Requiem's Prayer (Book 3)

by Daniel Arenson

  "We will seek the hall of the underworld's king," Issari said softly. She shifted back into a dragon and took flight. "Follow! For Requiem!"

  They rose as dragons, roared together, and flew toward the sickly light.

  ISSARI

  She flew through the pulsing, veined tunnel, feeling like a babe sliding out of the womb. The others flew behind her: Jeid, a massive copper dragon; Laira, riding on his back in human form, her magic gone; Tanin, the man she loved, a red dragon; and a thousand others, dragons who had united for their final battle—the battle against her father.

  The tunnel narrowed, forcing the dragons to fly in single file. Issari flew at their lead. She drew up her paws, keeping them pressed against her belly as her wings flapped. She could feel the shards embedded there—her mother's amulet and the gift from the stars.

  Finally Issari saw the tunnel's end, a circle of white and red light. She shot forward and emerged into a towering chamber, feeling like her son must have felt when emerging from within her.

  She reared and tilted her wings, forcing herself to hover in midair. Fire sparked between her teeth.

  A network of fleshy strands stretched across the chamber from ceiling to floor, crisscrossing, gleaming, pulsing with internal blood. They seemed organic, like hanging entrails or umbilical cords, forming a great web. The spaces between the strands were too small for Issari to fly through. Between them, Issari saw a great throne rising ahead; it seemed constructed of many small flaps of flesh—tongues, she realized.

  Upon the throne sat Raem, King of the Abyss.

  "Hello, daughter!" he cried out to her.

  Issari could barely breathe.

  The man she saw looked nothing like the father she remembered. In the battle of Two Skull Mountain, he had lost all four limbs. Demonic limbs now grew from his torso: a great bird's talon, a horse's hoof, a wriggling tentacle lined with suckers, and a great lobster claw. Leathery, bat-like wings grew from his back. His face too had changed, shriveled away, the cheeks sunken and gray, the eyes bloodshot and mad.

  As the other dragons emerged into the chamber behind her, Issari blasted forth her flames.

  The dragonfire blazed through the network of fleshy strands. The demonic web was dozens of feet deep, strand after strand all woven together. The veins shook in the dragonfire but did not burn. The fiery pillar broke apart into a fountain, dispersing into a cloud of flame, fading to sparks by the time it reached Raem's throne.

  Most of the dragons still flew in the tunnel, but a dozen others came to hover by Issari's side, too large to fly through the fleshy web. They too blasted forth their dragonfire. The jets slammed against the pulsing strands. The web shook madly, scattering the flames, dispersing the inferno before it could reach the throne.

  "The Abyss itself protects me, dragons!" Raem shouted from his throne. He laughed. His tentacle writhed and his lobster claw clattered. "You will have to face me as humans. Come, step through my web and face me."

  It was Dorvin who reacted first. The silver dragon released his magic and raced forward in human form. He hopped between the fleshy strands, swinging his sword. An instant later, Tanin followed, then Laira, and soon many others were leaping between the strands. As humans, they were all armed with spears and blades, and they carried shields of wood and bronze. They cried out for Requiem as they ran toward the Demon King.

  Issari still hovered as a white dragon, staring through the web at her father. He met her eyes across the distance and smiled.

  May the stars protect me, Issari thought, landed on the floor, and released her magic. Unlike the others, she carried no shield, wore no armor; her faith would be her armor. Armed with only a dagger, she raced forward, moving between the strands; each was as thick as her wrist. Whenever she brushed against the dangling veins, they smeared her with sticky ooze. The other Vir Requis all raced around her, weapons raised, and more kept joining from the tunnel. They raised spears, swords, and shields. Tanin ran ahead, clad in bronze plates, holding shield and sword before him. The strands dangled madly whenever they bumped into them, and even swords could not break them.

  "Stay with me, Issari!" Tanin shouted, running by her side. "We'll slay him together. We'll—"

  A gasp swallowed his words. Issari stared ahead and felt the blood drain from her face.

  Standing before his throne, Raem was shifting into a dragon.

