30 A Reckoning

MYRAL AZARM LIFTED her throbbing head, blinking in the brightness. She felt cold all over, and soaking wet. She lay clutching something in her right fist. She opened her numb fingers while crying out with the pain, and let go of a bunch of seaweed.

She was on a beach, one side of her face caked in sand. Slowly, she got to her knees feeling every movement with intense agony. Her muscles were cramped, and she shivered uncontrollably. She was near naked, her clothing having huge tears.

Lycus had protected her, saved her, but she had no idea why. When all the others had turned from her, albeit against their will, he had not. She didn’t understand the reason, but she trusted there was one.

The vampires had repulsed her once, but no longer. She had felt more than just a connection with their minds. There had been something primal inside of her too, an ancient memory which had awakened. It was something comforting. She’d never known true loyalty from the creatures before. It meant there was more to them than she understood.

Further down the beach sat the huge sea creatures, which had served as ships. Some of them still moved but most looked dead. The armies of Lucifer were no doubt already attacking the Gulley, slaughtering the hapless imperial soldiers stationed there.

She took a long moment to gather herself. She was weary and confused at her own feelings, and all that had happened recently.

A thunderous sound shocked her to alertness. She spotted two large winged creatures battling close to the water some distance away. She was certain they hadn’t been there moments ago. Fountains of sand and water shot upward as one of the winged beasts hit the ground with a deadening impact. Then it transformed before her eyes into a young woman. The other creature lowered its great head and devoured her.

Myral blinked at what she was seeing, feeling stunned. The second creature had also transformed into a person, and one she recognised.

Threadfin Todder, the imperial mage.

Myral was on her feet by this stage, but she made no effort to call out to him. After what she’d just witnessed, she had no desire to be anywhere near him.

The viral mage left the body of the woman, and walked back up the beach, not looking left or right, never seeing her.

‡

As he approached the Gulley, stalking across the desert isthmus, Threadfin felt something. A terrible pressure began to slow him down. It was like the force exerted by Oracle, but greater for it was exerted over a larger distance. A few leagues from where he stood, he heard the din of battle, but he struggled to place one foot in front of the other.

She knows I’m here, he realised, and she’s not going to make it easy.

He attempted to form the shadow stone, but he could not even touch his power never mind anything else.

The weight became unbearable. For its part, the dragon was clawing furiously at his soul, trying to shove his mind aside. No, it was worse than that; it sought to devour him, to rid itself completely of this incompetent mage, to be free.

He shut his eyes and looked inward, fighting to remain himself. It took every shred of his will to hold on, but he had now twice given it a taste of real freedom, once in the in-between place where he had encountered the harpies and Andromeda in what seemed like another age, and just now when he’d killed Oracle. Any other time he’d transformed, he had kept control.

‘It pains me to see you so ... hurt,’ said a voice, and Threadfin snapped his eyes open in surprise. He couldn’t move an inch. He was trapped.

Astra Dar stood before him, young and terrible in her beauty. Her hair stirred in a gentle ocean breeze as she smiled, as though an old friend. In a way, he supposed she had been that, but what were they now? Enemies certainly, but for him it seemed to run deeper. She wore a dress, divided into several flowing pieces at the waist, and armour the colour of blood. In her right hand she held the same staff, with a serpent-like creature wrapped around it. At the top was the Shathra Stone, glowing bright with swirls of colour.

‘It is good to see you,’ she said as Threadfin fought against the pressure and struggled to rise. He managed a half-bent posture, tottering backwards a few steps.

Now, it just looks like I’m bowing to her, damn it all to Hell’s Teeth!

‘We were interrupted the last time,’ Astra said, ‘but I assure you that will not happen again.’ The pressure grew - stronger, but so did his determination. If he was to suffer full-death then he would not fall without a fight.

He should have attempted to flee, or maybe he should have stayed in his Tower in Icarthya, but something drove him to keep fighting. Something greater than himself. He didn’t need to understand it; it was simply a part of who he was. A part of his soul he had denied for a long time, but not anymore.

‘I do not wish for us to be at odds,’ she added, her face full of openness and understanding, sympathy. ‘You were always kind to me. You always looked after me, Fin. I knew you would come to me in this moment, just as you always have when I’ve needed you most.’

‘I know who I’m speaking to,’ Threadfin uttered with a grunt of pain. ‘Quit playing your games, Lucifer. Face me, and let us end this here and now!’

Astra Dar’s visage didn’t change, but her eyes did. They glowed red and the voice issuing from her mouth was not hers. ‘Very well, undead one. If that is what you wish, but I think I am not done with you yet. You exist for a purpose, as do all your kin. I would see that purpose fulfilled. After all, it was I who granted that incompetent fool, Nalrost, the ingredients necessary to create the undead in the first place. The Shathra Stone is a piece of existence and cannot create undeath, not without some extra assistance.’

