Timothy walked toward the cloud of darkness and shadow, and Elin called out, but he could not hear his own voice, and the boy kept walking towards it. Suffused in sable, Timothy raised his hands high; the Animus Stone illuminated brilliantly: its light interlaced with tendrils of shadows that crept towards Elin.
It slithered up his legs, and he felt the taint and vile corruption. It poured into his mouth and eyes, and there was naught but darkness and shadows.
Then he saw all of it.
He was in Sebastien Tiron’s home, in the basements where Timothy rested. The healer was cornered by Lord Luc of the Dark Brotherhood. Elin felt every instinct to preserve his poor son, to give the boy the blessing of Sariel. He bled the light of the Animus Stone into Timothy and he was born anew.
Elin was then in his home. Joshua huddled behind his mother, clutching her skirts. The boy was crying, and Alicia, strong and resolute, implored him not to do this. Elin ignored it, and his sight was naught but a crimson haze. His youngest son cowered. “You shall understand at the end of days.”
His son cried and wailed, crawling into a corner, putting his arms up. Elin strove closer, treading through crimson puddles, placing the tip of Judgment upon his son’s throat. The boy was so weak, so piteously weak and frail; but all would change when the Great Fate churned to Sariel’s will. “Trust your father,” Elin said to his cowering son. “I know what is best for you.”
He was in Zelen, at the site of his sin. All the other knights had gone, but he grinned as he pushed aside the charred, barren corpses of children wrapped in white. There were Trechtians upon the floor and in the tunnels: broken and destroyed. “What is the death of children next to the survival of the realm?” he said aloud to no one. “I will butcher every last child if it means a better day.”
He was standing at the foot of the Mountain, clasping an Animus Stone to his breast; Black Wrath’s claymore, Doom, was upraised, hand trembling. Argath Diomedes commanded Black Wrath to stand down and deliver the stone to the throne. Elin watched as the Black Wrath reluctantly ascended the Mountain in quiet and doubt, and then he knelt, presenting the gift to the imperator. Elin knew at that moment that it would ensnare the imperium to his will, and bring the Time of Ascendance e’er closer to fruition.
He was standing in the solar of the counsel of faith. Rachel Du’vron was against a dishevelled bookcase, and his blade was upon her throat. The counsel confessed to a conspiracy betwixt the imperium and the theocracy that would end his life. All the sacrifice, all the loss, and his life was worth less than naught to those with power. He cut priestess down, and left her to bleed out upon the floor.
He was standing upon the Mountain’s Summit. Lord Aleksander had taken Lord Commander Rafael Azail to the depths below, and Imperator Argath Diomedes flitted open his eyes. Elin asked after the old man’s role in the conspiracy against him. The imperator bristled. “He is a mad dog. He should have been put down. There is naught I would have given to see that done. Alas, too late: the lesser blood prevailed.”
Elin grasped the old man by the collar and threw him down the Mountain. Leaping after him, Elin buried a sword through the imperator’s back, and left him as the imperium crumbled all around.
“We must stop the cycle, Johnathan. It ends here. I do not believe the father or the counsel he obediently serves. Nay, but there are those who are manipulating us from the shadows who want us to be strong. I will not play to their hands though, not anymore. We will walk the path, bring the Mountain down, and tear the realm down with it. Priestesses, imperators, kings, they no longer hold sway. My children are dead, but for the children who still live, I would sacrifice for them. And I will.”
He recognized his own words, but Altier spoke them. “Is that not what your heart desires, Elin?”
“Yes,” Elin replied, trembling. “Yes, I desire it. There is so much corruption and sacrifice. There must be an end to all the death.”
“THUS THE GREAT FATE CHURNS.”
The Animus Stone shot out from the heart of the darkness and shadow, and encased inside his breastplate. Elin saw it grow and expand to a mottled winged bird, yellow and grand. Altier stood before him, and the yellow reached out, and drew the essence of the cloaked man into him.
