in his shadow – had! It all made sense. His thaumaturgical spellcasting was based around gathering and structuring energy within his thoughts, but not all of his thoughts were under his conscious control; the Night Mare’s curse had caused a portion of them to achieve limited independence. Although the resulting tulpa had never once indicated that it was concerned with anything but reflecting his own fears and doubts back at him, there was no reason that it couldn’t hold a small number of spells on its own, at least in theory. But with no independent body, his shadow wouldn’t be able to encode the requisite thought-matrices to require gestures, and even the verbal components would require him to be the one to speak them out loud, since the tulpa couldn’t truly speak on its own. It had effectively fed him that spell!
No, it did more than that, he realized. It increased the efficacy of the other spells I cast too. Forcing his magic past impeding energies, such as the belier’s spell resistance, was a matter of focusing his concentration so as to keep the spell’s structure firm enough to pierce the intervening barrier, rather than shattering against it. Most of his magic had failed against Xiriel’s overwhelming magical prowess, but – notwithstanding when Nosey had given him the creature’s own magical gemstones, at least one of which had doubtlessly been increasing his powers – the only spells that had affected it had been the ones he’d cast immediately after his shadow had spoken to him. It was aligning its thoughts with mine. He felt sure of it. His shadow had, for whatever reason, been working with him instead of against him, letting him bring the full might of his unfragmented mind to bear…and that had been enough to overcome Xiriel’s resistance!
All of those thoughts ran through Lex’s mind in seconds, filling his head even as he put more distance between himself and the thrashing devil. He knew that it was just a theory, that there were still unanswered questions – chief among which was why his tulpa had suddenly become so helpful – but one thing was exceedingly clear. The Night Mare’s curse had saved him.
“DAMN YOU!” screamed Xiriel, its voices filled with rage and pain. It thrashed violently under the transferred wounds, its body whipping back and forth so hard that its remaining heads slammed back into the ground. “DAMN YOU, LEX LEGIS! YOU WILL WATCH EVERyone you care about…suffer and die…” Its threat lost its intensity halfway through, and Xiriel’s thrashing suddenly slowed. It continued to wriggle, but couldn’t seem to lift its equine heads up and over its toothed maw, making its struggling look like that of a worm writhing in the dirt. The sight was enough to make Lex’s heart leap with hope. Had that finally been enough to kill the thing?
A shudder ran through the belier, its body undulating before going still. “yOu tHInK tHIs MEaNs yOU’vE wON?” screeched its lower end. “yOu’VE aCcoMPliShEd nOtHInG eXCePt eArNInG yOUrSelF A fRoNT-rOw sEaT tO wHaT’S aBoUt tO hApPEn.”
The right head turned to look at him. “The ghouls will soon come pouring out of Vanhoover. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They will swarm all over your pathetic little camp and devour everyone there.”
The central head spoke next. “There’s no defensible position. No place to run. Your little ponies will die screaming, torn apart by their former friends and neighbors. And you get to watch it all.”
Lex snarled wordlessly, having no intention of letting the creature continue speaking. Xiriel had proven itself to be incredibly deceptive and phenomenally dangerous; it needed to be exterminated with all possible haste. Lex raised a hoof sharply, intended to chant a spell that would pummel it with concussive force, but the motion made the world sway dangerously, and he had to take a moment to steady himself. Belatedly, he realized that the wound-transference spell hadn’t restored the blood that he’d lost, nor the fatigue that he’d accumulated during the course of the battle.
Heedless of Lex’s distress, Xiriel kept speaking, its voices emerging in unison again. “I know that you’ll stand in front of them, trying to save them. My only regret is that I won’t get to watch…you…fail…” The belier’s words suddenly faltered, and the last of its movements halted, going completely still.
“You’re wrong,” replied Lex coldly, still trying to center himself. “I’ll find a way to destroy the ghouls, just like I did the sahuagin, and the kraken,” his eyes narrowed then, more certain that Xiriel was finally dying, “and you.”
The belier’s voices rose in a shuddering laugh. “Such pride. One day…it will…surely…lead…you to…Hell…”
The last word was barely out of its mouths when the creature suddenly burst into flames. Lex fell back, startled as fire suddenly raged over Xiriel’s body, engulfing it completely. For a moment he worried that this was more of the creature’s magic, but as the seconds passed and nothing happened, he slowly felt his tension start to ebb. Nevertheless, he kept a spell on his lips as he watched the belier immolate.
It was almost a minute later when the flames died down, snuffing out as instantaneously as they’d begun. In their wake, there was nothing but a black scorch mark on the ground, its shape roughly analogous to Xiriel’s body. For a moment, Lex stared at the spot, then glanced around, using his circlet to check for more magical auras, making sure to confirm that it was active and functional before he swept the area. It was only when he found nothing, other than the creature's remaining magic items, in every direction that he let out a breath, almost collapsing with relief.
The devil was dead.