"The choice is yours" she continued, "but either way, you die today." She smiled her horrible, sadistic smile, staring at Aella in satisfaction.
Aella looked down at the dull steel sword in her hand, and up at the army between her and Kerberos. She wanted desperately to fight through them and kill him for everything he'd done to her and her tribe. She thought about her mother, the strong, powerful woman who raised her and gave her strength, courage, and wisdom. She thought about Erasmus, who gave her passion, love, and kindness. And Athan, who gave her friendship, laughter, and humility. She knew she couldn't win. Perhaps, if she had a full magic reserve and all of her energy and strength; but not now. If she tried to fight now, the deaths of those she loved and the thousands of others Kerberos killed would remain unavenged. She had to choose her battles; to live to fight another day.
"Aella!" Nomiki screamed. "Your time is up!" Without turning back to them, she shouted for the army to advance. They moved immediately.
Aella gathered what little strength she had left and hurled the sword at Nomiki. Without waiting to see if her throw hit its target, she sprinted for the side of the bridge. The warriors almost reached her first, but she leapt onto the waist high stone blocks running the length of the bridge, took one step to the very edge, and jumped out into nothing.
Zanela
When Zanela came to, she sat on actual grass, in the centre of the clearing. The snake's body still coiled around her, leaving only a small circle for her to sit. She searched for Kaidan, but the beast was gone. Finally, dreading the thought more than she could describe, she looked at the gigantic snake's head once again. It stared at her, head hovering a metre above the patch of grass.
The thick tongue darted out again, straight at her, and disappeared. It was smelling her. Preparing to eat. She felt an odd stab of anger at the snake for waiting until she woke to kill her. Surely it gained nothing from such torture. Still, now her death was certain, she wanted nothing but to have it be done; even if she was to be eaten alive. She briefly contemplated attacking, just to provoke the monster into killing her faster, but her terror kept her seated on the soft, cool grass.
A horrible, grating, growling sound erupted from the gigantic snake's throat. Its mouth opened, revealing shiny black fangs as tall as she was. She almost lost consciousness again; her heart simply couldn't take any more terror. The snake moved back suddenly, moving its head from side to side. The growl grew louder, then changed into a hacking bark. The snake's bright blue eyes closed, and a deep rumbling escaped its mouth.
Finally the sound ceased and the snake stopped flailing its head. The blue eyes opened and found her again, and the snake moved back to where it was when she woke, hovering just above her.
"Sorry about that, Kulnalduul. It's been a long time since last I spoke."
Zanela blinked. Surely it didn't just -
"Speak? Well, you can't be too surprised; I am a God, after all." It chuckled, more to itself than her. "Though I am beginning to think you can't speak, little one. What have you to say to your God, hmm?"
She had no idea what to say, nor even to think. Not only was the giant snake talking to her, it was claiming to be Amalus itself. And to confuse matters further, it was positively cheerful. The only voice she could think of friendlier than this was Delan, an elderly Shenza who had spent almost all of his time in the kitchens with Nashan before the cook was sent to fight the Ermoori.
Delan's voice was croaky, scratchy and full of humour. He never had much energy, but all of it was spent talking and laughing. Now she thought about it, Delan's voice was eerily similar to the giant snake's. The monster quietly cleared its throat, moving even closer to her. Without thinking, she moved away from the massive face, crawling backwards until she thumped into its coiled body behind her.
"I do wish you would stop thinking of me as a monster," the snake sighed. "Have I done anything monstrous? Other than give you a bit of a fright of course. Sorry about that by the way." It chuckled again. "It was a little funny though, you have to admit. Still nothing to say? To think I wait all this time for a visitor and when someone finally shows up, she doesn't say a word!"
She sat on the grass, her back pressed against the ancient creature's coiled body, struggling to find something to say. Anything.
"Umm."
The snake's eyes widened, and it leaned in expectantly. If the expression was on the face of anything other than a gargantuan killing machine, it would have been comical.
"Umm," she repeated.
The snake inched closer.
"I'm Zanela," she finally managed. The snake raised its head, and actually smiled.
"Well, that's a fine way to start! Hello Zanela, I am Amalus, God of the Shadows and creator of life on Pandeia. Now, why are you here?"
Her eyes bulged involuntarily. She barely remembered her own name; how could she answer a question such as that? Amalus laughed, the sound booming and echoing through the massive forest.
"Not to worry, Kulnalduul. Nobody knows the answer to that question."
One of its milky, translucent eyelids dipped over its bright eye in an uncomfortably human wink.
