Mythborn

by Lakshman, V.

  Orion looked quickly at the advancing horde of nephilim and said, “You lie at death’s door, yet no dark shades have appeared.” His eyes were wide with wonder and he stared at the firstmark as if trying to drink in his soul.

  Ash looked at him and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” then the firstmark gave him a weak smile and whispered, “but I’m content to die next to another warrior.”

  Orion looked at him, up into the sky. “Thoth, was this meant to be? Did you know?” There was no answer, and when he looked back down, Ash’s eyes had closed.

  The Watcher gathered the man in his arms and encircled him with his wings. Then he said, “You will carry the fight to Edyn. I give myself freely. Do you accept?”

  * * * * *

  Arek’s eyes slowly opened. Duncan stood over him, concern plain on his face. He slowly looked around and saw Yetteje pushing herself up, shaking her head. Brianna lay to one side, motionless. He reached down and felt his stomach. He was healed! Energy flowed through him, a pure and clean vibration, a soundless force that lifted and buoyed him like a warm ocean swell.

  “Are you okay?” Duncan asked. “Because we could use some help.”

  Arek rose and saw Valarius advancing, lighting crackling on his fingers. Duncan had resurrected his energy shield to hold back the nephilim, but between the dark horde and Valarius, it was doubtful they could withstand anything for long.

  He stood and breathed deeply, then nodded. “I think so,” he said, feeling the heady strength of the Way flow through him, healing him of any remaining wounds, filling his body with surety and strength. His pale eyes could not believe the clarity of vision he had, nor the sheer abundance of the Way as it surrounded him like a second skin.

  Valarius’s expression changed. He looked at Arek as if scrutinizing something not readily visible. Then his gaze swung to Duncan, rage filling his features.

  “You’ve interfered with me for the last time,” the highlord said as he turned on Duncan. He seemed unhinged, his eyes wild as he advanced, throwing bolt after bolt at the archmage. The first blast destroyed the shield. The second would have hit Duncan but the archmage created a smaller curved barrier, almost a buckler of energy that he hid behind as it channeled most of the force around him.

  Arek watched as a small smile came to Duncan’s face and he heard his father say, “It’s dangerous to get distracted.” The way he said it, for a moment Arek thought it was Silbane talking to him, but that was impossible.

  Valarius had cocooned himself in a curtain of energy but his elves had been scattered like leaves in the wind. Now he rose up, power curling around his form as he said, “Bring your worst—”

  The bone shards of a red fist smashed down on his energy shield and dissipated it with the crack of thunder. The force continued downward, hitting the highlord’s head and pulping it instantly as Valarius’s body was crushed under the massive fist. Dozens more thunderous blows rained down, making the highlord’s body nothing but a splash of blood and gore. Vengeance continued smashing, not stopping until a pit had formed with whatever bits and parts of Valarius were left splattering its gruesome center. It looked up from its handiwork and stood motionless. The gholem had killed the last elf within sight, and with that Duncan’s gesh over it was gone.

  “Hope you liked your belated wedding present,” Duncan said before falling back in clear exhaustion, though a small chuckle still escaped his weary frame.

  The blood gholem looked around slowly, its nostrils flaring in two vertical slits as if it tried to catch a scent of something. Tendrils of smoke, whispers of something still alive, snaked up his body. Duncan scrambled back to his knees as if sensing something, his voice quavering as he said, “Oh no.”

  “What?” Arek asked his father.

  The ethereal vapors had infiltrated the body, entering through pores and skin. It took hold and the creature’s eyes changed from blue fire to a color Arek knew all too well: the eyes of a wolf, a predator, a Galadine lord thought dead for centuries.

  The gholem inspected itself, then rasped, “Not the body I would have chosen, but it will suffice.”

  Yetteje had grabbed Arek by one arm, pulling him back a bit. “What is that thing?”

  Arek’s eyes widened. Valarius! The man could possess, just like the Aeris. Another part of his mind, the objective part, chastised him for missing the obvious. If Valarius had intended on possessing Arek, then why not the gholem? Arek had been Valarius’s first choice when he still had control of the blackfire. The attack of Vengeance and expediency had clearly given the highlord little choice. Arek took a faltering step back, then stumbled to fall near Duncan.

