by Jak Koke
Lethe understood that such a magnificent gift came with a price. He had been given the ability to comprehend. The ability to control. With such knowledge came a choice between self and selflessness.
Even as he knew the possibility existed for taking the Heart and its power for himself, it flashed through his mind and was instantly discarded. The Heart must be used to destroy the forces of darkness. Lethe knew it as surely as he knew that Thayla had named him.
The answer came to him: the Dragon Heart was a lens of sorts for channeling mana. A tool for moving around magical energy. If it could handle a huge amount, perhaps. . .
Perhaps the bridge can be destroyed with it.
This place was a mana spike—a pinnacle of magic that had resulted initially from the Great Ghost Dance. And recently that pinnacle had been extended by the Locus sacrifices, the life energy of metahuman blood used to increase the mana at this point.
If I can move the mana out of the bridge, it should buckle.
Lethe exerted his will, channeling the mana flow. He focused the Dragon Heart at the apex of the bridge, and tried to draw the power out of the structure.
A few seconds went by. Nothing happened.
Perhaps I’m not using it—
Abruptly the bridge split, sending a loud crack through the air. The center crumbled and fell into the Chasm.
“Yes!” yelled Ryan, and he seemed to draw strength from the victory.
Lethe drew more and more mana from the bridge as he extended his will through the Dragon Heart. It was like a new limb, an additional part of himself, an extension of his mind that he wielded like a weapon. Mana tendrils of smoky black and rust red unraveled from between the stones of the bridge and flowed across the distance to disappear into the Dragon Heart.
The structure collapsed, this side of the span falling away from the center. The destruction moved back toward the cliff face. And as it fell, the Enemy followed the crumbling stone, swallowed up in the abyss.
As Lethe decimated the bridge, the mana built inside the Dragon Heart. Inside him. Giving him power and understanding. Images came to him as he enacted his destructive force. He saw the portal of swirling rainbows that had recurred in his mind. He knew now that it was the window through which he came to be.
He relived the burning fire that had plagued his waking mind, experiencing the agony of the fountain of lava. He screamed as he had once before, in a lifetime past. He saw things in the sharp relief created by the explosion. Rows of trees and cars scattered and burned, a façade of windows shattered from the blast.
A split second of agony pulsed through him. Then it was gone, and with it went the memories.
As the bridge crashed down in a thunderous avalanche of rock, taking the startled corpses of the Enemy with it, mana built and built inside the Dragon Heart. Lethe realized that he had to focus it somewhere, had to move it into the physical world. He knew only one way.
Lethe channeled the mana into Ryan and Talon, into Harlequin and Aina. The life energy of thousands and thousands of people passed out of the bridge, through the Dragon Heart, and into the four metahumans. Mana flooded them.
Lethe didn’t know what it would do to them, but he had no choice. They were the only links to the physical world, the only way the mana could be diverted away from this place.
He just hoped the surge in power didn’t kill them.
41
Ryan shifted his feet on the dusty rock of the bridge and buried his fist into the soft flesh of a blood-veined blob, killing it with one blow. He felt power building inside. His magic came stronger and faster than it ever had before. He fought at the limit of his magical ability, yet it all came easily to him.
He dodged an arcing tentacle and used his distance strike to pummel the chitinous skull of the attacking creature. The strike was like an extension of his aura, a magical pseudopod that landed with more force than Ryan had ever delivered. He felt the creature’s head crush like an egg under the impact.
Ryan could feel more and more mana flowing into him. What is Lethe doing to me?
Beside Ryan, Lethe wielded the Dragon Heart, using it to rip up the foundations of the bridge and destroy the connection to the plane of the Enemy. It was a glorious thing to see, and it made Ryan wonder why he had ever considered keeping the Heart for himself.
The cracked earth quaked under his feet as the bridge crumbled in toward them. Huge chunks of rock fell away, massive boulders and crude pavement ripped off the main structure and vanished into the maw of the Chasm.