  The King of the Abyss ballooned in size, stretching like a boil, looking ready to burst. Black scales rose across him, clattering like a suit of armor. Horns grew from his head, fangs from his mouth, and fire burned in his gullet. His demon limbs too stretched out, the tentacle growing large as a tree, the hoof and talon kicking, the claw snapping like another set of jaws. The demonic dragon soared above the throne.

  "Yes, weredragons!" Raem boomed. "I too am cursed with your disease. Now your own curse will be your undoing."

  Issari paled and tried to shift too. She began to grow into a dragon, only for the clammy web to slam against her growing body, shoving her back into human form. Throughout the web, other Vir Requis too were trying to shift, but they had no room; the strands kept them humans.

  "Tanin, your shield!" she screamed . . . and then the fire engulfed them.

  Raem blasted out his flames. It was a massive jet of black fire, larger than any a dragon of Requiem could blow. Here was dragonfire tainted with a demonic curse, fire that danced like demons, cackled, and shone with many red eyes. The inferno slammed through the web, roaring, shrieking, cackling, a demon fire to burn all flesh.

  Tanin shouted and held his shield before them. Issari crouched, pressed against him, hidden behind the bronze disk. The flames roared around them, reached around the shield, and burned across her leg. Tanin grimaced as the flames licked at his armor. Across the chamber, men and women screamed, and the smell of burning flesh filled Issari's nostrils.

  When the fire finally died, Issari's heart sank. Dozens of Vir Requis lay dead between the strands, some propped up against the web. Their flesh was charred black and dripping blood; many were still burning. The flesh of some had melted, fusing with the demonic strands. A few victims still lived, screaming and rolling as the fire clung to them.

  Issari leaped to her feet and ran again.

  "Slay him!" Jeid shouted, running several feet away. Flames clung to his fur cloak; he tossed the garment aside. "Slay the beast!"

  As more dragons entered the chamber, the survivors kept running through the web, moving closer to Raem. Only several more strands now separated them from the black dragon. Once past the web, they'd be able to shift again, to blow fire, to—

  Raem rose higher, his belly swelled, and he blasted out new flames.

  The jet crashed forward. Issari and Tanin hid behind the shield again. More Vir Requis screamed, skin peeling, flesh burning. When the flames finally died, dozens more lay dead, and the wounded ran screaming, fire clutching them.

  Issari growled, raced between the last strands, and shifted into a dragon.

  She soared toward her father. The demonic dragon loomed above her, thrice her size, tentacle writhing madly, eyes red and burning. Issari roared and blasted out her flames. Her white jet spun and crashed against Raem.

  Other Vir Requis emerged from the web, some charred, some burning. They too shifted into dragons and soared. Their flames blasted out, bathing Raem.

  The black dragon only laughed. The fire kindled his furred horse's leg, but the rest of him seemed unharmed. Raem lashed out his demonic limbs. The tentacle slammed against Issari, knocking her down onto the chamber floor. She groaned with pain, and through narrowed eyes, she saw Raem's lobster claw grab a young dragon and sever his neck.

  "Cut him dead!" Jeid was roaring, leading a group of dragons. "Bite and claw!"

  The copper dragon swooped, claws outstretched. Sitting upon his back, Laira fired arrows. Dorvin and Maev dived with their king, growling, reaching out their claws.

  But the King of the Abyss only laughed, a massive creature to
dwarf even the largest of Requiem's dragons. He blasted out more fire—a black, foul, shrieking storm. The stream blazed with the heat of a shattering star, with the rage of a typhoon, and crashed against the dragons. Laira screamed and hid behind her shield, but the blast knocked her off Jeid; she tumbled down into shadows. Dorvin and Maev slammed against the floor, their scales cracking with the heat. Raem's lobster claw swung and tore into Jeid's wing, ripping through it, and the copper dragon bellowed and fell.

  Issari struggled onto her feet, coughing, burnt, bleeding. Tanin struggled to rise beside her. The two dragons glanced at each other, then rose again, flew toward Raem, and blasted out twins jets of fire.

