War of Kings and Monsters

by Christopher Keene

  He wasn’t lying, but then, did he really . . . ?

  Next came his desperate battle against Kissick. Although not her own memories, she experienced defeating the king as though it was her who had done it. She felt immense satisfaction seeing Serraba, the giant snake Melkai Kissick had been so proud of, crush him on his own throne.

  It was this feeling of justice enacted upon such a foul man that finally allowed her to awaken to the truth of these visions, and the truth revealed why she thought Nathan had reminded her of an old friend. Nathan was her twin and what he’d said was true.

  However, the memories didn’t end there. She was brought to the war and Nathan rebuilding and reuniting Avatasc, traveling with the Senadonians, and finally uncovering the truth about King Michael—or as he had been since she had met him—King Ramannon.

  And if it’s all true, that means . . .

  * * *

  The images and emotions ended, and they were pulled back to reality, breathing heavily. Nathan’s jaw was slack, and tears flowed down his cheek. He had just experienced his sister’s darkest moments and was unable to deny that she had done the same with his.

  “I’ve been helping Ramonnon,” Laine cried. “I . . . Dragon’s breath . . . what was that? Those memories were yours!”

  Still speechless, Nathan nodded.

  “It doesn’t make sense!” Laine shouted, clearly still shaken from what she had learned. “If this is the real power of these keys, why does King Michael want . . .”

  Nathan tried to catch his breath. “That’s what . . . I was trying to tell you . . . these keys.” He shook his head to correct himself and pointed to both of their hands. “This key is literally the key to the Melkairen. It was created by our ancestors . . . the Kairens, way before any of this started. The barrier must weaken every five hundred years or so, and the keys need to be used to lock the Melkai away again. That’s why the moon is red!”

  Laine’s eyes widened, and she looked up at the moon in horror.

  “Mich . . . no, Ramannon wants the barrier to fall so the Melkai will be freed. He must have made a pact with them when he was inside the Melkairen!”

  Nathan stopped as Laine’s eyes drifted back to him. He could see the understanding and the horror that came with it, and he sighed in relief. She was finally listening to him. She was beginning to understand not only what their quests were for, but also the dire situation they were in now that the moon was nearly . . .

  A shiver went down Nathan’s spine, and his eyes shot back to the moon. There was no pearly silver left on it; the moon was completely red.

  Oh, crap!

  Nathan ran over to Laine in panic and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Laine, quickly. Michael’s been possessed by Ramannon. He’s trying to stop us from locking the Melkairen. That’s why he wants the keys. He wants the Melkai to be set free, don’t you see!”

  Laine looked stunned for a moment, and he couldn’t blame her. From what he had seen of her memories, she had gone from being manipulated by one tyrannical king to being fooled by the lies of another.

  Please, trust me!

  She nodded. “What do we need to do?”

  Nathan held up his key, his hands shaking. “Connect your key to mine, now!”

  She brought her own key up and was about to join it with his when there was a sudden explosion of mortar from the chapel. It rocked the courtyard, and they stepped back to balance themselves.

  Aisic’s dragon form smashed through the massive stone wall. Flying from the dust, a brick hit Nathan in the shoulder and he fell, his vision going black.

  Chapter 28: Melkai of the Third Circle

  When he came back to his senses, the wrenching pain in Nathan’s shoulder burned like nothing he had ever felt before. He lay on the hard tiles of the wide chapel pathway, a chapel that there was barely anything left of. As he rose, a searing pain went through his shoulder. It looked dislocated, and the key was missing. He had been holding it in that hand.

  Despite the immediacy of his agony, this was the least of his worries. Aisic’s dragon form lay unconscious before him. His friend had been defeated. A low roar came from the dusty ruins of what had once been the Terratheist chapel. In the smokescreen, he caught a glimpse of the swoop of a large tail and the glint of a fang. Ramannon no longer possessed Michael’s body.

  The dust settled onto the giant Melkai’s body as it arose from the bricks and mortar. It resembled the possessed Melkai Ramannon had worn when he had first seen him.

