The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4)

by Everet Martins

  She stared at Walter as she descended like he was a maggot to be toyed with. He had never felt so insignificant, so empty, and so hopeless. Every boil of self-doubt he thought long lanced and healed came roaring back into the forefront of his mind.

  He was weak, not enough to protect his family and friends. He scoffed. He wasn’t even capable of protecting himself. His hand traced the scar around his neck from Asebor’s chains. He remembered them sawing through his flesh, the blood spurting out, his world going black. He was dead. He was bound here forever in the cruel irons of eternity.

  He thought he might have been able to find a way out of here. Her presence said that hope was a mistake. Even the light of the bloody moon seemed to avoid her, shadows caressing her form where there should have been light.

  As she drew closer, he saw her hair wasn’t hair at all, but hundreds of writhing snakes. Her chest was narrow, breasts pointy, nipples dark as brewed elixir. Her body was as hairless as a new babe. Her graceful toes softly slid into the blood, tainting her perfect skin. Walter thought he might have seen her smiling behind the brightness swelling out from her eyes.

  “What are you? What do you want?” he croaked. “The Shadow Realm was supposed to be a place of rest.”

  “You are an inquisitive mortal. I am the Shadow god. I am the hate in the heart of man. I am everywhere. I am in you now.” Her voice was as soft as a lover’s breath, tinged with pleasure. He felt compelled to go to her, to please her. The light burning in her eyes dimmed, allowing him to look at her without shielding his.

  He rose onto his knees, torso sagging, abdomen muscles trembling. He looked down at the twin pair of shattered bones and mangled flesh protruding out his right arm. Where was Stormcaller? It was supposed to be there. The bones were splintered at the ends, muscle and tendon dangling out like sprigs of hay. He looked back at the Shadow god, eyes vibrating. He screamed at her, wanting to rip her apart for what she had done.

  Her smile twitched at one side. She lifted an elegant leg and stepped towards him. A beast with tens of stubby human like arms shuffled out of the way. “I am ruler of this world. The land of man awaits my return. My most devoted followers are granted a sliver of my strength. Necromancers, I think you call them. Once the soul has left the shell, the body is free to use.”

  Walter swallowed. His idea of reality fractured. The loosely sewn seams of his concept of the world were sliced and pulled apart. The walking corpses that had marched on the Silver Tower must have been led by a Necromancer. Juzo had said Terar was a Necromancer, hadn’t he? Perhaps there were others. Maybe Asebor’s generals, the Wretched.

  “How many men do you know who have returned from my realm?” She continued, swirling her toes along the blood’s surface.

  It couldn’t be true. There had to be rest for the dead.

  “Men are such sad creatures. Your kind will fabricate any manner of lie to avoid facing reality, the hard truths of life. This,” she gestured with a bare hand. “This is all that awaits you in death.”

  “Liar.” His voice felt hollow.

  Asebor had said he was the one true god. Who was she to him? He to her? The questions hammered through his mind. Walter’s brows knitted together. “What… what have you done to my mother?”

  “My brood sought you for a time. You’re elusive, the first true dual-wielder born in the last eight-thousand man-years. The prophecy required that the mother of a male dual-wielder would provide the soul essence for my new creation.”

  “This is madness, madness,” he whispered, shaking his pounding head. What was her brood? The blood lake was receding at the wall of skulls, leaving a congealed mass of blood behind. He realized the veins running along the skulls were sucking it up. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing was real. Was he inside a living creature? “Why am I here?”

  “To find your mother, of course. She came to us and fell into our trap when she knew you were here. You are the reason your mother ceases to exist.”

  “No. It’s not true. You’re a lying bitch!” he barked. It could have been true, though. Deep inside, he knew it. The shame he felt at leaving her to the Cerumal flooded back. He remembered her screams. The memory of her blood on the kitchen floor flashed across his mind. It stained all of the walls and no amount of scrubbing would remove it. He did this to her. It was his fault.

  “End. Me.” He said he two words through throbbing teeth. It was over for him now. He had fought well. He didn’t have enough time to leave a legacy and that was all right. He was a farmer and would fade away like any other hewed elixir vine. You had to reasonable about these things.

