Part of her couldn’t help but marvel in wonder at Phane’s plight. It was proof positive that the Maker had a sense of humor, though a somewhat dark one in this instance.
While she recovered, Rankosi turned to the Acuna wizards.
“You are men of power. Serve me and you will be rewarded. Challenge me or run like cowards and you will be punished.”
“Who exactly are you?” one of the wizards asked.
“I am Rankosi … and I am in possession of the most powerful wizard alive. When you think about, I believe you’ll come to realize that your options are limited.”
He spoke so amiably, so reasonably, and yet there was an unmistakable undercurrent of malice and pent-up rage beneath his words—an unnatural quality to his voice that set a person’s hair on end.
“What do—” one Acuna wizard started to say.
Rankosi’s hand shot out in a savage gesture. The wizard was lifted twenty feet into the air so quickly that the wind was sucked from his lungs, then slammed into the ground so hard that he left an indentation a foot deep filled with his pulverized remains. Blood and viscera splattered everyone. Isabel felt a string of droplets hit her cheek.
Rankosi seemed pleased.
“You will serve me faithfully and without question or hesitation. Do this and I will reward you. Fail to do this and I will punish you. I can’t make your options any clearer.”
All of the remaining Acuna wizards stood stock-still, gradually looking to the High Overseer to speak for them. Rankosi waited with exaggerated patience.
“We will serve you,” the High Overseer said.
“Excellent,” Rankosi said, cocking his head as he looked at the mage wizard. “You are a powerful one, aren’t you?”
The High Overseer hesitated for a moment, before nodding. “I am now the most powerful Acuna wizard in the Seven Isles.”
“Good,” Rankosi said, drawing the word out as he turned toward the Nether Gate.
“Jinzeri!” he called out. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
The shade flitted from the Nether Gate, darting across the battlefield and into the High Overseer. The two seemed to struggle for several moments before Jinzeri smiled, stretching his new body like he’d just gotten out of bed.
“Hello, Brother.”
The other Acuna wizards backed away from them both, wary and clearly searching for a way to escape.
Isabel got to her feet, looking around at her situation.
Rankosi had Phane, Jinzeri had the High Overseer, Tyr and his men seemed to be taking a wait-and-see attitude, standing off to the side a bit with Lacy. The two-hundred-odd soldiers that remained atop the plateau didn’t seem to know that Phane was now under the control of a demonic master, though they had stopped fighting amongst themselves.
The only thing going for Isabel was the fact that the Acuna wizards were on the brink of a fight for their lives. One bad decision on their part might be all the distraction she needed.
If she could make it to the cliff, Rankosi and Jinzeri would be banished.
There was a commotion amongst the soldiers, a wave of gasps. Isabel turned with Rankosi and the remaining wizards to look out into the distance to the west. The air was dark, crackling with lightning and swirling in a vortex around a spot on the ground a thousand feet to a side. The vortex stretched into the sky, darkening the otherwise mild spring day. Then, with a tremendous clap of thunder, it faded away, spiraling into nothingness and leaving an army on the battlefield less than a mile away.
Isabel blinked. What she’d just witnessed was impossible, and yet, there they were. Ten thousand soldiers, clustered together in a tight formation that began to spread out the moment they arrived.
Rankosi started laughing.
“Oh, Peti, how clever of you … and how misguided,” he said, stifling a chuckle. “You’ve brought me an army of undead and you don’t even realize it … but you will.”
“Undead?” Isabel blurted.
“Yes, her soldiers are all animated corpses,” Rankosi said. “And considering the sigil she used to get them here, it really was the only option.”
A thick, mottled green fog began to surround the Sin’Rath’s undead army, extending two dozen feet around all sides of them and ten feet overhead, with only an eye in the center clear of the noxious fumes. The fog kept pace with them as they marched toward the plateau.
The Regency Army began forming up to face the new threat on the one side and the two legions of Rangers approaching on the other. Off to the north, Zuhl’s army had regrouped, less than half of its original strength remaining, but still a formidable force.
