Chapter 51

The palace, Havila.

"Who is he?"

The Emperor's face could lift up the guard that knelt before him and fling him into thin air. His long face had been trained by determination and the need to seek vengeance. The urge and the thirst for revenge had marred what his mental horizon could expand.

"Great emperor, he says he is the sorcerer of the great king of Kula."

The emperor stood up at that. His stern face contoured into worry.

"How can that be? What guts does she have? To think she can kill me in the same manner in which she killed that warrior? She should be some inexperienced Nymph."

He cussed, swelling in rage. If rage was an inflated balloon, he would have burst. That was how pissed off and angered he was.

He walked down the throne and stood before the guard. He looked to the right and left for a while, thinking about what to do. Then he shot, "Bring her in. Let's end this."

The warrior stammered instead, "You mean him?"

The emperor kicked the fellow in the side, the ribcage, and cussed, "Scramble off. What do you know about magic and witchery?"

The warrior rushed out to summon in the sorcerer.

"Don't you think she's sick? Or what does she take me for? An inexperienced emperor? How belittling that could be."

The emperor was jumpy. He was pacing the floor. His pace confined to the length of the chairs before the throne.

Nobody was present with him. He had sent all the guards loose in the dog chase of Lailah. And the two strangers had followed the searched party. Jim and Tzu.

But now Lailah had come to the palace in the form of the sorcerer to kill him in the same form he had killed the third warrior? He thought.

"She must be really sick. No! Inefficient. Ah! Crazy!"

He cussed and cussed, then stopped pacing. He had been talking to himself all along.

"We should have it the worst way."

He walked back to the throne as the sorcerer walked into the palace.

"Greetings, great Emperor."

The old man with a white and fluffy beard bent in a bow before him.

"Quite the charade," the emperor scoffed.

"Beg your pardon?"

The man had heard what he'd said, but the old man ignored it and requested, "May I please sit?"

The emperor nodded, "Sit your last."

The old man couldn't take it anymore. He asked, trying to be as civil as possible, "Anything the matter, Emperor?"

The emperor stood up immediately from the throne and sparked, "What matter could there be than thinking so foolishly and lowly that I wouldn't smell you out!"

The sorcerer couldn't sit yet. He didn't know what to think. What was the emperor trying to say? He wouldn't be the only one to nurse the thought. He passed the emperor a share of the bother, "I don't know you for a dog, but in what context do you speak?"

The emperor laughed as evily as he could. He was tapping one of his feet on the marbled stair. The sorcerer knew something wasn't right.

"The context of your foolishness, Lailah. To think I would be killed like the rest of the men. Quite a joker you are."

The Sorcerer sighed at that and turned his back on the emperor. He walked to sit in one of the chairs before the throne. The emperor watched in surprise.

"What did Lailah do to you all again?" the sorcerer asked, looking sternly at the confused emperor. Well, the emperor was trying as much as possible to get hold of his own feelings.

"Do not play a mind game with me, Lailah!"

The emperor stood up. He was flaring. The Sorcerer only looked at him in awe. A string of indifference lacing the awe.

"Did Lailah come as a sorcerer?" The old man was trying to straighten out things, but the emperor didn't seem to be seeing it from that frame of reference.

"You've had a peak of it all already."

The emperor began to chant at that, his hand moving at a rapid pace. His eyes glued on the sorcerer.

The sorcerer still held the same stance, seeing how much Lailah had hurt the emperor.

"I have no idea what Lailah has done, but all she does is prey on anger. Then she uses it against us humans, to chisel her plan out. She might—"

The huge laser that shot out of one of the recently stretched arms of the emperor blew the sorcerer away from his seat and knocked him out, preventing the old man from completing the sentence.

The emperor was beginning to walk down the stairs, his eyes fiery and his body reacting to a surge coursing through his spine.

"Change now to your real form, Lailah. Contend with me if you have the gall. And see that humans are stronger than Nymphs. I bet you haven't heard about Bodha Dharma and how he hit his chi. He meditated for nine years in a temple with a face to the wall. And at the end, he could travel across a river on a reed. A single reed. I've hit that level of spiritualism, a level that no Nymph has ever achieved. Show me the counterpart of this chi, and let's trade magic."

But the sorcerer yet didn't change to Lailah. He scrambled on his feet instead and stood tall, his weak legs shaking. He would need to resort to dark magic too.

He watched the emperor step off the last stair, standing before the chair. His eyes were heavy and demanding.

The sorcerer started as soon as he noticed that he already got an audience.

"Since you wouldn't give heed to my call and be sane enough to listen to my plan against Lailah, let's have it the worst way."

The sorcerer took two steps forward while the emperor stretched his two hands forward, rolling his fists over each other.

The sorcerer continued, "You spoke of Dharma, but do you know his disciple?"

The Sorcerer was buying time and was resorting to the depth of his magic. He didn't want a smidge. He wanted a drum.

"I bet you don't know how lonely he felt because Dharma would not answer his only question."

Now, the Sorcerer could feel his body reacting to the power swelling within him. He was at the peak! He could burst anytime. Twas now or never.

"I bet you don't know that he could travel this fast."

The sorcerer zoomed off immediately, like the wind, and held onto the emperor in a hug. The force knocked both so hard that they broke through the wall of the palace and burst outside.

But the current coursing out of the sorcerer into the emperor was too strong. The mortal bodies of the two couldn't retain the surge and effect.

Both exploded and melted into thin air.

Both ended their lives due to a misconception.

Well, Lailah had nothing to worry about anymore.