Hope and joy built inside Ryan as he watched the Enemy die as the bridge gave way under them. They slid down broken and cracking spans of the shattered bridge and fell into the abyss. Millions of the hideous monsters plummeted, screaming their vehemence as they dropped away, lost forever between worlds.
Still, there were thousands still alive. Trapped on this side of the expanse, they came rushing toward Ryan and the others, trying to outrun the collapsing bridge behind them.
With razor-sharp filaments of magical energy, Harlequin and Aina cut the creatures down in broad swaths as they came. Like two masters of monowire, the two elves created a barrier with their magic. They amazed Ryan with their ferocity, wielding magic on a scale far above anything he’d ever imagined. Intent that not one of the Enemy make it through alive.
Thousands of the Enemy died, hurling themselves with horrifying abandon into the vice of Harlequin and Aina. Burned to a bubbling goo or sliced into leaking black flesh or maimed and screaming. The shrieks of agony and terror grated against Ryan’s ears, and it took all his will to block it out. This was a battlefield, a war arena. Atrocity had to be accepted. Ignored.
Talon was having a harder time. He fought well and his magic was stronger than Ryan expected it to be, most likely because Lethe was funneling mana into him as well. But Ryan could tell that the human was on the verge of succumbing to his fear, to his horror at the smell of death, the screams of the wounded and the visions of leaking guts.
“Hold yourself together, Talon,” Ryan yelled. “Lethe’s taking down the bridge. Soon this’ll all be over.” He tried to project sincerity in his voice, but the words came out hollow. Empty.
Talon could assess the situation just as well as Ryan. Even if Lethe destroyed the entire bridge, thousands of the Enemy would make it to this side of the expanse. Harlequin and Aina would kill as many as they could, but some would get through.
Abruptly, one of the creatures burst through the lines of fire. It was a powerful one, a unique creature with a head like a hundred barbs of bone jutting from translucent blue flesh. Yellow, slitted eyes bobbing on tendinous stalks. It went directly for Lethe, and it was incredibly fast despite the wounds it had taken from Aina and Harlequin.
Ryan moved to intercept. He couldn’t allow anything to distract Lethe until the bridge had been completely destroyed.
The creature turned its head on a neck of sharp bony ridges, quickly glancing toward Ryan. “Do not interfere,” it said, the words materializing in Ryan’s mind through telepathy.
Ryan responded with a vicious telekinetic attack, throwing all his power against the creature.
The blow hit hard and should have crushed it.
The creature barely flinched.
The brief hesitation was enough. Ryan used the split second to move between it and Lethe.
Ryan felt laughter bubble up from deep inside the creature’s translucent blue gut. “Very well, then you shall die first.”
Ryan struck with a barrage of punches, aiming for what seemed to be vital areas. His right hand chopped across the neck, his left connecting with the creature’s midsection. Hands hardened into weapons by his magic.
Pain sliced through his fists as his blows landed. Both hands came back gashed and bleeding.
Those barbs are razor sharp.
He tried to ignore the wounds. They would heal.
The creature relented slightly under Ryan’s flurry of strikes, stepping back.
Rya
n moved forward, keeping up the attack. Looking for a vulnerable spot as he lashed out with his foot. Aiming for the eyes.
Abruptly, the creature’s head struck with blinding speed. The blow was too fast. No time to dodge or block it. Ryan barely caught the blur of motion before the bony skull slammed into his chest. Before the creature’s massive bulk threw him to the hard, cracked rock and pinned him there.
The scalpel-sharp orifice of its mouth sliced open Ryan’s chest as it went for his heart. The creature’s razor-barbed head cut through Ryan’s body armor, his skin and muscle and bone like piano wire through cheese.
Pain exploded in his chest—the agony of his soul disintegrating.
With his last vestige of strength, Ryan clamped his hands around the creature’s head. He held it inside his bleeding chest, and pushed against its body as he twisted. He knew he was going to die here, but he wouldn’t go alone.
