by Damien Lake
Xenos looked at him in amusement. How dare he? Marik raised his fists so they would be ready to strike the first blow.
A gesture of Xenos’ hand sent a wave of force at the two. It struck them both with terrible power. Marik felt an invisible boulder smash into him after rolling five miles down a steep hill.
He and the Arronath were flung backward. They landed on the debris. Both skidded through the wreckage for several feet before they came to a stop.
Marik groaned in pain. The tremendous blow had damaged him. At the least, his tender ribs had been re-cracked. He could feel his entire chest tighten with each breath. His left arm also throbbed. It had taken the brunt of his short journey across the shattered wood fragments. Gouges blanketed it. Three jagged splinters the size of small stakes had been driven deep into the flesh.
Yet the blow restored Marik to his senses. Dietrik lay only three feet away. The one-eyed Arronath lay at his feet. Both were unconscious, though Dietrik might not be for long. With so much blood loss he could easily die if left untreated.
What was Xenos doing? Was he coming to deliver the final stroke that would make all future considerations unnecessary? Marik struggled to raise his head.
The fury ignited anew at the sight of his father’s body laying on its side, a hole torn right through him. Worse still, so much worse the world nearly dissolved into a field of red pulsing to his heart’s rhythm…the bastard had grabbed Rail’s life energy.
His father’s life force was a glowing blob of slippery energy. Xenos had no trouble grasping it. No doubt he’d grown accustomed to stealing other people’s personal energy. It had long ago become routine. Rail’s life force slid up the gathering channel until it merged with Xenos’ aura.
The blood mage’s aura flared brightly. Xenos bellowed in ecstasy. In his hand he formed a growing orb of pure power, pouring everything that had once been Rail Drakkson into it. It swirled and spun, flickering with an enormous quantity of raw energy.
“In the end, you will all become the servants of your glorious god!”
Xenos hurled the orb into the pool. The water posed no barrier to it since it was wholly an etheric creation. Energy formed within the etheric plane stayed in the etheric plane. Only an attack created on the physical plane would affect the ground, water or trees.
Down through the not-ground it sped. Marik watch it go helplessly. He could float ethereally above his body, yet he lacked the power to affect anything.
The twin arrowheads still struggled to overcome the seal. They had lost power to the point where the seal was nearly its original shape. Between the dark spots on its surface where the arrowheads still ground, the orb smashed into the seal.
It pressed hard. Not only that, but the arrowheads were gaining in size. Xenos was retaking direct control over them. Would he be able to break—
The orb created from his father’s life force bore into the barrier mercilessly. Inward bent the seal. Further… Further…
Too far…
It blinded Marik when the seal around the reservoir shattered. Fragments of ancient energy spun away through the etheric. From behind shone the placid power of seven lines continuously collected for twenty centuries.
The power was so great it could be seen by non-mages. With the seal gone, it shone through to the physical plane. Through the dark soot the pool’s water glowed steadily brighter. In moments it became a pond of noontime sunlight in a celestial garden, trees emerging from the sun’s surface, roots arcing through liquid fire.
Xenos spread his arms wide to bask in the artificial illumination. Marik could see the water’s light streaming past from the way Xenos blocked it. Rays seemed to flow around him, casting his shadow into the forest beyond.
Marik forced his body to sit up. It hurt considerably. His left arm refused to move. He pushed himself up with his right until he could see Xenos fully. His body trembled violently. What could he possibly do in this state?
The life harvester’s aura flared larger than ever. More than shining. More than bright. His life force burned in a raging torch that would have deafened men miles away were it capable of sound to match its fury. It rose higher than usual, transforming into etheric flames fanned by a gigantic bellows.
He could sense Xenos reach for the power. The power willing to be used by whoever touched it. Whoever could touch it at this point. It must be so concentrated it would burn a normal mage, despite its placidity.
I can’t allow this to happen! He’ll turn the world inside out if he has that level of power!
