Ultimate Assassin Saga: Escape

His memories drifted further once more. He saw himself and his brother summoning Demon Mages to their sides who then in turn summoned Lesser and Middle Flight Demons. Memory after memory after memory passed and he saw it all like he was there once more. He watched as battle after battle went by with him leading the pack, his broadsword slicing the flesh of enemies and his spells tearing them apart. Then, his memories moved to a more recent time and to the case he was on now. He felt all the emotions that he'd felt then and somehow he knew that he'd been exposed somehow.

The last memory that he saw flash behind his eyes was of the silver haired woman lunging forward and grabbing his head in her grasp.

He felt her hands leave his face and he sank to his knees. He felt more drained than he had ever been in his long life and he couldn't seem to be able to catch his breath. He noted that his skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat and he was surprised by that. He never sweated and for him to sweat now meant that he'd just gone through something very strenuous. With thoughts of the woman in his mind, he looked up and he saw the woman standing right in front of him. His eyes traveled up to her face and he saw a look of surprise in her golden eyes as she stared at him.

Obviously she hadn't expected that, whatever the hell she had just done.

"What the fuck was that?" Acheron asked, his voice tinged with anger. As he spoke, he rose to his feet slowly and he stepped back so as not to be caught again. If she tried to do it again, he would be ready and he wouldn't let her touch him again - no matter what. He wasn't going to go through whatever the hell that was again, even if it meant that he had to kill this woman and flee the village.

"That was my magic. I used it to search your memories to find your intentions for my people, but I found no ill feelings towards us." the High Shaman answered, her voice still tinged with her surprise. She shook her head and she took a step back from him. It was as if she feared him and he couldn't really blame her. After all, she'd seen his time in the Abyss and his time as the Command Assassin of Dalkia. He'd done some horrible things that he wasn't very proud of and he didn't expect these people to understand it. "I shall tell the Queen of this."

With that said, Twister stepped back out of the cell and she turned the key quickly, locking the door. Her golden eyes glowed as she looked into his face and the key disappeared once more. He stood there, motionless, watching her and wondering what she was thinking. He had many skills in magic, but psionics wasn't one of them. At this time, he wished that he was a psionic so he could read her mind and find out why she was looking at him that way.

The silver haired woman turned and walked away, leaving him all alone in the darkness with nothing but silence - and his own thoughts - to keep him company.

Chapter 7

Twister escaped the prison building as fast as she could. Once she shut the door behind her, she sank to her knees and she placed both hands over her face. She was trying to rid herself of all the horrible sights that she'd seen. It wasn't working. She'd seen some horrible things in her time while rifling through the memories of criminals, but nothing like what she'd seen in the Demon's mind. What was whirling through his memories was enough to make anyone go mad.

The memories of the fiery Plane that she'd sifted through had been the most horrible and she hadn't known what it was when she was performing the spell. Now that she was outside and away from the Demon, she knew exactly where that fiery Plane was: it was the Abyss. The horrible home of the darkest; most evil souls in existence as well as many other dark creatures. Such as the Demons of all Flights and all castes. The Demon - Acheron - had been born to the Abyss and he'd fought his way out. However, once he'd arrived on the Mortal Plane he and the other Demon had used the skills that they'd learned in the Abyss to conquer.

They had taken so many lives that there was no way that they could be redeemed. She felt dirty and tainted just having the visions of the Demon's deeds in his mind. However, she knew that it had to be worse for him. After all, he had to live with what he'd done for the rest of his life and that could be a considerable amount of time. Then again, it might not affect him at all. He was a Demon, and as far as she knew, Demons didn't feel emotions and didn't have a conscious.

If one had a conscious, how could they do what this man had done and survive without his mind being splintered into thousands of pieces? It was a simple answer: they couldn't. No, the things that he'd done had been too horrible for even the most steadfast and most heartless beings to be able to live with. No one with a soul could perform such acts and still be able to function. However, she'd sensed no evil within the man and that was what contradicted her thoughts. After all, she'd come to the conclusion that he was evil, but when searching his aura, she hadn't found evil. Just the opposite actually. She'd found an overwhelming amount of goodness, of purity that shouldn't have existed within him.

