“Your battle is won, now I must win mine,” said Thyriol.
The mage stepped through the magical door, which vanished with a shower of falling sparks. Caledor stayed in his throne, gripping its arms with white-knuckled hands. Shaking himself from the shock, he pushed himself up and walked outside on weak legs.
The sky was clear, the stars a bright swathe across the heavens. Caledor looked west, to the Annulii, where the vortex made the air shimmer around the peaks.
“Asuryan, lord of the heavens,” he whispered. “You did not answer the prayers of Aenarion and I do not expect you to listen to me. Yet for all that, I am your king and rule in your name, and upon me your blessing was laid. If you love my people, do not let them be destroyed.”
His short prayer finished, Caledor knew there was nothing else he could do. He remained where he was, eyes fixed on the Annulii, and drew Lathrain. If the daemons came again, he would not die without a fight.
The hall was awash with blood. It moved with its own sluggish life, hissing and sizzling at Malekith’s feet, lapping over the twisted bodies of his victims. Morathi chanted, staff held above her head, an incantation calling upon all of the daemons and powers with which she had made pacts during her long life. The air seethed with dark energy, flowing from walls to ceiling, making the symbols and runes painted in blood on the stone glow with ruddy power.
Through the circlet, the Witch King could feel the rising tide of dark magic across Nagarythe. In castles and towers across the barren kingdom his followers despatched their sacrifices and used their deaths to draw on the winds of magic, the mystical forces congealing together under the sorcerous influence of the Naggarothi.
Morathi’s incantation was reaching its crescendo. Her voice was a wail, her body shuddering, the coils of dark magic thickening and strengthening as they whirled around the throne room.
Reaching out his hands, Malekith felt the slick touch of the magic on his iron skin. The circlet gleamed on his brow and filled his mind with ice as the Witch King grasped and manipulated the formless energy with his will, shaping it, turning its convoluted waves into a rhythmically pulsing cloud.
“Now!” screamed Morathi, her staff blazing.
Malekith flung the dark magic up, spearing its energies through the palace of Aenarion. He could feel the other columns of power erupting across his kingdom, pillars of pure magical energy roaring up into the heavens.
* * *
The magic hissed liked a serpent, throwing coils of power around the dungeon chamber, thrashing wildly. Illeanith gritted her teeth and spat words of control, almost imploring the dark energy to obey her. She staggered back as another surge of magic rose up through her, bursting from her open mouth.
Eyes wide, the sorceress gasped every word of the incantation, speaking them over and over and over, cajoling and threatening the creatures that existed on the other side of reality’s veil. The blackness that tainted her skin was spreading. Already her hands were completely ebon, and the corruption was leeching up through her darkening veins, making them pop out of the skin of her bared arms.
Illeanith’s lips and gums were fizzing with magic and her eyes ached with the power. Her long hair writhed like rearing serpents, sparks flying from the flaring tips. The whole of the tower shook and the clean-hewn stones groaned and ground together.
The other world, the Realm of Chaos, started to intrude through the swirl of magic. Illeanith half-glimpsed maddening vistas of trees of finger bones and clouds that rained molten silver. The squeals and screeches, roars and howls of the daemons filled the chamber, echoing from the walls while simultaneously fading into distance.
Something hunched and ruddy, its bulbous head elongated, globular eyes white, burst into the room. It whirled around orientating itself with the surroundings, its wiry limbs tensed, a bronze sword in its hands dripping thick blood.
Illeanith shrieked and backed away from the creature, which fixed upon her its lifeless stare. In her fright, the sorceress stumbled and fell, one hand passing through the symbol of salt she had laid upon the floor.
With the mystical sigil broken, the dark magic was let loose. It rampaged around Illeanith, smashing the walls, ripping up the tiles of the floor, prodding and slashing at her, pulling her hair and tugging at her teeth. More of the daemons formed in the mayhem, snarling, predatory things that immediately set upon the first with fanged maws and slashing tails. Illeanith struggled to her feet, weeping blood. A thick tar-like substance leaked from her mouth, choking her as she clutched at her throat. The sorceress gurgled a cry of agony as her veins burst, magic boiling like sludge from her ruptured blood vessels.