“Well done, you half-breed abomination,” Rankosi said jovially, flashing his brother a malicious smile. “Shame she’s late to the party.”
He turned to the Nether Gate. “Sin’Rath,” he said, distinctly.
A few moments passed before the darkness at the center of the Nether Gate swirled and a woman stepped through. She was the most hideous, monstrously ugly creature that Isabel had ever seen. She was deformed, mottled, pockmarked, her contorted flesh dotted with festering pustules, little drops of reddish liquid dried in streaks beneath them. Her face looked like melted wax that had been reheated and sculpted over and over again in an effort to fix a mistake made long ago, but without success.
Looking at her made Isabel feel a mixture of revulsion and abject pity. As the thought of pity formed in her mind, Sin’Rath turned her gaze on Isabel and she transformed in an instant.
One moment she was the most vile and hideous creature, the next she was sublimely beautiful. A perfectly proportioned woman in every respect, with clear skin and straight white teeth, glistening blonde hair and an alluring, sensual look in her eyes that Isabel felt drawn to.
All of the men on the field stopped to stare at her, many dropping their weapons absentmindedly.
“Hello, Sister,” Rankosi said.
Sin’Rath turned her attention to Rankosi and the illusion faltered—she became the monster again. Isabel wondered if men always saw her as the alluring beauty.
“Hello, Brother,” Sin’Rath said with a bit of an edge in her voice.
Rankosi smiled, clearly relishing the power he had over her.
“Tell your whelp to send her army after that army,” Rankosi said, pointing at Zuhl’s remaining forces. “They don’t even know they’re fighting for a dead man.” He chuckled. “How delicious is that?”
Sin’Rath bowed slightly, transforming into a whirl of shadowy air and streaking off across the sky, nothing but a gust of dark wind headed for the newly arrived legion of undead.
A few minutes later, Peti’s army turned north.
“You see, all is well in hand,” Rankosi said, smiling with maleficent glee.
The Acuna didn’t look so certain, and Tyr was beginning to look dubious as well.
Rankosi turned his smile on Isabel and said, “Soon, Samael will bring me your husband and his precious Stone, which will give me access to the Gates. Legion here will take care of the rest.”
Chapter 42
Alexander slowly became aware, not of anything in particular, more just aware that he was aware, and that he was surrounded by darkness. He drifted for what seemed like a long time, detached and at peace, floating calmly.
Slowly, thoughts began to intrude into his serenity, flashes of memories and emotions. His brother’s death. Isabel on their wedding day. The moment his eyes met Anja’s. His life unfolded before him—every important, emotionally significant, formative event laid out before him. It happened with excruciating detail, every event scrutinized, every choice weighed, both by his own most demanding self and by some higher source of wisdom, present as though it had always been there with him.
While it happened with exacting attention to the last detail, his entire life flashed past him in the space of a heartbeat. And then all was silent again.
He reflected on his life and decided that, on balance, he was proud of the life he’d lived. Eve
n with all of the killing he’d done, he judged that he’d done more good than harm.
An odd sensation of movement came over him and then it felt like he broke the surface of a vast ocean. A moment passed before it hit him like a lightning bolt—he was in the firmament.
He thought of Siduri, shouting the First Adept’s name with all of his will. A moment passed, then another. The firmament abruptly flashed by and then came to a stop just as quickly. Alexander stumbled and fell on his face on the banks of a river, dropping the phylactery and Luminessence.
His body was weak. Not just tired or spent, but weak, like it was failing. He got to his hands and knees, then levered himself to his feet with Luminessence. Only after he was standing, leaning heavily on his staff, did he look up.
Siduri sat on the porch of his little house beside the river.
Their eyes met. Alexander saw such sadness, loss, fear, and guilt bound up in those eyes and in his remarkably complex colors. But he also saw resolve.
“You saw,” Alexander said. Just speaking those two words felt like more effort than he could muster.
Siduri nodded, tears slipping from his eyes.