  The flames cascaded harmlessly off Raem. The demonic dragon only cackled, opened his jaws wide, and spewed out a cloud of buzzing demons the size of human babes. The creatures flew forward, shaped as maggots, isopods, centipedes, and clattering crayfish, all with human faces and cruel white eyes. Issari and Tanin managed to roast some of the creatures with dragonfire, but hundreds swarmed around the jet to land upon their backs, their wings, their tails. The little demons bustled across them, ripping holes into wings, yanking scales free. Issari screamed, the pain driving through her. When she looked at Tanin, she saw the demons tearing through him, pulling down his wings, tugging his horns.

  "Tanin, shift!" Issari shouted . . . and released her magic.

  She tumbled down, a human, leaving the demons in the empty air. Tanin followed her lead. Before they could hit the cavern floor, they shifted back into dragons and blasted fire skyward, roasting the swooping creatures.

  Issari rose higher, bleeding and panting, her flames running low. Only a dozen dragons seemed to have made it this far; they were assaulting Raem, but their dragonfire flowed uselessly across the demonic dragon, and their claws and fangs did Raem's black scales no harm. The unholy beast laughed as he fought, grabbing and crushing dragons with his tentacle, snapping them apart with his claw, and roasting them with fire.

  Dorvin lay moaning on the floor, bleeding from many cuts. Maev swooped toward Raem, but the black dragon's tail slammed against her, tossing her against the wall. The green dragon slumped down and lost her magic; Maev lay unconscious, perhaps dead. Jeid knelt on the floor over Laira; she lay with eyes closed, covered in blood. Other dragons flew toward Raem, only to die and crash down as lacerated, burnt humans.

  "He's too strong," Issari whispered to Tanin. "We can't beat him."

  Tanin panted, blood leaking across his scales. He tried to blow more fire, but only sparks left his mouth.

  Towering above them, ringed with black smoke, rose the King of the Abyss, and Issari could barely see any dragon in him anymore. Raem had become not a Vir Requis but fully demon, a twisted thing, lava pulsing between his scales. His horns stretched out longer and longer, scraping across the ceiling and curling downward. His eyes leaked fire. Parasites scuttled in and out of his nostrils, ears, mouth, eyes. The Abyss had infested him, changed him, turned him into the greatest demon underground. No dragonfire could hurt him, Issari knew, no swords, no claws, no fangs.

  "Only starlight," Issari whispered.

  The creature who had once been her father turned toward her. The demon's chest puffed out, its wings spread wide, and it blasted out its unholy fire.

  Still in dragon form, Issari reared in the air and held out her left paw, the one with the shard of starlight.

  Only pale light glowed.

  The demonfire flowed across Issari, and she screamed, fell, and burned.

  "Issari!" Tanin cried.

  She cried out in the inferno, and when the black flames finally died, she crashed to the floor, panting, burnt. Several of her scales fell and clattered against the floor. Tanin tried to reach her, but more of the small demons spewed out from Raem and crashed against Tanin’s wings, holding him back.

  Raem whipped his tail and tentacle, tossing dragons aside. He came clattering toward Issari, laughing. He loomed above, a hundred feet tall, and his eyes swirled like pits of molten rock.

  "My daughter . . ." His smoke puffed down onto her, thick with flies. "Now finally I slay you. Now, in the pit of your despair, I will allow you to die."

  Issari couldn't even rise. She was too hurt. Blood poured from her, and she tried to cling to her magic, but she was too weak. The dragon magic left her, and she knelt before the Demon King, a human again. The other dragons fell, cracked, burning; she faced her father alone. She stared up at him, a single woman, no larger than a mouse facing a wolf. She met the creature's gaze.

  "I am not your daughter," she whispered. "You are no longer the man who was my father. You are nothing but an echo now, a shell of evil, emptied of all morality. You fought for Taal all your life, fought for the purity of humanity, but you let that humanity leave you." She struggled to her feet and opened her right palm. "But I still worship Taal. I still bear my mother's amulet, the woman you sent to exile and death."

  She raised her palm, and Taal's amulet blazed out a pillar of white light. The beam slammed against Raem's eyes, and the demon bucked and squealed. Smoke rose from him. The light slammed Raem back against the wall.

  Yet still Raem laughed. "I spit upon Taal. He has no power here. I am greater than Taal himself. I will kill the silver god."

  Still holding the beam against her father, Issari took a deep, shaky breath. Her blood dripped. Her legs shook. But still she stood, shining her light.