  “Oh. Well, it’s not that simple, dear.” The Shadow god crossed her arms, her nipples now pointing at him like a set of fleshy eyes. “You are still needed. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. It makes things interesting, don’t you think?” Her lips parted in a vicious smile, splitting at the corners, lines of flesh ripping up her cheeks on each side.

  Walter flinched at the sea of fire in her mouth. He was transfixed by the light, tongues of fire engulfing his vision. Within the fire, people endlessly screamed, writhing in the eternal burning. They tried to pull themselves free by pushing down the heads of their squirming neighbors. It was an endless cycle.

  He had seen that place before. It was in a dream many moons ago, while traveling with Baylan and Lillian for Midgaard. He had been there. A Black Wynch had opened his neck to the world with its talon, waking him from the nightmare. If this was a nightmare, he would have woken some time ago. His mind wanted to deny this place. His heart had unshakable veracity.

  The souls of men do not die. They do not rest either. She has taken them into her womb and into the plains of burning, a voice that was not his thoughts echoed in his mind. His eye locked onto Lillian’s, her arm imploring to be pulled from the liquid flames.

  “Lillian!” he shouted, started to reach for her and the world of black returned.

  The Shadow god closed her mouth with a slurp, her snake’s tongue lapping at a drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. She dipped her hand into the lake of blood and raised it up over her head. It spiraled around her arms, pattered onto her shoulder, wound around her breasts. “I bring forth my new princess to rule by my side. Time ravages us all, even gods.”

  He wanted to tell her she wasn’t a god, but a dying demon. He chewed the insides of his cheeks, forcing his lips to stay closed. He knew who the true gods were. He felt them there, deep inside his chest. The Dragon and the Phoenix were alive. They hadn’t left him. He saw now that they were always there, even as a child. He just didn’t know what it was then.

  “My princess of shadow rises!” The Shadow god clasped her hands together like a child expecting honeyed candies. She looked up towards the massive outstretched hand. There was another human-like figure there, peering down at them, still as a statue. Her body was covered head to toe in armor, wine red and gleaming with the light of the moon. It seemed to be part of her, no plates or seams visible. Her eyes and mouth were exposed and her skin a deep olive. Her arms snapped out, spreading a pair of leathery wings attached at her sides. She dipped her body and leaped from the edge of the palm, soaring down like a hawk in flight.

  “Isn’t she lovely?”

  Walter stared up, numb. The princess drifted over his head and he met her eyes. They were Nyset’s eyes, big and colored like almond skins. “No. You’re alive.” He breathed. “You can’t be here, can’t be.” He reached towards her with his mangled arm and tried to flex open the fingers that weren’t there. Pain, his constant companion, sparked up and into his shoulder, pushing tears from his eyes. He grunted and jerked his arm to his chest, protectively holding it with the other.

  Walter ripped two bloody strips from his pants from ankle to waist. He cinched the first tight around his arm just below the elbow. He bit into the bloody rag, securing it while he tied the knot with his hand. He worked the second strip around the back of his neck and between his jaw. He tied a knot in it and slid it up over
his forehead, pushing the knot into his butchered eye. His chest heaved as he worked, every movement like being wounded all over again.

  The princess landed beside the Shadow god, draping her red arm across her mother’s chest and pressing herself against her side. She cocked her head at Walter, looking at him with Nyset’s eyes. “Mother, I am free.”

  “Yes, dear,” the Shadow god crooned, nuzzled her head against her daughter’s hairless head.

  “Nyset?” Walter took a tentative step towards her.

  The Shadow princess tilted her head then tapped a gleaming finger on her chin, just like Nyset always had when she was deep in thought. An icy chill washed down his neck and down to his toes. It couldn’t be her. She was alive. The princess inched closer to the Shadow god, wrapping her leg around hers, their legs intertwining.

  “Asebor. My brood returns!” The Shadow god pushed away from her daughter and clapped her narrow palms together.

