by Sean Rodden
“Two entire Scabbards and the Dead Swords that led them destroyed at your hands – most impressive, Undying One.” The heel of the Blood Mage’s sceptre tapped rhythmically upon the stone of the bridge. “Not that such things impress me, to be quite honest, but I am sure someone somewhere would be appropriately enthused had they been compelled to bear witness to it all. It was not unlike watching a soldier ride a savagely bucking bull: A few spectators with a taste for such feats might be struck with absolute awe, while the vast majority would simply shake their heads and wonder just what in the Un-God’s name is wrong with that man.” Impossibly, the creature’s grin widened. “A matter of preference, I suppose, and while in no way mundane, I am still not entertained.”
The Sun Lord did not respond, but only stared with those pale, pale eyes. About him, at the very limits of mortal hearing, there clanged a carillon of discordant bells.
“Tell me, my beauty,” the Blood Mage cooed as it pushed upward from the stone and levitated into the crimson air, “do you identify as male or female? Or as something else entirely, perhaps? Do you even possess reproductive organs? As your kind does not produce offspring, you would have no need for such unseemly parts. Unless, of course, the Athair fornicate for the sake of sheer pleasure.”
Yllufarr’s gaze followed the path of the Blood Mage as it floated higher into the chasm, matching the haughty aloofness of the fiend’s demeanour with a froideur all his own – cold and colourless and completely incurious. The bellsong of the Ath’s being was a campanology more callous than the plague, pealing melodically, rhythmically, to which the creature wheeled and whirled, its rouge fallal and finery a shapeless splotch of blood in the air above.
“Shall we dance, my dire and delicate flower?” Sceptre in hand, Dijin Amora waved and weaved its arms, painting the air a deeper, darker red. “Shadow and blood, hmmm? So often are the two so meticulously and irrevocably entangled. Such sweet syncretism. Mmmm, entwined and pressed together, thrusting, grunting, grinding. O the passion!” The creature’s pelvis pounded the air. Its flavescent eyes sizzled. “Such exemious satisfaction! Blood and shadow, shadow and blood. The Undying and the undead. Never to suffer shriveling senectitude. Eternal life, everlasting lust. We must feed our immortal hungers. Come, my sweet inamorato – or is it inamorata? Whichever. Come dance with Dijin Amora!”
And suddenly a paroxysm of eldritch fire erupted from the cordate ruby at the head of the Mage’s talisman. The bolt of flame instantly streaked down upon Prince Yllufarr, enveloping him where he stood in the mouth of the tunnel. Illincarnadine power crackled and crepitated, completely engulfing the stricken Sun Lord in a raging ball of fire. Briefly, fleetingly, a concave lattice shape formed within the sphere, the frame of an arcane shield thrown up too feebly and too late, each warp and weft alternately blazing black and white as it fizzled and failed. Dijin Amora shrieked in ecstasy and poured more and more poisoned puissance into the roaring inferno. The conflagration throbbed and pulsed, and the rock at the foot of the bridge and the mouth of the tunnel began to melt like wax beneath a burning sun.
And then the fireball flared and exploded.
Agony. Utter and abject. Every fibre, every bone of his being, every drop of blood in his veins screeched in intolerable, impossible pain. He had never known such anguish, such absolute torture, had never felt it, had never suffered it. And even though the pain was not his own, he was so attuned to the victim, so intricately connected, that he experienced each lash and laceration as sorely and as surely as did she.
Walk.
But stride after tormented stride, as the magma rose about Rundul’s thick thighs, the Maiden’s misery escalated exponentially, and the Darad’s awareness of her anguish became ever more acute. He was possessed of a strange and disturbing rubatosis, vaguely conscious of his heart hammering furiously within him, a perilous percussion, irregular and arrhythmic. He balled his fists, bared his teeth. One step, another step. His leathers burned away, were incinerated. The lava lapped at his groin. Sinew shrieked, skin screamed. But the Stone Lord slogged on.