  No . . . This one is much larger.

  Ramannon now had an extra pair of legs that allowed him to stand upright like a centaur; his front arms had massive clawed hands. He moved slowly from the ruins, raising a head with horns that pointed to the reddened sky. As Ramannon moved down the path, he passed Laine, ignoring her presence. After all, she was just another pawn to him.

  Nathan didn’t know how he acquired the body, but from Laine’s shocked reaction, the fear Ramannon emitted didn’t just affect him. Ramannon stalked toward Aisic’s unconscious dragon form, looking down on him. With a snapping movement, he kicked it from his path. Aisic’s body landed within reach of Nathan. Although he already appeared unconscious, the strike triggered him to transform back into his human form.

  Ramannon kicked his sword away so it was lying just out of reach. He then turned toward Nathan, staring down silently at him. Nathan awoke from his horrified trance when he heard the sound of snarling in front of him. Taiba was standing in front him and Aisic, growling at Ramannon as he came forward, looking ready to pounce.

  Ramannon ignored his Melkai, as well as Nathan, and turned to walked a few paces to his left. He bent down, and with one hooked claw, picked up something from the debris of fallen rock. It was Laine’s half of the Kairen Key that he had dropped. That was all that mattered to him, one half of the object that could be his undoing. With that in his possession, the battle was already over.

  “It’s time,” Ramannon’s Melkai voice rumbled. He turned his face to the sky.

  Holding his aching arm, Nathan couldn’t help but look up also. The moon was fully eclipsed by the glowing red blur that completely changed the color of the sky to crimson. A circle of white light ringed the moon, and jagged lines of the same light spread out from it like the webs that formed on cracking glass. It was the exact same light that appeared when making a seam to the Melkairen.

  There was a sudden lunar flare as lines of light escaped through the cracks, the sky itself appearing to shatter. As the glowing, snake-like spirit forms of the Melkai rained over the land, shadows began to emerge everywhere, even in the cities. There was what felt like a pull of gravity for a moment as the bodies of the Melkai formed in their world, and as the flare faded, there was a loud roaring, groaning, screeching sound that covered the plains.

  To Nathan’s ears, it resembled a horrifying victory cry or a sudden cry of relief from finally being set free. The luminance from the sky darkened to the natural look of night, but another kind of night: a darker night, a more frightening night, where now everyone in the lands of the two kingdoms was no longer safe.

  The Melkai had finally been set free.

  A low satisfied rumble arose from deep within Ramannon’s throat. His red eyes slowly opened, and his lips curled around his fangs. “It is done. I now estimate that every man, woman, and child should be dead in the coming month. The fall of man will be a fast extinction.”

  “Right now . . . people are dying?” Nathan asked.

  “They were dying before the Melkai came to this world. Now they are just dying a little bit faster, although much more painfully.” Ramannon turned to meet Nathan’s gaze, slowly raising one clawed arm up to swat him like a bug against the tiles.

  Nathan’s eyes widened as the shadow of the monster’s massive arm loomed over him, the sharp nails of his claw spread. Taiba leapt, but with a yelp, was knocked to one side.

  “Do not despair. You will follow the same fate much
sooner than the rest of them. Unlike your war, the Melkai will leave no one out.”

  Nathan’s hand snapped into a fist. “You created the war! You released the Melkai!”

  “And now I’m going to kill you.”

  Nathan tried to stand, but his legs buckled. After his arm had been dislocated, he had been staying conscious on nothing but the pain of his wound and his remaining self-preservation. Now he was beginning to feel faint. People were dying because of him. Teeth gritted, he desperately fought his hopeless state of exhaustion.

  Ramannon slashed down his hand. He was stopped mid-swing, and Nathan looked up to see Terachiro’s own claws holding the strike at bay, straining against the weight of the wrist. As Nathan rolled out of the way, Terachiro released it and rose back into the air. A line of blue light shot between them and one of Ramannon’s arms was severed at the shoulder by Laine’s blue hand-blade.