  “What do we do?” he whispered.

  The gholem who was now Valarius flexed his gargantuan fists, rubbing bone shards against each other, then said, “You die.”

  Arek looked at his father and mindspoke quickly, Change form!

  Duncan nodded and to Arek’s surprise said, Silbane showed me how.

  A sudden surge of the Way and a moment later they stood taller, towering over Yetteje. The princess quickly moved behind the two and pulled the recovering Brianna with her.

  Arek looked down and saw the armored living plates that were Azrael’s covering him, protecting him from head to foot from the gholem’s bone shards. He was dimly aware of the dark angel that his father’s form took, helm and armor of burnt cinder and smoke for wings, but his eyes stayed on the hulking creature that was Valarius. He charged them, a behemoth made for destruction.

  A blaze of arrows flew from behind Arek’s leg, fired unerringly by Yetteje.

  The creature waded in but Duncan and Arek scattered and Yetteje vaulted up, somersaulting over the gholem’s head. As she fell she fired three more arrows in quick succession into the creature’s back.

  Valarius let loose a howl of rage and spun, raising its arms when streaks of silver tattooed a small pattern of explosions around his face.

  Arek followed the line back to Brianna, still kneeling, firing her strange weapon at the creature. It made a zip sound at each pull of the trigger, sending some kind of explosive projectile at the gholem. They seemed to be doing little good but the distraction gave Arek the time to charge and strike.

  Hitting the creature felt like hitting a wall, the impact jarring him to the bone. An elbow smacked down on his back and he shifted, letting the blow glance off a wing. Then he struck a double punch that sent a gauntleted fist into the creature’s face and midsection simultaneously.

  Had the creature Valarius had become not been armored it was likely Arek’s tactic would have stunned it. Had the creature only the mindless rage of a gholem it was likely its counter would have been something more mundane. But the creature was armored and not mindless. It gestured and lightning coursed from its hands, striking the young Adept and blasting him backward, his face locked in a teeth-clenching rictus.

  Duncan dived in, breaking the highlord’s attention and disrupting the lightning storm enveloping Arek. He too met a brutal counter, matching his prowess against a man who had led the Galadine forces on the field of battle and the elven forces in Arcadia. Armed now with the strength of the gholem, Valarius struck a vicious blow downward, catching Duncan hard on his helm. The helm let out a small cloud of ash and sparks, as if cracking under the might of Valarius’s fists, and Duncan fell in a heap at the gholem’s feet.

  Arek shook his head, slowly leveraging himself up, only to see Valarius smashing his bone shard fists into Duncan’s armor again and again. The archmage had collapsed, barely defending himself, and Arek knew it was only a matter of time before one of those fists broke through.

  Tej fired her bow but Valarius ignored the arrows as they mostly bounced off his bone plates. Brianna had collapsed again, and Arek was not sure if she was awake or had fallen back into a stupor. He fought to regain his feet, then sent a bolt of pure whitefire into the beast. It knocked Valarius back a step, enough for Arek to see Duncan scramble away, then Tej was there, facing the cr
eature by herself!

  “It makes me sick to know we share the same blood,” she said, then let loose with Valor like a goddess of the bow. Her arrows flew like spears of flaming light and Valarius fell back, crossing his arms in front of his body. Then the flames began to spread, each impact snaking in random directions around the creature as Valarius brought his magical defenses to bear. The shield that formed before him deflected Valor’s arrows into small expanding clouds of fire that curved around the gholem’s body. Valarius bent forward, then took step after step toward them. “You betray your own family!” the highlord screamed, advancing with murderous intent upon the princess. “The price for treason is death!”

  Arek couldn’t use his whitefire because Tej blocked his way, so he moved forward to intercept the creature.

  “Stand steady,” a voice said, and an enormous archangel armored in silver and blue was there, striking Valarius from behind. The silver blades stabbed through the gholem, and as it turned, the new Aeris Lord sliced off a clawed hand at the wrist and kicked the creature back.

  “Orion!” cried Yetteje.