Eldurion watched Rundul wade through the lake of fire, saw the blighted magma rise to the Darad’s waist, his abdomen, his massive chest. And although the Daradur were Made of the Earth and were essentially immune to flame, the aged Fian could sense the magnitude of his friend’s distress, the superhuman scale of his suffering. The roots of Eldurion’s teeth ached; the muscles of his tummy tightened toward tearing; his hand grasped Grimroth so desperately that the bones of his fingers hurt. He would have shouted encouragement, reassurance, had words been capable of traversing his constricted throat. Instead, the grim grey warrior simply wept.
Dijin Amora giggled with glee.
The Blood Mage pranced and frolicked a few dozen feet above the bridge, its generous kimino billowing beautifully, like a lover’s rose wilting and blooming over and over again. It spun its heart-headed sceptre in its elegant hands, wildly, recklessly, as though the ancient relic was little more than an adolescent marcher’s baton. Its laughter came in whoops and squeals and other more disturbing sounds for which there are no actual words. The unorthodox celebration of its victory over the Undying One continued for some time – an excusable indulgence, perhaps, as its last such triumph had been at Mekkoleth on Sark-u-surum nearly five centuries earlier.
The Blood Mage floated back down to the bridge, then glided along its blackened length till it came to the mouth of the tunnel. Or rather to where the mouth of the tunnel had been, for the opening had completely collapsed in the catastrophic explosion. The rock there had been blasted to bits and chunks, burned and melted, then had cooled and hardened to form a veritably solid plug, a bulbous cork wrought of recast rock.
Dijin Amora pursed its sensuous lips, cocked its head to one side, then tapped the barrier with the head of its sceptre. The creature emitted a strange cooing sound as it extended its sentience past the blockade, along the tunnel, seeking, probing, but sensing nothing save echoes and shadows and the ghosts of memories that were not its own. It soon withdrew, straightened, stretched. Although it had disposed of the Athain trespasser, it was aware that at least one other, and likely two, had continued on and down toward the lair of the Blood King. Despite this rude affront to its efficacy in warding Suru-luk from all assailants, the undead fiend could not have been less concerned. It knew what awaited the intruders on the isle of the Red Wraith – assuming they even got that far. It knew, and it did not care. Not for them, not for the Blood King. It had done enough, and would neither expend more energy nor squander further thought on the matter.
Besides, what had the Blood Bastard done for it lately? Or ever, come to think of it?
Even in life, Dijin Amora had been an entitled prick.
Walk. Just… walk.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Rundul pressed forward. Each step was an eternity of agony. The molten pool pulled, sucked, dragged him down, hauling upon his beard as bubbles boiled and belched at the level of his shoulders. Urthvennim assailed him without ruth or relent, flogging and flailing his flesh, scourging his soul. Within him, Maiden Earth wailed, her voice a lonesome wind in the mountains, the hollow howling of caves in the cliffs, languishing, lamenting.
Nevertheless, she endured, and the Darad with her.
Rundul stared fixedly ahead, resolute, determined. Onward he trudged, ever onward. And in the furrow of his wake the magma cooled and congealed, hardening, gradually forming a causeway of solid stone as the power of Maiden Earth inherent within him repelled and negated the urthvennim that assaulted her. And with each step Rundul forced himself to take, the stone path at his back lengthened, broadened. But the Maiden’s refusal, her defiance, was not without a price, not without a terrible cost.
The Captain could feel his endurance ebbing, waning, consumed like wood in the hearth, oil in the lamp. The onslaught of urthvennim was constant and unwavering, besieging him body and soul, draining him of his physical forte and of the eldritch essence that his massive frame housed. He we
akened with every protracted pace, the deleterious effects of the earthblight systematically stripping him of his strength, exhausting the Maiden within him, defiling her, ruining him, bent on destroying them both.
Keep... walking.
One step. Another step. And another step. Trudging through a nightmare of fire and pain. One step. Another step. Then another step. Over and over again.
Just… keep… walking.
Eyelids crunched closed. His mouth hung open. Droplets of magma spattered his tongue. Time lost meaning. Distance was measured not in strides but in laterigrade lurches and stumbles. Thoughts became snarled, scrambled, bereft of logic and lucidity – but not of purpose. Not of… animus. Forbearance, longanimity were all. The very afflatus that had borne him from the abomination beneath the Bloodshards so many weeks before now impelled him back to that same outrage, inspiring him immutably forward, step after torturous step.