  It dropped to the ground with a thump and Nathan saw that it was the hand that had held Laine’s half of the Kairen Key. Growling, Taiba quickly leapt up onto Ramannon’s back and bit into one of his curled horns like a dog with a bone. This forced his head back as Terachiro’s massive fangs sunk into his chest.

  Ramannon roared in pain and struck at Terachiro to free himself. Taiba swiftly leapt over his swiping claw and landed in front of Nathan, snarling protectively. Terachiro flapped its wings and flew back as Ramannon sunk to his knees on the cobblestones.

  Laine came to Nathan’s side. “Are you okay?”

  “My arm is dislocated.”

  “Hang on, I’ll—”

  She was interrupted by Ramannon’s deafening roar. He was refusing to stay down, struggling to his feet as blood ran from his open wounds. Laine charged up her cutting spell once again, the blade of her hand glowing violently. However, before she could deliver the final blow, a forming sneer appeared on Ramannon’s lips.

  “It’s over!” she yelled.

  Ramannon started laughing in his Melkaiic body, shoulders shaking in sudden jolts. “You pathetic people don’t seem to understand. The Melkai are free, they work for me now and not just that, I can move into the body of any Melkai that I wish. And soon, when only Melkai live here, I will become the god of this world . . . No, I already am the god of this world!”

  Ramannon’s red eyes lit up a bright crimson, and a massive rumble similar to that of an earthquake began to shake the entire city. They widened their stances to stay on their feet, but this was no ordinary tremor. Like something from a nightmare, a colossal being of darkness reached around the mountain’s edge and pulled himself over the great back walls of the city. Entire chunks of its structure came away in its grasp.

  “I-I don’t believe it!” Laine marveled.

  Nathan was shocked also; nothing could have prepared him for this. He had never seen one of these beings in all his life. Before the castle, the place he had grown up as a child, was a Melkai that could only be compared to a god.

  “It’s . . . it’s a . . . a Melkai of the third circle!”

  “Now . . .” Ramannon’s voice returned, but this time not coming from the Melkai he had possessed. “I will show you . . . how much of a god I truly am.”

  The bright red glow in Ramannon’s eyes quickly darkened. Then above them, in the head of the third-circle Melkai leaning over the city, they saw those exact red eyes. Ramannon had possessed the third-circle Melkai.

  Much to their disbelief, the immortal emperor, the lord of the Melkai and self-proclaimed god of the new world, was now larger than the tallest tower in the known lands.

  A great shadow fell over the Terratheist city, a complete body that eclipsed the sky. Below them, people were screaming and wailing in terror. The third-circle Melkai Ramannon had possessed was colossal, its black shape leaning over the tower, its clawed hands up at either side of the city like massive black walls. Its bat-like wings blocked the clouds above, and its red eyes replaced the light of the red moon that was eclipsed by the behemoth.

  Ramannon loomed over the great city, cradling it within his arms, ready and willing to smash it between his claws. His wings spread. If seen from a distance, the entire area would’ve been completely shadowed by the sphere of darkness that his closing wings created around it, sealing away the city and trapping both Melkai and human inside.

  He’s trying to prevent us from escaping!

  Nathan watched as a line of light streaked toward them. However, as the Senadonians and Master Morrow arrived on the backs of their Melkai, he knew the battle wasn’t yet over.

  “We have to defeat him now!” Morrow called. “Before the land is taken over completely!”

  Beat him . . . a third-circle Melkai . . . but wait a minute—

  “No, you can’t beat him!” Nathan called, and they all turned to face him. “But if you can stall him for time, I think I know of a way we can win!”

  “And how’s that?” Durian asked.

  Nathan eyed Morrow. “Remember what you told me about Melkai of the third circle?”

  Morrow paused for a moment and then smiled. “Ah, indeed I do.”

  “It’s the one weakness all third-circle Melkai share; all you have to do is keep his attention on you for five minutes.”

  “Very well,” Tarros confirmed. “We will stall him for as long you need. Durian, let’s go!”

  Durian reached out his hand as the blue flame of his wolf, Blazer, ran off in a line of light soon followed by the red flame of Tarros’s phoenix. The light of their flames spread across the darkness as they made their way up the path to the tower Ramannon was leaning over.

