Chapter 814

Evenson had killed plenty of people throughout his life, but he had never truly hated anyone.

That might sound strange coming from a warlock who had taken so many lives, but the distinction was simple. Evenson wasn’t merciful, nor had he ever been reluctant to kill when circumstances demanded it. His magic had long since stripped the act of much of its emotional weight. He killed because someone stood on the wrong side of a conflict, because their interests clashed with his, or because removing them was the most practical way to solve a problem.

He had never particularly wanted anyone dead.

Even the time he’d gone a little out of his way to settle a score, it had been over something as ridiculous as a smashed car. The Abomination—or possibly the Hulk; he still hadn’t figured out which one was responsible—had wrecked his vehicle during a fight. That incident had earned the offender a special place on Evenson’s personal list of grievances.

But even then, it hadn’t been genuine hatred.

Kaecilius was different.

For the first time in his life, Evenson felt an unqualified, deeply personal desire to kill someone. Nothing would satisfy him until that man was dead.

It was an unfamiliar feeling.

He didn’t intend to let it go.

Clea felt much the same way.

Under ordinary circumstances, she was remarkably easygoing, to the point where people might have mistaken her lack of concern for a lack of feeling altogether. She’d killed plenty of dark sorcerers and supernatural monsters over the years, but those deaths had been part of her responsibilities. She’d carried out her duties without developing any particular hatred for the people or creatures on the receiving end.

This time, however, things were personal.

She’d grown up without ever being struck by her own father, only to have Kaecilius stab her twice and nearly kill her.

How exactly was she supposed to forgive that?

Unfortunately, the Ancient One had no intention of letting either of them go after him.

"Enough. I’ve made my decision. Neither of you will pursue Kaecilius."

Her tone left little room for argument.

Seeing the fury burning in their eyes, however, she relented slightly.

"I promise you that Kaecilius will die. That outcome is inevitable. But I have other arrangements to make, and I need you to leave this matter alone until then. Don’t act rashly."

Evenson narrowed his eyes.

"That isn’t particularly reassuring. Don’t tell me you’re still reluctant to let him go."

The Ancient One sighed and closed her eyes.

Kaecilius had once been her finest disciple. She had personally brought him to Kamar-Taj, watched his abilities develop, and taken pride in the young man he was becoming. She had also watched, with mounting disappointment, as he fell deeper and deeper into darkness.

The truth was complicated.

From their respective perspectives, neither of them had necessarily been wrong at every turn. Circumstances had forced choices upon them, and their differing beliefs had gradually driven them apart.

But the Ancient One couldn’t escape the feeling that she had failed him.

She had failed one of her brightest students, a young man whose future had once seemed limitless.

And this wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.

Long ago, she had stood firmly for justice and principle, devoting her life to her country and the world she believed in. She had done everything in her power to uphold those ideals, trying to be the person everyone needed her to be.

One by one, the people who had fought beside her had fallen.

Now, after so many centuries, she found herself facing a familiar question.

Had she, as their ruler and teacher, pushed them toward their downfall?

She had always tried to do what was right. Yet somehow, the people closest to her kept ending up on the opposite side.

Still, affection couldn’t excuse everything. Whether she stood as a ruler responsible for her subjects or a teacher responsible for her disciples, she had a duty to punish those who had crossed a line they could no longer return from.

But she couldn’t allow Kaecilius to fall into the hands of the two people standing in front of her.

It wasn’t that she insisted on delivering the punishment herself. She simply understood what awaited him if Evenson and Clea were allowed to decide his fate.

Clea now commanded the power of the Dark Dimension, while Evenson possessed magic capable of manipulating souls and inflicting suffering far beyond anything the body could endure.

If Kaecilius fell into their hands, death might be the least of his concerns.

At the very least, she wanted him to die cleanly.

It was the final kindness she could offer a student she had failed.

"I have other plans for him," the Ancient One repeated, her expression heavy with sorrow. "There is no alternative. He must be the one to carry them out. Please, I’m asking both of you to stand down."

Evenson scratched his head.

"Honestly, if you’d made a firm decision earlier, things wouldn’t have become this difficult."

He was furious, and being told to suppress that fury only made him less inclined to watch his words.

"Whether you’re a ruler or a teacher, the basic principles are the same. Reward those who do well. Punish those who do wrong. How can you fail at something so simple?"

He didn’t wait for her to answer.

"A loyal subject who makes a serious mistake doesn’t necessarily want forgiveness. Sometimes, he wants to be punished. The more loyal he is, the more strongly he feels that way. But you forgave him instead."

Evenson’s voice sharpened.

"Your ridiculous kindness, that blinding light you keep shining on everyone around you, only made him feel more ashamed. He couldn’t even escape that shame by hiding in the shadows. Eventually, he broke."

The Ancient One’s face paled.

"And as a teacher, what should you do when a promising student starts down the wrong path? You discipline him. You correct him. You force him to confront his mistakes before he goes too far to turn back."

Evenson shook his head in disgust.

