Endure

by M. R. Merrick

  “You will be silent! There is nothing but power, you imbecile. You are my blood, just as they are.” Ithreal signaled the black-covered creatures that surrounded him. “You are all my children, and as such, you bow to me, you obey me, and you believe what I believe. There will be no other mention of weakness.”

  A glassy wall of black had built up inside Drake’s eyes. He looked shattered; his entire world had just collapsed around him.

  Ithreal shook his head, kicking his son to the side. Drake rolled over several times, curling into a ball from the force.

  “You bore me with your sentiment. Where is your brother, Darius? He understands what this is about. He understands the power that’s been stolen from us and the thrones in which all my children deserve.”

  “He’s dead,” I said. I didn’t know where the words came from but I was angry. Fire had ignited my soul and crept along my throat, burning the back of my mouth. Sweat trickled down my forehead and the taste of blood and salt seasoned my lips.

  Ithreal scowled. His eyes panned the people around him and finally settled on me. “You dare speak to me?” his raspy voice snapped. “Who are you? Wait, don’t tell me.” He closed his eyes and began humming an unfamiliar tune. His head tilted from side to side, he nodded, and then looked back at me. “Oh…you’re the son.”

  Ithreal walked toward me and with each step he neared, I stepped away. Anger bubbled inside me and sweat filled my palms. The rubber grip was all that kept the glass blade from slipping out of my hand.

  “So this is the Protector, is it?” He stopped and eyed me from head to toe. “A young boy, full of emotion and…fear? Is that fear I smell?” Ithreal cringed and wiped his hands on his pants. “You’re the vessel that will take me to the gods? How disappointing.”

  “I’m not taking you anywhere. I’m the one who’s going to stop you.” I sounded more confident than I felt. Even with Darius’s magic surging inside me, I felt nervous.

  Ithreal’s power slid off his body and suffocated the air. It tasted like sulfur, and left a bitter taste on my tongue. He turned to Drake who had struggled to push himself to his feet. “Is this true, Drake? Is this my opponent?”

  Drake looked at me, sadness ripe in his eyes, and he nodded.

  “Chase, is it? Since I’ve learned my son cannot be relied on, I’m going to make sure you understand your position. You are a hunter turned demigod, if this human’s memory serves me correct.” He closed his eyes and nodded again before looking at me. “It’s hard to tell what all is inside here. This is a very broken man.” Ithreal laughed. “Where was I? Oh yes, the stakes. You are a demigod now, not unlike my sons…or son, I suppose since you killed the second.” He sniffed the air. “I can smell his power writhing in your veins. The veins of a…human.” Ithreal shivered. “It seems you have an opportunity to advance yourself. In fact, I’d say you’re in a very strong position.”

  “I’m not helping you, so forget it.”

  Ithreal had looked somewhat amused, but that amusement vanished with my words. He gritted his fangs together and leaned toward me. “When I speak, you listen.”

  The command caught me off guard and any words I had were caught in my throat. His power pressed against me, and the sulfur-like aroma burned my eyes.

  “You can either agree to help me, and in return I will grant you not only your life, but a wealth of power. Or you can decline my most generous offer, and I will force myself inside you, leaving nothing but a lifeless corpse in my wake. Of course, before I leave you, I’ll take the time to use your hands and destroy…” Ithreal closed his eyes. “Oooh shall we say, Marcus, Tiki, Chief, Jax…I might save the vampire, I like his attitude…and what’s this…a girl? Yes, the summoner.” Ithreal opened his eyes and smiled. “Should you decline, I will use your very hands to tear the life from Rayna. I will defile her, and the last thing she’ll see is you, stealing everything good she ever believed in.”

  The dark portal pooled behind Ithreal, arms of power snapping on the air. I could still feel the faint tug of its power trying to draw me closer and swallow me whole. I couldn’t describe my emotions. What had started out as anger had far exceeded anything I’d ever felt. It was hot and vengeful, full of pride and frustration. This battle had taken my mother and Willy; it had taken Grayson and hundreds of others whose names I would never know. This fight had taken too much and I wouldn’t listen to another threat. Not from Riley, not from the Brothers, and definitely not from the demon god standing before me. He posed as my father, but he had brought with him the scent of hell, and I was here to send him back.