  “Not exactly, Princess,” the visor popped open and behind it was the firstmark’s clear gaze, his eyes crinkled into a smile. Then Valarius screamed and the visor snapped back down. A storm of lightning was unleashed at the two.

  Ash encircled the princess with his wings and tucked her within, careful she did not touch any part of him. The blast hit him with the force of a cannon, throwing him and Yetteje to one side.

  Arek watched them fall. The giant figure was not moving but Yetteje had recovered Valor and was crawling to her feet, but moving slowly as if dazed. Just then Brianna was there, pulling the princess down behind some rubble. He looked back at the highlord, whose wrist had already stopped bleeding.

  He needs blood to heal, his father’s voice mindspoke. Don’t give him any.

  Arek looked over and saw Duncan slowly getting up, his armor cracked and his helm gone. A sudden bolt of lightning caught him in the chest and flung him back and away, the strike so quick his father hadn’t even made a sound.

  Arek spun to come face to face with the creature that was Valarius, his mind finally clearing from the aftereffects of the lightning storm. A sudden cold clarity, the knowledge that he was still very much in the middle of a fight and not a spectator, hit him. It was a disjointed thing, a disconnection with the events that brought him here, though could recall them all. He knew he’d been in a fugue, the blast had put him in a twilight from which he’d acted out of instinct. His next actions would either mean victory or death for them all.

  “I had planned much for you,” rasped Valarius, the grotesqueness of the creature giving Arek the impression he spoke to what had always been the highlord’s true inner self. “I gave you life, protected your mother. I made you a weapon to survive these Aeris demons, and you repay me with this!”

  “You aren’t taking your madness to Edyn,” Arek said with a shrug, “no matter the cost.”

  “Spoken like a true avatar of my making. Let us—”

  “Hold!” Piter’s voice rang with command, a strident battlefield voice unlike anything Arek had heard his fellow apprentice utter before. Around them dark nephilim rose from the floor, surrounding the area. They crowded in, forcing the two combatants away from each other slowly. They moved to surround them, forming two circles, their cold blue gazes hungry.

  Piter’s black eyes watched the blood gholem hungrily, then he looked over to Arek, “Well done. You have completed the cycle started with Valarius and destroyed Arcadia.” He tapped his head and said, “Though all things must come to an end.”

  Another explosion, this one closer from below, shook the ground. Fire leapt up from the opening they’d come through and the sounds of battle within the city could be heard approaching.

  Arek looked at Piter and asked, “Destroyed Arcadia?”

  Piter gestured to the black nephilim surrounding them, “Pestilence, disease, the rot you spread upon the Way was the only endgame that mattered.”

  Arek’s brows drew together in consternation because something in the shade’s voice had changed. “The nephilim are not new. They appeared here long before I came. The elves, the Watchers, even Cainan knew of them.”

  “Yes, but the Aeris, whether Watcher or Fury, were used to fighting them,” Piter said. “Only you could succeed where many before failed, only because Lilyth held her hand.”

  Arek shook his head. “That makes no sense. Why would Lilyth bring me here if she knew I could destroy her kind?”

  “Oh, did she not get some of what she wanted?” Piter asked. “We are at the end, all cards must be played, all debts collected.”

  Arek’s eyes widened. “But I only turned a few—”

  “A few here, a few there,” Piter interrupted, “and they in turn did the same. How long before Arcadia itself is turned?”

  “W-why would you do this?” Arek stammered.

  “Because he wants the Aeris destroyed,” the voice of Valarius growled. The creature turned to look at Piter and said, “I gave him this power, the dark Way. Who are you to interfere, slave? You should be groveling at your master’s feet.” The gholem’s eyes glowed amber with power. “I banish you from Avalyon!”

  Although Valarius’s voice rang with power, nothing happened. A slow smile spread across the shade’s face and it said, “I want so much more than you comprehend.” Something in his voice caused Valarius to shift, his bone armor gleaming dully as he faced the dark shade, but it seemed Piter did not care. He looked at the horde surrounding the creature that was now Valarius and said, “Take him.”