Don’t stop… walking.
Buckling, bending, but not breaking. Faltering, etiolating, but never failing. The will to endure and conquer. Pushing himself to the extreme limits of his constitution, and then past and beyond. Rundul no longer acknowledged the pain, for he knew it was a lie, both cause and effect. And there was no true pain in that lie, no real agony. Only something that was or had been real could have hurt so horribly. Only something pure and true. And the urthvennim was neither. K’urth Deen dur Hamma, that twisted sister of Maiden Earth, was but a deception, a delusion, the insistent illusion of something glorious given and taken away. And so he persisted. He persevered. The last resistant remnants of Maiden Earth in him reared and roared. And with a shuddering clang of finality he shut the gates of his heart and soul to the Hag of Lies.
And then, for a precious instant in eternity, there was peace. Utter ataraxy. Complete and total freedom from all anguish, from all distress, all sorrow.
And the pain that had never been, never was.
Just… don’t stop… wal –
But Rundul had stopped. Forever. Because death will do that, even to a Darad.
The shade of a shadow detached from the coarse ceiling of the passage. Landed without a sound. Stood there, head bowed, listening. In harmony with the environs, attuned to the world and everything in it. Hearing the babble and burble of pools of polluted magma; the slithering of urthwurmur larvae in slimy netherwordly nests; the long low groans of fault lines trembling as the earth dreamed in her sleep. But the specific sounds sought were not found, could not be heard. There were no thrasonical bellows of battle, no crash of arms, no ear-shredding shrieks of pain, no shouts of –
And then it came.
Soft, so very soft, softer than either a sigh of sorrow or of sincerest sympathy – almost too soft for shadows to hear.
The sound of weeping.
Weapons raised and ready, Yllufarr turned down the tunnel and ran.
The lake of magma was gone. In its place was a vast expanse of solid obsidian, flat and black and shining, marbled here and there with elongated streaks of deepest red, like great copper worms trapped in midnight iron. A white wave of smoke and steam sifted across the perfectly level surface as would fog over a burial ground, dissipating quickly, disappearing with a hiss. The rock moaned as it cooled, the soft satisfied sound that oft accompanies the after-moments of gorged desire, or that might attend the final fleeting instants of inner peace before death comes stealing.
Eldurion’s footfalls were perfectly silent as he strode across the solidified lake. His cloak billowed noiselessly behind him. Grimroth glowed in his hand as quietly as candlelight. Yet within his bosom, his heart was booming. Not for rage, however. Neither for pain nor for hate. But for love. Love and pride.
For the thing that Rundul of Axar had done.
The Fian slowed as he approached the jagged line where the petrified lake met the bank of the island. At his back, the tempering rock whispered as though that perfectly smooth plateau had become an external manifestation of his own intuition, warning of danger. His argent eyes aglitter with the grace of Grimroth, the veteran warrior surveyed the atoll, but all he could see were great pillars of misshapen stone and asomatous shades of darkness. Then, immediately before him, he marked something anomalous, and was drawn to a specific mass of rock jutting from the hardened magma, crumpled upon the craggy coast. He moved closer. And a breath like a death rattle slipped from his chest.
The immobile form of Rundul of Axar lay partially emerged from the hissing obsidian. The Darad’s upper body was hunched upon the shore, naked and steaming, face down, staring into the soul of the world. The rest of him was yet entombed in the dead stone of the lake. He had evidently crawled the last few yards through the contaminated magma upon his hands and knees, inch after excruciating inch, and had been able to heave himself partway out of the solidifying stone before his mighty heart had imploded within him.
What deed more selfless than the giving of one’s life for another? What act purer of heart, more valiant of soul? Such sublime rectitude, such rightness of both principle and conduct. This thing, this sacrifice that Rundul had made, was noble beyond either measure or description. It was the very definition of altruism. The absolute relinquishment of self. And the ultimate expression of love.
Eldurion knelt beside the dead Darad. Vapour swirled upward from the stone skin like whispering wisps of woe. With uncharacteristic mansuetude the old warrior placed one hand upon the motionless hulk and was not surprised to find that it was become solid rock, rough and rigid, flesh and bone and bristling beard. He felt the petrified corpse infrigidating rapidly beneath his callused palm as he leaned near to one unhearing ear.