"I can't be blamed for having a little fun; I haven't had a visitor in thousands of years! But, since I do know the answer to that question, allow me to show you."
Amalus leaned close to her, so close she could have reached out and touched its massive bright blue eye. The vertical pupil dilated, becoming a perfect circle. She saw herself reflected in the shiny black surface. Then she was replaced by a glowing ball of pure white. It exploded into a swirl of colourful stars, flying outward at an unfathomable speed. Eventually it slowed and settled into a gently revolving cluster of multicoloured lights.
They slowly merged, becoming a single blue orb. The surface broke. Cracks spread quickly over it, forming odd but familiar shapes. Some of the shapes rose out of the blue surface of the orb, turning either black or brown. She realised she was looking at Pandeia itself. The orb spun slowly, but she saw a glimpse of green spreading from the centre of one of the shapes – yes, Shanaken, she recognised it – and moving over all the others.
Then, from the other side, bright red flickered to life from the centre of Omas and swept over Pandeia; Fire. Sithares. The red and green clashed, and a crack appeared in the orb at the point where they met. One more shape emerged, shining blue, between the two countries. White light swept in, appearing from nowhere to join the other colours, and a terrifying clash threatened to overwhelm Pandeia. Then the colours receded, and Pandeia returned to a flickering stillness. Zanela stared, but nothing happened. Then she saw cities bloom on Omas and Ermoor and Tarsium, and she realised she was somehow seeing Pandeia as it moved through time, only much, much faster. She watched as the world turned. As wars were fought. As disasters came and went.
When she thought Amalus showed her all she could see, the orb suddenly grew in front of her, and Shanaken became life-sized. Amalus' eye was a slightly curved window through which she saw the forest. Her home. Amalus turned to look at the ancient city of Omatus. It looked and Zanela followed, seeing everything the God saw. Underneath a great palace, ancient magicians chanted and gestured around an ornate chest. Fire billowed in a hurricane between them, and was forced into the chest. She felt the heat die down immediately; not from her body, but from the world itself.
Amalus looked again at the chest, but something was different. The room it was in, and the chest itself, felt ancient. A young boy smashed the rusted padlock using a massive book, and the fire was unleashed again. She watched as the eye turned towards the north shore, and her breath caught in her throat.
Dakesh stood on the sand, staring down at Kailen's dead body. Kailen's Kaizuun lay on the sand, pure and powerful. Dakesh reached down and snatched it just before his dead friend's blood touched the blade. He turned and ran into the forest. Amalus turned its eye west, to Omas, and Dakesh now sat in a hide tent, praying to Sithares. He opened his hand and an evil red glow appeared in his palm. He
gave a wicked grin and closed his hand, plunging Zanela into darkness.
From the Shadows, Zanela saw Amalus curled up in its clearing. She saw its energy dwindling. What was once a mighty God of life became an old, sick animal. She saw it grow older and older, sad and alone, watching as it watched the world start to burn. Ermoor attacked the forest, felling trees and slaughtering animals. Magic grew dim and a horrible lifeless grey spread over Pandeia as Ermoor invaded Tarsium and Omas after Shanaken. Cities fell and people died in the thousands.
Then a burst of power, of life, blossomed from Shanaken, and she watched as a new wave of green spread over the world. At the same time, two new colours exploded into existence. From Ermoor, a pale, crackling yellow flashed in unsteady pulses. From within Shanaken again, this time south of Dulkuud, a dark red laced with black bloomed, ominous and destructive.
She didn't understand, but the image disappeared before she could ponder it. Pandeia shrank, pulling away into a sea of absolute darkness. Before long it was a mere speck in the endless black, and then it was gone. Zanela stared into the abyss. Nothing else existed but the Shadow. The sheer weight of it pressed in on her, forcing the air from her lungs and the thoughts from her mind. But the Shadow wasn't empty; there was a deep, quiet... energy within it. Everywhere. She felt life growing in the Shadows around her, feeding her and feeding off her simultaneously. Pandeia lay so far beyond her now that it barely mattered. The entire world she'd known just a speck in the endless Shadows.
Out of the darkness, Zanela appeared, sitting on nothing at all, staring back at her. A moment of utter doubt rang through her mind. She stared into her own eyes, floating in nothingness. Wordlessly, she raised her hand and brought it to her face, and the Zanela in the darkness continued sitting still; it wasn't a reflection. Heart hammering in her chest, she reached through the God's eye and lay her hand on Zanela's cheek. She felt the skin of her face, warm and soft. Her own face tingled in the same place. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination. The other Zanela gave her a slow, sad smile, and faded into the Shadows.
