But it was impossible.
The pain was excruciating, and every second her health dropped lower. Sula had defeated her. She had failed Tia and the Bearer. I’m sorry, she cried out internally.
Then the pain stopped.
As if her strings had been cut, Cilantria collapsed. With her face pressed against the floor, she took in short, painful breaths. Her life had been drained away to near nothing. The Reaper had left her on the cusp of death.
“Well now, what do we have here?” Boot heels clicked closer.
With heroic effort, Cilantria jerked her head upwards. Her limbs still refused to obey her. Sula was standing over her. Dread coiled in Cilantria. The necromancer had outplayed her. She was caught. Oh, Eld, she despaired.
“My, my, aren’t you an interesting one,” said Sula. “What are you, I wonder?” Kneeling down, she ran one gloved hand carelessly across the paladin. “An elf and housing a foreign spirit,” mused the Reaper.
Cilantria had no idea how the necromancer knew that. She shivered involuntarily.
“There, there,” soothed Sula, sensing Cilantria’s trembling. “Don’t fear, my dear. I’ll take care of you.” She chuckled. “A powerful spirit like you cannot be allowed to roam free and unchecked. And what delicious divine magic, you have too.” The Reaper’s head canted to the side, as if listening to something. “Ah,” she said. “You were one of Eld’s.” She rubbed at Cilantria’s arm. “But how did you come by this body, I wonder? Remarkable.”
The necromancer seemed to need no input from Cilantria, appearing content to hold up both ends of the conversation on her own. Though, even if Cilantria wanted to, she could not respond. Her limbs were still not under her control.
Abruptly, Sula cupped Cilantria’s face and forced the paladin’s gaze to her own. “What you did to poor Tulkarmar was uncalled for,” she chided. “I will have to punish you for that.” She rose smoothly to her feet. “But first, let’s get you out of that shell. It does not suit you, I fear.” Swinging away, Sula headed back to her camp.
In helpless rage, Cilantria stared at the Reaper’s receding form. What was the necromancer going to do to her? Nothing good.
Cilantria knew this was her only chance. She might have failed in her task, but perhaps she could still escape. Desperately, she reached for her essence again, calling it up from her spirit. Yet the moment the weaves entered her body, they were drained away.
Sula’s leeching touch still held her in its grasp.
Damnation! cursed Cilantria. The wretched Reaper was far too thorough. Cilantria was not going to escape this. Perhaps, its time I returned this body to the Bearer. But that would be poor repayment for the trust Kyran had shown.
He could no more defeat Sula than she could. And if she abandoned this body and fled, she would leave him to face the torture the Reaper intended. She did not doubt the necromancer intended to bind her spirit.
And she couldn’t let Kyran face that. Better he be reborn in the Wheel free of such suffering. The horror to come was Cilantria’s to bear, and hers alone. Her failures, and her mistakes, had led to this. She squared her shoulders.
If it is my fate to be enslaved to Sula, then so be it. I’m sorry, Kyran. I failed you. And you, too, Tia.
Reflexively, by ingrained habit she had thought long forgotten, she reached out to her absent god. Forgive me, Master. I have failed again, as I failed so many at Celne.
Then her entire being froze, shocked into stillness.
Two Game messages had opened in her mind.
Player Cilantria, you have attempted to contact your former god, Eld.
Note: A player may only communicate with a divine through a Vow of Undying Loyalty. Eld is absent from the Game and your Vow lies fallow.
Do you still wish to communicate with Eld?
Warning: Doing so will reaffirm your pledge of Undying Loyalty.
Cilantria was in turn startled, confused, amazed, elated, and… despondent. Her shoulders slumped again.
The Game’s request meant nothing. Eld was gone… absent, as the Game termed it. It didn’t matter. Disinterestedly, she willed her reply back to the Game and waited for Sula to complete her vile work.
Your response has been noted.
✽✽✽
As a nebulous mind-cloud, the broken god Eld floated through the cosmos. Searching, ever searching.