“All of the destruction they’ve wrought, all of the death, all of the war … all this time, I could have stopped it.” He stood up, walking down the three steps from his porch.
“I deserve my fate, Alexander. And I intend to embrace it. If you survive this day, and I hope that you will, I would ask that you watch over this world better than I did.”
Before Alexander could work up the energy to speak, Siduri put a hand on his shoulder and offered him a smile. They plunged into the firmament, the ocean of creation flashing by and then they were standing on a plateau on the Reishi Isle surrounded by death and chaos.
Alexander slumped to his knees, then onto the ground. He heard a gasp. Looking with his magic, he saw her. Isabel was alive and well enough given the circumstances. The sight of her gave him a jolt of new vigor, though he still didn’t have the strength to stand. He held Luminessence with both hands, waiting for his last chance to make a difference.
He scanned the battlefield. Peti and ten thousand undead were marching on Zuhl’s remaining fifteen thousand soldiers. To the east, Naberius had killed and then raised the bulk of the Ithilian legion; they were marching toward the plateau. Two legions of Rangers were minutes away from engaging Phane’s Regency Army.
Siduri took a few steps toward Rankosi and Jinzeri, drawing their attention.
“Father,” Rankosi said with a smile.
“My sword!” Tyr shouted, pointing at Alexander.
Rankosi glared at him, knocking the pirate king back onto his butt with a disdainful flick of his finger and a sneer before turning back to Siduri.
“It’s so good to have the family back together again,” Rankosi said, capitalizing on Phane’s boyish smile to add to the incongruity of his words.
“I failed you, My Sons,” Siduri said. “And through you, I have failed the world.”
“Come now, Father, we’ve been over this before,” Jinzeri said.
“Many times, as I recall,” Rankosi added. “You didn’t come all this way to see your children just to dwell on old wounds, did you?”
The shades both laughed.
Siduri muttered something to himself, closing his eyes and looking up for a moment.
“Have mercy on my children,” he said.
Both of the shades stopped laughing and frowned at him, confusion vying with concern.
He walked to Rankosi, a silvery outline cloaking his physical form, then reached out and grabbed him by the throat, ripping him from Phane’s body and holding his struggling, shadowy form as he went to Jinzeri, jerking him from his host by the throat as well. Both silently shrieked in rage, railing against Siduri, but his grip held.
He moved quickly, transforming entirely into an empty outline of silvery light, shedding his substance as he slipped into the aether. Both shades struggled wildly, flailing and whimpering as Siduri hauled them inexorably toward the Nether Gate. He didn’t look back. He had no words. He simply took his children to face the Taker.
A moment of confusion and stunned silence settled over the battlefield. Isabel gasped, filling her lungs as if she’d been drowning for all this time. The portal to the netherworld closed in her mind, all trace of it vanishing as the shades were banished from the world. The darkness within her was entirely gone. She was free of it at last. Despite her physical injuries and her current predicament, she felt better than she had in months.
Alexander opened the door to his Wizard’s Den.
“Now, Little One,” he called out in his mind. “Free Isabel and Lacy.”
Chloe darted forth, flitting across the battlefield to Isabel. Her collar vanished. Chloe disappeared again, appearing in a ball of light behind Lacy, her collar vanishing as well.
Alexander rolled to his knees, both hands on Luminessence, the butt in the dirt, his forehead against the smooth, rune-carved shaft.
“Bring forth the light,” he whispered, pouring his will and his life into the staff, giving everything he had left. He knew he was dying. He could feel his life draining away. But here, now, he had a chance to expend that last bit of himself on something worthy.
Luminessence flared brilliantly, sending a shock wave of radiance out across the battlefield, scorching the flesh of all things from the darkness. A hue and cry rose up from all quarters. The undead armies led by Sin’Rath and Naberius howled in pain. Legion shielded his yellow eyes and shouted something angry and threatening.
