by Greg Chapman
The blue light burst out of the darkness and coalesced in the air like a mist, twirling and shaping itself into a figure that, despite its transparency, was all too familiar.
“Shal-Ekh—what are you doing?” the Skiift leader said.
Shal-Ekh’s voice came from all around, like an echo endlessly reverberating.
“Bearing my soul, Re-Kul,” he said. “Will you bear yours?”
Re-Kul scowled at the prophet, the die had been cast. “Gladly!” he said, before turning to his army: “All of you—hold your ground!”
Re-Kul turned his face back to the prophet, Shal-Ekh’s light casting a soft cerulean hue over the Skiift leader’s blood-red body. Re-Kul closed his eyes and thought of his skin: each and every scale, in their hundreds, sitting atop each other, intertwined like chain mail. He focussed on the scales and, with a mental command, started an astonishing chain reaction.
The scales began to retract backwards, retreating from his chest, arms and abdomen. In way of response, the scales twisted, some bursting to expose black bristles. Across his bare back, the scales shifted and filed together in clumps, growing in long, cylindrical sprouts: one, two, three, then five and then eight; eight gigantic legs that rose up, lifting Re-Kul’s entire weight off the ground. Still, the transfiguration continued: his face stretched forward, his short blunt nose, becoming a great razor-tipped beak. Feathers burst where his arms should have been, and these feathers increased in number and volume to take on the shape of great wings. The final stage of the metamorphosis centred about Re-Kul’s chest, which oozed open in a gushing wound, from which was born a plethora of venomous tentacles.
Re-Kul’s raven squawk cascaded about the under-city tunnels.
“Challenge me!” he said.
Shal-Ekh’s segmented body shifted forward, dragged by the still connected soul, like a puppet on a string. The prophet’s essence converged on the Re-Kul beast, a glowing burning thread of dazzling smoke. The Skiift leader screamed in agony and lashed out with one of his spider legs, slamming into Shal-Ekh’s exposed shell, sending it careening into a rock. Yet the soul thread remained unharmed and able to continue its onslaught on Re-Kul’s monstrous form.
“Attack!” Re-Kul ordered his men.
The red army exploded, scales dispersing in seconds to reveal preposterous blends of razor-sharp spikes, and snake skin and impregnable elephant hide. Five thousand Skiift let loose their humanoid frames to become beast and behemoth: mammal, reptile, arachnid, bear, alligator and rhinoceros beetle.
The monks of the Stygma bloomed, their bodies splitting apart like seed pods. Their blue thread souls, empowered by the words of Okin adorning their hides, set about their attack, twisting through the air to burn at the beasts’ impossible flesh, hack at their eyes and force their way into their mouths.
The Phagun minions stood their ground at the gates, mortified, having never seen such a display in a generation. They looked to each other, beckoning one another for orders, but they could only stand guard and pray their enemies destroyed themselves.
Then one of the Phagun minions cried out, his voice somehow able to rise above the shrieks of battle. The Skiift beasts stopped, the soul threads of the Stygma floated still to stare where the Phagun was pointing.
Through the darkness, a lone figure emerged—Thomas—the three-in-one. He strolled through the battlefield, stepping around one Skiift beast that was the first to fall. The blank look on Thomas’ face made them all wonder if he was blind, but he knew where his path led—the Sederunt gates.
“Let him pass,” Shal-Ekh’s soul thread said.
And they did, the beast Skiift slumbering aside to form an unintentional guard of honour. Thomas walked through the narrow passage towards the minion guards, who, mute with disbelief, had little choice but to let him by.
Once he was through the gates and on the other side, the battle between the Stygma and the Skiift raged anew.
32
The resounding boom of the Sederunt gates coming together heralded Thomas’ arrival to the Phagus royal family.
He’d caught them in mid-sentence, mid argument, but they still couldn’t hide their shock at seeing him. Malik’s eyes burned with hatred, his father’s eyes with despair and Stephanie’s gaze was harder to discern, but Thomas could see shards of longing and fear there.