  Master Morrow pulled something from his pocket. He threw it up, and with a flash of light, the pact item became a white griffin. It followed the blue and red paths of the Senadonians’ flaming Melkai toward Ramannon.

  Laine looked to Terachiro and pointed to where the lights were heading. “Help them!”

  With a snort, the massive bat swept itself into the air to follow the other flying Melkai. It caught up with the phoenix, the griffin, and the wolf for one last stand. Nathan grinned seeing Taiba was still by his side. Even when the world was taken over by their own kind, their Melkai still allowed their pacts to hold strong.

  He turned to Laine. She looked like she expected him to do the same thing and send Taiba off to fight. But he knew there was no need.

  “W-why are you smiling?” Laine asked.

  Without even realizing he had been, he beamed at her, and with a swell of determination, said, “This battle is already over, and Taiba will be able to help me find your key.”

  Chapter 29: The Fall

  Ramannon watched from on high as the tiny second-circle Melkai made their final struggle. Their minuscule lights streaked through the darkness toward him. Debris fell from its crenellations as he lifted a giant claw slowly away from the outer wall of the city, ready to swipe the Melkai down from their path.

  The phoenix met him first. As it flew up, ready to breathe flame down over his shadowy body, he slashed one claw down at it. His hand hit the bird like a wall and it exploded in a ball of flame. The shockwave hurt, but he felt no need to draw back his hand from the pain. Above him, the phoenix reappeared, swooping backward through the darkness.

  He jolted from a sudden pain below. The phoenix had been a diversion for the next Melkai to rush in. A blue wolf had leapt up onto his thigh and was running up his side with incredible speed. Its path left a stinging line of blue fire along his black body, actually damaging him, but not enough.

  “Impressive . . .” Ramannon bellowed internally to the Melkai. At a simple shift in his body, the wolf lost its balance and stopped in its tracks. He backhanded the tiny creature. “But don’t you see? You are nothing but servants to these people. We are brethren, you and I. Why are we fighting each other? Don’t you see? I am one of you! My ancestors, the Arion, they were Melkai born of human flesh. I, like you, have a spirit, and it is those with spirits that will inherit the future of this worl
d!”

  A voice returned, “Yet you were the one who killed the Arion.”

  “Indeed. After the end of the War of the Melkai, I thought humans were destined to rule the world. However, spending half a millennium within the Melkairen revealed my error. Now that I have freed our brethren, are you really planning to undo everything we have worked so hard for?”

  Another voice said, “Each of us would rather fight as servants side by side with our masters than have our free will be ruled over by a god who can possess us whenever he wishes.”

  “You will never be seen as equals with them.”

  A third, harsher, voice replied, “Nor will we with you!”

  The girl caller’s giant bat flew in with the phoenix, one on each flank, along with what appeared to be a griffin.

  “You will continuously be in the shadow of your masters!”

  “Masters that we chose!”

  Ramannon spread his huge arms and flapped his massive wings. The force of the wind blew back the flying Melkai. Somehow, the blue wolf had been riding on one of the Melkai’s backs and leapt from it onto him. As it landed, burning his shoulder, Ramannon reached up and swatted it off him like an insect.

  It plummeted toward the city, but it appeared its caller had been watching the battle for it transformed back into a necklace before hitting the ground.

  “This is a good world,” the first voice called again. “We like it here and we have even grown fond of our masters. And if they use us to protect it, then we will gladly fight alongside them!”

  He couldn’t tell where this voice was coming from until he saw another canine Melkai standing and staring up at him. It was the boy’s Melkai. Ramannon growled, the rumble of his voice shaking the castle. His feeling of triumph was slowly turning to frustration as they stubbornly refused to bend the knee.

  “You’re fools!”

  Before they had recovered from the impact of his flapping wings, he slashed down his arm taking out the griffin, the phoenix, the bat, and several buildings all in one strike. Dust rose up from the air, and he couldn’t tell if he had hit the dog or not.