34 The Ritual

79BI, Before the Imperium, 1003 years in the past

ON THE DAY THE world ended, Aiyana lay staring at the carved wooden ceiling of Cydra Dyre’s home. The silence of the city outside terrified her. It seemed safer, wiser, to lay there and let it all die.

Something in her, however, forced her to rise from the cot. She felt drained, agony erupting in her side and head. She touched the bandages, which felt wet, glancing at her fingers. Blood. The events of the previous evening came back in a painful flash. She guessed it was the previous evening. There was no way to tell how much time had passed. Someone had leaned over her, healing her with a touch of magic and cursing in a strange tongue when the healing proved slow.

Fakir had survived, but it didn’t matter now.

The ritual.

Getting to her feet, she discovered she remained clothed. Feeling her way along the walls towards the door she left the house, stumbling outside. There was no wind. No sound. The streets lay empty. The air was thick and fetid with a stench she didn’t recognise. It caught in her throat, attempting to choke her, and she dropped to her knees clutching her neck.

The ritual had indeed begun.

She felt the horn tips piercing her shoulders and her neck like shards of broken bone. Her muscles ripped and her bones cracked and reformed, joints dislocating. She screamed in agony as the transformation ripped through her body. Cydra’s soul was still whole, but Aiyana knew it wouldn’t be for much longer.

She forced the body to its feet and for the first time felt the spectral mage awaken. An alien presence, devastatingly beautiful and dangerous. Magic washed through her and her breathing eased, the pain lessening. Then the struggle for control began. Aiyana had to fend off several attacks from Cydra Dyre, as she stumbled along through the empty streets of Icarthya.

Eventually, she reached the White Palace, where she found the gates open and unguarded. Neither were there any soldiers when she entered the main doors. Inside the large oval antechamber, she discovered corpses. They looked like melted bone and flesh, mangled beyond recognition.

Mages.

None this close to the ritual would have survived. Lying unconscious in the house, Cydra’s soul and magic slumbering deep, she had escaped this fate at least.

Stumbling through the palace after some searching, she discovered Astra Dar within the main throne room. Rasnal Nalrost was locked in conflict with her, Ralan flung aside to strike against a wall – but all of it was frozen in time. As though a divine artist with a flair for violence had painted the scene. Surrounding them were hundreds of bodies. Mages, sacrificed by Nalrost in his insanity.

It was then Aiyana spotted them. The unholy twins, Manic and Mania, formerly known as Treena and Mop. Instead of ghostly figures, they appeared as a man and a woman just as Threadfin had described them to her. The blond-haired woman was curvaceous and wore a red see-through gown. The man wore white wool, embroidered with gold. Aiyana quickly ducked behind a wide column.

In Mania’s hands was the Aura Crystal. She remained still, watching her brother stalk about prodding and poking at the immobile Nalrost and family.

‘It is a catastrophe,’ Manic grumbled. He pointed a finger at the crystal in Mania’s hands. ‘Fix it, sister. I’m not enjoying this.’

‘Dearest, I cannot. It does not function in that manner and you know it well.’

He then stabbed a dramatic finger at a frozen Astra Dar. ‘This harlot has disrupted our plans. Her spell changed everything. Wasn’t the idea to stop her from getting to this point, and yet here we are. At this point. Or is that beyond it? Fakir, the insufferable fool. It’s his fault for delaying us.’

‘For thwarting us.’

‘Enraging us!’

Mania smiled. ‘Oh, dearest brother, don’t you see what I do? The spell has changed her also, irrevocably. Her soul shall fragment to be strewn across time. It is also clear to me now that this event was and always will be, inevitable. A rock in the stream of time, which we cannot budge.’

Manic huffed, while he gave Astra Dar a hard slap in the face, which she obviously didn’t feel. ‘What good does it do us? Nothing changed and we are as we were and yet we are not. Or should that be, we were as we are?’

‘She will serve Tartaros, brother. In time she will serve us. We must adjust our plans accordingly.’

‘The same thing, the same thing.’ He was pacing now like a cornered warg.

‘Don’t you feel it?’

Manic halted before her. ‘No.’ He paused and then added, ‘Feel what?’

‘You do, brother. I can see it in your eyes. We are almost untethered.’

‘Wasn’t that what we were trying to prevent?’

‘We can now divine our own path. Don’t you see the potential? We can be free brother, of Tartaros, and we can rule this world ourselves. Our past cannot change what must be, but we are not as we were. We will be free.’

Manic’s smile was slow. It spread over his entire face like the grimace of death. ‘Mine, yes, it can all be mine.’

‘Ours, brother.’ Her tone held a dangerous edge.

‘Yes, ours of course. Yes, sister, I see it.’ He laughed and glanced at the Aura Crystal. ‘Well, will we just stand here for eternity staring at this tapestry or shall we let events ... proceed?’

Mania said nothing staring into the Crystal. It grew brighter until what she held in her hands was a star. By this point, Aiyana had shielded her eyes while ducking out of sight. Even with them shut, and one arm flung over her face, the light found her, piercing her soul. She realised they must have used the Aura to stop time, at least for Nalrost and Astra. Likely, they had tried to find a way to turn time back, but found they couldn’t.

That is why I’m still here, and Cydra too. They also froze the ritual. I would not have made it this far otherwise. She had wondered where all the people of Icarthya had gone and now realised no one would remain alive in the city. The ritual had stolen the lives of tens of thousands, perhaps millions across the world.

Time resumed as did the battle. Aiyana rose just enough to watch in horror as a family tore itself apart. Father, mother, and son, locked in magical combat. Spectralic power erupted from each, mother and son attempting to scour the flesh from Nalrost’s bones. The high mage, holding the Shathra Stone in both hands, wielded an immense power that tore at the White Palace. The building began to crumble, the floors buckling from the force. Nalrost fought with a rage Aiyana had never seen. His magic was actinic light as it curled about his body, shielding him from Astra’s attacks. She also saw it enter the Shathra Stone and realised that as it protected him, it was also killing him.

