by Mike Wild
“At which point he got himself slapped down … smitten … smoted … shit, whatever it is gods do to things that aren’t gods, right?”
“No, Trix Hunter of the Er-Rainy Pennines, the god died.”
“Died?”
“In that moment, Basrat became Basrat As-Was. It was the moment the lakes boiled dry, the mountains shattered, the ground sundered and bled. It was the moment the sky roared with pain.”
“Jesus wept. But how is that possible? I mean, godleech or not—how could Kh’Borian kill a god?”
“Because within the armies’ ranks were the other godleeches. All of them. They tried to sever Kh’Borian’s contact, but as they drew their own yon-rah from the god, Kh’Borian drew it away from them, consumed it, consumed them, to the last. He acquired enough power to rupture the last of the god’s defences and drain it dry. The conduit collapsed, and then there was no god or godleech but instead a demigod amalgam of the two: Kh’Borian Everlasting, all-powerful, absolutely insane.”
“The other gods didn’t intervene?”
“Intervene? They abandoned Yillarnya—perhaps in shock, perhaps in fear—even as the remains of the god rained down. The world became truly godless. The armies surrounding Kh’Borian, meanwhile, were annihilated and made reborn. A grotesque menagerie—lumbering hulks, mutated, cackling forms, horned mutations, skeletal undead … all in his thrall. A vast army of evil which turned yet others as it laid waste to our world. Kh’Borian the godleech, once tic on the body cosmic, had become the greatest threat Yillarnya had ever known.”
“What did your people do?”
“They faced extinction. Pure and simple. But ironically, the god’s remains were to prove their salvation. Their surviving mages believed that if sufficiently large pockets of the remains could be found, it might be possible to fashion artefacts capable of defeating Kh’Borian. Adventurers quested to find such pockets, while the last Yillarnyans fled underground, here, into Deephold, expanding the old fortress by physical toil and magical means. Deephold became their refuge and workshop. Within, they made preparations to forge the artefacts, to contain Kh’Borian if successful, and to ready those who would stand against him. These were the most powerful warriors, mages, rangers, rogues, and clerics who survived ... the Five Hundred Heroes.”
“The artefacts swung the war, then?”
Jentiss shook her head. “The artefacts were not weapons, at least, not in the traditional sense. Nor did the Five Hundred Heroes use them. The Heroes’ role was to delay Kh’Borian, for until the very last minute it was a race against time, against Deephold’s discovery. Those seasoned fighters, unsurpassed veterans of the battlefield, stayed Kh’Borian’s forces whilst the smiths worked the forges to finish what was needed.” The warrior woman took a shuddering breath. “And when the smiths had finished, the Five Hundred Heroes died. Gods, how they died.”
“I’m sorry,” Trix said.
“Do not be. They knew, had the artefacts not been ready, their fate would have been the same. In a way, their sacrifice made the tribute more convincing.”
“Tribute?”
“The so-called Glow of Deephold—ceremonial armour forged from precious metals. Glistering offerings from vanquished to victor, each of the seven pieces imbued with the remains of the god. Hubris blinded Kh’Borian to their true nature. In donning the gift, he doomed himself. The pieces—the seven suppressors, if you will—sucked back the yon-rah that Kh’Borian had taken, sapping him of his demigodhood and rendering him all but powerless.”
“All but powerless?”
“The godleech remained. What remained of the godleech, that is. A shrivelled thing; dangerous nonetheless. He was bound within a chamber deeper still than here, the mindless creatures that had made up his army corralled and confined above and around him. The seven suppressors, meanwhile, were hidden throughout Deephold, their locations randomised by dimensional realignment, so that not even they who hid them knew where they lay. There—protected by traps and magical misdirection—they should have lain undisturbed forever.”
“Should have? What happened?”