His body hurt badly. Marik fought through the pain, needing to stand. To get a weapon and fight. He tottered to his knees…and collapsed sideways into the blood that had flowed from Dietrik’s mangled arm.
Marik drifted from his body in time to watch a tendril of power reach Xenos. He had siphoned it from the reservoir. As thin as it was, it still shone brightly enough that it must represent unimaginable power.
Xenos took the channeled power into his core. His aura, already a blazing demon, accelerated until it looked as though he were being enveloped by a thousand flames per second, the etheric fire rising from his feet to reach the teardrop peak above his crown, painfully visible to non-magesight.
A joyous howl escaped him. He threw back his head to declare his conquest to the majestic Euvea trees.
Marik heard nothing from the etheric. He could only watch in abject shock. This was surely a horrible dream. Things like this didn’t happen in the waking world.
A lance of pure lightning struck Xenos from behind. From the burning deck, the Red Man emerged. The lightning flowed from his right palm in a writhing whip.
Marik reentered his body. He could hear the Red Man’s yell. It was wordless, a defying call. His clothing was as torn as Xenos’. And, Marik saw, he had not escaped damage as Xenos had.
The scaly red patch on his cheek had spread terribly. It covered the entire side. In fact, it looked as if his flesh had been transformed to a lizard’s. Even his lip was scaled. Yet it almost looked natural. His lip still curled evenly, thicker than the undamaged side, without the twisting that severe damage ought to have wrought.
His left eye was similarly…different. It had pulled sideways until it was closer to an almond shape than an ordinary eye. The iris remained the same jewel red. Around it, the scaly flesh enclosed the ruby that blazed with a fire to equal Xenos’ aura.
Despair clutched Marik’s heart. As incredible a display of power as the Red Man showed, Xenos shrugged it off. The lightning could not penetrate the aura’s tumult. It ground away the electric whip as surely as a grater decimates a carrot.
Xenos roared with contempt. “You know the futility! If you were so eager to die, you needed only to ask!”
He channeled a stream of power at the Red Man so absolute that the decking was torn to splinters in an instant. It continued on, ripping through the rear Euvea roots curving from the water.
And within it, the Red Man stood. Marik screamed the instant before it hit. The power was terrifying, the force enough to overwhelm his senses. But what unleashed his scream was the Red Man’s left arm. It had been hidden by his body the entire time until he raised it to shield against Xenos’ attack.
It was twisted and malformed. The fingers had become thick stubs with long claws protruding from the tips. His hand bent upward unnaturally far at the wrist, and the entire forearm bulged with thick muscle. All of it under a hide of red scales.
The Red Man had thrown his arm up to protect his face. Around him the power streamed…and it was clear that this was an attack that could hurt him. He screamed in pain behind his arm, ducking his head. Facing Marik. Glacial ice filled Marik’s gut when he saw the left teeth between the lizard lips. Unlike the normal teeth on the right side, the left ones had grown sharper, longer. Fanglike.
His ears rang with the cacophony of shredding wood, blazing fire and the flooding power roaring like a waterfall. The boards he lay upon shuddered from an unseen gale.
The
Red Man could not ward off the assault. Within the raging power, blood flowed from his mouth and nose. His arm swelled alarmingly. It grew longer, the clawed fingers lengthening. Scales spread up his arm until his shoulder was enveloped.
When his left arm was half the size of his body, and surely too heavy for him to move, the power finally overcame him. The Red Man was brutally hurled back. He landed with a thud in the burning section. His legs were sprawled across the solid decking, his torso within the flames.
He lay still as the dead.
“Divine Turliss will strengthen Himself on you upon His resurrection!” Xenos declared in ringing tones across the entire ruined village. “You will be a succulent treat to the one you wronged! He will be most pleased!”
Except however confident Xenos might be, he clearly intended to put himself beyond any further possible interruption. With the colossal power still feeding him, he stepped onto the glowing water. He walked across the surface as if from a bardic tale. Moving to stand directly over the ancient etheric reservoir.
