The Necromancer reveled in his moment of triumph and laughed at the wizard, who spoke three little polite words. They shook loose a terrifying memory for Mazlo and sent his twisted mind reeling back to his childhood. 

"A moment, please." 

It was a few days after Nicholas Redwing's thirteenth birthday that he began to realize he had a deep connection with the darker side of magic. He was off alone in the woods killing things and had just in a single motion ended the lives of 37 animals and one tree. Its leaves fell to the forest floor covering the small piles of dead birds and chipmunks. 

When he counted the insects as well, his single death spell had ended well over a thousand lives. Nicholas snickered to himself and walking a few yards deeper into the forest, took note of a large elm with 28 sparrows, 2 red-bellied woodpeckers, 11 finches, 9 starlings, 5 squirrels, and an owl. Not to mention 2,789 insects. 

He rattled off these statistics and waved his hands preparing to send them all into oblivion. He found his concentration interrupted and his body unmoveable. Every life form in the forest had stopped moving. The sounds of wind, bird, and insect all fell into silence. Out from behind the tree stepped his father.

"A moment, please." Melock coughed and cleared his throat. "Just a moment of your time, my dear boy." 

Melock patted the bark of the tree. 

"A fine specimen don't you think? Ulmus Rosales, I believe. And the species abounding in it; Passeridae, Melanerpes Carolinus, Fringillidae the lesser golden finch, Sturnidae, Sciuridae Mammalia, and the noble Strigiformes Chordata. Owls to you and me. And, as you mentioned, the staggering abundance of Hexapoda Insectas.

"It would be such a shame for them to fall out of the ecosystem. Let me show you a world where these lovely creatures no longer exist." 

Melock reached forward and touched the immobilized boy on the forehead. Nicholas was sent to a barren wasteland of a world in the throes of a nuclear winter. He had days to explore it, to indulge in its simplicity, to become alone in it, and to see himself as its ruler and master. Melock meant to show him an environmental disaster caused by the absence of just a handful of animals in an ecosystem's food chain, but Nicholas saw it as a raw world he could mold to his liking. A place he could conquer nature and the elements, where he alone could rewrite the laws of physics. 

Melock brought him back and left him to consider his actions in the forest but failed to turn him away from the path of destruction. Redwing never respected his father again after that day. The old fool wielded the power of the universe at his fingertips yet did nothing with it. 

Nicholas saw during that moment his true enemy in life. He would learn his father's methods, add them to his own, and count the days until he became the master of all reality. 

And then, on that wintery deserted beach, time again came to a standstill. The waves no longer broke, the wind no longer howled, the clouds overhead sat in the sky like a painting. Mazlo was again frozen. 

He used every ounce of power he had left to force himself to speak the revolting rhetorical question.  

"He taught you the Moment?" 

He would have vomited in disgust if any part of his digestive system was working. Redwing was frozen there, hand forward, claw reaching up to let a hundred magical swords drop, horns jutting out of his head, gargantuan dragon wings spread out behind him three times his size. 

His latest undead assassin about to rid him of Ozgold once and for all, also stood frozen at the instant before plunging a dagger into his heart. 

Mevner, who seemed frozen for a second, stepped out around the blade. 

"I'm angry and hurt by what you did to her. I know she tried to kill you as opposed to incapacitate you, but still..." 

He shook his head with a sad frown for Pathos. 

"In answer to your question, Melock taught me all his spells. I was unaware he held back anything from you."

Mevner walked around his adopted half-brother. 

"You really do look positively evil, Nicholas. I'm not going to lie. My heart is still racing. I assumed I'd buy myself a few seconds to talk you out of killing me at best. But now. Well, this is a horse of a different color. 

"I wonder, did Melock ever teach you his binding spell? The one he used to defeat Luhng before he imprisoned him?"

The pure rage in Redwing's eyes answered the question. He was still holding his focus and pressing his iron will towards killing Mevner. All the vicious phantom claws that had reached down out of the sky like tentacles opened and released the swords. However, they didn't fall in the time frozen moment. 