Now comes the dark god, Altier declared inside Elin’s head.
The darkness and shadow fell upon him in a fury of pain and anguish. He saw brilliant streams of light feed into everlasting Darkness. He felt his skin tear and break apart; his insides burst and were reknit. It was unbearable, unfathomable pain.
“The light of our life may darken, but that of faith is a brilliance that cannot be dulled. Let faith lead your life, and never will you stray from the Light.”
THE GREAT FATE NO LONGER CHURNS TO HER WILL!
Elin fell to his knees and saw only Darkness.
Eldred opened his eyes.
He saw a realm of Darkness: a formless, mouldable realm. Upon his breast was a crystalline gem, and voices wailed out. They all cried out at once: a cacophony of suffering and anguish, and he drank it all in. Two other voices rose above it: one thunderous, and the other coarse.
Discard what was.
In the darkness was a bastard sword with a leathern hilt, the pommel unadorned. Its blade was long, engraved upon the steel were the words: The Light brings judgment to all who swear subservience. The mantra disgusted him. He picked up the sword and walked to the edge of the platform, and tossed it into the abyss.
NOW FOR THE BLADE THAT WE WERE MEANT TO WIELD.
In his hand was a long, thick jagged blade; pools of sable mist dripped from the edge. The hilt was ornately carved, and symbols of the old empire burned into the leather. The pommel was of a great beast with leathern wings. It felt light in his hand.
The realm awaits its sovereign.
He pulled his cowl up and ascended the eastern stair. The realm was ruinous and corrupt. The pious and the accursed profaned Sariel: the god of all creation and strength, the god that he served. The Animus Stones would have to be gathered, its power turned against the gaolers of the god. “The Time of Ascendance is near at end.”
It is what we have striven for, the coarse voice said. There are but a few left guarded by the heathens who would deny the true god.
Eldred pushed through the twisted and churning path that his feet knew so well. He did not recall walking down it, but it felt familiar. On and on it went, and he felt a hungering for vengeance with every step.
At the end of the path were knights with drawn swords, intent upon another who stood near the door. “Ser Elin! What did you see?” The voice was old but strong, with a tinge of familiarity.
The other knights turned to him, their hopeful faces looking back. They were accursed and ugly to his eyes.
It is them who hath brought this realm to ruin. It is them who spurned the dark will. It is them who hath profaned before the Pantheon.
We shall make an end of them.
He felt a power surge through him—life and death entangled into one. He was bathed in a yellow luminescence entwined with Darkness, and he felt the very rocks of the throne behind him. He extended his will to the Mountain, and thrust boulders and spikes of rock at the knights.
The spikes tore through one, and gouged another upon the wall. The boulders crushed bones with sickening crunches. Some had scattered, but he willed the spires through their plate, and watched as their blood puddled.
Three knights stood before him unafraid: two at the fore, and the old man by the doors.
“What have you done?” one cried out, a large woman. “Ser Elin? What has become of you?”
He seethed and leapt forth, severing her head in a swift stroke. The other knight met his steel, but Eldred pushed down, and he could hear bones crush and crack. “The sinners shall writhe and fall.”
“This is not what we fought for. Sacrificed for. Died for. We trusted you!”
Eldred grinned, and sliced through the brittle steel of the knight, hewing him in half.
“Then you will perish along with this wretched realm.”
Eldred charged forth, and wrapped a hand around the knight’s neck, throwing him at the wall. The old man coughed up blood. Eldred lifted old man up along the wall.
He screamed out as pain laced through his body, and the thunderous voice rattled viciously inside his head. He turned, and a slip of a girl smiled while she yanked a pair of daggers out from the gaps in his plate. “By the will of the Harpy and the grace of the Voice, you shall bleed out, Ser Elin, and know justice only the grave can grant.”
“What would you know of the grave, you wretch!” Eldred screamed out, and the fell sorcery surged from within him. He directed streams of Darkness towards her, and it pinned her at the far wall. He stood, endlessly channeling, basking in the swordswoman’s screams. “The Voice and the Harpy shall fall!”