Still reaching into the infinite dark, Zanela was pulled in until the clearing behind her disappeared entirely. She floated, alone, for an unknowable time. Seconds and hours and years lost meaning. Floating through the Shadows, she saw a million tiny specks floating with her, too distant to reach. Each speck was as beautiful and fragile and deadly as Pandeia.
She pulled away, wanting to see them all. The further she went, the more specks seemed to appear, until she was looking at an ocean of them, bright and shining every different colour, swirling in whirlwind patterns that brought tears to her eyes. Pulling away yet further, the ocean became a tear drop, and a million tear drops floated around her, each containing its own ocean. Caught in the rush of her discovery, she kept going until the tear drops formed their own swirling pattern, and on and on she went, a new layer beyond every previous layer.
The Universe, she thought suddenly, that’s what this is called. Worlds beyond count. She pulled back from the Universe itself, and found an ocean of them swirling in an endless cloud. Universes beyond count. Dear God, where does it end?
Suddenly she was utterly terrified. Pandeia is just one speck among countless. Not even that. One tiny, meaningless floating dot within an endless sea.
It felt as though a thousand years had passed, a thousand lifetimes. She watched worlds that weren’t Pandeia, saw the beings living on them, saw the war, death and destruction. New kinds of magic, Gods, and amazing technologies appearing for brief moments before snuffing out in the blink of an eye. The thing that shocked her the most, that stayed with her forever after that, was her discovery that all of the endless worlds she had seen were connected to each other. Some kind of… bridge seemed to span the vast distance between worlds, connecting everything and everywhere. She saw it. She touched it, and it was along this inexplicable bridge halfway between everywhere that she eventually found home again.
She searched for Pandeia, and found the speck of light too far to see. She focused on it. The world bloomed before her, growing until she could watch the surface as she did through Amalus' eyes. Only now, she wasn't watching some living map on the surface of a massive eye; this was actually Pandeia. She floated above it, watching over the entire world.
She watched it spin. Watched as a war began, as magic exploded and cities fell. As people killed and destroyed and burned their world. Underneath it all, she felt Fire seething in the minds of men and women. It spread like a sickness. She cast her eyes to the deserts of Omas, to the place where the real Fire burned. And there, she saw it. Sithares. Sitting on its twisted, burning throne in the centre of the volcano, staring back at her with a hatred she never knew existed.
Recoiling from Sithares, she looked back towards Dulkuud, towards the hidden forest. She found the clearing and it appeared around her, cocooning her in its safe, cool darkness. A sudden feeling of weight and exhaustion filled her, the way she felt when she pulled herself out of a lake after a long swim. She sat in the clearing again. Whatever vision or magic had come over her was done. Amalus lay with its head on the coils of its body in front of her.
"What was that?" she asked the giant snake.
There was no answer. With a grunt of effort, she picked herself up off the grass and walked closer. Not wanting to step on its body, she peered at its face from the edge of the small grass circle it made for her. The God wasn't moving. Its eyes, such a bright, powerful blue before, were now a dull grey. Her mouth opened in shock. Without warning, tears fell in streams down her face. She was alone in the clearing. Amalus was dead.
Epilogue
She woke with a start, gasping and coughing. She rubbed salt and sand out of her eyes as best she could, and glanced around quickly. Her vision was blurry, but there didn't seem to be any immediate danger. She was laying on the beach, facing the ocean. She had no idea where exactly, although the sand was grey, so she was still on Omas. She couldn't remember anything. She didn't know how she got here or why she was waking up on a beach. All she knew was that she felt terrified and furious at the same time. She sat up, trying to focus, but her memories moved like smoke; they were there, but were impossible to grasp.
She stood. Physically, she felt amazing. There were no bruises, no cuts, just a pale scar on her stomach and arm. She felt strong and powerful. Walking inland, she tried to get to higher ground and get her bearings.
The already sparse grass quickly turned dry and dead the further she got from the ocean. There was no higher ground. She saw a gigantic city to the south, and a much larger mountain in the opposite direction. There were mountains on the horizon in almost every direction she looked; but none close to her. She checked her belongings, desperate for any information that might help her. She was carrying a little dried meat, a water skin, some coins, and a handful of arrows in a small quiver. There was no bow, and there were two empty sheaths hanging at her thighs; no weapons.
Something about the desert to the north felt comforting. She kept walking.
Gods and Heroes- Rise of Fire Page 29