by P D Ceanneir
‘Why?’ she wailed at Sernac. ‘Why? He and Lord Ness loved you like a son would a father, why have you done this?’
‘Why? Because I am no longer the man I was. Master Darus died all of those years ago when his wife died in the last struggle with the Sept of Red. The Dragor-rix War was the end and the beginning for me,’ said Sernac. At the altar the black mass inside the Orrinn was travelling faster towards the cracked and broken top of the stone. Cinnibar was watching it, hypnotised.
‘I was lost to the world when my wife Yula died,’ went on Sernac. ‘Part of me fell into darkness, but another part was reborn. It was all because of the three dragon eggs I found after the final battle. You see, the Sept of Red was returning home to allow their children to be born in the land of their birth. Unfortunately, it was not to be, and the life in the eggs remained dormant until fire would awaken them. Therefore, I took the eggs and left to continue my own personal training to become a Ri.
‘Do you know the wonderful properties that dragon eggs have on the earth? The life within them is amazing enough, but the shells are phenomenal! You see, with a complete dragon egg you are able to use the Dragon Lanes and see beyond the far side of the world.’ Sernac smiled down at Bleudwed, ‘you can even talk to Orrinns.’
The countess’s eyes flicked towards the Orrinn in its cup, the black mass had now only inches to go before it reached the top.
‘The Gredligg Orrinn,’ she gasped, ‘you can communicate with it to talk to the Earth Daemon?’
‘Yes,’ said Lord Sernac, now excited and animated. ‘He showed me how to harness my power, how to be reborn and live again. He showed me how to control my ability as a Terraseer, to see the future just as a dragon could. Although I can only see the future lives of those around me and not my own, yet I was able to manipulate everyone around me to His ends. He also gave me a new identity, Lord Sernac, which means “leader of the People”. Soneros was just a separate identity, Sernac is who I truly am, and now the world shall hear it with dread as the Lonely God conquers all in his wake!’
‘All he has given you is madness,’ said Bleudwed. In her arms, the Blacksword was slowly changing back to Havoc, his body filled out as the armour reshaped. She closed the eyelids over his green eyes when the blackness disappeared. Her tears flowed again. ‘He is the one who has manipulated you,’ she said through a dry mouth, ‘all he will give to you is your destruction.’
‘No, he has promised me the world and the power to control it. He has promised me enlightenment as conscious thought. Nothing else matters to me, not even Cinnibar and the lives within the Brethac Order.’
Bleudwed looked up. ‘What?’
Sernac grinned at her as he sheathed his sword. ‘Oh, surprised are we? Did you think that I cared for those who follow me? They were a means to an end. I know that when the Great Destroyer takes his flesh form then the Dark Tanis will eradicate all life on the planet, but not me, no. I will evolve to a higher purpose. He has shown me everything.’ Lord Sernac’s grin became a maddening leer and his eyes burnt bright with exited expectation.
The countess shook her head. ‘Madness, sheer utter madness.’
Sernac chuckled. ‘You could always join me, Bleudwed. Join me in enlightenment, you have always reminded me of Yula.’
‘I would rather die. I have nothing now,’ sobbed Bleudwed. ‘You have killed the only man I truly loved.’ She stroked Havoc’s long black hair back from his forehead.
The dark form inside the Gredligg Orrinn had reached the broken top of the orb and now black tendrils tentatively whipped around in the open air, probing, searching. A gust of wind roared around the walls, pulling at everyone’s clothes and hair. Decades old dust from the tombs and debris from the floor shifted inside tiny cyclones at the corners of the room; sparks of electricity rippled across the walls and ceiling.
‘Such fine sentiments,’ said Lord Sernac loudly over the noise of the wind. ‘You should have told him while he was still alive. The line of Cromme is at an end, a short reign for a worthy leader.’
‘Master!’ this was from Cinnibar, with a tone of worry in her voice. The dark entity was growing; hundreds of pulsating tentacles writhed and shifted like black smoke.
‘Ah, the fusion of flesh is about to begin,’ said Sernac as his attention returned to the altar.
‘What fusion?’ Bleudwed asked, genuinely interested.