Alexander’s forces also saw the light. A horn blew from one Ranger legion and was answered by another as they converged to attack the Regency Army with a volley of multiplicative arrows, each shaft transforming into five in flight, savaging Phane’s army in a matter of seconds.
Alexander heard a young woman’s voice above it all. A clear, light, honest voice, singing with all her might into the afternoon sky, her song carrying across the entire battlefield, bringing doubt and guilt to those who fought for the wrong reasons and hope and glory to those who fought for the right ones.
Alexander focused on Wren’s voice, a thread of perfect clarity woven into the fabric of chaos all around him. As he listened, he poured the joy her song evoked into the staff. He poured forth his love for Isabel, his love for life, and his love for the Old Law.
His light rose to a crescendo, reaching out across the entire battlefield with a pulse of such sudden glorious radiance that all of the undead soldiers flash-burned in an instant, leaving nothing but charred shadows marking where they had stood the moment that Alexander Reishi brought the Maker’s light into the world.
Legion lunged at him, but the light overpowered him, blasting him away from Alexander and into the air, erasing him from the world in a streak of flame and ash. Naberius howled into the light as it burned him away, scouring his unwelcome presence from the Seven Isles. Sin’Rath and Peti both ignited as well, burning in screaming pillars of hot blue flame, their bodies burned to soot in moments.
A moaning, desperate, hateful wail began to emanate from the Nether Gate. Alexander held his light, wondering to himself how he still had the strength to remain alive, let alone bring forth such brilliance from Luminessence. He raised his head, still holding the staff before himself with both hands, willing the light to shine brighter still, focusing his intention on the portal to the netherworld.
The wails increased in volume and in number, more and more voices, frantically yammering in response to Alexander’s light shining into the darkness. They began to scream, howling with rage and desperation that transformed into insane, panicked gibbering.
Alexander pushed the last of his will and his life into the staff. The howling transformed into horrific, terrified wails of agony. A clawed hand reached through the Gate from out of the darkness. It was big. Big enough to pick up a man. It grabbed the top of the Gate and pulled, a thunderous roar of rage flooding the world as the hand began to burn, smoke swirlin
g away in hot streamers. A second enormous clawed hand and then a third thrust out of the netherworld and grabbed the sides of the gate, heaving with a tortured howl of rage and pain.
The stone cracked in three places at once, large chunks breaking off and falling into the portal, leaving a spinning vortex of such darkness that it looked like it could swallow the world. It hovered in place, drawing in ever smaller pieces of the Nether Gate and then the soil and stone from around it. After all vestiges of Malachi’s worst creation were gone, the dark vortex began to collapse, closing in on itself and vanishing a few moments later, leaving nothing but a scorched spot on the ground.
The Nether Gate was destroyed.
Alexander felt a weight lift. He didn’t realize how heavy it had been until this moment. Since he’d first learned of it, the Nether Gate and all that it represented had haunted him more than any other enemy.
He released his light and fell over, plunging the world into relative darkness as he let go. Closing his eyes, he felt heavy, as if he were pinned to the ground.
Phane peeked out from behind his hands, smiling like the sunrise when he saw Alexander, lifting him from the ground with a gesture.
“We meet in person at last, Cousin.”
Isabel was up and armed with a knife. She hit Phane with her Maker’s light, disrupting his thinking and rendering him confused for a moment. Alexander crumpled to the ground.
She rushed toward Phane, dagger out and ready for blood, focused on her target to the exclusion of everything else. A blur entered her vision from the side and Tyr crashed into her, knocking her to the ground, leaving her stunned. Alexander wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t even roll to his knees. Tyr smiled down at her, kicking her in the belly before she could regain her senses, sweeping her dropped dagger aside with his foot and grinning lewdly at one of his pirates as he circled toward Alexander.
“Is this your woman?” Tyr barked, kicking Alexander in the gut, rolling him over helplessly.
He took the Thinblade from its sheath and slashed Alexander’s belt with it, drawing the tip of the blade up his belly, slicing his dragon-chain shirt nearly in half along with his tunic.
Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept Page 51