“Fuck,” said Zosia, rubbing her roach-stung temples. “Just make sure you chew, okay? That other witch found out the hard way what comes of wolfing down your food while it’s still wriggling.”
“You’ve got to try this.” Hoartrap held up something black and wet. “Bring it in, friends—you’ve all earned a place at the table.”
“Oh shit, where’s Best?” asked Purna, looking around.
“Out cold, but I propped her up on one of the thrones,” said Keun-ju.
“I broke the circle,” Zosia said to herself, not having any idea what the others were on about and not much caring—now that this small fight was over the immediacy and magnitude of their dilemma returned to her. Louder, now, she said, “Hoartrap, if that fucker’s really dead, I broke their circle of devils! Is there some clever way to make the rest of them topple, like blocks in a row?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice!” said Hoartrap, which wasn’t exactly the answer she’d hoped for. “All you did was make one of the Vex Assembly infinitely more powerful—now that you’ve taken out the lucky sod’s master it’s no longer accountable to its cohort and can act with impunity. That might make it more inclined to listen to reason, but I wouldn’t stake your life on it, let alone mine.”
“We can kill them,” said Purna, sounding in awe of her own potential. “We killed one—we can kill them all!”
“I wouldn’t count on that, either,” said Hoartrap, shaking his head and sucking a finger clean. “The five of us, two devils, and the element of surprise, and we barely managed to murder one of them. And I’m still not sure how we even pulled that off! No, no, friends, the only reason we’re not all inside out right now is that the rest of the Assembly is holding their Gate of Gates open. As soon as their ritual is over we’re as screwed as the rest of the Star, unless we do the sensible thing and nip off into the outer realms before they finish. We’re lucky to be alive, and I’ve never been one to push my good fortune any farther than I can throw a mummified Moocher.”
“The ritual …” Zosia swayed on her feet in the slime, squinting at the dazzling glare of the flashing Gate and the ten silhouettes gathered around and atop it. Lucky to be alive, Hoartrap said, but luck wasn’t everything, was it? Either one of those demoniac priests could have killed Zosia, yet despite having her in their grasp they’d prolonged her suffering. She’d assumed it was just because they were devilish assholes, but now another possibility was niggling at the back of her violated mind …
Then there was the timing of their attack, the Vex Assembly content to ignore her presence entirely until she began to release Hoartrap …
No. It wasn’t her freeing Hoartrap that had riled them, but the fact that immediately afterward she had planned to give the Vex Assembly one last chance to stop their ritual before loosing Choplicker to sacrifice Diadem.
Motherlicking mind-reading devils. They hadn’t killed her because they weren’t trying to kill her—because they knew if she died Choplicker would sacrifice Diadem, banishing them back to the First Dark. No, these fuckers were just trying to stall her, to keep her busy until their ritual was complete and it was too late to do anything. They hadn’t rejected her initial offer because they were unafraid of being exiled a second time, it was that after taking one glance at Zosia these psychic monsters knew she wasn’t ready to follow through on her threats. That she wouldn’t sacrifice Diadem until she’d begged these devils a dozen times over, giving them chance after chance after chance, because as long as she drew breath she wanted to find another way, a better way.
Well, hell. Now that she knew there wasn’t a better way, it was time to burn Diadem to the fucking ground and save the Star … assuming there was still time. It couldn’t happen to a nicer city. Drawing herself up to her full height as the yellow pulses of the Gate slowed and softened to a constant golden glow, she gave Choplicker a farewell scratch behind the ears and braced herself to make both their wishes come true.
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The warrior queen stood proud upon the ramparts, watching the burning world vanish into chaos and ruin. Beside her Nemi of the Bitter Sighs cracked her final egg, but Indsorith only had eyes for the all-seeing orb that filled the void where West Othean had fallen. Would that Sister Portolés had lived to see this, what would that poor conflicted wretch have made of this miracle? It was a funny thing to flit through her fraying mind, but there it went and Indsorith almost laughed as she felt her heart flood with an unspeakable emotion. After all that, Y’Homa had actually been right. The Fallen Mother was real, she loved her children, and now she had returned.