‘Well in order for the Earth Daemon to survive outside the Dragon Lanes and his prison, he needs a body!’
The tentacles moved around Cinnibar without touching her, she flinched away from them and the captive awe on her face was replaced by fear.
‘Cinnibar!’ said Bleudwed in understanding.
‘Yes, no human could contain such power, not even a Ri for long, but a Waternymph, well that’s different,’ said lord Sernac smiling. ‘That was the promise I gave to the Earth Daemon in exchange for power, a new body. Of course, she will die in the fusion process as the entity takes control.’
‘What? No!’ shouted Cinnibar, eyes wide in shock at the revelation of her imminent demise. ‘Master, you promised me the power of the Pyromancer?’
‘Indeed I did, my dear, but you won’t be around long enough to use it,’ said Sernac, who then turned to Bleudwed with a smug smile on his face. ‘I deliberately got her addicted to the Pyromantic power by asking her to take it from Baron Telmar, as she was the only one who could, of course. It served a purpose, as you will see. A Waternymph will hold his soul long enough for him to track down the Five Who Speak and collect their essence to make the flesh of the Dark Tanis.’
Cinnibar screamed as the many hungry arms of the entity flapped all around her. The wind roared throughout the room, the energy generated by the Earth Daemon intensified. She tried to step away, but one of the tentacles wrapped around her wrist, several others encased her other arm, it lifted her into the air and more writhing limbs gripped her legs and spread them apart to hold her immobile. She screamed again, but a writhing mass of short pulsing protrusions inserted themselves into her open mouth and she choked. More of the smoky blackness snaked up her nostrils, burst her eyes as they entered her skull and forced their way into her ears. Cinnibar jerked violently as the Entity invaded every orifice. She moaned loudly and struggled in an attempt to free herself.
‘Don’t fight it, Cinnibar, it’s pointless,’ said Sernac as he chuckled to himself.
Bleudwed looked away from the abomination that the former Queen of Sonora was becoming. She clutched Havoc’s head to her bosom and wished she were somewhere else.
She forced an image into her mind of the first time she saw Havoc and felt thankful that it helped to block out the terrible moans coming from Cinnibar.
It was that fateful night when he freed her from the wicker cage in the woods, the coppery smell of blood wafted to her nostrils from the bodies of the thieves and murderers of her family. Havoc had opened the cage, pulled down his hood and said, ‘DISTRACT HIM!’
No, that was wrong, he did not say that. She gasped and opened her eyes. It was Havoc’s voice in her head...distract him, it said again. Her hand found his neck and it shook when it found a pulse, strong and quick. He was using the Thought Link to speak to her through her touch. She almost cried out in alarm. Her own heart began to beat faster.
Distract Sernac? How? Her sword was a few paces away by the stairs. The Ri would see her move to pick it up. Her Spit Gun was in it’s holster, she had recently loaded it. She looked up to see Sernac engrossed in the fusion of Entity and Cinnibar. The Earth Daemon’s tentacles were now under her skin and causing dark wormlike shapes to dimple and wriggle just under the surface, black and malignant. Cinnibar was now engorged with the thing and still growing, yet she moaned and writhed as the parasitical invasion continued.
Bleudwed laid Havoc’s head gently on the ground and went to retrieve her sword, but as soon as the hilt was in her hand, the blade crumpled into silver dust. She turned to see Lord Sernac looking at her with his hand raised.<
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‘You disappoint me, Countess. I thought you were smarter than that,’ he said with that smug look on his face.
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she snapped, ‘try and stop this!’ She threw the bladeless hilt at him. As he reached out his hand to knock it away she withdrew the Spit Gun from its holster, aimed, and fired all four bolts at point blank range.
The bolts were quick, Lord Sernac rapidly turned three into clouds of fine dust, but the fourth got through. It embedded itself deep into his left shoulder and he jerked backwards, staring at her in shock.
‘You should not have done that...!’ Sernac did not finish the sentence, he felt a presence behind him and reached for his sword while turning towards the new threat, he was utterly stunned to see the king on his feet, but how?