He had found one Spark, but there had to be more. I will find them all, he vowed. There would be no rest for him, not until one of the Sparks succeeded or he found them all.
In the two decades since he had discovered Kyran Seversan, Eld had encountered no others to match the remarkable boy’s uniqueness. He still had faith in the youth, yet the stakes were too high. The fate of the cosmos could not be trusted to one small mortal alone.
There must be others. The probabilities guaranteed it. And I will find them. Something tugged at his awareness. Focused with single-minded intensity on his search, he ignored the faint brush against his mind.
His search had moved on from Earth to Losjofildia, a vibrant world most unlike Earth. Teeming with life and magic, the world held countless mages, sorcerers, and wizards, many capable of incredulous feats of magic.
So much wasted promise, lamented Eld. He had spent years sifting through Losjofildia’s multitudes and yet hadn’t found any that possessed the special uniqueness he needed.
The tugging came again, this time with a commanding and demanding insistence that was impossible for even a god to ignore. Startled, Eld turned away from his search.
It was the Game.
Despair threatened. Had Kyran failed? Were his fellow gods even now roaming free? Had the Game ended? There was no other reason for the Spire to contact him.
Eld was no longer of the Game.
He had been defeated, and while he remained a Power, he was powerless, with neither pledged divines nor champions in his service.
Of its own volition, the Game alert unfurled in his mind.
Player Cilantria is attempting to contact you. Due to your absence from the Game, Cilantria’s Vow of Undying Loyalty remains fallow.
Do you wish to receive the player’s message?
Warning: Accepting Cilantria’s communication will restore her Vow and force your return to the Game.
Eld stared in disbelief at the Spire’s message, his shock complete. Impossible. What the Game suggested was unthinkable.
Cilantria had died. All his champions were dead. He grimaced. Or at least, no longer among the living, he amended, remembering what Zarr had done. But dead or undead, none of his former champions were players anymore.
So how was Cilantria a player again? The Game could not lie. He knew that better than anyone. So what is going on? he wondered fervently.
And what did he do about it? He had never expected to return to the Game.
Six hundred years ago, on the cusp of defeat and in a bid to spare his remaining followers from the gods’ vengeance, Eld had severed the vows between him and his living champions.
Cilantria had not been amongst that number. By the time Eld acted, the paladin had already been slain in the fall of Celne. Returned to the Wheel, her pledges to him had already been relinquished. Or so he had assumed.
He had not thought to check the ley-line connecting them together. There had been no need to. I can’t check my bond to her now, either, Eld realised with frustration. He was outside the Game. Or at least his mind was.
His spirit was still trapped in the Game. When he had been defeated, he had lost the protections afforded by the Rules. His fellow gods had wasted no time in rending his spirit asunder and scattering the remains all over Myelad.
They had not been able to destroy him, of course. But they had been able to so disperse his spirit that without followers or a Well, reknitting his being would take Eld centuries. Eld had feared such an end from the very beginning and had meticulously planned for the eventuality.
While the gods had raged against his spirit, his mind had fled th
rough an escape tunnel he had carefully concealed in Myelad’s shield. But even he, architect of the Game, had not been able to slip entirely free of the prison he had made. Only his mind had managed the feat. It had been a one-way trip too. He had left the Game, knowing there was no way back.
In the eons since his defeat, his consciousness had roved the cosmos, searching for Sparks to do what he had failed to accomplish. Now, by some strange fluke whose probabilities he could not compute, he was being offered the chance to re-enter the Game.
How is this possible? he wondered again. And what do I do?
He had not planned for this, and his thoughts raced furiously as he considered the implications. If he re-enacted the Vow, the Game would pull his consciousness back into Myelad, where his spirit still lay trapped and scattered.
Entering the Game would be dangerous though. Without an Essence Well bound to him, Eld would be unprotected from the other gods. If they found him, there would be no second escape. His mind would be shattered, and his spirit ripped apart repeatedly. He could be lost to himself for eons.