I am not just witness to the end of this world, she thought, but to the birth of the Grim.

Astra Dar had managed to shield herself, but Ralan had not. When Nalrost turned his attention to their son, Astra Dar attempted to protect him and left herself open. Nalrost struck at her and the stone flags at her feet buckled and split, as he flung his lover upwards to strike the apex of the high ceiling. She fell, senseless. Blood sprayed and bones cracked as she landed hard.

Ralan cried out, rushing to his mother’s side. Nalrost ceased his attack, but the Shathra Stone remained a glowing ball of light in his hands, shot through with threads of colour. The high mage was bleeding from his eyes, nose, and ears.

‘Forget her,’ he growled at his son. ‘She refuses to see reason. She betrayed us. One day you will come to understand. We are all on borrowed time, all of us. Tartaros will devour everything. Stand with me, my son. Stand and fight the Darkness.’

‘You killed her like you killed them,’ Ralan shot back, his face full of anguish, tears flowing. ‘Millions of people out there.’ He pointed a finger beyond the palace. ‘Tens of millions. You murdered them all.’

‘Yes,’ Nalrost admitted. His hands trembled as he held the artifact. ‘Many millions yet to come too, I imagine. The life I need for this is horrendous, but there is no other way. You must understand. Hundreds of millions of people to save hundreds of millions of worlds. There is no comparison. I stain my hands with blood. I bathe in it and I do it gladly.’

‘Father,’ pleaded Ralan in a small voice, rising from his mother’s side and taking a step towards the high mage. ‘Don’t do it. It’s too late for those who’ve died, but it’s not too late to stop this. There’s no need for more. Please. You are making a mistake.’

The look of anguish on Nalrost’s face gave Aiyana pause. Did the man believe what he did was right? No, he as much as admitted otherwise. He believed it necessary though it destroyed his own humanity.

Nalrost struck out at his son. Though Ralan put up a defence, with the power of the Shathra Stone, Nalrost was unstoppable. Arms and hands of stone emerged from the floor and grabbed Ralan. Nalrost’s magic hit him hard, and Ralan’s body blackened and withered.

Aiyana bit back a cry as the bodies surrounding her stirred. The former high mages rose, forms distorted, limbs elongated, and horns protruding. They advanced on the high mage, who stared at them in shock. He had obviously thought them dead.

Astra Dar chose that moment to attack. Her body didn’t transform like the others, but she was covered in blood, and with numerous broken bones. She managed to rise to one knee, though it was obvious she didn’t have long. She let out a cry on sight of her dead son.

The Aura Crystal was in her hands and then Aiyana spotted them. Manic and Mania flanking the sorceress, as they had once flanked Cydra Dyre. They had chosen their instrument and Astra had accepted their offer. A bargain struck, but had it been with the twins, or Tartaros?

Lightning erupted from the Stone as Nalrost sought to murder them all. Instead, it struck the Crystal as though it had drawn his power to it. The artefact shattered. Astra screeched as her hands vanished in a welter of blood and bone shards. She fell, and did not move again. Manic and Mania howled in frustration.

The Shathra Stone in Nalrost’s hands blackened as the high mage went into convulsions. A dark webbing of blackness tore the high mage’s body apart. The webbing took on a solid form like black glass. Aiyana watched as both Astra and Ralan’s bodies disintegrated.

The black lightning had struck each of the tottering mages in the chest as fire consumed them from the inside. Their screams were unearthly and Aiyana curled up into a ball. Then the lightning found her too. Cydra’s body convulsed as pain Aiyana could never have imaged blossomed inside of her. Darkness followed.

‡

Present Day – Black Palace, Icarthya

LINUNCIA WATCHED THE Atlantian male seated with bowed head beside the undead princess. In his hands, Asher Tone held his glowing device. Though he was strong for a mortal, exhaustion was beginning to show. How long he could maintain it she didn’t know, but she hoped it would prove long enough.

Aiyana’s soul was gone, lost in the past. She knew there was no retrieving it. The price was high, and yet it had been Aiyana’s choice.

She turned to face the entrance to the bed chamber. She had felt the vanth enter the Black Palace and had heard the first screams. The Fallen One was furious at her presence, at her opposition to it.

Linuncia had faced the Fallen before and never relished those battles. Fighting the shraeds of Tartaros was terrible and glorious, a fight for existence. To face what had once been one of her own – well, that was something else entirely.

Much of Linuncia’s soul was connected to time, leaving her vulnerable. Her ability with spectralic power had limits as she maintained her connection to Aiyana’s soul. If she let go, the undead princess would either snap back to the present or snap altogether. Either would be bad. She needed to give her time. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

The stone walls of the room rippled as the vanth’s emanation struck the doors. What little power she could muster, Linuncia threw into defence. A sword of dark Nephilim steel was in her right hand, a bronze short sword in her left. She could hope she had wounded it enough on their previous meeting.

The walls rippled and the broad oaken doors splintered. The vanth’s cry pierced her soul as it hurled everything at her wards.

The door shattered in a cascade of wood, several pieces piercing the flesh she had come to love. The shape outside gathered into the semblance of a winged man, a mockery of the angel he had been.

In that moment, Scatter the Hatavan and the Aidari, ceased to be forever. Linuncia the Ancient let her wings erupt from her shoulders, spraying the bed and its occupant with dark blood. Asher, in his exhaustion didn’t notice.

The four large black eyes of the vanth blinked at her, as it spread its thick feathered wings and attacked.