Jentiss sighed. “Somehow, Kh’Borian had maintained a mental link with the artefacts. Used them as anchors to expand his consciousness. And with this found a flaw in the randomisation. A dimensional chink in the dungeon. He used it to free a number of his creatures, forcing those guards who remained to fall back to the surface, abandoning Deephold and the things inside to their fate. Still, the dungeon remained secure—or so they thought. What they did not know was that Kh’Borian continued to pry at the chink—for centuries he pried—until the chink became an opening to elsewhere. Eventually, beings no one could have made provision for found their way through. You asked me what happened, Trix Hunter of the Er-Rainy Pennines. You happened.”
“The hordes,” Trix said, softly. “They poured out that day.”
“Your ingress into Deephold was insignificant at first—the mere, as you say, tip of the iceberg. But then one of your people found the first piece of the Glow. This was three of your years ago.”
Three years ago, Trix thought. There had been some excitement about a significant find, artefact-wise, at the time—but the whole affair seemed to have blown over without anyone finding out what the artefact had actually been. One thing stuck in mind, though—all but the leader of the master team that had found the artefact had perished.
“Garrison,” she said. “He reported that the rest of his team perished in an acid trap. Nothing left of them to bring home.”
“Convenient, yes?”
“The bastard.”
“I would not be too harsh on your Dungeonmaster. Kh’Borian’s will would have snuffed his the moment the artefact was found.”
“Not so sure about that. Garrison always was a bit of an—”
“Arsehole?”
Trix’s eyebrows rose. “Jentiss, what books have you been reading again?”
She gave a half smile. “Not just S.C. Lewis, I can tell you that.”
Trix was warming to the woman, and, she felt, she to her. They were each caught up in a situation neither could have anticipated but were both committed to trying to save their worlds. Maybe it was time to be a bit more open.
“Now I know why I never made the master teams. They began hunting for the other artefacts, right?”
“It took less than a year for DragonCorp’s heart, its upper administration, to be corrupted. Some by contact with the artefacts; others motivated by greed, promises of riches and power. After that, they dedicated everything to the search.”
“But why?”
“To reunite the pieces so that the process might be reversed. To restore Kh’Borian’s demigodhood.”
“You’ve lost me. I thought these .. suppressors took power, not gave it.”
“So they do. In this world.”
“In this world,” Trix repeated. “Hang on—on this side of the rift, magical fields make our weapons malfunction and give us headaches, and on the other, magic doesn’t work. So it’s some kind of polarity thing?” It dawned. “Jesus, he’s planning to escape through the rift?”
“Not through the rift. With the rift. Kh’Borian intends merging the dimensions occupied by our world and your own. And when the moment is right, he’ll phase between the two.”
“So that’s why the dungeon’s growing.”
Jentiss nodded. “What you call the rift is not truly a rift, but a dimensional pocket intruding into your world—the pocket your people entered nine years ago when it was much smaller than it is now. It has grown as each successive artefact has been found and removed to your world—as Kh’Borian’s link between here and there has strengthened. Should all the pieces of the Glow be removed, he will be able to push this dimension’s growth beyond its bounds. Then—”
She needed say no more. Trix had picked up enough from her discussion with Shen, back in Diablo, to picture the scenario: one balloon growing inside another. Outgrowing. Bursting both. Result: hell dimension.
She let out a breath. “How many of the seven suppressors have been found and taken through?”
“The helmet, breastplate, shield, set of bracers, pair of greaves, and one of two—”
“Rings,” Trix finished. She’d worn the seventh and last artefact. No wonder Ian had taken it back. “One thing I don’t understand—how did you know I had the second ring?”
“A friend of ours. Yours, too. Present, that day, in your Grimrock Café.”
“Elly?”
“Not all our people fight on the front line.”
“Jesus Christ, when she went MIA. She wasn’t missing at all.”
“A, I believe you call it, Faze, brought her to us. She learned what I am telling you now. Chose to aid us by returning to DOME, monitoring the activities of DragonCorp on our behalf.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” Trix’s question was addressed more to herself than Jentiss, but the warrior woman answered anyway.