"But your foolish mercy let him keep going. Now he’s gone so far into darkness that there’s no saving him."

He turned away, glancing back at her over his shoulder.

"So whether we’re talking about you as a ruler or as a teacher, you’ve failed spectacularly."

He delivered the final blow with a cold, cutting certainty.

"A ruler who doesn’t understand people’s hearts has no business ruling anyone!"

"Hmm? Who said my name?"

A familiar voice interrupted from the courtyard.

Walter Wong had just finished taking care of his library duties and had come outside for some fresh air. Hearing his surname, he looked around in confusion.

"Was that you? Are you calling me?"

A vein began to throb on Evenson’s forehead.

"Lily Grant was looking for you," he ground out. "She said you should go see her."

"Oh."

Walter nodded, then promptly vanished back into the library.

Evenson stood there for a moment, struggling to recover his composure.

He’d been building toward a perfectly devastating conclusion, and Walter had somehow managed to ruin the entire moment without even trying.

There was nothing left to say.

With a frustrated sigh, Evenson turned and walked away with Clea.

The Ancient One remained where she was, alone with her thoughts.

Have I failed?

Lancelot...

Had her mercy driven him to the same kind of despair? Had her stubborn insistence on doing what she believed was right pushed him toward the place where everything had finally fallen apart?

Perhaps Evenson was right.

Perhaps she had been so determined to do the right thing that she’d failed to understand the people who depended on her.

The Ancient One lowered her head. She had no convincing argument to offer in her defense.

People weren’t stone. Responsibility and affection inevitably became tangled, and no amount of wisdom could make the resulting choices painless.

If only she could have been a better ruler. A better teacher.

She smiled faintly, though there was little happiness in it.

Well, there’s no point worrying about that much longer.

If everything unfolded according to her plan, she would soon be free of these burdens.

She hoped, at least, that the end would come soon.

Once they’d put some distance between themselves and the Ancient One, Clea glanced sideways at Evenson.

"So, are you really going to let this go?"

Evenson returned the look.

"Did I ever say I would?"

Clea’s lips curled into an amused smile.

He hadn’t.

Neither had she.

They raised their hands and exchanged a quick, perfectly synchronized high five.

The matter was settled.

Unfortunately, agreeing on what they wanted was considerably easier than figuring out how to get it.

Clea folded her arms, then rested one hand against her chin.

"I don’t think I can simply swallow this insult. If the Ancient One gave me permission to hunt Kaecilius down, I’d happily go and settle the score."

She hesitated.

"But she clearly has something important planned, and she seems determined to see it through. I don’t want to hurt her, not after everything she’s done for me."

Clea had always regarded the Ancient One as family. The woman had raised and taught her, and their bond went far beyond the formal relationship between master and student.

She didn’t agree with the Ancient One’s decision, but she didn’t want to openly defy her, either. Whatever the older woman was trying to accomplish, Clea couldn’t bring herself to dismiss it simply because she wanted revenge.

Evenson, meanwhile, was wrestling with a rather different problem.

"That’s true. The Ancient One seems unusually invested in this plan. And since we just told her exactly what we’re thinking, she’ll almost certainly take precautions to make sure we don’t interfere."

He scratched his chin.

"This is going to be difficult."

He knew perfectly well how powerful the Ancient One was. He’d understood that from the moment they’d first met. If he decided to make an enemy of her now, he had little reason to believe the outcome would be much different from their previous encounters.

He could call upon the Eredar Twins to keep her occupied while he took care of Kaecilius himself. That was certainly an option.

It was also an excellent way to turn a personal disagreement into an outright war with one of the most powerful sorcerers on Earth.

He wasn’t quite ready to do that.

Then an idea occurred to him.

"Actually, I think I understand what she’s planning."

Clea looked at him expectantly.

"It’s Stephen Strange, isn’t it? She wants Kaecilius to be defeated by Stephen so that the future Sorcerer Supreme can establish himself. If he defeats a dangerous enemy like Kaecilius, his reputation will soar."

"That’s probably it," Clea agreed.

Evenson shrugged.

"Fine. It’s unfortunate that we can’t kill the man ourselves, but there’s more than one way to settle a debt."

He gave her a knowing look.

"We can leave his body to Stephen and take his soul afterward. The same goes for his followers."

Clea smiled coldly.

"That explains why the Ancient One doesn’t want us interfering. She probably can’t bear the thought of Kaecilius losing not only his life but his soul as well."

She considered it for another moment.

"She didn’t actually say anything about that, though. So we’ll simply pretend we know nothing about her concerns. Once Kaecilius is dead, we take his soul before anyone realizes what’s happened."

"Exactly."

Evenson smiled.

He thought back to the Ancient One’s earlier advice about learning to work with the current rather than against it.

Perhaps the old woman had a point. Sometimes, it was worth listening to people who had accumulated a few centuries of experience.

Even if they were terrible at understanding human nature.

There was, however, one significant complication.

Clea’s smile faded.

"The book Kaecilius stole a page from? I examined it afterward. The warning was written on the reverse side of the page he tore out."