Spurred on by the two souls nestling inside his own, Thomas stepped forward into the ethereal glow of the Sederunt flame. His action drew Malik to him like a magnet, his sword raised in anger.
“You will come no further intruder!” the prince said.
“Hello Malik,” Thomas replied. “I don’t think you need that sword, we’ve only come here to talk.”
Malik raised an eyebrow. “We’? I see your madness has only increased in intensity while you’ve been gone.”
“I see your inherent hatred of me remains unchanged.”
Gavenko came forward, his hands trembling. “What…do you want with us?” he said.
Thomas turned to consider the Sederunt gates, despite the thickness of the stone, the clash of the Skiift beasts and the cries of their dying seeped into the court.
“There is a great battle on your doorstep, King. Do you not hear it?”
The King squinted, there was something odd about Thomas’ voice, it was controlled and toneless, but penetrating all at once.
“Yes, I know—have you come to assist us?”
Malik laughed. “What—him?”
Thomas glanced at Malik then back to Gavenko. “No, I’m not here to fight, but I am here to see if you will.”
“We will defend our city if the Skiift or Stygma try to breach our walls—you can be assured of that!”
Thomas shook his hands in the negative. “That’s not what I meant Gavenko. I mean are you ready to fight for your soul?”
Malik pointed the tip of his sword squarely at Thomas’ head. “Was that a threat against the King—you will die for such words!”
Thomas scowled at him. “I thought I told you to put down your sword Malik.”
Gavenko interrupted Malik’s intended retort. “Put it down Malik—like he said!”
Malik complied, the sword slipping back into its scabbard with a sharp clink, but still he kept his hand on the hilt.
“Thank you, Gavenko,” Thomas said.
“I beg you, Thomas, tell us why you have chosen to return when I cast you out?”
Thomas watched the Sederunt flame carefully. “I’ve come back to give you a choice—to fight, or to free yourselves.”
“What is he talking about?’” Malik said to Stephanie, who stood near the throne, enamoured by the very sight of Thomas. She turned to her brother, condescension in her eyes.
“I warned you about what was coming,” she looked to her father. “I warned both of you.” Then she brought her gaze back to Thomas, her smile one of adoration. “Thomas is the deliverer—and there’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
Malik moved to chastise his sister, but the King again intervened. “Stop Malik!” Gavenko said, before addressing Thomas. “Ignore my son—he has a loose tongue.”
“What are you doing Father? Why are you talking to him like he is an equal? He is an outcast! A brigand! Why are you so afraid of him?”
“Why aren’t you Malik?” Thomas said. “Or is that the choice you’ve made—to be brave, despite all that is happening in here and outside?”
“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Malik said and drew his sword once more. “Let me kill him Father and then we can go to war!”
“Sheath your sword Malik—I want to hear what he has to say—he has that right at the very least!”
“The only right he has is to choose how he gets to die!” Malik said, turning to Thomas. “How do you like that for choice, interloper?”
Thomas smirked at him: “How about death by combat?”
Malik tossed his sword away, the steel clanging on the stone floor. “That sounds perfect!”
“Stop!” it wa
s Stephanie, pulling at her shackles, face shining with tears. “Please, Braegan, just tell them why you’ve come back!”
“Braegan?” Gavenko said, studying Thomas. “Are you mad too daughter? Braegan is long dead!”
“Can’t you see him Father? Look!” Stephanie said, shaking her head. “Look at him!”
“Calm down Calea!”
Thomas chuckled sardonically. “You are a contradiction in terms, Gavenko—on one hand you want to destroy your daughter, while on the other you wish to protect her—why can’t you choose?”
Malik stormed up to Thomas: “Enough of this—I accept your challenge to fight to the death—”
Gavenko struck his son to the ground with the back of his hand. “No!” Malik fell, astonished, his mouth bleeding profusely. The King turned back to Thomas, who stood, calmly watching the drama unfold. “Why does Calea believe you are Braegan when you clearly are not?!”
Thomas touched his face. “This flesh is simply a shell Gavenko—we have borrowed it and Thomas was more than willing to grant us access.”