Indsorith stepped forward to join her, when she felt her whole being submerged in a bath of sulfurous ice water.
“Resist the devil, and stay yourself to the very end.”
She didn’t know where the words came from but she spoke them in tandem with Nemi, and as the final syllable left Indsorith’s lips the two women leaned into each other, both exhausted by whatever had passed between them. All around them soldiers were clawing their eyes out or diving over the side of the wall or both, and Indsorith felt that familiar mixture of melancholy and relief at being above and apart from the delusions of the faithful. Instead of staring down into the maddening scope of the golden eye Indsorith looked up into the heavens, and saw that even the rain clouds had been sucked down into that titanic rift in the First Dark.
The pressure in the air swelled around them, and Nemi cried out, but Indsorith kept her eyes fixed on the cobalt sky until the very end.
Choi tightened her headlock around Maroto’s neck but she couldn’t cut off his howls, and he raged against her, desperate to fling himself out over the corpses of the demons they’d killed, down the mountain of rubble. She must think he’d gone as crazy as the soldiers who were leaping into the Gate from the intact sections of the wall to the north and south, but Maroto could tell from their euphoric laughter that the poor broken souls wished to welcome their conqueror, their god. Maroto had other motivations. He recognized a devil when he saw one, and while this titan of the First Dark might be just a little too big to skin, he could damn sure give it the old Cobalt try.
Maroto might not be the sharpest mace on the rack, as Kang-ho used to joke, but he’d finally figured out what had happened here, and the combination of heinous enlightenment and grievous guilt made him howl louder than ever. The Tothans must’ve found out about the Immaculate trap and perverted it to their advantage, stuffing as many of their troops into Othean as they could before the Court of the Dreaming Priests blew the whole place up. If a humble rat had been sufficient offering for Maroto to summon and bind Crumbsnatcher, what would an entire army of their own soldiers and all their mortal victims call up for the Vex Assembly? The thought-swapping monsters had shown him visions of every corner of the Star besieged by their legions, had ordered him to go and spread the bad word about how doomed everyone was, but now he had to wonder if that had all just been one big ruse designed to draw as many people up here as possible, to really pack in the crowds for Jex Toth’s first and final offensive … and to make sure whatever they enticed up to the rim of their colossal Gate saw that it would be well fed on the other side.
And however might the Vex Assembly have hit on such an artful ploy as this, provoking their enemies into an epic battle for the sole purpose of killing off as many of their own loyal soldiers as possible, as quickly as possible, to complete some diabolical ritual? Sad to say but Maroto had a pretty good idea on that score, too—those Tothan freaks had been positively obsessed with extracting every detail they could from him about the Battle of the Lark’s Tongue. At the time he hadn’t had the foggiest idea what the Burnished Chain had actually pulled out there on the Witchfinder Plains, but the brain-raiding Vex Assembly must have read between the lines, picking up on all the clues his dumb arse had soaked up but overlooked. Did that make this his fault? Like, more than it already was? Should he have somehow seen this coming?
Yes. Of course. What a fool he’d b
een. All that time caged in with the kooky Vex Assembly it had been sacrifice this and blood offering that, but instead of hanging on their every screeched word or projected thought he had dismissed them as pure nutters, devil-ridden deviants who wanted to murder the Star for no greater end than evil itself. Maroto of all people should have known that evil is never so simple, and you don’t make a sacrifice unless you expect something valuable in return … and the bigger the offering, the greater the reward. The Vex Assembly were priests, for fuck’s sake, and while he had never figured out exactly what it was they venerated he had a pretty good guess that whatever it was the dread fiend was looking at him right fucking now.
But not for long, because as soon as he got free of Choi he was going to drive his black steel spear straight into that great golden eye. Whatever it was attached to would still rise from the Gate to take this world, his world, he knew that … but the fucker would do so blinded, an eye for a fucking eye just like the Chain always said.