“I spoke falsely, friend Rundul. I will not live long enough to tell your tale. And there is no one here to tell mine.” The Eldest paused, felt Grimroth hum warmly in one hand. “Nevertheless, our tales will be told. Not by bored soldiers in spartan bivouacs and barracks. Not by drunken patrons in backstreet bars. Neither by wide-eyed children in rural schoolrooms nor by courtiers in golden throne halls. But by those who love us – and by those who fear and loathe us.” The haft in his hand was hot now, promising fire. “By the Teller’s own Tongue, my friend, neither you nor I shall go unremembered.”
And as though in answer, in argument, a soft yet shrill switch of laughter lashed the darkened air. But it was an exercise in irony, a most bitter humour sourced in deepest desolation and gloom, the very voice of despair. The cackle resonated throughout the colossal cavern, rebounding and resounding upon distant walls and deformed obelisks until it seemed the entire underworld was energized with a bleak and sinister mirth which sought to bend the unyielding soul and break the most resolute of hearts.
Yet Eldurion rose, tall and straight. Unbent. Unbroken. His eyes blazed an angry argent, and the set of his features was past grim, beyond grave. He extended golden Grimroth to one side, and then in a slow and sweeping arc he raised that eldritch brand to the subterranean skies of stone. And words like fire leapt from his breast.
“Grimroth. Blade of Defurien. I bid thee burn.”
And Grimroth burned.
Brilliantly, beautifully, the sword of the First Lord of the Fiannar erupted in golden fire, and a whoosh like the stentorian roar of righteous wrath rocked the cavern, shivering the bones of the Bloodshards, sending the very foundations of New Ungloth ashudder. Light burst from the Blade, bleaching the black, casting the whole of the hollow in bright and shining shadow. And even when the flames settled to a slow angry burn, the arcane luminosity shed by Grimroth remained, bearing the luxurious lustre of the upper world’s ascendant dawn to the evernight of the netherearth.
The island of the Blood King was revealed in all its grotesquery. Jagged banks sloped steadily upward toward a ragged ring of misshapen ruins that might very well have once stood in macabre grandeur at ancient Mekkoleth on Sark-u-surum. Centred beyond this henge was a single soaring spire of twisted stone, the summit of which had been carved in the crude shape of a massive seat.
And enthroned there, carmin
e and abhorrent, was Suru-luk himself.
The Red Wraith slouched atop the peak of the pinnacle, leaning casually to his left, his elbow braced upon one thigh, his head resting in his hand. He was gigantic, in excess of twenty feet tall had he been standing, and though he was indeed clad in cardinal mantle and vestment, there was nothing wraithlike about him. Other than his sheer enormity and the aura of menacing power that emanated from him, the Blood King appeared essentially, if not entirely, human. His features were distinctly Dicese: Bright amber eyes narrow and seemingly slanted; burnished pate and cheeks and chin shaved smooth; fine strands of copper were woven into his long black brows and moustaches. His slim fingers were decked with at least a dozen ostentatious ruby rings, the tapered tips ending in long red nails. A strange smile adorned his painted lips, small and secret, as though he was privy to knowledge that he found both trivial and amusing.
Nevertheless, the Blood King no longer laughed.
Eldurion lowered the Blade.
“You will come down, vaimpír,” the Eldest of the Fiannar declared as the soles of his boots left the stone beneath them and he levitated half a foot above the ground. “Or I will throw you down. Either way, your final hour is upon you.”
The Blood King peered down, his thin eyes sliding from the Fian’s cold countenance to flaming Grimroth. His attention lingered there for a moment, then returned. He shifted in his perch, leaning to his right now, his head cocked at a thoughtful angle. His lips parted as though he was about to speak, but he then seemed to reconsider, and pressed them closed again in another saccharine and scarlet smile.
Eldurion glared. Fire flickered over his fingers.
“Descend, fiend. I will not say it again.”
But Suru-luk’s smile only widened, and a wicked gleam brightened his eyes. He lounged further back upon his seat like a man well-sated following a feast. His lavish nails clicked as he waggled the fingers of one hand. And he whispered something silken and sinister beneath his mint-sweetened breath.