* * * * *
There is no one left. I’m the only one who’s conscious. And what can I do to stop this monster? What in the hells can I do?
Marik stared helplessly at Xenos striding across the water.
It’s impossible! No one has the power to stop him. Celerity could bring the entire enclave and he would crush them with an exhale. We could gather every mage from across Merinor and combine their power through a group working, and he could swat it away. Nothing comes close to rivaling the power in the reservoir!
Xenos had reached a point over the artesian well. He stood so he could see his four waterlogged soldiers who were lining the platform’s edge, and Mendell crouching off to one side. The two armored soldiers, one still carrying the bow, had joined the colonel atop his root.
Father is dead. The bastard used his life energy to shatter the seal! Why didn’t somebody stop this from happening? Anybody could have stopped him before. He was a normal human once. Now he is almost as terrible as the god he wants to bring back from ruin.
The channel continued to draw the slow trickle up to Xenos from the town-square sized reservoir. It was all Marik could do simply to look at it. His eyes and mind felt sunburned from it. Xenos could barely be seen. His aura blazed fiercely. Within it he was a silhouette. Blazing so fiercely it enveloped him in the physical plane as much as the etheric.
I’m a dead man. As dead as father. As dead as Dietrik. Gods, Dietrik, can you ever forgive me? It won’t be much longer. Soon he’ll fill his power reserves to their limit and then…we’ll be ashes on the wind. He’ll perform whatever black witchcraft will resurrect his fallen god. I only hope it will be quick. But he doesn’t kill people quickly, does he? No. He drags it on for as long as possible.
The power coursing through Xenos must be enough to topple mountains. No mortal being should be able to channel such awesome energy. He had been drawing for several minutes. It must be enough to wipe entire cities off the map on a whim. And the reservoir had not changed the slightest bit. Such terrible power was only a drop from what it contained. How much more could Xenos possibly draw? Already he must be completely…must be…must…must be completely…
Wait a moment. I don’t care how much he’s been changed! Xenos started out as an ordinary man. He can’t be drawing this much power!
Marik watched the foul life harvester closely. Yes…Xenos was fearsome, Xenos was awesome, Xenos was terrible to behold, yet that was all. Or rather, he was not growing increasingly so. His first inrush from the reservoir had swollen his power to its current level. Then why, with the feed still pouring energy into him, was he not growing still further?
Where was the power going if not into his reserves? There was no working being crafted, no place for it to be spent. So where could it be—
Oh, gods. What a damned stupid fool! It was so obvious he should be ashamed. His own father had answered that long ago in the Queen’s Head. When he explained why the Earth God had gone mad in the first place.
Or rather he had made a casual, if illuminating, reference to gods. Priests maintained that the gods rewarded their most faithful. And why? Well, each priest had a different answer, but Rail must have known. Likely he did know because of whatever he had been taught by the Red Man.
It was absurdly simple. ‘Finally reached the point where he liked the taste of that more than what his followers offered him through their faith.’
Basic power economy on a cosmic scale.
What sustained a mage working? The etheric power the mage fed into it. What sustained a god? The faith of His or Her followers.
Marik did not know how, and it hardly mattered at the moment, but faith somehow fed a god. The higher the number of followers, the richer the amount of faith that was offered. Faith became far more than the insubstantial beliefs and wishes born from mankind. Offered up, it became as real as the etheric power Xenos drew from the reservoir. Divine manna. Food that nourished a deity and made Him as strong, or weak, as the followers’ faith.
But gods could not be killed. Not truly. They could be cast down, bereft of power, made weak from lack of followers. The Earth God might not have had a meal for two-thousand years, yet He still existed in one form or other.
And Xenos was sending Him power. Before, the Earth God had grown strong on blood energy that had sustained Him similarly to His followers’ faith. Etheric energy was no different. It was, after all, energy born from the land and the creatures inhabiting it.