The Sword that Rules pierced his chest and heart, just as he had done to the Blacksword. Sernac dropped his weapon and stared at Havoc in amazement.
‘How...?’ he gasped.
‘The Twin Aspect, Sernac. Obviously, the Earth Daemon neglected to mention the rules to you, when one twin dies the other still lives. I know Darus is in there somewhere, he may live when you are gone,’ said Havoc through gritted teeth. Sernac groaned as the king pushed the sword in further and twisted so the man’s heart burst inside his chest.
Sernac reached out a hand to the dark pulsing mass that was once Cinnibar.
‘Help me…’ he groaned.
‘You are of no use to it now,’ said Havoc. ‘The Dark Entity cannot help you, nothing can help you.’ Sernac slumped to his knees and his head lolled forward.
As the king pulled his sword from the dead man’s chest, the growing mass of the entity developed a mouth where Cinnibar’s head should have been and roared through the wobbling tear that formed into wide lips. It’s fat head arched back on a thick neck and roared up toward the ceiling. Strangely, it did not direct it’s attention to them, but to something above them. That was when Havoc heard the tearing of stone and wood over the sound of the rushing wind. Up above them, the roof was ripped open by something unseen. Havoc pulled Bleudwed out of the way as curved beams smacked onto the marble floor and plaster rained down in large chunks. Wide slabs of sunlight broke through to illuminate the scene, the Earth Daemon shrunk back from it, yelling in pain. A huge body blocked the light and both the king and countess saw a wide horse like head poke through the gap in the roof followed by a long snaking neck.
Ciriana snarled at the Entity, showing long white fangs, as she pushed the rest of the roof out of her way so she could climb into the temple. Down below her, the Earth Daemon flapped it’s many pseudo limbs in agitation and inside the Gredligg Orrinn the colours of the My’thos returned, pulsing with vibrancy and crashing against the top of the stone, but reaching no further.
‘At last, Cinnibar, our destinies converge,’ growled Ciriana, as she leapt through the hole she had ripped in the roof. ‘Now we meet our doom together.’ The Dragon and the Daemon embraced, Ciriana’s four talons gripped the pulsing mass of the Earth Daemon and she wrapped her long wings around it. The daemon roared as they struggled together, floating several feet above the Orrinn. Because of the dragons embrace she was stopping the entity from growing further. The tentacles of the Earth Daemon probed over the dragon’s scales, found the nostrils and the mouth and tried to invade her. Ciriana resisted by biting the tendrils, but she could not hold it off for long, already they were wriggling under her scales, turning their iridescent blue sheen black.
Her head snapped around to look at Havoc.
‘Remember Havoc, “Hope Resides in an Orrinns Caulk,”’ she said. Those were her last words as the tendrils engulfed her snout and entered her throat.
Havoc looked questioningly at Bleudwed, who shrugged in confusion. He then looked over towards the Gredligg Orrinn, the colours within reached towards the broken section at the top as they tried to escape the confines of the orb, every colour imaginable, vibrant and eager, all of the colours apart from….silver.
Silver! He smiled to himself in understanding.
‘Of course! The Muse Orrinn on SinDex is part of the Great Orrinn. I need to make the Orrinn whole to release the My’thos.’ He rushed forward, fighting with the Rawn Arts against the wind that tried to push him back. He heard Bleudwed scream his name behind him. He reached the altar stone and climbed up it, using all of his Rawn skill to keep his balance. The black mass above him bulged and pulsated as it consumed Ciriana, it was difficult to tell where the dragon began and the Dark Entity ended. The king took the Sword that Rules in both hands, gripping the hilt tightly, and then placed the tip into the broken gap at the top of the Great Orrinn. Above him, the frothing, pulsating blackness that was once the Queen of Sonora now enveloped the dragon entirely. He could barely make out the scales under the whipping tentacles that covered Ciriana.
He pushed.
The sword of Pyromancium slipped into the stone with ease, sparks flew around the blade as the king shoved it through the Orrinn’s centre and stopped pushing when it only had six inches to go from the hilt. He stepped back and saw the multitude of colours within the Orrinn travel up the blade and into the Muse Orrinn on the hilt’s pommel.
