Dominus continued to pump Beam's heart for him, as he ran his mana through him.
"Gods... no wonder," he mumbled to himself, as his hold reached deeper into Beam's body. He'd known the Gods to have interfered. Claudia's whispers had told him as much, the moment he crossed the Sixth Boundary. But he didn't know the extent to which they played. He felt what Nila had felt earlier, that she was reaching her hand into a forge.
But Dominus did not reach out with a single finger, he reached out with every nerve in his body.
His words gradually grew quieter and quieter, until he no longer had to speak aloud, for he was quite sure that Beam could hear him, even as he spoke inside his head.
'Come on now boy, rescue it from the wreckage, bind it all together, you have the will to, don't you?'
'This was not meant to be your first battlefield.... If only you knew, the true state of the world. To quest against mages and monsters, at the age you are... I saw you take the Yarmdon pup's head. A man of the Third Boundary, in the end, was he not? You do not need to waste away here. You've suffered enough.'
"Gugh..." That was the only sound they heard from Dominus, after a long minute. Lombard had found himself nervously glancing towards the mage atop his tower. He was clearly wrestling with something, his eyes were wild, and his hands were animated. The shouts he gave were angry. Then, Dominus coughed, and everything seemed to change.
With one cough, there came two more, as blackened blood ran down the front of Dominus' tattered clothes.
"Dominus, leave it – don't deprive the world of yourself, attempting to resurrect the dead," Lombard said.
"Not dead," Dominus said, finally opening his eyes, for the first time, his voice hoarse. "The dead cannot be revived, but a stopped heart, for a few minutes... It does not seem to be the end."
"I come not for you, but your master," Dominus replied.
"I have no master, ashes give no orders," Ingolsol said bitingly.
"Open these gates, and he will return to you," Dominus said.
"Hah? How do you suppose that? Do you know tricks to revive the dead?" Ingolsol asked.
"The very walls and this very gate are proof of his life," Dominus pointed out.
There was a pause at that, as Ingolsol went silent. "I have no control over these gates – open them as you will, and you will burn to ashes from it. You think yourself strong, mortal, but you know nothing of the fires of a God."
"The dealings with Gods and the dealings with death, they're best left for the old," Dominus said. "Beam, you made me a promise, did you not? In return for my teachings, you would slay the Pandora Goblin in my place. Do you intend to go back on your promise? Or do you look down on me, now that you have proven yourself worthy? Do you think I cannot withstand the same flames that you have?"
"How can he speak, when his body is inflamed?" Ingolsol said lazily. "You were too late. It might have been fun, had things been different. There was carnage and chaos to be reeked. But you were too late, be content with flames, and be content with ashes."
But even as Ingolsol spoke, the gates opened.
Dominus found himself smiling. There it was, the will that was Beam. His will was not a conscious thought – it never could be. The mind was too fragile to endure what he had. Nor was it a product of his soul, even the soul would have been stained and corrupted by the malice that Beam had endured, and the malice that he had felt.