Bones cracked and splintered, ripping forth more wet screams from Illeanith. She crumpled, falling face-first, her arm snapping beneath her as she tried to stop her head hitting the slabs. The daemons swarmed around her, their fang-ringed mouths gnawing and tearing at her spirit as well as her flesh.
Her last cry died away, but the damage had been done. The dark magic flowed from the breach in the rune, burrowing through the stones, prising apart the blocks with tenebrous tendrils of power. The daemons’ forms lost cohesion and they evaporated into the miasma, which continued to spin and roil, seeking escape.
With a thunderous detonation that hurled stone and earth high into the air, the dark magic exploded from the dungeon, toppling the tower. It spiralled and spun, bubbling across Nagarythe towards the Annulii, joining the other streamers of dark power cutting across the cold night.
* * *
Caledor felt the ground shudder. It was faint but strong enough that soon the elves of the camp were leaving their tents, fearful questions being asked. The Phoenix King ignored them and continued to stare at the glimmer over the mountains.
One by one the stars seemed to wink out of existence. The aura of the vortex strengthened, becoming something more than a hint on the edge of vision. Caledor could see the whirling energy, pick out the strands of magic cascading down the peaks, swirling in pools in the valleys.
He looked overhead and saw the darkness spreading, leaching the light from the stars. The air grew colder as the dark magic funnelled down the vortex, drawn towards the Isle of the Dead at the centre of the Inner Sea. Forks of energy played along the glowing ribbons of magic. Turning east he saw the magic plunging down like a tornado, growing thicker and brighter with each passing heartbeat.
Malekith strode to an iron balcony adjoining the chamber, Morathi hurrying after him. He turned his flaming gaze to the east and saw the ravening energies gathering across the mountaintops.
“It is done,” said Morathi.
She pointed high into the heavens, to the north. Lights burned in the sky, silhouetting the horizon with a rainbow of colours that were constantly shifting. The magical aurora flickered, spitting bolts of energy to the ground and up towards the disappearing stars.
Malekith could see through the anarchy of shape and colour. Towering spires of crystal and rivers of blood; cliffs with screaming skull-like faces and forests of waving tentacles; castles of bronze and a huge dilapidated mansion; plains covered with splintered bones and white beaches rippled by purple waters; clouds of flies and miniature suns that glared with cyclopean eyes.
And he heard the roaring and the howls, the screaming and the growls. Marching and slithering, swooping and leaping, a host of daemons poured forth.
“The Realm of Chaos opens,” he rasped, feeling triumphant. “My legions awake!”
Staggering against the buffeting of the magical gale, Thyriol pushed himself on towards the distant figures of Caledor Dragontamer and the other mages. His whole body was afire with magic, exhilarating and painful in equal measure.
He could feel the counterspells of his fellows, given hasty warning by their prince. Counter-currents and whirling siphons raced around the vortex as the mages of Saphery tried to claw back the power being unleashed.
Thyriol could see that their attempts would be in vain; it was like trying to empty the Inner Sea wit
h a thimble. Overhead the vortex grew stronger and stronger, the weight of it on his shoulders making every step a near-impossible effort, every breath a ragged gasp for life.
He heard the wailing and roaring of the daemons before he saw them. At first they were nothing more than motes of energy cast around by the vortex; brief glimpses of fanged faces and sharp talons that were soon swallowed by the mass of power. As he pushed on, the daemons fed on the magic, forming bodies of pure energy, dancing and twisting along the circling currents of mystical power.
Their whispers came to his ears, threatening all manner of cruel torment.
Thyriol drove all other things from his mind, focussing on his goal, giving no thought to any other desire or need that might be perverted by the daemons. His staff cracked and then exploded into a shower of splinters, unable to hold the magic coursing through it. The charms upon his bracelets, the amulets around his neck, spat and hissed with power, whirling about as if caught in a gale.