Blood flowed down Ryan’s arms as he held on with his wounded hands, cut to ribbons by the creature’s jutting bone. Ryan threw his entire weight into his last wrenching twist.
A loud crunching greeted his ears, and the creature’s head snapped sideways and pulled away from his body, completely severed. The body convulsed, spilling puke-green and yellow ichor onto Ryan and the cracked rock. It collapsed on top of Ryan’s prone body.
Am I still alive?
He gasped desperately for air, smelling the foul stench of its body fluid. His ears filled with the sucking pop of its head coming free of his chest.
He tried to push the thing off of him, but his strength was gone.
Blackness crept in. His breath gurgled through the massive hole in his chest.
I am dying.
He had always been prepared to die to prevent the Enemy from coming across. But now, when victory seemed close, the irony of his own death was like bitter bile in his throat.
He thought of Nadja in the last moments. How he wished to see her face one final time, to put his arms around her. To smell her hair.
Love was the one thing the Enemy couldn’t feed on. The one thing they couldn’t take from him.
Ryan's body had gone completely numb, and as breath rattled through his chest, it was the vision of Nadja that he held onto. A vision of hope that washed away the irony.
42
Pain wracked Lucero from all sides. Hooves and globular weight pummeled her as she was swept along in the tide of bodies racing for the cliff edge. Dark shapes of black surrounded her, veined with red fire. And there were the others, the tentacled ones, rushing in a mad dash to escape the crumbling bridge.
She had caught glimpses of the bridge falling into the Chasm far behind her, the edge of the abyss approaching rapidly. Now she pushed to move faster; it was her only chance to gain freedom without being completely destroyed.
If I can get off the bridge, she thought, I can travel the metaplanes and escape.
Suddenly she was tugged, jerked suddenly to her left and forward like a dog on a leash. She flew headlong through the grotesque bodies. It was Señor Oscuro who called her; she felt it in the nature of the pull, the subtle sensations that came from her connection to him.
So he is still alive, she thought. She’d hoped that the creatures had trampled him to death.
The rock quaked beneath her, splitting her ears as the foundations of the structure cracked and weakened. The bridge fell away, the magic that had held it together flowing out in a wash of color. As Lucero moved toward Oscuro, she plunged through the front line of the creatures around her and saw what was happening.
A creature of metal and flesh, glowing brightly like a silver star, held a blinding object over its head. It was wondrous and the light coming from it reminded Lucero of Thayla. It was this object that was destroying the bridge.
Next to this creature were others, metahumans. Some of them Lucero had seen before. The elf and the human who had tried to save Thayla. So long ago that seemed. Literally a lifetime ago.
Her lifetime.
The elf worked in conjunction with another, forging mana into a lethal weapon, and killing the creatures by the thousands, trying desperately to keep them from getting off the bridge. Lucero was flying directly for their line of defense.
The human lay prone under a huge creature of bone spurs. Miraculously, the creature was dead, but blood gushed from a massive hole in the human’s chest, and he was not moving. Not even breathing.
Lucero knew he must be dead. Nobody could have survived that.
Another human—a mage it seemed—moved to try to help him. He looked to be weaker than the others, closer to exhaustion, but he was determined to help his friend.
Lucero felt the fragmentation of metaplanar travel hit her as she reached the end of the bridge. She was being called into the physical world. Señor Oscuro’s doing?
In the last second of her existence on this plane, Lucero saw the glowing chrome cyborg with the artifact complete the destruction of this half of the bridge. He used the artifact to channel all the mana into the fallen human. Brilliant bolts of white mana slammed the man’s lifeless body, making it twitch and convulse.
Perhaps it was a last, desperate attempt to save the human. A final attempt to maintain his spirit energy. Perhaps together the mage and the cyborg could bring him back.
Lucero wanted it to be so, but she held no hope. Thayla was gone, and those of her kind—these heroes—could never win. They could never succeed in bringing beauty back into the world.
Dust rose all around as the rock shattered and fell.