She looked at Evenson.

"According to that warning, anyone who establishes a connection with the Dark Dimension and receives Dormammu’s power will have their soul claimed by him upon death. Kaecilius has already made that connection."

Her expression turned serious.

"Can you stop Dormammu from taking his soul?"

Evenson grimaced.

So the warning was written on the back of the missing page.

That was almost impressively malicious.

It reminded him of those old fantasy manuals that told aspiring martial artists they had to sacrifice something precious to master their ultimate technique—only for the final page to reveal that the sacrifice had been entirely unnecessary.

A little late to learn that after you’d already done the deed.

Still, something else bothered him.

Clea knew about the warning, which meant the Ancient One almost certainly knew about it too. So why was she still concerned about Kaecilius’s fate?

Did she have some way of breaking the bond between Kaecilius and Dormammu?

Or did she simply believe that being claimed by Dormammu was preferable to falling into Evenson and Clea’s hands?

He couldn’t say.

And he couldn’t ask her, either. Even if she knew a way to solve the problem, there was no reason to expect her to share it.

"I can’t promise anything," Evenson admitted.

He tapped the bag at his side.

"Ulthalesh, the Deadwind Harvester, is exceptionally good at collecting souls. That’s one of the reasons it’s such a useful Artifact Weapon. But I’ve never tested whether it can snatch a soul away from Dormammu. I’ve never had to fight him over one."

He paused, then added with a sour expression, "And even if we could leave the souls to that stingy demoness who collects them, I wouldn’t recommend it."

Clea looked at him.

"You mean the afterlife arrangement?"

"Exactly. Being forced to play Hearthstone for eternity while losing every single match to a Control Priest is bad enough. But if she gets her hands on those souls, getting them back will be practically impossible."

Evenson shook his head.

"That’s far too easy on Kaecilius. He needs to pay for what he’s done before anyone sends him off to suffer for eternity."

Clea couldn’t argue with that.

"So we have one option," Evenson concluded.

"What option?"

He clenched his teeth.

"If we want to make absolutely certain we get those souls, we need Dormammu to give them up willingly."

Clea stared at him.

"Willingly? How exactly are you planning to persuade Dormammu to abandon the souls of his followers? Do you have some kind of leverage over him? Something you can offer in exchange?"

"No," Evenson said bluntly. "But you do."

"Me?"

Clea looked genuinely puzzled.

Then realization dawned on her face.

"Ah."

Her hand slowly moved to her right forearm, where a very unusual mark rested against her skin.

It was no ordinary tattoo. It carried a significance that most people would never understand. To anyone unfamiliar with the being it represented, the mark was little more than an unexplained symbol.

And its creator was hardly the sort of entity who could be summoned for a friendly conversation.

Asking it to appear and explain things would be pointless. If anything, the being would probably make matters worse simply for the amusement of watching the resulting chaos.

The mark wasn’t a universal pass that would make everyone bow before Clea. Treating it that way would be more dangerous than openly announcing a plan before it had any chance of succeeding.

But certain beings would recognize it.

Dormammu, the ruler of the Dark Dimension, was one of them.

Whatever else could be said about the mark’s owner, Dormammu would understand its significance. He might not cooperate with every demand, but surely he could be persuaded to release a few souls rather than risk offending someone whose attention he would prefer not to attract.

At least, that was the hope.

"Then all we have to do is establish contact with Dormammu," Evenson said.

Clea frowned.

"But the page explaining how to do that is already in Kaecilius’s hands."

"True."

Evenson’s smile slowly became rather unpleasant.

"But that page isn’t our only option. Kaecilius is already working as Dormammu’s agent. If their connection is established, Dormammu is probably watching this world very closely."

He looked directly at Clea.

"So we don’t need to search for a way to contact him. We just need to let him come here."

Clea’s expression changed.

Evenson continued, as though he were proposing something as ordinary as ordering lunch.

"We disable the defenses protecting all three Sanctums. Once the Earth’s magical barriers are down, Dormammu can enter."

"What?"

Clea stared at him in disbelief.

"You’re asking me to betray all of Kamar-Taj!"

Evenson gave a low chuckle.

"Think about it. Stephen needs to establish his reputation. But so do you."

He leaned closer.

"You’re the future Shadow Sorcerer Supreme, the one who’s going to wield influence from behind the scenes. You can’t exactly walk around openly demanding respect. You need a reputation of your own."

Clea’s expression hardened, but she didn’t interrupt.

"Stephen defeats Kaecilius and his fanatics, and suddenly he’s a hero. His name spreads, people learn to trust him, and he gains the standing he needs to become the public face of the Sorcerer Supreme."

Evenson spread his hands.

"But what happens if you defeat Dormammu? What kind of reputation would you build then?"

He let the question hang between them.

"Just imagine it. Stephen Strange becomes the hero who defeats Kaecilius, while Clea becomes the woman who drives Dormammu out of our world."

His smile widened.

"Now that’s a reputation worth having."