I should not enter.
The safer course would be to continue as he was. To search out more Sparks and engineer their entry into the Game. Eventually one of them had to succeed. Entering the Game now would put an end to his search and needlessly endanger himself. It was beyond foolish.
But this was Cilantria who cried to him for aid.
One of his chosen. His champion. He remembered each and every one of them. Sorrow, swift and sharp, ate at him. He had abandoned his champions once, in favour of following the safer, wiser path. He had nearly gone mad from the grief.
He could not do it again.
He willed his response to the Game, and as the reformed conduit snapped into place once more between god and champion, he whispered, “I come, Daughter.”
✽✽✽
“I come, Daughter.”
Cilantria blinked. She had to have imagined Eld’s voice. But a second later, the Game proved her wrong.
Your Vow of Undying Loyalty to Eld has been restored.
Champion traits regained.
Conduit skill and abilities enabled.
Cilantria stared in stupefied wonder. Tears rolled freely down her face. She had not imagined Eld’s voice. Her god was alive, and he rushed to her aid!
“There, there, my dear. No need to cry. I will be gentle, I promise,” said Sula with an amused and not-at-all reassuring tone.
Cilantria looked up blankly. The Reaper, with her helm removed and her hands full, was returning from her camp. Absently, Cilantria bobbed her head. She had to keep the Reaper distracted for as long as possible. Out of force of habit, her mind was already forming the necessary weaves.
The weaves did not draw from her spirit, but from the ley lines conjoining her to her god and was undetectable by the necromancer’s leeching touch.
She needed only a few minutes to form the portal. Her eyes darted to the strange devices in the necromancer’s hands.
They were implements of torture.
She nearly smiled at the sight. If the Reaper wants to indulge in her sick practices, it will give me the time I need. She worked carefully at keeping her face blank. The paralysing aftereffect of the life drain spell was fading. Soon, she would have full control of her limbs again.
Tia floated up behind Sula. Cilantria’s eyes widened. Seeing Cilantria’s reaction, Sula’s eyes narrowed. “Know my pet, do you?”
Cilantria remained silent.
The Reaper’s mouth formed a moue of distaste. “Don’t want to tell me? Don’t worry… you will.”
Cilantria glanced at her sister’s spirit. Hold on, Tia. Our god will be here soon.
✽✽✽
Pulled in by the Game, Eld slipped through the essence shield guarding Myelad and along the filament connecting his separated halves of mind and spirit. With a snap, his long-parted selves rejoined.
Divine Eld, welcome back to the Game. You have re-entered Myelad in 2603 AB.
Status: Fallen Power.
Reclaim an Essence Well and build a temple to restore your player privileges. You may not summon champions to Myelad until you do.
Eld absently dismissed the Game alert. It told him nothing he didn’t know already, and besides, his attention was caught by something altogether more surprising.
He still had followers on this world.
Not a lot—a few hundred mortals perhaps—but far more than he expected. In his absence, his abandoned spirit had drunk the divine essence those few had channelled and worked to heal itself. And if the fabric of his spirit had not been reknit entirely, it was largely whole.
Whole enough to aid his champion at least.
Without further delay, he dashed his reconstituted self down the conduit binding Cilantria to him. Everything else could wait until later. Assuming there is a later, of course. His most pressing concern, right now, was aiding his champion.
An instant later, he was settled into Cilantria’s mind. The paladin had already commenced a divine aspect summoning. Golden rivers of essence gushed from his spirit to the mortal plane through the conduit anchored by Cilantria. And even though his starved spirit could not afford the loss of the precious essence, he made no move to stop his champion.
If Cilantria deemed it necessary, he would trust her. “Daughter, I am here,” he breathed.
“Master,” she cried. “So much has happened. So many have been lost. Where have you been? I’ve done things—”
“Shh, child,” he soothed. “There will be time enough to discuss other matters later. Tell me your need.”