  My knuckles popped from gripping the blade. Darius’s power had been added to my own and before I had orchestrated a plan, my body moved. The glass blade thrust forward, entering Ithreal’s stomach. I tilted the point up, shoving it higher into his chest. Ithreal’s eyes opened wide and black blood spilled from his mouth. His body hunched over the blade, and I shoved it deeper, pushing him back.

  Ithreal’s Unborn screamed, swiping their blades toward me. My elements exploded and a wave of air blasted them to the ground. Ithreal tried to push back and fight against me, but fire and ice surged through the blade and I drilled the elements into his body. His face crackled, spilling bits of flame, and his eyes became frosted with ice. A gurgle came from his stomach and the blade turned black as it sucked power from his soul. I felt the power enter my body, and although it felt strange, I didn’t flinch. This was where it all ended.

  The portal’s pull became hard to resist and I stopped. The last thing I wanted was to get dragged down into hell with him. I jerked the blade back, and the black magic that filled it drained into my hand. It filled my body with a revitalized power, dark magic rippling in my veins. Blood poured to the ground from Ithreal’s stomach, and the portal dragged him back. His feet skidded through the dirt and when he stood on the edge, a black arm reached out of the portal and tore him into the darkness. The portal growled and screamed, and I backed away with panic.

  Ithreal’s Unborn cried, falling to the ground and pawing at the earth. They screamed his name in whiny voices and inched toward the portal. Drake stared up at me in utter shock. The war around us had paused and everyone stared at me.

  Warmth spread over my body, the sense of victory ripening inside my soul. My legs shook with adrenaline, fear, and excitement, and I turned to share it with the only person I cared to.

  Rayna was at the top of the cliff, the Visceratti Queen beneath her. They had been in a battle of arms, but now they were frozen with eyes only for me. Victory danced at my fingertips for the briefest of moments, and then it was all stripped away.

  A black blur shot out of the portal and crashed into the ground in front of me. Black goo dripped down his face and Ithreal’s stare was locked on me. All the amusement that played upon his features was gone.

  “That was a mistake,” he growled the words. Ithreal summoned more of his essence and black magic spilled from the portal. Ithreal roared and his body jerked, the wounds over his body closing. In a movement so fast I couldn’t follow, his fist hammered into my chest. My body rocketed through the air and when I landed, I had been pushed across what was once the entire forest. My body hit the gravel road that had edged the woods and I skidded across it, rolling into the ditch on the other side.

  Ithreal was in the distance, a black spec among a hoard of monsters. I blinked and he stood in front of me, the gravel beneath his bare feet. His eyes studied my face and he smirked. “Kill everything,” he whispered, and like someone had taken the world off pause, all of his demons attacked and the war carried on.

  The god paced the gravel road, shaking his head. “You’re a fool, Chase. You’re full of all these…emotions. Your thoughts fall into my head without any effort, and they make me feel strange…right here.” He touched his stomach. “It’s as though a creature has crawled into my body and is turning over and over. It makes me angry to sense such things. These emotions you thrive on, they are weakness. They are what has caused you
to lose battle after battle, and in the end, they will result in your death.”

  I crawled out of the ditch and picked up the glass blade, gripping it tight.

  “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? A god’s weapon.” He laughed. “That may be enough to kill my children, but it is not enough to destroy me. It would take all the gods’ combined power to kill me, and thanks to the laws passed down by Serephina herself, that can never happen. Why you people bother fighting is beyond me. This battle is clearly lost.”

  The air crackled with power and thunder crashed through the sky. Black holes opened up in the earth and the battle cries of hundreds stormed through the portals. Trolls charged through one portal, wielding their axes. Ishmar stampeded from another, looking like a toy compared to the enormous beasts that followed. Giants with clubs and hammers stormed the grounds, taking out hoards of Ithreal’s Unborn with a single swipe.