  A violet line cut through the air, hissing and burning through the blood lake. This could not be. “The gods have no mercy,” Walter whispered. He dropped to his ass, slithering away from the opening portal. It twisted around counterclockwise, opening and spilling out the light of the sun.

  “The world of man?” the Shadow princess asked.

  “Yes, dear. However, you are not ready.” She caressed the face of Nyset.

  The sky was a bright blue, dotted with spiraling clouds. Walter felt a grin pull at his face and he raised his hand as if he could capture its radiance in his palm. The demons crept further back, murmuring, some anxiously barking. A figure stepped in front of the portal’s entrance, blotting out most of the light. Asebor flashed him a jagged smile as he stepped through.The portal snapped shut as if never there.

  Walter closed his fist then opened it, staring at his palm, hoping he captured some of the light. The light of the world of man. There was only blood though, thick as honey and sticking between his fingers.

  “Mother,” Asebor rasped, stomping through the blood. His tattered cloak hung limp over his shoulders, drifting over the lake. He stopped before the Shadow god and she brushed his face with the back of her bloody hand, smearing red streaks like war paint on his shadowy mask. “She is ready, I presume?”

  “Why else would I have summoned you?”

  Walter felt laughter bubbling from his lips. “A regular family fucking reunion, eh?”

  Asebor whipped his head to Walter. Asebor was in front of him in an eye blink. Lines of blood parted behind his boots and became small waves from his speed. He was faster here, much faster than Walter remembered. “Why does his soul persist?” Asebor hissed into Walter’s face. His breath was like burning sulfur.

  “He is needed,” the Shadow god said pleasantly.

  Asebor growled, letting out a deep rumbling.

  “Do what Mother tells you, dog.” Walter said, lips curling into a sneer. He would not perish begging for his soul.

  “Once it is done, can I end him, Mother?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  The shadow princess backed herself into a wall of skulls, the forearm of the giant palm. She grinned with Nyset’s mouth. Dimples formed in the corners of Nyset’s lips. She lifted her legs and wrapped her arms under her knees. The burnished carapace-like armor split apart at her groin, yawning open like the mouth of a Sand Buckeye.

  Walter turned his head. He couldn’t watch. They couldn’t hurt him anymore, he told himself. More lies. He wanted to feel numb, empty. It wasn’t Nyset. His jaw crashed down onto his tongue, hot blood spilling into his mouth. A hoarse grunt penetrated his ears.

  When he looked back at the Shadow princess, Asebor was on top of her grunting, ramming his hips into her, cloak fluttering through the air. Nyset looked past Asebor and into his eyes, smiling broadly. She was enjoying this.

  They could not hurt him, could not.

  Asebor tore at her chest and the plate came apart, revealing her firm breasts. Her flesh puckered with goosebumps. Those were his. He remembered feeling their softness pressed against him. Asebor wrapped his dark talons around her breasts, squeezing them between his fingers. Asebor grunted harder, his heavy leather armor scraping against hers. Nyset moaned, her eyes rolling back, her pink tongue lapping at the air.

  He was supposed to be her first, not this, not him. Not a fucking demon’s child. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He rose to his feet on legs that weren’t his. He saw a demon snarl at him from the corner of his eye. Felt another inch closer, felt their tendrils, claws and pincers tensing.

  The Shadow god lifted her chin and flashed him a knowing smile. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She sighed contentedly. “How delicious, wonderful. I feel it all over. Your love for her. Hate for us. Her pleasure. Pain. Life and death. All here to enjoy before our eyes, the core nature of man before the eyes of your god.”

  Walter sucked in the warm air, blood rippling down his throat. “I will destroy all of you.” His voice was ragged, eyes deadly slits. Their souls were spoken for, their names etched in his spirit. He would not rest until they bowed before him. Lies. They would tremble beneath his boots.

  “The dual-wielder’s rage fuels my princess!” the Shadow god squealed.

  He forced his eye open. He forced himself to watch Asebor pounding away at his beloved, the Shadow god looking on as if observing a tavern game. Something changed underneath his ribs and a strange warmth filled his limbs. A manic smile tore across his lips.

