Demon Lord VI - Son of Chaos

by T C Southwell

  “Where to now?”

  Nikira looked around, then led him to the door and out into the corridor, where she consulted the signs on the walls. Bane followed her along several long, door-lined halls to an imposing foyer decorated in muted tones, with dull pictures and potted plants. A well-dressed woman sat at a desk in the first, small room, beyond which was a pair of tall, polished wooden doors. Bane stopped outside them and bent to whisper in her ear.

  “Go in. I will follow.”

  Nikira nodded, and he released her from the light shield. As she pushed open the doors, the woman at the desk behind them jumped up, saying, “Hey, you can’t go in there! How did you -?”

  Bane gestured at her, and her face went blank, then she returned to her desk and sat down. He followed Nikira into a spacious, tastelessly furnished office decorated in drab colours, where a fat man with a walrus moustache clad in a shiny grey suit gaped at Nikira from behind an imposing desk. The man jumped up, his face mottling.

  “Commander Nikira, who authorised you to see me? It certainly wasn’t me!”

  Bane took control of her, and she said, “I am here at the behest of the Grey God Kayos. You will listen to his message.”

  “I’ll do no such thing!”

  “Only hours ago, Kayos entered the birthing chamber of your unborn goddess, and, with his aid, she was born. Her name is Sherinias, and you will learn to worship her, or perish. She has banished all mortals from the light realm, and soon she will close the Realm Gate. If your people are here when it closes, they will never be able to return to your domain.”

  He touched an instrument on his desk. “Security, come to my office immediately!”

  “Heed the words of the Demon Lord. Take all your people back within your world, or be trapped here forever.”

  Bane released her, and she staggered a little, then he stepped closer and whispered, “We are grateful, Nikira. I will leave now.”

  Nikira swung around as he headed for the doors.

  ***

  Nikira wanted to call out for him to wait, to take her with him, but bit her tongue. The sensation of being in his arms was still a strong memory, and filled her with trembling joy. Despite the illness, it had been the most marvellous experience of her life. She turned back to Governor Predoran, who spoke into his intercom, telling the soldiers about the madwoman in his office. Recalling what Bane had made her say, she approached his desk, picked up the remote control and activated the vidscreen on his wall. The garishly made up face of a popular female reporter filled it, talking rapidly against a background of shouting people.

  “...We’re still not sure what’s happened, but it looks as if all the buildings from the Cloud World Recreation Centre have been dumped across the fields of this small farming community. A large number of tourists have been found wandering in a dazed state amongst them, and they have a strange story to tell.”

  The reporter turned to a uniformed man beside her. “What did you see, Lieutenant?”

  The pale, scared looking man said, “It was a-a woman... in a diamond dress... she came out of the Vartman Archaeological Site. She... she told us that it was her world and then... then we were here... I don’t know how we got here.”

  “Did she say anything else?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes... she was glowing... and she told us to begone.”

  “Begone?”

  “Yes.”

  The reporter shoved the microphone closer to him. “Did she say who she was?”

  “No.”

  The reporter faced the camera. “Well, there you have it. Something very strange has happened in Cloud World, but unconfirmed reports say that traffic is still passing through the Golden Gate. To recap -”

  Nikira switched off the vidscreen and turned to Predoran, who gaped at it. “Now do you believe me?”

  “What the hell was that all about? We’re being invaded by dra’voren?”

  “No, she’s a creator. Our creator. Move the people into Bayona, Governor. The Great Gate is going to close.”

  “Bullshit! That Gate can never be closed. It’s solid, it’s never moved, it’s two hundred and fifty-seven yards high and twenty yards thick! Nothing that big could move. It doesn’t have hinges for pity’s sake!”

  Nikira leant on his desk and glared at him. “Our god created it, and she’s going to close it, whether you believe it or not. Tell the people what I’ve said, let them decide if they want to go in or not.”

  “I’m not causing a city-wide panic on the say-so of a half-baked stealth ship commander who’s been under too much stress and has started to see gods. There are no gods! They’re a myth!”