  The nephilim horde moved forward like an ocean wave, acting as a foe with a single mind hungering for flesh. At the first touch of a dark one Valarius spun in place and smashed the nephilim, then let loose a lightning blast that expanded outward, forcing those around him away. Another white bolt seared a hole through the horde, vaporizing the nephilim it hit, but the darkness flowed in like the tide as the horde reconverged. A third, then a fourth, this last one barely visible beneath the dark mass that covered the blood gholem.

  Piter clenched his hand, looking at Arek. “He could have prevailed had you not brought me here. Now he turns to a better purpose.”

  Still even more came rising from the floor, biting and ripping as the horde covered the monstrous beast, turning it from blood red to inky black, a new kind of nephilim with unknown limits. The abomination regained its feet, its eyes burning a cold blue as the darkness took over and whatever was once Valarius Galadine was consumed.

  Arek was stunned at the suddenness of the highlord’s fall. He blinked, only to be brought back to the here and now by Piter, who had moved closer to him. “Do you see the power of the darkness? It cannot be combated by the Way, for it feasts upon it.”

  Piter tilted his head back, taking in Avalyon at a glance. “When I overheard Lilyth planning with Thoth to send you here, I could not believe our fortune. Delivering Valarius was an unanticipated bonus, a crowning achievement. It is fitting he die by the hand of his own creation, no?”

  Arek was quiet, thinking about how Piter had demanded to release him. Finally he said, “You certainly timed things right.”

  Piter shrugged that off and said, “One must gain their freedom. Lilyth was fond of saying she played the razor’s edge. I did the same, beholding myself to ensure you entered Arcadia. Every step we took together meant life or death.”

  Whatever this thing was, it said it made sure he entered Arcadia. It was obvious it had used any means at its disposal, fear, carefully placed words, lies, threats, anything to achieve that goal. A moment passed, then two.

  Finally Arek said, “And now what?”

  A slow smile spread on Piter’s face, behind which such malevolence shone it caused even Arek to take a step back. The shade grew, becoming taller, larger. It did not grow to the height of the Ascended but somehow seemed more imposing in its stature.

  The dark figure who was once Pi
ter looked at them all and said, “Unraveling the blackfire has made you of little use to me. However,” the black eyes blinked once slowly, like a reptile’s, “I am not without mercy. You did me a great service, so I leave Arcadia to you for however long it lasts.”

  Arek watched, reviewing all he knew of the shade. He’d started subservient and acidic in his hate, but nowhere near this powerful. Now he sounded different, more menacing, somehow older.

  “You’re not Piter.” Arek said, little things coming together all at once. The fact that Piter did not remember any specific details prior to his death, or the clumsy way in which the combat trained apprentice had handled Brutus and his men. Arek’s eyes narrowed and he knew it was the truth.

  The shade shrugged and smiled. “Does it matter? The deed you were created for has been done, the cycle is complete, the game has come to its end. Your nephilim now multiply, destroying the Way wherever they go. Soon they will overrun Arcadia, and only Edyn will remain. Cainan will carry your blight to the known world.” Then Piter gestured and his remaining nephilim along with the silent, massive hulk of the dark Vengeance descended into the floor.

  He looked at them all with his black liquid eyes and smiled. “The blood gate has closed. I judge you have two days at most before you too are consumed and return your essence to the Way.”

  “Where will you escape to?” asked Arek.

  “What need have I for escape?” countered the dark shade. “You cannot defeat what you do not comprehend.”

  With that, the figure disappeared and the hall grew still, somehow feeling darker and less alive. Scattered about lay the survivors of the party, sitting atop a wooden city set ablaze.

  Hand of Justice

  Do not let those who capture also judge.

  The chase makes their blood hot and their rage swift.

  - Argus Rillaran, The Power of Deceit

  Sounds could still be heard below, now even closer, the sounds of fighting and mayhem. Something was driving its way up, causing Arek to look for Duncan. Once he found his father he gently shook him, happy to hear a groan, then he turned his attention back to the gate. The thing that had masqueraded as Piter had said it was closed. Before he could take a closer look his father gasped, struggling to rise, so Arek helped him up, scattering a bunch of magehunter torcs that lay about from the first attack by the elves. They made a hollow ringing sound, like cheap jewelry and Arek cursed the sight of them.