“We shall… we shall…” the woman’s voice trailed off in screams.
Darkness and shadows coalesced: churning and thick. He siphoned the life force from the swordswoman: ripping her spirit into the stone, and all her knowledge absorbed into his power.
Klara Antieth, or so she vainly called herself, the coarse voice spoke up in hungering slathers. She was sent here to slay us. Her words were not false. The Voice—High Priestess Lutessa—made a pact with the Harpy, Aerona Harkan. They will both meet an end for what they have done. They shall fall by the blade sent to cut us down.
He let the power go and smiled at the smoking puddle where the swordswoman once stood.
“What have you become, boy, but the very man you swore to bring down?” the elder knight said, limping from the wall. Eldred turned and let the old man talk. The voice was familiar, soothing, and he thought a part of him heeded it once. “I did not stay your madness when you professed to bring down all of the realm. Klara was meant to end you, and I would have watched. You cannot answer one atrocity with another. I will not let you.”
“That is not within your power,” Eldred wailed, leaping towards the knight, spearing him through the chest against the wall. Blood dripped out from his mouth, but he stood proud and defiant.
“Mother… God… shall protect us.”
“Her time has past!”
“She watches… us… still…”
Eldred felt a surging strength not his own. The Animus Stone faded, and the voices inside his head cried out in terror. “What have you wrought, old man?!”
“If you… will not shield us… my… boy… then… I must trust to… another…”
The keep shook, the dark marble tore up beneath him, and stone fell, shattering upon the floor. The screams and wails blurred out his thought, and a purifying Light filled his sight.
She lets our Her final breath…
Chapter Twenty-Five
Foe of the Dark God
Sebastien gripped the rail of the ship, and watched as the Light eviscerated Isilia.
It had started as a small speck on the horizon: the land shook at its coming, and it grew to an immense height, swallowing all that stood in its path. He could not see the city of Isil, nor would he dare venture there again, but the stone had said there would be naught but a ruin.
They were words that soothed him, but Ashleigh did not seem to heed them.
She languished at the rail, eyes welling into tears, weeping. Women are weak and frail, Sebastien thought looking towards the sentinel. The loss of my home gave me a rebirth. It will give her that. I must put up with this for a time.
The Light faded just as it reached the outer stretch of land. The waters shook, the wasteland groaned, and he knew it spared none that breathed.
You shall rise, child, the stone said to Sebastien timidly, but you must not linger. The dark god will not be still for long, and my power wanes.
“Captain!” Sebastien cried out. The portly, bumbling captain came from behind, sweating through his white overcoat. “Now we may depart. I trust that your smuggler will not forget our meeting point?”
The captain patted his brow while answering. “Yes, yes, good master, you need not worry. I have known the man for years. He is friendly with the Corsair, he is, drinks and trades with the man’s own private stock on occasion. Your guest will be brought to Kallen unharmed.”
“See that he does,” Sebastien replied. “I will know if he does not, and your vessel will not be safe.”
“Good master, no need for—”
“Leave me,” Sebastien waved his hand, dismissing the captain.
The decks swayed beneath his feet, and oars hit the water. Ashleigh stirred then, wiping tears from her eyes. “We are really going there—to Lanan?”
“Yes,” Sebastien said. “I have told you as much. We shall meet with the overlord. There is much that I must tell him. He has been deceived long by this Dark Brotherhood, and Elder Amos most of all. We will have to undo it all.
“What does that have to do with me! All that I had I lost. Put me into the sea. There is naught left.”
The sentinel seemed to understand little, but Sebastien knew that would change soon. “It wills you to life, and you shall accede to Its will, as I have. Your love sacrificed himself for the greater good. Let it not go to waste.”
“Do not speak of…”
Ashleigh’s words trailed off, and Sebastien saw the shadow of the Animus Stone’s light upon the sentinel’s face. “You will do as It commands. Do not flail against it.”
