CH79 - A Test of Will

Edmund eyed the vaguely humanoid form that the vetala had assumed cautiously. "You took over the child well before it was born, I presume."

He was almost certain that the spirit had been manipulating the baby manticore's vocal cords till now to communicate. It would explain why its words had sounded strained, as though the mere act of speaking was painful. After all, the fetus' voicebox would not have had the time to develop before it was killed.

'Though the vetala itself ought to also be capable of speech, considering it was able to articulate its anger well enough earlier,' he deduced.

He was proven right.

"Yes," the vetala confirmed arrogantly. Its voice was multilayered, varying in pitch and cadence ever so slightly to give the impression that multiple people were answering at once—a haunting effect, especially combined with its low, breathy timbre. "I sensed the creature would grow to be strong. Very strong. And luckily for me, its consciousness had barely developed when I found it. Possessing it was easy. Like snuffing the flame of a flickering candle."

Edmund sighed. A tinge of sympathy flared in him for Moros, a desperate father who had never known that his offspring had perished long ago. 'Focus. No time for that right now.'

"But it refused to hatch," it continued harshly. "The mutations that had drawn me to it made its body my cage. I could not escape. I could not 'die.' I was stuck."

"Until now," Edmund whispered.

"Until now," the spirit agreed. "For that, I must thank you."

"Don't thank me too quickly," Edmund countered. "I have no interest in freeing you. You may be sly, but I am no fool either. If you escape, I will be dead soon after. I am certain of it. No, there is only one way you will be leaving this circle... A bond."

However, rather than the look of disdain and dismissal that he had been expecting, the vetala instead... smiled?

"Why does it seem excited at that prospect?" he murmured.

"A bond is not unprecedented. Your desires are hardly unique," the speaker explained. "Many have tried to secure the loyalty of a vetala before. Most fail at the very first step. How do you capture a powerful, quick, incorporeal being that can possess and control even the strongest creatures? You don't, for all intents and purposes."

"Most?" Edmund questioned perceptively. "What about the few that do manage to restrain them successfully?"

The centaur smiled grimly. "Any magical being can be blackmailed, tortured, or tricked into a bond, but there is no method to make someone else's magic forcefully entwine with your own. At some point, the vetala must reciprocate your advances of its own volition. That is when it will strike. In the brief moment that your minds are open to one another, it will bombard you with imagery of its past. Experiences of its past victims, scenes of horror from your worst nightmares, and who knows what else."

"If it does a good enough job frightening me, it can take over my body instead... If I am dead, the bond is void," he breathed out in comprehension.

"Whereas if you make it through the process with your mind intact, it will be bonded to you forevermore," she finished.

The vetala cackled in the background, but Edmund paid it no mind for the moment.

"It is a gamble," he concluded.

"In a sense," the speaker nodded. "But I have 'seen' attempted bindings with vetalas before. I know how they work and the sort of tricks they use. This will be a challenge, yes. However, I believe it is one you can persevere through."

Edmund wavered. "And if I fail?"

"It would not be the worst thing in the world," she bent down to whisper in his ear. "After a vetala occupies a body, it takes several months for the original inhabitant to die. Their soul remains trapped within their own body, slowly fading into nothingness. If an exorcism is performed within this period, there is no harm done."

"It cannot be that simple," he snarled, knowing the centaur was obscuring something from him. "There are repercussions to this sort of thing!"

The speaker turned her head away from him. "If matters devolved enough that an exorcism was required, your magic would remain unresponsive for a certain period afterwards... It could be as little as a day or as much as a year."

Edmund scoffed bitterly as he furiously contemplated his options. Things may have been looking up for him, but he knew his position was still dangerous. Voldemort was on one side, and Dumbledore on the other. Being out of commission for a year was a death sentence, no matter how he looked at it. He needed to grow and to do so fast. 'But if I want to be able to defend myself against those titans of magic, I will need to take chances they would be unwilling to take. Inevitably, I will need to take risks. That is a fact, one that I need to accept.'

"It is your choice to make," the centaur said. "I will not force you either way."

Several minutes passed.

'If I know this is what my path will be like in the future, why delay it? Why miss this opportunity and lament about it later?' he decided.

Edmund unhesitantly raised his hand, and a tendril of his magic shot out toward the vetala. He felt a brief moment of connection before his eyes closed against his will.

*-*-*-*

Death. Senseless slaughter. Bodies fell around him as Edmund charged forward with a roar, sword in hand. A man was decapitated next to him, his head flying through the air until it left his vision. Another was pierced with a spear directly through the lungs as he gasped and wheezed for air that would not come. A river of blood flowed underneath his feet, its colour mirrored by the red sky. Red, red, everywhere. The earth was red; the heavens were red. Only his soul looked different. For it was black. Pitch black.

'Such senseless slaughter,' he managed to think once more before an arrow pierced his eye, and then he could feel no more. 'Is that fog crawling up my leg?'

*-*-*-*

Fear. The lantern in his hand shook as Edmund shuddered with fear. The cemetery was empty at night, just as it always was. His appointment was redundant, especially at times such as this. People were far too afraid of these graves to consider robbing them. What could he do to prevent someone even if they tried? For the millionth time, he regretted ever taking the job.

'Well, at least my body won't be found too far away from where my tomb is going to be,' he laughed morbidly as skeletal hands wrapped around his throat and a shadow crept up to him.

*-*-*-*

Terror. Another cloth scarf was placed over his mouth and nose, joining the other two that had already been tied there. The plague had come, ruthless and brutal, and it had taken everything away with it. His parents, siblings, wife, children... All dead... Only he was alive.

'Why do I try?' he thought. 'What is the point even if I survive? Why am I such a coward? Why, even now, can I not embrace death as a friend? It will not be long now, I suppose. I can only be hallucinating. Since when does smoke float downwards instead of up?'

*-*-*-*

Life after life. Death after death.

He experienced them all.

'How terrifying...' Edmund mused as he was killed yet again. 'But I've already died before, haven't I? It isn't nearly as exciting as this. Death is boring, more often than not. Followed by an infinite drift through an endless void. It is not pain and sorrow, neither is it enlightenment and peace. It is nothing... Nothing at all. Just as this is nothing. Nothing but a bad dream.'

Confusion flowed into his mind.

He smiled. 'This has been very exciting, but I think I've had enough. I'll be going now if that's alright.'

Edmund grabbed the formless mist that was descending upon him with his hands, somehow crushing it into oblivion with nary a thought. Now that the fear was gone, it did not seem so difficult of a task. Rather, it seemed quite easy.

'Nice try, though.'

*-*-*-*

Like glass, the illusion shattered around him as Edmund shot into consciousness with a gasp, his mind reemerging from its partially inactivated state. The speaker held him up, rubbing his back with concern as he repeatedly coughed.

Edmund waved her away, instead reaching for his wand to dismantle the blood ward with a wave. The speaker gasped in panic, but the vetala remained stationary. A flash of anger appeared through the new bond, but a sense of grudging respect overpowered it. "Master," it acknowledged.

"Ah, none of that," Edmund chuckled manically, his mind still fraying at the edges. "It's Edmund to you. Have you got a name of your own? I would prefer not to call you vetala all the time."

"Vimoksha," it bowed. "I am known as Vimoksha to my people."

"It means liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth," the speaker translated with a proud yet worried grin as she came to understand what had happened. "Freedom from samsara."

Edmund smiled darkly. "How fitting for an undying spirit. You'll do just fine."