Dead Rainbow

Mazlovado

Mazlo set his dagger on the edge of the table and greedily flipped through the pages of the unlocked books. Redwing took a step in his direction and reached a shaky hand toward the blade. 

"Don't get any ideas, little sorcerer." Mazlo snatched the dagger and returned it to his belt. 

"Why don't you take a silent pew." 

Mazlo's words forced Redwing's mouth closed and sent his body to its knees. The marble floor was painful and he looked at his mother, who's shirt grew more blood-soaked with every beat of her heart. She was going pale and her head swooned with dizziness. 

Mazlo in full control of the situation grabbed an apple out of the bowl, bit into it with a crisp crunch, and chewed the fresh fruit. He looked over his two latest victims. Where they any use at all any more? 

"Your mother was probably quite beautiful... once," he said to himself and to a lesser extent the boy.

Her long ratty hair, unkept after days in the dungeon, was beginning to grow wet with blood and her sallow face drooped with no strength to hold onto life. 

"You're rather cute yourself," he said turning to the boy, "I wonder if I could mold you into a faithful, trustworthy servant?"

He grabbed hold of Redwing's nose and pinched it shut. He couldn't move his body to resist nor open his mouth to breathe. Mazlo brought the apple to his mouth with his other hand and crunched off another chunk letting the juice drip off his chin. 

"You'll find I'm a cruel master." He swallowed. "Though, if you obey and do everything I ask immediately and without statement, I can be less cruel... at times. If the mood suits me." 

He laughed. Redwing was grunting and humming sounds of struggle. His lungs began to burn and the desperate need to breathe shook his body. His watering eyes pleaded up at Mazlo. 

"So you do understand who's in charge then?" asked the warlock. 

The boy's eyes said yes and his grunts confirmed. 

"And you'll never say 'no' to me again, now will you?"

Redwing hummed a negative response and Mazlo released his nose. He blew out a boogery exhale and sucked air with big nasal sniffs. 

Mazlo leaned on the table chewing another bite of apple as he read through the pages of the book with incredible speed. He reached the last page as he finished the apple and tossed the core into Schön's dying lap. 

"Ah, the vampire spell. Instead of keeping you as an apprentice, I can just drain you of your sorcerer powers." He turned to the helpless Redwing. 

Mazlo staggered a moment and grabbed the table with both hands to steady himself. An expression of shocked surprise lept across his face. He looked to the bowl of apples, grabbed it, and threw it across the room. 

"What did the alchemist do to the fruit? Free! Answer me, boy! Free! Free!" He fell to one knee and his head hit the edge of the table on the way down. 

Redwing's recovered the ability to move his mouth and body again. He cracked his jaw, stood up, and pushed the warlock to the floor. 

"He poisoned them when word came that the gates had fallen. He left them on the table to kill the first fool who would eat them," said Redwing with such venom in his voice that it startled his mother back to consciousness. 

"And NO! You will not take the powers I was born with. Instead, I will take the powers that you made a deal with the devil to acquire." 

Redwing kicked the warlock who was himself turning pale green, foaming at the mouth, and struggling to breathe on the floor. He walked to the table and began to recite the text of the last spell in the ancient book. 

Redwing was enshrouded in a dark red mist that soon engulfed the warlock, who went into mad convulsions on the floor. Rays of dark energy began to beam from the warlock into Redwing who seemed to grow and shrink and physically age. He grew several inches and his short-cropped hair lengthed to six months' growth. 

The dark specter of a shadowy demon rose out of the warlock as his life drew to an end. His flesh withered and he aged rapidly. The blackened burns on his fingers spread up his arms and across his entire being. He died and the evil shadow hung about him. Redwing turned his focus to the demon. It began to glow white and Redwing took on a black aura. 

"Stop!" shouted the shadow. "My powers are yours to have but there is a price."

The shadow drifted to the corner of the room and drew a series of unreadable runes inside a two-foot diameter circle. 

Redwing looked down at his forearm and the name 'Mazlovado' was scratched into his flesh in a swirling script. 

"It seems I already have much of it and one who knows a demon's name controls it. Mazlovado!" said Redwing with confidence. 

"There is but one way to have it all," hissed the shadow as it moved to the center of the portal drawn on the floor.