Elbowing Choi’s ribs and finally slipping out from her grasp, he rolled to his feet and charged down the rubble they had fought so hard to defend. She grabbed at his hair … and grabbed only air, the freshly shorn barbarian howling as he raced out along a spit of broken stone and dove off the side of the ruined wall. The Mighty Maroto rather fancied the eye was focused on him as he fell into it, leading with his spear.
For a dyed-in-the-wig drama queen who had spent countless hours imagining his own death, even he had never imagined going out on such a high note.
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Hoartrap continued to feast on the demoniac Zosia had vanquished, a fittingly nasty last meal for a truly nasty man. Purna and Keun-ju offered to back Zosia up but she didn’t want any distractions, so they went to check on their unconscious Flintlander friend while Cold Cobalt marched alone to face down a cabal of deathless monsters. Well, not quite alone. Choplicker splashed beside her through the bubbling filth of the disintegrating grotto, toward the golden beacon of the Gate where ten black shadows completed their ritual. It was eerily silent, save for all the dripping. Clearing her throat, Zosia made her second and final appeal to the Vex Assembly.
“Listen up, oh devils of Jex Toth, and listen good, because I’m only giving you one chance to save yourselves!” The threat sounded so flimsy, here in this bizarre realm, and not a one of the swarm-hooded figures turned from their silent ceremony to heed her. This was why they hadn’t listened the first time, because she still couldn’t believe she was going to do it herself. Taking a deep breath, she looked to Choplicker for strength despite how little she wanted to lean on him. Maybe she should have lingered in his heaven, however hollow it felt … Taking a deep breath, she bellowed, “I’ve killed one of your number already, and I’m not afraid to cull the rest! I command you to cease your ritual, to cease your war! Immediately! If you do, I offer you peace, here on the Star. If you refuse, you will be banished back to the First Dark. Immediately! Maybe you’ll find another way back or maybe this time you won’t, but I promise you’re going to find out in about five seconds. Look upon me! Look upon my devil! The choice is yours!”
They ignored her. This was it, then. For the Star, maybe. For Diadem, definitely. And for her, most of all. She looked down at where her devil waded in the slime beside her and gave the order before he had to start swimming.
“All right, Chop, you heard the crickets. I hereby grant your freedom in exchange—”
“Your kind has never known peace. You do not desire it. You breed hate and you feed on fear, a cannibal race dedicated to its own extinction.”
The prodigious ant-riddled priest had again stepped away from the edge of the Gate, his formerly screechy voice now smooth as butter fresh out of the churn, his bloodshot eyes gone as black as the bottom of a caved-in mine.
“That’s putting an awfully fine point on it,” said Zosia, though the sentiment was one she herself had shared on occasion, especially when she was a teenager. “I’ll allow that peace is hard to hold on to, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And I know you’re just trying to stall me long enough to finish your ritual, so you’ve got to the count of five to take part in the great experiment. One.”
“Othean is lost, and your world with it.” It smiled sympathetically as it splashed toward her. “For the second time you mortals have made our sacrifices for us. First with the blood of your kind, to bring us home. Now with the offering of our kind, to bring home She Who Comes. The Gate of Gates yawns and the Black Goddess gazes out upon her tribute. She shall rise to quench your sun, to burn your moon, to—”
“Don’t know what that means, don’t give a fuck,” said Zosia, sloshing forward to meet this fat piece of shit that was nowhere near as scary as the dog now paddling beside her. “Two. And three, while we’re at it—when I hit five, Chop, if their ritual isn’t aborted you’ve got your freedom in exchange for sacrificing Diadem, so long as it banishes Jex Toth and all these devils back to the First Dark.”
“Your threats ring as hollow as your heart, Cold Zosia.” As she stepped so close she could see the ants marching into one nostril and out the other, the thing inside the priest murmured, “I scent the stink of hope upon you. You have vanquished Sherdenn, and I am duly impressed … but contrary to your desire it brings me no pleasure to lose my master.”