However, it had been the last images that convinced her that he wasn't there to do them harm. In fact, she was quite certain that he didn't even know who the Amazons were and weren't a blip on his radar. No, his target was the woman that she'd seen in his memories and those memories had been the most tame of all. After all, she was no stranger to sex and those memories had been filled with sex. The Demon had rolled around with some beautiful woman, making love to her in several different memories for the span of six months and it was those images that came to her mind now.

No, this Demon was good and he was going to find his lover. That was his intent.

She'd felt the need for him to protect the woman while she was sifting through his memories and it was a strong feeling. So strong a feeling that it had been that it had pervaded through the rest of the memories, even the ones that had to have been long before he'd met her. Also, there was another feeling that had come from him when there had been a clear sign of her face in his memories and it was an emotion that he hadn't expected from him. In fact, she'd believed that Demons couldn't feel the emotion at all: love.

The High Shaman felt that her hands were wet, and when she raised her face from her hands, she realized that her face was wet to. She reached up with one hand and she wiped her eyes. She'd been crying - no, sobbing - the entire time she'd been on her knees. She shook her head and she dried her face completely. When she raised her red rimmed eyes, she noted that several Amazons were moving towards her and all of them had looks of worry in their eyes. After all, they all knew who she'd just met with and they most likely assumed that he'd done something to harm her.

He hadn't done a damn thing, but of course they would assume the worst. He was a Demon after all, and even though she didn't like to admit it, she had her prejudices too when she'd gone into the prison. She'd expected to find a red skinned creature with a forked tail and horns protruding from his head. He hadn't been that. No, he hadn't looked like that at all. In fact, he was a very attractive man and she'd had to remind herself that he was in fact a Demon. She'd only just seen drawings of Demons and they'd been of lesser Demons obviously. However, that was what she'd assumed that all Demons looked like, even though she knew that the higher the Flight of Demon, the more Human they looked.

"Are you alright, Lady Twister?" one young man asked, his tone filled with worry. She noted the breastplate that he wore and she knew instantly that he was a part of the Forest Guard. However, he was far too young to be a part of Tide's patrol. Tide's Guard patrol was only of the most elite of the Forest Guard and this young man wouldn't qualify for that. He was maybe eighteen or nineteen summers old and was just now starting to get a stubble on his chin.

"I am quite alright." Twister replied in a light, airy tone. She laughed and waved it off like it was but a small annoyance. In ways it was just a small annoyance, but she knew that the images that she'd seen in the Demon's memories would remain with her. They would haunt her and she knew that she would never forget them no matter how hard she tried. "I must see to my mother and report to her. After all, she's the only reason that I'm back in the village right now anyway."

There was a crowd of Amazon men and women around her by now. Every one of them looked concerned, but none moved to stop her as she pushed through them. In fact, they parted out of the way and allowed her a clear path through them. They surely knew that her bravado was faked and that something was wrong with her, but they obviously weren't willing to bring it up. They probably didn't feel like it was their place and they were right. It wasn't their place to get involved with her personal issues. It wasn't anybodies business what she was feeling or thinking, but her's.

Now, if only she could believe that she would be okay.

Twister had been away far to the north to train her apprentice. There was only one High Shaman at a time and there was a reason for that. The High Shaman was the most powerful and most respected of all Mages. You couldn't have two High Shamans because there weren't two individuals at a time born with the potential to become the next High Shaman. Because of her magical ability, she knew that her life would be extended far beyond that of her mortal brother, sister, and mother. However, that didn't matter to her all that much. Death would come for her one day, but she wasn't going to fight it. She would welcome it as a natural part of life because that was exactly what it was.