Screams of the fallen echoed throughout the Chasm, chilling enough to freeze Lucero’s blood.
Then she was flying across the metaplanes, through the swirling silk currents. She manifested in the physical world next to Señor Oscuro. They stood side by side on the blood-drenched Locus.
Oscuro’s body shivered uncontrollably in the hot night air. Pain drew sharp lines into his face, the muscles in his neck and back cinching up involuntarily. His dark hair dripped with blood, bits of flesh, and body refuse. For a moment Lucero thought he was going to curl into a fetal position on the hard stone.
Around them, the Gestalt continued to chant, sitting cross-legged in a circle around Lucero and Oscuro. Oblivious.
Technicians continued to monitor the ten human mages, making certain that the catheters that formed the blood circle were secure and flowing well. The Gestalt maintained the swirling column of astral energy, the sanguine tornado that connected the Locus and the sacrifices to the meta-planar bridge.
Oscuro gathered his strength and stood. He screamed at the Gestalt, “STOP!”
The blood mages did not respond. They seemed not to hear him.
He looked at Lucero. “Make them stop. The conduit must be severed before—
A subliminal rumble sent a wave of shivers through Lucero’s spirit. What the frag is happening?
Oscuro cast a spell on himself.
The rumbling grew into a shaking, and in the astral Lucero saw it coming, a pulse traveling down the conduit. Like a circular tsunami, bulging the column in a toroid of white as it descended. it came too fast. Too powerful.
Shaking became an earthquake, an ear-splitting shock wave. Oscuro saw it too and ran for the edge, plowing over one of the mages, and leapt from the stone at the last second. Lucero followed, clearing the circle as the pulse hit.
The Gestalt exploded as the tsunami wave reached the Locus. They blew up in a blast of fire and burning flesh, sending a wave of searing energy out from the stone.
The blast hit Lucero and her master, carrying them up and up. The force of the explosion plowed into Lucero, slamming into her on the astral as well as the physical. Like a huge battering ram of rock-hard energy that crashed into her spirit and hurled her across the dry lake bed.
She wavered on the verge of disintegration as the explosion enveloped her, wrapping around her in a rush of liquid fire. She focused herself, trying to concentrate. To hold herself together against the shower of mana shards.
>
She found herself on the astral plane behind the teocalli. Shivering and feeling hollow. Like a ghost of icy wind.
Purged.
Purified.
Her spirit still intact.
Lucero felt her freedom come then. A sensation of liberation that overwhelmed her, and she knew that she was no longer bound to Oscuro.
Perhaps he is dead.
She didn’t wait there to find out. She raised herself into the astral sky and flew away.
All around her, the destruction of the Gestalt wasted the landscape. A chromium sun shone from atop the obsidian black Locus, sending out rays of power that scorched everything around it. People burst into flames and exploded, their spirits thrown clear of their disintegrating flesh. The bodies and blood at the bottom of the lake bed vaporized.
This is the result of the bridge’s demolition.
The army could do nothing to stop the ferocity of the magic sun. Soldiers merely atomized against the onslaught. Tanks and Thunderbirds flew back from it like dry leaves in a hot breeze. The teocalli melted from the heat, and she realized that the structure had protected her, had shaded her from the cyborg’s magic.
For the first time in her existence, Lucero had been lucky.
Exhilaration filled her as she flew. She was free at last. Free to decide what to do with herself. The constant pain of being a blood spirit had dwindled. Faded until it was no more than a dull memory.
As she flew, feeling the crystal-clean air of the astral surround her, cool and fresh, she realized that she could do anything she wanted. Go anywhere she desired.
She briefly considered going after Señor Oscuro, to make sure he was dead. The fact that she was free indicated that he had either died or come close to dying. She hated him, abhorred his wanton desecration of all that was good and beautiful.
She didn’t stop. Oscuro was part of her past now. Her history. She wanted to move beyond the dark part of her existence. Start anew.
What now?
The answer came to her instantly, and she knew it was the right path for her.