  Another doorway opened and tiny men came running out of the darkness. Their green warty skin glistening with sweat and as each neared the battle, their bodies shifted. Bones broke and reformed, skin stretched, and their eyes darkened. The goblins released the massive beasts that existed inside them and dove into battle with Ithreal’s demons. Warriors I’d never seen broke through new portals that split open in the air. The demons I’d seen in the ice world stampeded through, followed by a dozen armies, led by all of the creatures that sat at the trolls’ table in Drakar.

  A new confidence filled me and I adjusted my stance. Ithreal watched the rushing demons and smiled. “It reminds me of the good ol’ days of the Great War. Only this time Serephina does not win. My children will turn them all against one another, and when I’m done with you, all their souls and Earth’s soul piece will be mine. I will be undefeatable and a new authority will lead the gods. We will take back our worlds and receive the praise we deserve. You should’ve joined me, Chase. I could’ve given you a world of your very own.”

  “I have a world of my very own, and I intend on keeping it that way.”

  “You think you know pain and loss, and that you’ve sacrifice so much; typical of one of Serephina’s creatures, so high and mighty on your own filth. I will show you true sacrifice.”

  Ithreal’s black arms engulfed me and all the light vanished from the world. The air was gone and pressure tightened my body, threatening to snap it in half. When I felt ready to break, his power unraveled and revealed a world basked in red light.

  A vast, empty plain surrounded me and a giant black statue rose up into the clouds. The dry cracked earth went on for as far as I could see, and the earth shook with minor tremors.

  “Vortan,” Ithreal said. “A world taken from me when I was bound by the gods. I ruled this dimension, these people, and this world thrived. Now look at it. A wasteland of filth with no god. This was the gods’ doing. They stole this from me.”

  “They didn’t steal it; you lost it in your quest to dominate them. You played the wrong hand and the gods called your bluff.”

  Ithreal’s power lashed out, tearing open my chest in a slash of heat and magic. My body bounced off the earth and I jumped back to my feet, trying to respond. My own power crackled, lightning flashing from my hands. It burned into Ithreal’s body, black blood sputtering across the dry earth. Ithreal winced, reaching up and touching the wound, and while mine continued to drip a steady stream of red blood, his healed.

  “You are strong, Protector, but Serephina has sold you out. All her energy is holding me down in that lightless dimension. She could not give you what you truly needed.”

  A blur swirled around me and Ithreal’s hand was on my throat. With his mouth against my ear, his voice was a whisper. “Power, Chase. That’s what it is all about. Serephina has led you to believe you’re on a quest to save the freedom of many, but why do you think she is so desperate to have me killed? She wants my power!” Ithreal’s hand squeezed my throat and something popped in my neck. With both hands he grabbed my skull and twisted my neck. There was intense pressure, then pain, a snap, and all went dark.

  ******

  Cold air bit at my skin and the world blinded me when I awoke. My body felt numb, pressed into a mound of white. Flakes of snow drifted from the sky and I trembled. I pulled the fire up from inside me and my skin was so cold the element burned on the way up. A splitting pain pulsed in my mind and my arms shook as I struggled to my feet.

  “I remember this world as though it were yesterday. It is my dimension now, but once it was Alaria’s. She was the mother of my sons, Drake and Darius, and her blood once painted this white snow. She denied me, Chase. A goddess—a power so great that it creates worlds and the magic within them—dead, because she refused our joining. You wish this fate upon yourself?”

  My legs shook but the fire had warmed me. My neck felt awkward and sore, cracking as I tilted it from side to side. “I wish for the freedom to choose. Good versus evil, love versus hate, friendship over loneliness.”

  “You think too small, Protector. Yet another weakness.”

  Ithreal was a smear of black in a storm of white, but I was ready. I arched back my arms and swung the glass blade across the air, anticipating his movement. Ithreal’s body hit the snow, and black blood dotted the white. The earth shook as I summoned the ground beneath me, and shards of rocks came to my beck and call, stabbing through his body. My air element lifted boulders from beneath the snow, carrying them over the god. Ithreal struggled against the spikes and as he began to lift himself off the rocky stakes, I pulled the air element back. One after another the boulders shattered over him, his face and body breaking open after each additional blast. With the last boulder smashing against him, he coughed and gagged, spitting tiny rocks out of his mouth. One of his fangs had been broken in the process, but as it fell out of his mouth, a new fang replaced it.