He felt the paladin gulp as she tried to calm her frayed nerves. “I have been captured by an adept necromancer. A powerful one,” she reported, her voice firm and direct as she took refuge under the mantle of duty. “I failed to slay her on my own,” she added, a hint of guilt creeping in. “I need your aid to defeat her, Master.”
“Of course, Champion.” He peered through Cilantria’s eyes and felt his own anger, long dormant, rise as the necromancer thrust a pain rod into the paladin. “She is torturing you, Daughter?” he asked softly.
“Yes, Divine.” Cilantria hesitated. “She has enslaved Tia, too.”
“Tiara? Your sister? My high priestess?” he demanded, but he didn’t need Cilantria’s confirmation. Through her eyes again, he spotted the spectre hovering behind her master.
Grief and guilt dug at him then as he gained an inkling of what was going on. Oh, children, he despaired. What suffering have I subjected you to?
“Come, Daughter,” he replied, his voice quivering with rage. “Let us make an end of this necromancer.”
The weaves of the divine aspect summoning spell were complete. In an eyeblink, he skipped his consciousness from his champion to the aspect’s body awaiting him.
Eld opened eyes of burning amber and unfurled wings of blazing white. Sensing his presence behind her, the necromancer spun around.
Eld smiled. “Today, mortal, you die,” he whispered. Calling his twin hammers to hand, Eld flew forward.
✽✽✽
In the heart of the Crater of Shaping, in the centre of the celestial plains, the Overseer, with his head bowed and back braced against the Spire, stood motionless.
Divine Eld has re-entered the Game.
The Overseer raised his head.
Of all the thousands of alerts that scrolled endlessly through his mind, that one Game message caught and held his attention.
He smiled. At last, he breathed.
✽✽✽
Yddreinth raised his head, confused.
What now? he wondered irritably. Is it that blasted free agent again? These last few months, he had barely managed to get any rest his sleep continually disturbed by the elf’s antics.
He sniffed the air.
“Strange,” he muttered. He could catch no whiff of the free agent on the winds. Was he dead? But no, Yddreinth sensed his spirit was still in Myelad. But where he was…that Yddreinth
couldn’t tell.
He didn’t let that bother him. The free agent, he had learned, could take care of himself—and often in the most inventive and amusing of ways. How strange are the antics of children.
He blew out twin plumes of smoke. So, if the free agent was not the one responsible for this latest disturbance, who was? Rotating his head, he drew in deep lungfuls of air as he sifted through the winds in both the ‘real’ and ether.
Nothing.
Puzzled, Yddreinth set his head back down. Whatever troubled the world tonight was beyond his ability to fathom.
And that worried him.
✽✽✽
The thunder of hooves and the crash of steel filled the air. Riding the mind of her champion, Iyra breathed it all in blissfully. As unwanted as this war with Kharmadon was, it was going well. Soon—
Iyra stilled. Something had changed.
Dropping out of her champion’s mind and back into the ether, she extended her senses. The winds blew contrary, their normal patterns disturbed. But even as she watched, they settled, whipping along their normal paths once more.
But she had marked their disturbance. Some great change had taken place in the Game tonight. She was sure of it.
But what?
✽✽✽
Cilantria has summoned a god: a level 210 aspect of Eld (duration: 10 minutes).
Cilantria still could not believe it—even with Eld in the flesh and before her eyes.
She collapsed back to the ground. Her work was done—Eld would take care of the rest. She couldn’t help a grim and bloody chuckle though as Sula spun around to face the god.
Bad choice, Reaper, she thought. Your first move should have been to kill me. Because of course, all that anchored Eld to this plane was his champion.
A shimmering shroud of silver fell over Cilantria, and another a moment later around Tia. Eld’s doing.
Beholding the vengeful god flying at her, Sula turned and fled. It was too late for her, though.
Eld, mid-flight, blinked into the ether, then emerged in front of the Reaper. In the same motion, his twin hammers flew forward and crashed into the Reaper’s death shield.
Sovereign (The Gods' Game, Volume IV) Page 20