He pressed on.
“To arms!” Caledor bellowed. “Protect yourselves!”
Faster than any mortal host, the daemons poured down from the mountains, riding upon the waves of magic. A beast with a slug-like body and fanged maw fringed with writhing tentacles materialised in front of the Phoenix King.
All thought of pain and weakness were gone. Caledor slashed Lathrain through the creature, parting it in a blaze of fire and magical sparks. Gibbering, wretched things plunged from the sky on wings of darkness, to be met with the shining blade forged for Caledor Dragontamer.
Around the Phoenix King, the elves of his army did their best to fight. Their arrows and spears did little harm to the immaterial creatures that attacked them. A few wielded heirlooms from the last daemonic invasion, spears and swords and axes forged in Vaul’s Anvil now turned again to their original purpose.
The ground was thick with magic and the sky filled with a roiling storm cloud of pure energy. Caledor glanced up as he thought he heard a deep rumbling laugh, glimpsing for a moment a monstrous thing of no particular form but unimaginably terrifying. He fought without thought, hacking and thrusting at any daemonic thing that came within range.
For an age the elves had survived, building an empire and thinking that peace was eternal. As the daemons cackled and shrieked around him, Caledor realised how fickle that existence had been. He wept as he battled, thinking how cruel a world it was that his grandfather’s greatest legacy was undone.
Blinded and deafened, his whole body a searing torrent of ecstasy and pain, Thyriol clawed his way across the ravaged ground. He was guided only by his inner magical sense, feeling his way through the anarchy of the vortex’s heart. With every laboured heartbeat he felt the vortex weakening, the lodestones unable to cope with the magic of the druchii and the power of the daemons. Very soon it would collapse entirely and all would be lost.
The mage felt like a speck of dust in a hurricane, physically and in his spirit, but clung on with every shred of willpower to maintain his sense of self and purpose.
As if passing into a gap between realities, Thyriol felt everything disappear. The noise, the confusion, the pain all vanished, leaving him with a sense of pure peace. He had reached the eye of the vortex, the very centre of the magical storm.
He did not know if his plan would work, but he had spent his life studying the work of Caledor Dragontamer and the principles of the vortex. If he was wrong, it would only hasten the vortex’s collapse.
He had nothing to lose.
Pushing himself up to a kneeling position, Thyriol bowed his head and folded his hands in his lap. There was no ground beneath him nor sky above him. He was utterly isolated, floating in nothingness. He was not even sure if his body had survived. In this place, in the tiniest sliver between realities, the grey edge between light and dark, the cusp of life and death, such things as immortal and mortal, body and spirit, were irrelevant.
Within his clasped hands, he released the tiny mote of magic he had brought with him. It was barely anything, perhaps enough to give life to the smallest insect. He opened his hands and the tiny particle of magic floated up, a minute glimmer in nothingness.
Releasing his grip upon the magic, he allowed it to interact with the void.
The magic exploded, turning into an infinite sun, filling the gap between worlds. The barriers between the real and the immaterial fell away, breaking the last bonds that held the Realm of Chaos in check.
The vortex was complete, a solid whirl of magic whose reach stretched across the whole world. Far to the east, dwarfen runesmiths paused in their labours, wondering why the runes they worked on guttered and died. In their ancient, jungle-devoured cities to the west, the immortal servants of the Old Ones paused in their calculations and contemplations. Alien intelligences turned their attention to the sudden change in the world, coldly assessing its importance.
Opening his eyes, Thyriol found himself still on the Isle of the Dead.
“I see,” said a voice behind him.
Thyriol turned, coming face-to-face with an aged elf with a thin face and silver hair. The mage recognised him instantly, from a hundred statues and a thousand paintings: Caledor Dragontamer.
The influx of magic had broken the stasis as Thyriol had hoped.
The greatest mage of the elves appeared calm even as the vortex raged and bucked around him. Other mages appeared out of the anarchic storm, robes flapping in the unnatural breeze, staffs in hand.