“Do not blame your friend. It can be difficult to know who to trust, and who not.”
When did Elly decide? Trix wondered. When she’d handed her the key to the pod? It had to be. She shook her head. Elly, Ian … all of this going on around her. “Where’s the ring now?” she said.
The question was well timed. Jentiss led Trix down a small flight of stone steps, into a corridor and then a small temple-like area. The chamber was old, very old, and at its centre was a dais. Surrounding the dais, six figures who, from their garb and tattoos, could only be sorcerers. Each of them faced inward, head bowed, concentrating exclusively on a small object that floated in midair, above the dais, held there seemingly by their will.
It was the ring.
The small, seemingly innocuous, item of jewellry, last of the suppressors, was glowing brightly, as if being fired in a blacksmith’s forge. It glowed white-hot and released rains of sparks, yet still specks of its surface remained dark. It gave off no heat at all. Whatever was being done to it, Trix guessed, was being done at the molecular level, and not with the power of heat but the power of the mind.
“Jentiss?”
“As the sole surviving artefact in our possession, it has now become the most important of them all. As such, it must be destroyed. But such an artefact cannot be physically disassembled; it must instead be reduced once more to the stuff from which it was made—the stuff of the gods.”
“And how long will this ‘reduction’ take?”
“It began as soon as your brother returned the ring.” Jentiss sighed. “We have barely scratched the surface.”
Trix stared at the ring. Its slow, slow breakdown was mesmerising, and she could likely have continued to stare at it all day. But Jentiss was once more on the move, ascending a second set of steps that brought them back to the rear of the front line. The cacophony of battle was striking after the momentary peace of the temple.
“Once we fought to reach the other side of the bridge—to stop Kh’Borian—but now fight to stop Kh’Borian’s creatures reaching the ring,” she said. “It is an unwelcome turn of the tide.”
“Surely their numbers are finite?”
“Finite, yes. Limited, no. Our numbers will dwindle before theirs.”
“How is that possible?”
Jentiss nodded across the chasm. “Take a closer look.”
Trix stared at the enemy. They were subject to as equal a barrage as the warrior woman’s people, and equal numbers were falling, though, as Jentiss said, their numbers seemed not to diminish. Nor were their ranks being boosted by new arrivals through a teleportal, as on this side of the chasm; instead, they simply did not thin. Trix strained to see through the debris and dust clouds that the strikes threw up before she realised what was happening—Kh’Borian’s things weren’t staying down. The bodies lay still for only a moment before, in a clacking of bone and snapping of sinew and tendon, they rose to fight anew.
“Somewhere back there, Kh’Borian has conjured a soulstripper,” Jentiss said. “A reanimator of such power we must fight the same battle again and again. Kh’Borian seeks to wear us down, break us. My people tire of the onslaught unceasing.” She sighed. “We are going to die here.”
Trix swallowed and looked along the rows of faces of Jentiss’s people as they continued to counter the assault. All reflected the same exhaustion marring their leader’s own. But they fought on.
“There’s no way to reach this soulstripper? Take it down?”
“There was a zoomgate—what you call a teleportal—but it was disabled, along with our defence protocols.” Jentiss’s gaze moved upwards to where two massive vents punctured the ceiling above the chasm, both dark. Trix guessed where they led—the lava chamber through which she and her companions had passed. She imagined the vents disgorging rivers of lava above the chasm—the ultimate firewall. “The zoomgate’s crystal was removed, perhaps destroyed,” Jentiss went on. “Whatever its fate, no one knows where it now lies.”
“And that’s where Ian went? In search of it?”
“He, and many before. Most made it no farther than the bridge. Of those who, by some miracle, made it across, not one returned. They presumably lie broken in the depths beyond, though occasionally we have seen some of our lost amongst the ranks of the enemy forces. They are not our people anymore.”
Trix swallowed. “Do you think Ian’s one of them?”