Trixie, her apprentice, was a fast study and she'd learned many of the spells that she needed to learn. However, she was still struggling with the lore and the discipline of being the High Shaman. A High Shaman had to be calm, cool, and collected no matter the situation. She smiled at that and thought of her own breakdown a minute ago. She'd never done that before and she hoped that it would never happen again. She didn't know if it would or not, but that wasn't important. She thought back on the runner that had come for her and the message that he'd relayed. It had been an important message that much was obvious from the flustered look on the young man's face, and when he'd told her the news, she'd known that she had to get home immediately.

Of all the things that she'd counted on, the confusion that whirled through her mind like a maelstrom wasn't one of them.

The Amazon shook off her thoughts as her mother's residence came into view. She'd lived here with her mother, brother, and sister, but it had never been home to her. She'd always felt more at home in the forest, all alone and surrounded by nature. Maybe that was why the previous High Shaman had chosen her. No one really knew why the High Shamans chose their successors. Even she herself didn't know why she'd chosen Trixie, but all she could say was that she'd had a feeling about the girl. There had been something there, some miniscule personality that had appealed and spoken to her. It was why she'd taken the girl on as her apprentice and hoped that one day the girl would succeed her as the High Shaman.

The last High Shaman hadn't died the moment that Twister became the High Shaman. In fact, he'd lived for a decade more without time touching him. He would probably still be alive and still young had they not been ambushed in the middle of the forest. The two of them had been walking together in the middle of the night, talking about how she would choose as her apprentice when all of a sudden they'd been ambushed by the Dark Races. Neither one of them had sensed them and that had been enough surprise. They'd been able to defeat them, but not before the former High Shaman had taken a handaxe through the gut, causing him to bleed out.

She'd cared about the man like a father and there he was bleeding out in front of her. She'd tried to use a healing spell, but it had been too late. He'd been dead. She'd grieved his death for many months and no one had been able to get close to her at the time. Then, she'd been visited by his ghost in the middle of the night, and the next day, she'd felt much better. Many said that she'd lost her mind because she really believed that she saw him, but she knew just what it was. It was her former father figure and friend coming to comfort her from beyond the grave. He had taken time away from his patron deity to make sure that she was okay and she would always love him for that.

Before she knew it, Twister was upon her mother's home and she opened the door, stepping inside. She took a deep breath of the house that she'd known until the last High Shaman had taken her in and she smiled. It wasn't home, but it was familiar. The same floral scent permeated the air throughout the home and hanging upon the walls were paintings of the entire family. She knew that her mother had one painting with all of them in it together when she and her siblings were all young children. If there was one thing that could be said for her mother, it was that she was a good mother.

The Amazon Queen had taken care of them and kept them sheltered away from the political part of the Amazon village. She knew now that politics could be just as hard - if not harder - than any battle and she didn't long for her mother's job. She was just glad that she wasn't the Heir to the throne. No, her brother Tide was the Heir and he seemed okay with that. In fact, he seemed to relish in the fact that he would one day be King, but wasn't in a hurry. He loved their mother - maybe even better than both of his sisters - and he would never harm her, not even for the throne. He simply wasn't that kind of person.

The only reason that it had come up in her mind was because she'd heard just today someone whispering that the Prince had a plot to kill his mother. However, she knew her brother better than that. He would never do anything like that and there was no one that could convince her otherwise. Also, she hadn't allowed that person to go unchallenged and had in fact punched the young woman in the face, bloodying her nose. She'd deserved more, but she wasn't going to kill the girl and end up on trial for murder. A murder that would've had witnesses.

Twister shook her head and she continued down the hallway. She stopped in the entrance to the living area, but she wasn't there. She'd expected her mother to be there, but she wasn't. Usually, she was sitting on the couch with a book or papers working. If she wasn't in the living area, there was only one place that she could be at this time of day: in her office. Her mother either sat on her couch and read her books or wrote her papers or she sat in her office to run over the newest reports that came in from the Forest Guard and their spy network.