The terrible power Xenos drew ought to be burning him out, except he was not holding onto it. He was sending it straight to his god. Whatever abilities he possessed as a preeminent priest enabled him to do so. Of course the sealed reservoir was too powerful for a man to safely use! But as a replacement for two millennia worth of prayers…
Xenos’ sacrifices in his underground temple. Marik had assumed the rites were a ruse to make blind fools drunk on religious ecstasy bring him victims. But, much as it fueled his own power, Xenos really did fulfill his promises. With each sacrifice he must have sent a portion of the life energy to his crippled god. Mere drops on the tongue of a man dying from thirst.
What a marvoulous shortcut the harvester had found. In all the world there could be no equal to this. A million sacrificial rites might match it. Maybe.
Well worth inciting a war for.
Marik watched the tableau, seeing it for its truth. The restoration of a god to His former power. Xenos had not been exaggerating at all. There he stood over the water, his aura blazing, his drawing channel alive with energy. For a man who could exert such control over his personal aura that he could make it invisible, it certainly writhed with a life of its own.
Or…not. Xenos would never let it beyond his control. That was nothing so simple as excess life energy. It was a shield. One that blended both defense and offense. Exactly like his saw blade orbs. Constantly in violent motion, shredding anything it came in contact with. Changing in shape in order to offer no structure to overcome. Overpowering an attack rather than deflecting it.
He had armored against any possible assault. High, low, and center. Xenos had left no quadrant vulnerable. Anything that attacked him would fail, unless it possessed power equal to the reservoir. And nothing—
Marik’s eyes dilated when a thought struck his brain a reverberating blow. He looked at the scene again. And again.
What’s to lose? I’m going to die anyway. Why in the hells not?
He launched his awareness into the etheric plane. Down he plunged through the not-ground. Down, and down, until he floated above the baking reservoir. Close enough to touch. Xenos’ channel flowed only inches from where his nose would be in a proper body.
Xenos did nothing. Why would he? Powerful as he was, he could not sense Marik’s shift, for the reality was that Marik had done nothing at all. His earlier fears of being caught drifting too close to Xenos had been groundless. That was obvious now. No astral form or ghostly self hovered that could be se
en or sensed. Marik had only altered his perception, focusing on specific information that lay within the range of his supernatural senses. Unless Marik did something foolhardy, such as touching Xenos’ channel with his talent, the harvester would continue to concentrate solely on his objectives.
Marik glanced up along the channel flowing to Xenos. The power within made it strong. Stronger than the lines he had drawn from in Kingshome and Thoenar. He could never sever such a conduit no matter how he tried.
So do the last thing anyone would expect. The unexpected is the most valuable asset on a mage’s battlefield. Tollaf, you rank old bastard, I wish I could tell you just how right you were.
He plunged his mental hands into the reservoir. It burned hotter than the sun. The interior of his head was being scorched. Placid, tame, unchallenging, yet deadly just by its very nature.
Marik ignored the pain. He reached deeper. His dual channel training had taught him to use more than the two hands he ordinary used by custom. Further he reached, casting numerous insubstantial fishing hooks into the reservoir’s surface.
His entire being shrieked in agony. But it did not matter. There would be plenty of respite in the afterlife. Soothing balms to wear away life’s torments. He reached further, pushed his fingers deeper. Grabbing as much power as he could.
A mere fraction of what he held would incinerate his entire being if he absorbed it.
Marik pulled. Pulled with every fiber of his soul.
The energy resisted. It had been in a single state for untold years. Immobile. In stasis.
Move, curse your eyes! Gods! Any god! Anyone! Help me!
He could feel his mental fingers searing. Flesh would have been charred to the bone. Yet he refused to give in.
Help me, damn you! Somebody!
Marik suddenly separated from the incredible pain. For an instant, it felt as if cool hands were resting on his shoulder. Hundreds of them. Sapping the pain away. Leaving relief in their wake.