  "I worship more than Taal," she whispered. "I worship the stars of Requiem. I'm no longer your daughter, Raem, but I'm still—am always—a daughter of starlight."

  She opened her left palm.

  Please, stars of Requiem, she prayed silently. Find me even here, even underground, even in darkness. Shine your light through me.

  Her hand thrummed, and a light began to glow there, growing stronger, not the pure light of Taal but a soft light of stars. Strands of starlight flowed out from that hand, wispy, forming dancing mottles no larger than doves.

  Raem laughed above her. His wings spread out to crash against the cavern walls. His horns cracked the ceiling. Stones rained. "Do you think just a few strands of starlight can hurt me?"

  He blasted down his fire again.

  Issari raised her palm higher.

  Flow through me, starlight. Flow through me, light of Requiem.

  The light blasted out from her left palm, a great glow of starlight, forming a shield before her. The demonic fire cascaded against the disk of light, washing aside like waves around a boulder. Raem screamed, blinded by the light, and fell a step backward. He crashed against a wall, cracking it, and more bricks fell.

  "Dragons of Requiem, slay him!" Jeid's cry rose somewhere in the distance. Issari thought she could glimpse the forms of dragons—they seemed so small next to Raem—blowing their fire, lashing their claws, cutting the Demon King. Raem's blood spilled, but still he fought, slamming the dragons aside.

  "Send more light through me," Issari prayed. "Stars of Requiem, send all your might through the shard in my palm."

  A voice seemed to speak in her mind, an angelic voice, kind and soft. Child of Requiem! Too much light would sear through all flesh. We cannot give you more.

  "Send more light!" she cried out. "Send out the light of the constellation. Let me be a conduit to the stars."

  The voice inside her seemed to weep. But the stars answered her prayer. The light grew, blasting out. It slammed against Raem, cracking the demon's scales, burning into the flesh. The strands of starlight climbed up Issari's arm, turning her all to silvery light. She hovered in the air, lifted upon the stars, consumed with radiance, until all her body became nothing but starlight. The beam now moved not through the shard on her palm but through all of her; she rose as a star herself, casting her beam, lighting the Abyss.

  Requiem, she thought and wept. I have found your stars.

  The light coalesced and blasted out from her chest. It shot forward with new vigor, brilliant and blue and silver, and drove into Raem, shattering the demon's
chest, crashing through the rotted heart within, and burning out the unholiness like heated metal cauterizing a wound.

  His magic left him.

  His demonic limbs detached and shriveled up like worms on a hot stone.

  Raem Seran, King of the Abyss, once her father, slammed down against the floor, a mere man again . . . glowing with starlight, fading, burning, dwindling away . . . until he was gone.

  Issari fell to her knees. The starlight still thrummed through her; she glowed, a figure of light, burning up.

  "Issari, let it go!" Tanin was shouting. She could barely see him through the silvery veil. "Release the starlight!"

  But she could not; she had taken on too much. She trembled, smiled, wept. She was one with the stars.

  "Issari!" He reached into the light, grabbed her, and shook her. "Issari, enough!" He grabbed her hand and forced it shut, sealing the shard behind her fingers.

  She gasped.

  The beam of starlight pulled into her, sucked up. She felt it driving into her chest, coiling inside her. The glow faded. She fell into his arms, feeling so light, and the world spun.

  "Is he dead?" she whispered. She looked to where Raem had stood and saw only charred bones.

  "It's over," Tanin said, tears on his cheeks. He lifted her in his arms. "It's over, Issari. Now let's get you out of here."

  The starlight glowed inside her head, overflowing, hiding everything behind silver haze. She saw nothing more.

  LAIRA

  She rode on Jeid's back, holding her sister in her arms.

  "I'm with you, Issari," she whispered. "You'll be all right. It's over." Laira smiled through her tears. "We won."

  The copper dragon flew beneath them, rising through the tunnels of the Abyss, heading back toward the good world above. King Raem had fallen. Their father—the man who had tortured Issari and Laira, who had driven Sena to take his own life, who had become a demon worse than any imaginary monster he had fought—had burned away, leaving but a memory for their nightmares.