  “They’re not a myth. I’ve seen them. I’ve spoken to them. How do you think I got here?”

  Two security guards burst in, and Predoran gestured at her. “Get her out of here.”

  The men gripped Nikira’s arms and dragged her towards the doors. “Ask my crew, Predoran,” she said. “They saw them too!”

  “We’ve already done that. They saw a dra’voren, and he’s twisted your mind. He disfigured Senior SciTech Drontar, and you helped him. You’re going to die for treason, Commander!”

  Nikira struggled, and the guards twisted her arms, making her curse. “Those words weren’t mine. He spoke through me. He was here, in your office!”

  “Who?”

  “The Demon Lord!”

  Predoran laughed. “I only saw you.”

  “He was invisible! He brought me here. We flew across the city.”

  “Yeah, right, and fen dogs can talk.”

  “You’re going to regret this!” Nikira shouted as the guards hustled her through the doors. “You’ll be trapped out here forever!”

  Predoran’s laughter followed her into the foyer, and she sagged, allowing the guards to take her back to the prison.

  ***

  Bane entered the gazebo and flopped down on the spare couch someone had created for him, frowning.

  “I rejoice at your safe return, Brother,” Sherinias said, smiling.

  He returned her smile a little stiffly. “It is good to be back, Sister.”

  “What happened?” Kayos asked.

  “Yes, tell us, Bane. Father would not allow me to watch you with my Eye. Such mystery.” Her smile broadened, and dimples appeared in her cheeks.

  “He did not believe her. Her leader. He laughed.”

  “Perhaps we should close the Gate for a while, and then open it again,” the Grey God suggested.

  “If Nikira is right, they will just try to destroy it.”

  Sherinias giggled. “No one can destroy a realm gate.”

  Bane smiled. “We know that, but they do not.”

  “Then they will learn.”

  “I think we should do it.” Kayos glanced up at the stream of flying traffic that zoomed past overhead. “At least it will put an end to that.”

  “May I also close the World Gate, Father?”

  “Not yet. These machines will be trapped in here if you do, although you could banish them, of course. Easier to let them leave and tell the people what has happened.”

  She inclined her head, brushing aside a lock of hair. “I must see to the tainted souls in the White City, Father. Their presence offends me.”

  “Of course it does, and you shall, when the time is right.”

  “I will adhere to your guidance, naturally.”

  “You are a fine and obedient daughter. I am proud of you.”

  Sherinias’ eyes sparkled with delight, and she beamed at him. “I will always do my utmost to please you, Father.”

  Bane sighed, weary of all the flowery rigmarole. He sipped his ambrosia and glanced at Drevarin, who gazed at Sherinias, patently entranced. Bane wanted to kick him. He waved away his cup. “Drevarin, walk with me. I would speak to you.”

  Bane rose, and, after a moment of surprised inaction, Drevarin followed him into the clouds. As soon as they were out of earshot of the gazebo, Bane turned to him. “Clearly you are smitte
n with Sherinias, but must you be so obvious about it?”

  His brows shot up. “I am?”

  “Sickeningly. Just how young are you?”

  “Only two thousand, four hundred and fifty-two.”

  Bane chuckled. “Compared to me, you are ancient, but I would have thought you would have learnt a little more about women in that time.”

  “Mortal women, but she is a goddess.”

  “And she is less than a day old. Is that not a bit young?”

  Drevarin pulled a face and nodded. “It is. I will have to wait at least two hundred years before she will even understand my feelings.”

  “So she has no inkling of what is wrong with you, even though it is painfully obvious to the rest of us?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Good.”

  Drevarin hesitated. “I would like your permission to court her, when the time is right.”

  Bane cocked his head and smiled. “In two hundred years’ time?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do not need my permission. Ask Kayos.”

  “Then you give it?” Drevarin asked.

  “She is not really my sister.”

  “Yes, she is. Kayos has adopted her.”

  Bane shrugged and gazed into the clouds. “All right, but you still do not need permission from her brother.”