The High Shaman walked across the carpeted floors of the living room and walked down the one hallway in the house. There were doors on the left and the left only. She knew that most of the rooms were empty except for a few of them. She also knew that their bedrooms - the one's that they'd slept in as children - were still wholly and fully intact. Some might've called that odd, but she didn't find it odd at all. After all, the Queen's husband had died when they were small children and they were all that she had. Their father's death had been innocuous and not fitting of his stature as the King. He'd died of lung rot, coughing up blood and pieces of his lungs.

They'd been kept away from their father while he was sick, and after he'd died, he'd been buried in a pine box without their being able to see inside. When Tide had asked her about it later, she'd told her children that she'd wanted to protect them from what their father had looked like in death. She hadn't wanted them to hurt because of what he'd looked like in death and she'd done her best. She hadn't understood then. why her mother would do something like that, but now as a grown adult, she knew now. She'd seen people who'd been victims of lung rot and it wasn't a clean death. It was horrible and it was horrid.

The Amazon Princess stopped at the mahogany door of the office and she took a deep breath. Then, she raised her hand and knocked on the door. "Enter." called the cool, dispassionate voice of her mother. She was fairly certain that her mother knew that she was there and so she opened the door before stepping inside. She shut the door behind her and she turned to look at her mother. Kira, Amazon Queen, looked anything but the Queen she was suppose to be sitting behind the mahogany desk and writing on the paper that she was writing on. She didn't know what she was writing and she didn't suppose that it really mattered either.

The Amazon Queen looked up at her, her cobalt blue eyes empty of all emotion. Then, her lips spread up into a wide, ear to ear smile and her blue eyes sparkled with her joy. Then, she pushed the papers aside as if they didn't matter to her as much as her own daughter. They didn't of course. How many times had the Amazon Queen put aside her work to do something with one of - if not all of - her children? She'd been a wonderful mother in that way and she loved her mother for that.

"Twister, I'm so glad to see you." Kira said, her smile just as wide as before. She pushed her chair back and she got to her feet, walking around the desk. She didn't stop as she walked right up to her daughter and she wrapped her arms around her daughter in a tight hug. The High Shaman smiled softly and she hugged her mother back. She closed her eyes and she relished in her mother's embrace for a moment. She felt like she was a small child once again being held and loved by her mother. Then, her mother's arms fell from her and she looked into her daughter's golden eyes, seemingly searching. "Come, sit."

The Amazon Princess sighed inwardly and watched her mother walk back around her desk. She took her seat in her cushioned wooden chair and she continued to smile at her daughter, waiting. She stepped forward to the cushioned wooden chair in front of her mother's desk and she sank down into it, sitting gingerly with her back held ramrod straight. When one was in the presence of the Queen, you didn't slump and you didn't show weakness. If you did, the Queen could jump upon it in an instant.

Those were the things that went around the village about the Amazon Queen anyway.

"So, what is it that you've found out about the Demon?" Kira asked in her usual blunt tone. Her mother was always straightforward, even when it came to the point of being abrasive. She knew her mother well though and she wasn't offended or annoyed with the way she spoke to her. After all, it was better to get right to the point and not mince words. Mincing words wasted time and wasting time wasn't something they could afford. After all, one never knew when that time was going to be cut short.

"He is in fact of Dalkia like we expected." Twister replied softly, giving her mother a little information. The older woman sighed and sat back in her chair. She ran a hand through her long ink black hair and disheveled it slightly. She looked like she was deep in thought and coming to a decision about something quickly. She was going to have to cut her mother off before she made her decision without all the information. "However, he is not here to harm us. He had left Dalkia and betrayed the order of the Emperor himself."

The Amazon Queen's cobalt blue eyes centered on her with those words. She could see the surprise in her mother's eyes and she couldn't blame her. She too had been surprised when she'd discovered that he was from Dalkia, but had betrayed it and all for a woman. That sort of loyalty to another living creature wasn't something anyone had ever heard a Demon feel and it surprised her. However, she knew it to be true and she couldn't allow her mother to kill this rare Demon that felt real emotions - that knew the love of a good woman.