Apathy

A Rising Knight: Volume 2, Issue12

Excepting hatred or fear, apathy has done more evil in the world than just about anything. It lets you walk by the outstretched hand, ignore the crying child, the black eye. It lets the gods look down on the world, know the ants beneath their fee suffer and yet do nothing. At least when Vlad watches the world around him burn. He can do it with a smile.


Excerpt


Kat leaned over the ledge of a building in Brooklyn, forearms resting on the ledge. Across the river towers of steel and glass lit the sky with a faintly orange glow, washing out all but the brightest stars even here. Waves of covetous hate from Vlad’s opponents trickled up to her. 


Watching him move was like watching a violent ballet. So graceful and smooth that it could have been mistaken for a dance. Something choreographed and practiced over and over. Not the random choices made by a man in the middle of a fight. That was what those moves were, dodges and faints, bids for positioning. Those flourishes he used, the flips and turns, those were combat maneuvers. Strobeing flashes of light flew from the Knight as he spun in the center of a spiraling storm. Where those flashes struck, air hissed and stone cracked. This was battle.


And he wasn't even using his full power. In case there were other wizards in the city, Vlad only used the amount the ward he used would cover. That was the reason he gave anyway. Kat felt it had more to do with increasing the challenge by making power management1 more difficult. Still, if he could do that with twenty percent of his power what could he do when he drew it all in?


Actually catching sight of the Knight was rare. Mostly what she saw were streaks of color and distorted flashes of a wizard form. When Vlad warped the world as much as he was doing down there even light started to bend and refract. Kat strained here eyes, trying to focus, but only caught quick glimpses of the action when everything lined up perfectly. Like panels in one of Vlad’s comic books.


His opponents were much clearer.