They formed a circle around Thyriol, eyes cast upwards. The prince of Saphery joined them and saw a pinprick of night amidst the magic, the briefest glimmer of a star.
“This will not end well,” said the Dragontamer, “but it cannot be helped.”
The assembled mages lifted up their staffs and began their chants. At first nothing happened and Thyriol could not divine their purpose. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, the vortex slowed. Centred around the circle of mages another vortex began, running in the opposite direction.
Gathering power this second vortex created ripples through the magical storm. It grew larger and larger, feeding off the magic, gathering pace even as the main vortex slowed. Thyriol watched amazed as Caledor Dragontamer turned the vortex against itself. Where magic had once been drained from the mortal realm, now it was being channelled from the Realm of Chaos. Faster and faster the counter-vortex whirled, erupting with flashes of dark amidst the light, bubbling clouds of pure energy flowing against the roiling winds of magic.
The two conflicting vortices reached parity and the world froze.
His sword slashing the throat of yet another blood-skinned daemon, Caledor felt the ground lurch, almost throwing him from his feet. As one, the daemon horde fell still and silent, even more unnerving than their shouts and screams. They turned unnatural eyes towards the vortex as the ground bucked again.
Light detonated to the east, surging up through the funnel of the vortex. A moment before he was blinded by it, Caledor saw the daemonic host bursting into flames, the cinders of their bodies turning to crystalline dust.
Another convulsion of the earth toppled the Phoenix King, who fell heavily to his side. He heard and felt a deep rumble, coming from the bowels of the world. Looking up through slitted eyes he saw the mountain peaks swaying, the vortex rippling and pulsing. Avalanches crashed down from the peaks and cliffs tumbled, toppling down the slopes.
Thyriol has failed, he thought. This is how the world ends.
“No!” screamed Morathi.
Malekith felt it too, a presence he had not known for more than a thousand years. The Dragontamer had returned. The Witch King did not know how, but he would not be defeated so easily. He poured out all of his scorn and hatred, looking to wrench control of the vortex from the elf who had betrayed his father. Morathi sensed what he was doing and added her own sorcery, seeking to overcome the Dragontamer’s spell.
The two waves of magic clashed within the vortex, detonating with a blaze of multicoloured light that swept away the storm, converting bo
th high and dark magic into a huge detonation. Malekith felt it as a Shockwave that pulsed across Ulthuan, flattening trees and toppling towers. He sensed the mountains lurching as the vortex spun again.
He felt something else too, like the world was tipping on its axis. The magic unleashed rocked Ulthuan, ripping earth and sky with its power. A crack appeared in the city wall of Anlec as a huge fissure opened up in the ground to the north. Roofs collapsed and walls toppled as Anlec convulsed. Everywhere across Nagarythe the dark magic earthed itself, mighty spires of rock erupting from the ground while huge pits and crevasses dropped down.
“What is that noise?” said Morathi, looking to the north.
In one of Nagarythe’s northernmost towers, Drutheira laughed gaily at the magical battle being fought. She delighted in the clash and merging of energies, marvelling at the patterns of light and dark wrought across the stars.
Her laughter died away as she felt the first tremors of the earthquake. Around her tall candle holders fell to the flagstones and lamps of elf fat spilled from their sconces. She staggered to her left as the world lurched, the beams holding up the ceiling creaking alarmingly. A cloud of mortar showered down on to Drutheira as she struggled to remain upright.
The whole tower swayed and cracked, like a tree in a gale. Its movement sent her reeling into the wall, next to one of the narrow windows. Grasping the sill, she looked outside and saw the stars spinning overhead. In the light of the crazily dancing moons she could see the rocks of the coast.
The shore stretched away into the night, far further than any natural tide. She could see fish flopping on the dry land and splashing in small pools left between the rocks. It was if a god had come down and taken a titanic draught from the seas, leaving mud and wet sand covering a massive expanse to the north and west.
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