That same artefact flashed bright for a moment. Without warning, someone else appeared beside Threadfin. He recognised the old woman, Paladin Creed, as she staggered towards Astra Dar. She held a large chain-wrapped tome in her liver-spotted hands.

The Book of Chains, thought Threadfin, so that’s what Creed was up to.

Astra smiled as she gestured for the former paladin to lay the book on the ground before her.

‘All has been done according to your instructions,’ Creed said with a sly look over her thin shoulder at Threadfin. ‘The capital is overrun, and the mages are ripe for turning as you commanded.’

Astra dismissed the old crone with her eyes, and Creed staggered out of the way. The old woman looked more ancient; her body having suffered while using the book’s powers no doubt. Serves the traitorous bitch right, he thought, but I’d see her suffer a lot more. It was clear to him now; Creed had been the real leader of the zorast cult all this time, hidden in Icarthya’s Forum beneath their noses.

Astra smiled and gestured with her free hand at the open tome. Chains appeared to enter the pages, turning molten as they did, constantly writhing and moving. ‘You know this as the Book of Chains,’ said Lucifer’s voice, ‘but you also knew it by another name.’

It took him a moment, but there was only one other book she could be referring to. ‘The White Daemoni,’ Threadfin whispered, putting it together. The Book of Chains had been disguised as the White Daemoni, while guarded by agents of Darkness, ones such as Creed who had posed as a church paladin. Now that he knew the truth, it seemed so simple and clever.

‘Yes,’ Creed said, ‘but in truth it is neither one. It’s true name is the Book of Souls, the last and most important artefact carved from the Spectrum by the Father of the Fallen. It is his writings filling its pages.

‘I admire you,’ said Astra with Lucifer’s voice. ‘From the first time we met, I appreciated your resilience, your intelligence, your dogged persistence. This is why I’ve chosen not to destroy you, but to bring you to our side. After all, Astra was so fond of you.’

‘I will never serve you,’ he snarled, the force he felt shoving him down to his knees.

The laugh sounded more like a young girl’s. ‘No, really, it’s me you are talking to now, Astra. Remember, I once told you that we are not enemies, that you and I would do great things together, terrible things, but great? I told you we would rule the Spectrum together. I meant it.’

With a flash of light, the Crystal Sword appeared in her other hand. Three artefacts were now in her possession, or rather Lucifer’s. The triumvirate; the Aura contained in the Sword, the Shathra Stone, and the Book of Souls, all pieces of the Spectrum of Existence. The ultimate power in her hands, with the world and the entirety of existence at the mercy of the Darkness.

Threadfin groaned, knowing there was no hope. No chance for him to defeat Lucifer. He had lost, and the world had lost along with him. I am so sorry, he thought, not knowing to whom. To himself perhaps or to Aiyana, to Podral, to all who had fought and still fought.

He watched in morbid fascination as Astra touched the Book with the tip of the Sword, while the Stone shone brighter. He heard the chains snap and then the Crystal Sword shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, its light trapped and held by the open pages of the book, being slowly absorbed. He thought he heard the scream of an angelic soul as it was devoured, but other voices replaced it.

The ancient tome began to rise unaided, shielded by light and magic, until it was chest height. The pages turned as Astra began to chant words in a language Threadfin had never heard. A language he believed was not born of this world or any other.

As she read, ethereal forms emerged from the book through the light. They had a vague shape to them, and Threadfin realised they were souls. The soul chains had bound them within it, and now they were free.

When she had completed the chant, the freed souls shot into Astra’s body. She staggered backwards, but they kept pouring out of the Book in their hundreds and then thousands. The ancient tomb fell to the ground, but Creed was there in an instant to retrieve it, her skeletal fingers stroking it lovingly.

Astra’s eyes blazed with an otherworldly light as cracks and fractures appeared in her body, as though she shed light instead of blood. The fissures lengthened and widened as though she was coming apart. Threadfin knew the doorway was opening and Lucifer was stood on the other side.

The sand at her feet turned to glass, the heat from her body unbearable even for a viral. It was clear Lucifer was fully entering this reality, and once he crossed over, it would all end.

Everything.

The Shathra Stone was a swirl of blinding colour in its nest the snake-like creature caressing it protectively. Then the pressure on Threadfin climaxed.

This time, the dragon within didn’t try to shove him aside and take control. Instead, it opened its jaws and devoured his mind, body, and soul. There was no resistance, no way to fight back.

It ate him, whole.

The dragon lowered its head and the Prince of Darkness reached out with Astra’s hand to stroke one of its massive horns. ‘Now my pet,’ Lucifer cooed. ‘Gather all of your kin, every last one, and bring upon the mortals a reckoning.’

The dragon lifted its head and roared. In response, thousands of others roared back, their calls encircling the world.

In the darkness, lost and helpless, Threadfin Todder screamed, but no one could hear him.