“Fuck pleasure,” said Zosia. “If that was your master I iced let’s talk about opportunity. You’re now the only member of the Vex Assembly who never has to worry about losing your power, your immortality. I gave you true freedom, and all I’m asking in exchange is for you to pull rank with your goon squad and call off this clusterfuck. I’ve been in a summoning circle a time or two myself, big boy, and I know you all have to work together to pull it off, right? And with the one who summoned you out of the song for good you can choose to opt out without repercussions, right?”
“You understand nothing of our kind. My resolve is not weakened for having lost my master, and our order is not weakened for having lost a brother. You cannot begin to comprehend what it means, that we now hold open the Gate of Gates, and through it She Who Comes—”
“Don’t know, don’t give a fuck,” Zosia singsonged. “This is your last chance, stupid. Shut this Gate of Gates, call off your armies. Now. This isn’t a conversation. Either you do as I fucking tell you and we see if mortals and devils can coexist, or you and the rest of your Assembly go back to the First Dark to blabber around your sewing circle about how sweet it would’ve been to taste the fruits of your harvest, to daydream about what’s happening up here. Maybe the demented fanatic you’re trapped inside wants an evil goddess to reap all life from the Star, but I’m thinking you educated devils are smarter than that. I’m thinking you realize that working with me gets you a world teeming with mortal passions and pains, instead of banishment back beyond the Gates. Your master’s dead and gone, and that means you’ve got nobody to answer to but yourself—so put your apocalypse back in the bottle and let it cellar for another age or two, or you’re going back in the basement yourself. That’s four, and if the next word out of your host isn’t surrender I’m damning us all—look in my heart and see if I’m still bluffing.”
It didn’t speak, but she could feel an itchy tingling at her temples like the gentle cousin of the first Tothan’s intruding fingers, felt a pressure behind her eyes like a mounting migraine. Then it smiled big enough to eat the world, and Choplicker snarled, and Zosia was tired of this bullshit, anyway.
“Five.”
So much for diplomacy. Zosia’s last thought as Choplicker unfurled beside her was that she wished she had done this from the outset, so that she could have watched Diadem burn from the top of her throne room. That was hindsight for you.
As the eye of the First Dark opened upon the world of mortals and everyone up on the wall lost their damn shit, Sullen really, really wished he hadn’t talked Zosia out of sacrificing Diadem. It was just like Ma, Fa, and everyone else he’d ever met had always said—he was too dam
n soft, too damn sweet, the human equivalent of one of those gooey cinnamon breads Diggelby had turned him on to at that breakfast bar back in Thao, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Now he was grappling his girlfriend on the battlements to prevent her from leaping down to greet whatever god of gods or devil of devils was looking out upon them … Served him right for listening to the Faceless Mistress, who was probably laughing her spooky ass off right about now. Don’t get mixed up with other people’s gods—that was just basic shit, man.
So here at the saga’s end it turned out he’d been in a farce from the very beginning. Sullen Soggybrains, who went ahead and listened to a foreign devil queen even when the greatest heroes of his age all told him it was a bad idea, that they knew of an easy way to thwart the First Dark. Hard to think of this dreary, drawn-out quest as anything other than a fable against folly, now that the final chorus was chiming in. What had he expected, really, when every time the action started he was either entirely absent or quick to have his lamp knocked dark? How had he ever thought himself the champion of an epic song when he was fainting dead away as soon as the fights started, when the mightiest foes he’d faced hadn’t been monsters or gods but his own damn mom and a ten-year-old boy? And now he was fixing to lose a wrestling match against his girlfriend, who he knew for a fact didn’t even know the rudimentary moves …
Then Ji-hyeon went still, which Sullen would have taken as a good sign except his whole body locked up, too, what he saw out of the corner of his eye shutting down his ability to even breathe. Whatever was on the other side of that epic Gate hadn’t just been watching them, and now it wasn’t just on the other side … It gave off the most brilliant golden-white light as it poured up into the sky, a living moon, and as he stared it blossomed outward, a crown of wavering tendrils to cover the world, blotting out the light of sun and stars, a new heaven for the mortals that survived its coming. The warm red tears peeled up off Sullen’s cheeks, falling into the sky, up to the hungry god that had come among them …
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