  They split from their original concept of the self.

  “Their empathy and compassion dies,” he whispered, finishing the words of the voice in his head.

  In his mind he heard a crack like shattered glass, eyebrows bobbing up in surprise. The Dragon sprang free, roared in his chest, tunneled through every cell in his body. It was a tidal wave of rage, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His body spasmed with enough anger to shatter the world. Chaos reigned in his soul, muscles singing with fire. He started laughing at its glorious return. The Phoenix was there too, buried deep, a star in the Dragon’s roaring furnace.

  A few demonic eyes peered at him. The rest were engrossed in the main show.

  “Die!” Walter roared. His eyes burst alight with white Dragon fire, a thick jet of flame blasting out from his mangled arm. He laughed as he cut white lines through the demons, blood pouring out from them like black rain. He gripped his ruined forearm with his other hand, every ounce of his being fighting to control the torrent of flames.

  “The false gods cannot touch this domain,” Asebor hissed, as if by stating a thing would make it true.

  “No! It can’t be—” The Shadow god cut off as she threw herself into the blood, avoiding Walter’s whirling death. Her hair-snakes pressed themselves against her neck, hissing. The few snakes that had stood in defiance were cut down, their heads plopping into the blood like pebbles. The Shadow god shrieked, her hand reaching towards the severed snakes.

  “You are not a god!” he screamed.

  The Shadow god vanished in a puff of smoke, briefly warping the air. His white fire cut a diagonal line through the giant’s arm jutting out of the lake. It screamed like thousands of rusted hinges as the arm started sliding apart.

  The Shadow princess vaulted into the air, screeched like a dying pig as her wings created a gentle breeze.

  Asebor turned on him, shadowy prick glistening and bulging with winding purple veins. Walter stared at it and a jets of flames erupted from his eyes. “Bastard!” He bellowed. “Burn!”

  Walter saw the twinge of fear, then shock touched Asebor’s eyes for the first time. It was a moment he would never forget. Asebor rolled through the blood, which was now a puddle, his chains sprouting to life in the air. His twin beams of fire burned a pair of holes through a fish-headed creature behind, slumping into the bones.

  A beast like centipede rose up, tall as the Midgaard palace. Walter directed the endless torrent roaring out his arm up, cutting a vertical slice through its towering body. The beast shrieked as it was to
rn apart, bursting into flames. The acrid stench of its roasting flesh only made him laugh harder. The scent of agony was intoxicating, sucking it in hard through his nostrils.

  His laughter pounded in his skull, swelling with the radiant warmth he felt at watching their flesh burn. Their pain fueled his hatred. Wherever he pointed the torrent, fiery death followed. They would come to know pain, know it like he knew it in his arm, eye, back, mouth, knees and soul. That blind rage freed him from fear and caution.

  He saw Asebor’s chains in flight, moving as slow as a sunrise. His neck prickled at their gleaming blades. He wondered for a second where his lightning quickness had gone. Was this a trick? He welcomed the great emptiness now.

  He opened himself to the full strength of the Dragon. The rage and chaos of the world burst through his flesh, skin splitting apart like desiccation cracks. The Phoenix spiraled out from his center, patching up his broken skin with its magnificent light.

  He thought he might have been screaming, but couldn’t hear his voice. Only the bellowing fire of a furnace reached his ears. He was as white as the sun, a ghost in the middle of its glow.

  The demons shrieked and screamed as they burned. Those standing too close to him had their flesh turned to ash. Those more intelligent had already fled, seeking colder prey.

  Asebor’s chains still came, the razor edged links reflecting the white of his fire. Walter spread his fingers, directing jets of flame out his fingertips. Some collided with Asebor’s chains, others through his dark flesh as if it were never there.

  Asebor screamed, vibrating shadows erupting with glowing violet blood. He pressed his dark hands on the worst of the wounds.

  A few skulls thumped on Asebor’s head and bounced from his shoulders. The top half of the hand in the lake boomed as it rolled apart, about to crush the demon god. Asebor became a gray mist as the hand crushed him, dissipating the mist into spiraling eddies.