There was a sudden silence, which lasted for five seconds, as Havoc held his breath in anticipation. Then the many colours of the My’thos shot upwards at extraordinary speed to cover the Earth Daemon in their essence.
A powerful backwash of pressure sent the king off his feet and hurtling over to the other side of the room. Bleudwed rushed to him and helped him to stand. Together they watched the dazzling light show before them; lightning danced and zigzagged through the amalgamation of creatures. The My’thos gripped and covered the Dark Entity totally, some formed shapes briefly, as they had done in life, humanoid shapes of stone, tree, sand or cloud and covered him, sticking to his pulsing mass like a wet blanket.
The entity cracked and blistered under the onslaught as the Old Gods invaded it’s body, ripping it open and tearing him to shreds. Around Havoc and Bleudwed rose the dancing hues of volatile energy, which now became visible to both of them as the glowing light from the My’thos fell upon it. Other streams of energy joined in, some blue or orange, others a mixture of many. The streams of coloured filaments from the Dragon Lanes gravitated towards the My’thos and entered the Earth Daemon, who roared in fear, rage and pain as it infected its body, spreading through it like a web of golden arteries and causing it’s newly found organic matter to wither. The creature’s roaring ceased just before the thing imploded into thousands of tiny fragments, to be pulled back into the earth by the Dragon Lane energy filaments.
A loud sucking noise drew Havoc and Bleudwed’s attention to the Gredligg Orrinn. The vibrant colours of the My’thos fell back into the stone, travelling down the shaft of the black blade. As the last motes of colour disappeared inside, a thunderclap of sound echoed around the room.
And then all was still.
Havoc and Bleudwed stood slowly from their crouched position, looking around them. Only the hushed whispering from the Orrinn broke the silence in the temple and the reinvigorated hues within it danced with happy reassurance once more.
‘Is it over?’ said Bleudwed.
No Daemon hung in the air, no dragon fought it. Cinnibar was gone, and so too were the energy filaments that had once filled the room. Apart from the whispering from the stone, the room felt empty.
‘Yes, yes it’s over, Ciriana distracted it long enough for me to finish the task,’ said Havoc.
‘To plug the Orrinn, right?’ said Bleudwed and sighed. ‘Thank the My’thos it’s over.’
‘Over? Yes. The Earth Daemon has been torn apart and redistributed back into his twins embrace. Yet, there is still one question that puzzles me?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, did you speak the truth when you said I was the only man you have ever loved?’ Havoc asked smiling.
‘Ah, now...’ Bleudwed blushed. ‘When I said that, I thought you were dead…
’ she never got to finish the sentence, because Havoc kissed her full in the mouth. She moaned under his lips and hugged him tightly.
Movement behind them disturbed the moment. They both turned and the countess gave a small yelp of surprise.
Lord Sernac was sitting up and looking around the room dumbfounded, but there was something different about him. His hair was no longer white but brown, though greying at the temples. His grey eyes were wide and innocent on his pleasant face. He saw the couple beside him and offered them both a worried smile.
‘Where am I?’ he asked them. ‘Who are you?’
‘You’re in Sonora. My name is Havoc, this is Bleudwed,’ said the king.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you. My name is Darus, Lord of Tressel.’
Havoc and Bleudwed looked at each other and smiled.
‘The twin has awoken,’ informed Havoc and Bleudwed giggled.
A deep cough, coming from the main entrance, drew their attention. They turned and saw Little Kith taking up most of the doorway with the shorter Gunach beside him.
‘It took us a bit of time to remove the rubble and get here, Boss. Did we miss anything,’ said the big man.
‘Nothing we couldn’t handle,’ said the king. ‘Look after this man for me will you, he’s a bit lost,’ he pointed towards Darus, who was still looking around him in confused wonder.
‘Soneros Ri?’ frowned Kith.
‘He goes by the name of Darus now,’ said Bleudwed. Little Kith looked as bewildered as the man on the floor did. He heard Gunach chuckle beside him. The dwarf hefted his large axe onto his shoulder and walked into the room. He looked around at the devastation of the roof.
‘What happened to Ciriana?’ he asked the king.