Gavenko stared into Thomas’ eyes, trying to see the fool he thought he knew. “Who are you?”
“I am the one who has gathered all of the tribes here today,” he said. “I am the one who has returned to give you the choice to rediscover your true identity.”
“I don’t understand,” the King said. “You’re a Phagun, just like the rest of us—one who in fact never wanted to understand what he was! Now you have come back to utter these ridiculous notions of choice and make subtle threats like you have some authority over us?”
“You are right when you say Thomas never understood who he really was, but now he knows his purpose because we showed it to him.”
Gavenko swiped at the air. “Stop talking in third person! Explain yourself now or I might just let Malik kill you!”
Thomas nodded and walked past Gavenko, by Malik, who lay on the floor, still holding his mouth, until he reached the throne where Stephanie stood. She trembled in his presence but not from fear.
“What has Calea told you of her time in exile, Gavenko?” Thomas asked.
Gavenko looked to his daughter, who stared at Thomas in veneration. He’d seen that look before—not towards him, but rather to the one she once loved—Braegan.
“She…said she’d lived with the Skiift for a time,” Gavenko said. “She admitted she helped them launch attacks on us.”
“What of her time in the human city?” Thomas said, still observing the awe in Stephanie’s features.
“Nothing…”
“I first met her in the human city,” Thomas told Gavenko as he caressed his daughter’s face. “She’d assumed the guise of an innocent neighbour and she seduced me—little did I know that she’d planned it that way all along.”
“I still don’t see what this all has to do with anything—”
Thomas turned to the King. “Did she not tell you she has a son?”
Gavenko swallowed. “Yes…”
“We mated and then she attacked me,” Thomas said as Stephanie began to shake her head at him. “Her hostility towards me was another ploy to make me keep my distance—being naïve, I chose not to follow her, but I was obsessed with her each and every day after.”
The King put a hand to his mouth, half-smiling. “So it’s true—there is a child?”
Thomas cupped Stephanie’s face in his hands. “Where is he, Calea?”
Stephanie shook her head over and over in confusion. “You want me to tell you…?” she whispered.
“This changes everything!” Gavenko said, offering his hands to Thomas.
“Does it?” Thomas’ gaze was stern, filled with fire. “I don’t think so. If there is a child, you will play no part in its life Gavenko—unless you make that choice.”
“What? You cannot deny me my own heir!”
Malik scrambled across the floor to retrieve his sword as the King and Thomas stared each other down.
“You must choose Gavenko—atone for your sins or face your fate out there!”
“You have no authority over me!”
“So be it—let me help you choose,” Thomas said. “I spoke of Thomas’ first meeting with Calea, but they had known each other long before then.”
“What are you talking about?” Gavenko said.
“She spoke of Braegan—well I am he.”
Gavenko scoffed. “What?”
“After I was executed,” Thomas said, his voice calmer now. “Calea stole my body away to the Forest of the Skiift and buried me there.” Thomas turned to Stephanie. “It was a beautiful ceremony my love. But later the prophet came and asked me for a piece of my body. I knew I would be reunited with my beloved so of course, I agreed. I’m not the same as I once was, but I can share my love with Thomas now.”
Stephanie reached out and held Thomas’ hand, smiling through tears. The display pained Gavenko and confused him.
“You cannot do this—you’re driving my daughter to insanity! You are not Braegan because he is dead—I had him executed! I think I have heard enough of this. Guards! Guards, take him away!”
Thomas watched Gavenko look around the empty court. “The guards are protecting your gates, Gavenko—against the tide of war lapping at their edges. They too wait for you to make your choice.”
“Choose—choose what you fool? I have made choices—every day I make choices to protect my people. Every choice I make affects them. Every time I send my men into battle, I choose to send them to their deaths—it is a choice a king must make, and it is a terrible choice!”
Thomas stepped forward and put a hand on the King’s shoulder. Gavenko flinched, but when he looked into Thomas’ eyes, he saw a glimmer of something familiar, yet faint—and it was hope.