  “I would prefer to have it, Bane.”

  “You have it then, but only in two hundred years’ time.”

  “Naturally.”

  Bane snorted and turned to walk back to the gazebo, but Drevarin detained him with a hand on his arm. “May I ask how young you are?”

  The Demon Lord eyed him, then smiled. “Twenty-two.”

  Drevarin chuckled. “Young indeed.”

  “A child by your standards, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  They returned to the gazebo, where Sherinias questioned Kayos again, listening raptly to his answers. Bane settled back on his couch and summoned another cup, finding some of the answers interesting himself. The flying traffic hummed overhead, and Bane noticed that there were a lot more large, dull grey vehicles than before, most of them heading out of the Realm Gate. A small, brightly coloured vehicle swooped from the stream of ships and hovered not far away. Soon a second, then a third joined it. Bane sensed Drevarin’s light shield envelope them, and after a few minutes the vehicles left. Kayos tired of Sherinias’ questions half an hour later, and rose.

  “Come, Daughter, let us close the Realm Gate now.”

  She jumped up, smiling, and looked at Bane. “Will you come with us, Brother?”

  Bane shrugged. “Certainly.”

  Drevarin joined them, and they walked to the Realm Gate. The ancient, massive portal opened outwards, unlike the one in Kayos’ domain, but Bane suspected that was merely a matter of choice. He wondered why it had remained open, for in his experience realm gates closed by themselves after a few minutes. Sherinias stopped in front of it, dwarfed by its size, as they all were. Bane studied its edges, and spied two runes at the top that appeared to be active, but it was hard to make out their glow in the surrounding radiance.

  Sherinias hesitated and glanced at Kayos, but he merely tilted his head. This was her task. A vague look crossed her face, which Bane assumed meant that she was accessing the Oracle, then she walked over to the side of the Gate and studied the runes there. She pressed her palm to a single rune just within her reach, and Bane glanced up at the two high above as it lighted. They dimmed, indicating that they had been active, and solved the mystery of the open Gate, though not the reason for it.

  The runes around the Gate glowed in a glimmering sequence, and then the Realm Gate began to chime. The hauntingly sweet, echoing chimes made Bane’s nape hairs rise, and the ground trembled. With a soft grating of stone, the Gate started to swing closed with ponderous majesty, and some of the vehicles that flew through it swerved in alarm, narrowly missing others. A brightly coloured vehicle shot through the Gate and stopped, turned towards it and hovered above them.

  The shimmering lights of the city outside gradually vanished as the bulk of the Gate came into view, and Sherinias cast Kayos a happy smile. The vehicles shot through it at greater speed, and some turned just outside and re-entered the domain. More and more hovered above them, causing a blockade that slowed the incoming traffic as it was forced to avoid them. A large, dull grey vehicle sailed up and stopped, and beams of blue fire spat from its bow, striking the Gate. The giant portal absorbed the blue light without any effect.

  Sherinias glared up at the hovering vehicles, and then waved her hand at them. “Begone!”

  All the vehicles in sight vanished, but soon more appeared from both directions. The ones inside stopped, the ones outside speeded up to shoot in. The gap between the Gate and its frame shrank steadily, and soon the city outside was hidden from view. A few brave vehicles zipped through the narrowing gap, and the Gate stopped chiming. Kayos waved an Eye into being, and Bane glanced at it over his shoulder. It showed the small fire dome just outside the Gate. People ran around inside it, most fleeing towards the larger fire dome.

  A last, intrepid vehicle made a heroic dash through the closing Gate, then the mighty portal slowed as it neared its closing. It glowed with soft white radiance, and Bane realised that this was caused by the wards within the stone activating, preparing to seal the Gate when it closed. Its edges touched, and the Gate rumbled shut, then came the soft grating as the giant stone lock engaged.