"Your powers are truly amazing, Nicholas. The ability to push your will through a moment. Utterly unprecedented. But you know, I'm disappointed that your wings aren't red." He smiled at the man who had picked on him most of his life. 

"Here is my offer. I will bind you..."

Mazlo shook with anger. If a look in someone's eyes could kill, Mevner would have been dead.

"I will bind you and banish you to Luhng's old island. And there you'll stay for the rest of your days. Or until you change your ways. Whichever comes first.

"You will remain there and not bring harm to others. And you'll release my friend's body, of course. Do you agree?"

To Mevner's unnerved astonishment he growled in reply.

"I DO NOT!" 

Mevner exhaled, "I guess you would say that you've chosen your fate."

He reached up and grabbed Mazlo by his thick looping horns and dragged his body across the beach. He struggled a bit turning him around and placing him in the exact spot he'd been standing. He stepped back and took a look, sizing up the situation.

"That's not exactly right."

He shoved Redwing back and twisted him around until the tip of Pathos' sword was aimed directly at his heart. 

"There we go." Mevner rubbed his hands together as if brushing off dust. 

He glanced over to the amulet on the ground, squatted down to pick it up, and thought better of the idea. He walked back to the zombie de Martín and fished around in her charred clothing. She still had the vial of curse protection. He took it and returned to the amulet. 

"I bet you put something unique on this one?" 

Redwing eyed him with hate. Mevner reached into his pouch for the vial of dragon tears. He emptied it covering the entire amulet. Then he took the last potion of Melock's ashes and poured it over. 

"Melock paid his debt to the cursed gauntlets and I have paid mine. Remove this curse and I will return them to a place of safety so the Necromancer may rest in peace." 

The amulet began to glow, the ashes ignited into flame, and all the tears evaporated. Mevner attempted to touch the amulet but it was still too hot to handle. He picked it up using his jacket, carried it to the sea, and dunked it into the motionless water. 

He looked out to the horizon and saw the spray of a whale frozen in midair. Far above an albatross hung in perfect stillness at a single point in the sky. He reached down into the water and removed the amulet, tied it around his neck, and walked back to Redwing. 

"Now, before I end this, do you want to reconsider?" 

A low guttural "No", escaped from Mazlo's frozen mouth. 

"I'm sorry to hear that. I appreciate all you've done for me, Nicholas. I know I was a nuisance to you as a child. Your influence may come back to haunt me, but I will do my best to make our father proud and follow the path he set out for us."

Redwing seethed with fury. 

Mevner held up his hand and looked at the Knowing Diamond. Its prognostication wasn't what he hoped for. He took out his double helix dagger and slit the wrist of Redwing's good hand. The flesh opened but no blood came out. Then he took the rainbow ring from him and placed it on his finger. He'd given it to Pathos and it was his to take back.

"You've always been one to save powers in reserve. Ending this moment might be the biggest mistake I ever make but you are a brother to me and you'll die with honor." 

He stepped back to where Redwing had been standing and cast the binding spell upon him. 

"Thank you, for this precious moment of your time."

The waves crashed, the winds returned, and the silence in the absence of time ended.

"I release you!" screamed the Necromancer. 

Pathos de Martín's sword missed Redwing's heart and stabbed into his side as her body fell to the ground dead. 

At the same time, a blanket of blades fell from the sky. Malzo's demon wings arched over him batting away the first wave. More ripped into his wings tearing them apart and knocking him to the ground. The heavy battle swords dropped stabbing into his legs, his back, his lungs, his spine, and removed his left horn at the skull. He didn't scream, he didn't even look up. 

Nicholas Redwing Mazlovado Melock slowly bled out on that beach. Like the Necromancer who came before, he was unable to resist death. 

Diggs dug a grave up the shore and buried his brother and his friend. He turned the swords into puffins, all except one, which he scratched Redwing's last words into and used as their grave marker. 

I RELEASE YOU