Jentiss sucked in a breath. Her eyes stared across the chasm. She did not look at Trix as she replied.
“I don’t know.”
“You and he were—?”
“Yes.”
Trix had no idea how to respond. This woman was literally an alien to her, as, in a way, after so many years, was Ian—who knew what history they had? But she was sure that both women shared the same feeling of anger at what might have become of him.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Impossible. The vaults beyond are expansive. It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“I’ll try,” Trix insisted.
Their circumnavigation of the camp done, they returned to find Yuri emerged from his sickbed, even a near-death experience not stemming his desire to stuff his face. The cause of his desire was a campfire over which a spit of something other than boffin roasted. Around the fire was gathered a group of faces from both the military and DOME that Trix had not seen in a long, long time. Ralph was also present, keeping an eye on the Russian but engaged, mainly, with the books that Jentiss had gifted him, as well as the grimoire from the majestic chest. He was cross-referencing the two, appearing quite excited.
“Ms Firemane,” he said as they approached, “you have granted me a Rosetta stone. Thank you—thank you! Patricia, this is remarkable … quite remarkable … Apart from the fascinating history of this world, I believe I now have the means to fully absorb the contents of the grimoire.”
“That’s nice, Ralph,” Trix said, distractedly, her mind occupied with the promise she’d made. She was replaying the visions from the ring, concentrating this time not on where she was being led but on the details along the way. So attentive to detail was she that she was only half aware of Jentiss placing a hand on her shoulder, telling her to eat something, only half aware of the greetings from Sergeant Harrill and others as she sat amongst them, and only half aware of the conversation going on around her.
“So, you’ve been fighting down here this whole time?” Yuri said. “No thought of reporting back to base?”
“That’s about the long and the short of it,” Harrill said.
“Strictly speaking, isn’t that desertion?”
“Is it, Major? Isn’t the whole point of our mission to stop things escaping the rift? Hasn’t it always been? Well, that’s what I’m doing—what we’re all doing—though not, I have to say, in the way we imagined. But, so far as I see it—we’re still on mission.”
Yuri tore a bite from his meat, nodded. “You make a fair point, tovarish.”
“So, how are things back home? I hear it’s become quite the sideshow.�
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“Dah. Now anyone can get themselves massacred for a million buc …”
Yuri never got to finish his sentence as the heads of those in front of him exploded. The bodies they had once capped fared little better, and Yuri twisted and ducked as they were blown over him, less than intact. He himself was stunned, dazed, and more than a little deafened, and the voice of Trix, who loomed into his vision, grabbed him, and pulled him away, seemed as faint and broken as that which a medium might strain to hear from a departed on the other side.
“Fuc … Yur … ge up … moo!”
Moo? He thought. No … move! He allowed himself to stagger into her arms, trusting her to take him to safety. Trusting Professor Arthur, too, who seemed to have surrounded them with a glowing field of blue, but whose face as his field flared and sparked was no less desperate than Trix’s, or the other woman’s with them in their magical cocoon, the one with the heaving bazooms and the flaring red hair. By the time some sense returned to him, they were hiding behind a yurt. And realised they were being hammered.
“What the fuck?” Yuri bellowed.
“Stay here,” Trix said, and then shouted, “I’m coming out!”
She held up her arms and stepped beyond the cover of the yurt. Saw exactly what she thought she’d see. On the ledge from which they’d first descended into the vast chamber, a figure stood. Even in the shadows and at the height and distance it was, some cockiness in its bearing made the figure’s identity obvious. Garrison. Dungeonmaster Garrison.
He was holding a rocket launcher.
A glowing rocket launcher.
“Keeper 7, there you are,” Garrison shouted down as Trix wound her way through the camp’s devastation. “I have to say—to get this far—very impressive.”
Trix was aware of Ralph coming to stand by her side. She inhaled deeply, happily, when Yuri joined him. The Russian placed a supportive hand on her shoulder.