  Bane lowered his gaze to Kayos’ Eye, and Drevarin and Sherinias moved closer to look into it as well. It showed the night-black outside of the Gate, and, at its foot, the fire dome. As the sound of the lock engaging ended with a soft thud, lines of white fire spat from points all around the Gate, meshing the air with a web of light. Several struck the fire dome, and pale flames licked over it, consuming it in a flash of radiance, then explosions ripped through the buildings that were housed within it. In a few minutes, nothing remained of the buildings or the dome save rubble, smoke and settling dust.

  Sherinias turned to beam at Kayos. “I feel much better, Father. We are safe. No dark god may enter my domain now.”

  “Who left the Gate open, Sherinias?” Bane enquired.

  “The dark god, but I do not know why.”

  Bane glanced up at the Gate, realisation dawning. “I do.”

  “Will you tell me, Brother?”

  “He wanted to hunt Pretarin in the God Realm, so he left the Gate open to allow him to flee.”

  A frown wrinkled Sherinias’ brow, then a growing brilliance above them made her glance up. A star formed within a pattern of runes halfway up the Gate, giving off scintillating light. Sherinias gasped and pointed at it, her eyes wide with wonder. The star’s light dimmed, and for a moment it hung shimmering in its nook, then it fell. Sherinias sprang forward to catch it, cupped it in her hands and turned to Kayos with a puzzled, amazed expression.

  He smiled. “It is your key, child. It opens the Gate. It seems that Pretarin took his key with him when he died.”

  She gazed at it. “It is beautiful, Father.”

  “Yes, they are very pretty. Keep it safe.”

  Sherinias tucked it into the folds of her gown, and they followed Kayos back to the gazebo. The flotilla of vehicles hovered before the Gate, more joining from the direction of the World Gate. The four of them sank down on the couches, and Kayos formed another Eye, as did Sherinias and Drevarin. Bane moved over to Drevarin’s couch and shared his Eye, and Sherinias cast him a puzzled look, then glanced at Kayos, who ignored her enquiring gaze.

  The image within Drevarin’s Eye showed a world tainted by darkness, but not entirely corrupted, and it changed as he searched for something interesting. In some scenes, dark clouds blocked out the sun as vast storms raged across grey seas, sending massive waves to ravage the shores. Two Sources poured dark power into leaden skies, the land around them blasted and dead. Several nearby mountains belched ash, lava flowing down their slopes. Th
e domain’s other World Gate, entrance to the dark realm, stood open in a bleak, stony land scoured by the shadows that streamed from it, corrupting and killing everything around it.

  The dark realm’s Gate had been formed at the bottom of a deep canyon, set into a cliff. Above it, forked tongues of lightning licked a grey sky. Drevarin shot Bane a dismayed glance as the Eye found more gloomy areas, where people struggled to scratch a living from poisonous soil. Vast deserts swallowed distant lands, and brackish lakes birthed plains of sparkling salt. Dull seas swept rancid shores caked with rotting filth, and mutilated beasts perished slowly from vile diseases.

  The Eye’s image changed to a crowd near the tumbled remains of the buildings Sherinias had cast out of the light realm. Uniformed men marched around, argued and waved their arms as they inspected the wreckage. Several men and women stood talking rapidly, each facing another person who pointed an odd instrument at them.

  Drevarin glanced at Bane. “That looks interesting.”

  Bane nodded. “We should go down and listen to what they are saying.”

  “An excellent idea.” Drevarin beamed, waved the Eye out of existence and laid his hand on Bane’s shoulder.

  Kayos glanced over at the empty couch with a slight frown, then returned to his perusal of the scene within his Eye.

  Sherinias turned to him and cried, “May I go too, Father?”

  “No.”

  “But I want to listen to them too, why may I not go?”

  Kayos’ frown deepened. “You are too young.”

  “Surely I will be safe if you will come with me?”

  “It is not your safety I am concerned about. You are not ready to walk amongst men. Be still now.”

  Sherinias opened her mouth to protest, but then pouted and turned her attention back to her Eye.

  ***

  “What?” Governor Predoran stared at the officer who stood before him, unable to believe his ears.

  “The Great Gate has closed, Governor.”