“What of the priest?” Ashleigh asked, raising her eyes. “What part does he have to play?”
“Father Stephen Francis is a proud zealot. There is little that he would not do for the preservation of the Faith. That is useful in a realm taken by chaos.”
“I need rest.”
“Go below decks. It will be a long journey on this vessel.”
Ashleigh wrenched away, walking unsteadily towards the cabin at the rear of the vessel.
Sebastien remained. He took in the cold sea air that seemed so full of promise.
“A storm is coming,” he said quietly to none but himself. “The seas will erupt and churn, and those who were still shall be bound to the will of the stone. In the chaos, I will find what was hidden, and wield the power of the gods for myself. The Darkness Rising may still come, but another will rise to challenge him, though not who was writ in prophecy.
“Amid a sea of storms, I shall do what my dear friend could never do.
Part II
Sea of Storms
Chapter One
Survival
Aerona awoke to a dank and dark chamber.
She gripped the hard ground and tightened her grip. The pebbles pierced her skin. Then she looked forward, and saw two men in the distance, though they seemed more shadows than flesh. One appeared to be robed, ululating a terrible chant. The other seemed to be garbed in gilded plate, grasping a blade and advancing towards the other.
Her legs ached and wobbled, though she pushed herself closer to the men. A light seemed to coalesce and grow between them, casting a glow to pale flesh. A terrible realization struck her and she stopped.
My Brood…
She thought it hard to make out anything in the chamber, but there were faint outlines of bodies garbed in black. Bile built up in her throat, and she nearly fell to the damp ground. Only the palest of light struck their dead faces, but she knew who they were.
Claire, Jessica, Dominique, and Lara. Taken from me. We stood together, struggled against…
Against what?
It did not seem to matter. She tried to think what had come before, but it was clouded, all save a faint memory of a man arriving, and another leaving.
That man in plate, he arrived and he freed… Ser Johnathan. He left and let the rest of us to die.
But who are you?
She looked towards the figure in plate and saw the side of his face. The eyes of this m
an were brimmed with purpose; his face was hard and strong, and his blonde hair was cropped short. No name came to her. She needed to know who it was.
I will decry your name as blood trickles down in rivers. I will lay my Brood at rest knowing their foe is dead.
“Forgive me.”
The voice was familiar. She pushed herself forward.
Vengeance is all that remains. I owe it to them. Claire, Jessica, Dominique, and Lara.
She ignored the pain and fingered a sheathed dagger at her waist: thin, curved, and three inches long. She grasped the coarse leather of the hilt, and strength flooded through her body.
It will be enough. It must be enough.
She took soft steps upon the beaten earth, and her eyes ne’er left the two men. The man in robes howled, and the other gazed forth intent, oblivious to all around him. Silently, she picked up her pace, recalling the lessons taught to her by her father upon the decks: soft movements, quick thrusts, no hesitation.
The man was no more than a foot away. The plate divided near his waist. It was slight, but she eyed it hungrily. The soft scraping of leather echoed as she withdrew the dagger; she held it in her right hand, poised to strike.
Suddenly there was a thump. The man in robes puddled on the ground, and the man in plate relaxed.
Now.
She planted the cold steel through his flesh, and though he stumbled, she heard no cry of pain. Catching him as he fell backwards, she pulled his head back so that he could see her. It was not enough to end him, not after all that had happened. She wanted him to know who had ended his life.
The man in plate bore a half smile. “Aerona Harkan. Take it. Do not let them possess It.”
“Your imperium has fallen, and your right to command with it.”
Pain flashed across his face. “This is not the end. Live, my lady, and protect her.”
The man went limp. Aerona tossed the body aside, disgusted, and looked towards the mound of robes. What seemed to be a crystalline gem lay there, shining bright, though cradled by the dark. She reached for it, her fingers brushing the edge, and it seemed like her fingers burned, and she fell to the ground.
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