  “Very nice. I see the hunters’ parlor tricks have not changed in thousands of years. You see the problem is, Chase, you fight like a hunter, not a god.” Black tendrils pushed him to his feet and his wounds began to heal, although more slowly than before. “My turn.”

  Ithreal was on top of me before I could move, and darkness consumed us. Green light appeared and we fell from the sky like a meteor from space. A streak of black trailed us as we spun through the air, and Ithreal held me tight against his body, not giving me any room to move. I tried to summon my air element and slow us down, but as it rose in my body, we collided with the ground.

  Aches shocked my body, black dots swimming in my vision. My skin split along my shoulder and a bulge swelled along my forehead. Ithreal laughed, pushing himself off me. We’d made a crater in the earth, and bits and pieces of dirt rained from the sky.

  “You still think that blade will help you?” Black arms coiled around my legs and threw me out of the crater. I rolled across the earth, surrounded by colored grass that poked and prodded my open wounds. I cursed under my breath, staring at the blade I’d managed to keep in my grip. It hadn’t helped. It didn’t kill him. It was useless.

  The winds of Drakar blew hard, carrying with them the sweet smell of fruit. Purple water sloshed in the distance as it splashed against the bank of a river’s shore.

  “Now this is more suiting, defeating and taking over Serephina’s soul piece in one of her dimensions while my creatures destroy another. Perfect.”

  His tendrils took on the shapes of different weapons: swords, axes, arrows, and even a shield. He smashed the shield into me, causing me to stagger back, and he followed through with the arrow. It shot through my chest and the pain was worse when he pulled it back. I ducked as the axe swung over my head and when his sword came down, I met it with my blade. Darkness rippled into the glass and filled my weapon. It swirled into the handle and up my arms, a thousand pinpricks riding into my chest. The magic dissipated into my soul and a burst of energy filled me. The fresh vitality revitalized me and the wound on my chest closed slightly.

  I stared down at the weapon and then up to Ithreal. He seemed unaware of w
hat had happened and he launched his arsenal forward again. I swung at the shield and then deflected the arrow. The power strengthened my muscles and closed my wounds further. When his tendrils arched behind him, I lunged forward, cutting through his forearm. The limb fell to the ground and rolled across the grass, dissipating in a waft of black smoke. Ithreal roared and staggered backward. Black magic stretched out and whirled around the stubby limb until the arm reformed.

  I called to the earth, and bars of stone arched out of the ground. Each one curled over him until a dome-shaped prison cell contained him. I focused on the power, letting another layer of bars form over the others and strengthening the prison.

  Ithreal touched the rocky bars and smiled, his hand completely re-formed. His tendrils smashed into the stone bars one at a time, barely cracking them. He paced inside the cage like a captive lion in search of freedom. His power swelled inside the dome, sucking away all the light and filling it with shadows. “Enough of this!” he growled.

  All the tendrils merged together to form a single blade, and one by one he began to shatter the bars. More rose from the earth to replace them, but he was destroying them faster than I could build them. I tried pushing more power into the stone, but it was no match for him. Each bar crumbled beneath his shadowy wrath.

  I switched gears, calling water to my aid and reaching out to the riverbank. Water moved in a typhoon of power and like a tidal wave it crashed over him. I molded the water inside the cage like an upside-down bowl. When the dome had filled, I flexed the power, altering it from water to ice. Ithreal screamed and his body slowed as the element solidified. Soon he was a still black blemish inside a dome of ice.

  I sheathed the glass blade and walked toward him, unsure how long it would hold. I pressed my hand against the surface and the cold nearly burned my skin, but I didn’t pull away. I summoned lightning to my hand, charging it into the ice. It took longer than I expected, but slowly the jolts began to hit his body. I couldn’t hear them, but I felt his screams in waves of power. Soon there was a nonstop current coursing from me to him.