“Those choices you made have been mistakes, Gavenko,” Thomas said. “All your life, all your reign, has been a mistake. All these battles have brought this kingdom is blood and I can no longer tolerate it.”
Gavenko frowned. “You can no longer tolerate it? Just who do you think you are? You dare to question my reign, you madman—you impostor! I will have your skin flayed from your very bones!”
Thomas smiled. “Then do it, but do it yourself this time—make the choice to be a Phagun and not the inept king you have always been.”
Gavenko screamed and tried to rake his talons over Thomas’ face, but the three-in-one conduit grasped the King’s wrists and held him at arm’s length. Stephanie calmly stepped back towards the throne, a safe place to from which to observe. Malik, who had been watching from the shadows, sprang into the light, sword in hand, on a straight path to Thomas at full speed. Impossibly, Thomas sensed his approach and twisted himself around, hurling Gavenko into his son. The pair collided and came to the floor in a crumpled heap. The King was left dazed, but Malik, the warrior, was quick to his feet. He threw his sword away again and removed his breastplate, rage heaving in his chest.
“I’m going to enjoy this!” Malik said.
“We’ll see,” Thomas replied.
Malik charged, his battle cry surging with each rapid footfall. Thomas stood his ground, waiting unflinching. A moment later the pair crashed into one another, pale skin slapping together in a twist of sinew and muscle. Malik lashed out with the claws of his right hand and then his left, but Thomas was unnaturally fast, weaving out of the way of Malik’s swings with ease. Still, the prince persisted, lunging and slashing, the two Phaguns dancing around the Sederunt flame, their sweat-soaked skin gleaming.
“Stay still and fight me!” Malik roared.
Thomas complied and Malik took his chance, rushing in close to slash again. Thomas darted away from Malik’s right swipe, the left and then the right again. Malik was confused and his confusion made him angry. Why can’t you hit him—he’s nothing—a no one!
Thomas caught Malik’s right hand and squeezed down, shattering the bones of his fingers. Malik wailed in agony and dropped to his knees.
“Make your choice Malik,” Thomas
said, standing over him. “Do you want to atone, or do you want to die?”
Malik hissed and swung his left hand in a long arc strike towards Thomas’ throat, but the interloper caught it too and fractured it at the wrist with a flex of his hand. Howling in pain, Malik tried to free himself, but Thomas’ resistance was impossibly strong.
“Do you want to live or die? You choose!”
Gavenko appeared beside them, on his knees. “Please don’t kill my son—please Thomas I beg you!”
Thomas looked at the King, an almost robotic movement in his eyes. “This is Malik’s choice, Gavenko, not yours.” He turned back to Malik who was squirming, the bones of his hands, grinding. “Choose Malik.”
Malik’s eyes were flooded with tears of agony, strings of saliva fell to the floor through his gritted teeth.
“I’d…rather die than submit to you…intruder!”
Thomas twisted Malik’s arms so fast and so fiercely that he ripped them from their sockets. Black Phagun blood sprayed all over the floor of the court and his father’s tunic. Gavenko howled in horror as his son fell dead to the floor, but in an instant, revenge took over and he threw himself at the one named Thomas. Thomas quickly took the King by the throat and held him dangling off the floor.
“Now Gavenko—it is your turn to choose.”
33
The air was thick with the coppery scent of Flesher blood, the ground a quagmire of it.
Skiift beasts charged about in the mess, desperate to lose the Stygma souls pulling the flesh from their backs. One Skiift, part eel, eagle and locust, tried its best to leap free, but the Stygma soul threads were merciless and swift, forcing the beast back to the earth in seconds. As it squealed its last, the Stygma souls tore apart its throat, their ethereal talons like white-hot fire.
The battlefield, a passage that led to the Sederunt gates, was bustling with Stygma and Skiift, the Stygma monks, for all their devotion to worship, had a well-honed battle strategy—the soul threads attacking in pairs one beast at a time. The monks’ only weakness however, was that their source bodies were open and relatively defenceless.