“Fovos, we had a deal!”
“And I am breaking that deal. I will let you watch your family die. Painfully, slowly, one at a time. And then, once you have watched me turn them all into quivering pieces of meat, only then will I give you the sweet release of death.”
Agaprei fought against her bands, but they held her fast.
Fovos grew his finger long, becoming a blade that he pressed up against Kaia’s neck.
“Let’s begin with your sister, shall we?”
“NOOOOOO!”
Suddenly a patch of stone became liquid, and a man rose up, sitting in a wheeled chair. In his one hand he held a staff.
Fovos spun around. “You!”
“Back away, you blob of black snot, or I’ll end you.”
Fovos threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, this is too perfect. No, I can kill him right in front of her as well.”
Agaprei was shocked. “Storgen, you shouldn’t have come here.”
Fovos rose up, his gelatinous body taking the shape of a man. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
Storgen spun the staff in his hand. “Yeah, it’s gonna be hard now, because I brought some allies.”
The stone shifted again and three gods rose up behind him. Sirend, Reinala, and Nisi.
Fovos snarled and charged, and the whole realm around them seemed to fill with explosions. Faster than the mortal eye could see, the four gods clashed. Nisi drew her sword and slashed, but a copy of her blocked the attack. Sirend fired beams of heat from his eyes, but his doppelganger blunted the attack with one of his own. Reinala fired a blast of fire, but an identical blast from her mirror image fired one of her own to cancel it.
Kicking, punching, bashing, and slashing, the four gods zipped around the skies at fantastic speeds. Storgen couldn’t even follow them with his eyes; it just seemed like the heavens were filled with blurs of movement and shockwaves of air. The sound was absolutely deafening, like a thousand firecrackers going off in every direction.
Planting his staff in the ground, Storgen began to wheel himself towards Agaprei. She could barely stand the sight of him, his bandaged knees, and the stump of his right arm. Every time he scooted himself closer, she felt her heart would break.
“Storgen. You came back. After all I did to you.”
“Of course I did. I love you.”
“But, I told you I didn’t love you.”
“You don’t have to. That’s not how love works. Even if you never show me an ounce of affection, I will still fight for you. No matter what.”
In the skies above, Sirend and Reinala began to tire. Their attacks came slower, weaker with each punch and blast.
“You used up too much power enacting those little miracles of yours,” Fovos mocked, becoming a copy of Sirend and countering his punch.
Fovos shifted to become a mirror of Reinala, and blocked her blast with his own. “You’re fading fast. Perhaps I should wait and let you take a drink of ambrosia.”
Reinala strained, her body growing dim as she struggled. Nisi slashed Fovos across the back, and for her trouble, her doppelganger bashed her in the face with its elbow. In what was to mortals only a few moments, four gods fought for weeks and months in the heavens, tearing away at one another, Fovos countering every single attack from his opponents, seemingly incapable of fatigue as his enemies slowly wore themselves out.
“You now see the limits of human affection,” Fovos taunted, becoming Nisi and kicking her in the gut. “Adoration can only go so far.”
Fovos shifted into Sirend and punched him in the face, sending him back, reeling. “But hate has no limits.” Fovos mirrored Reinala and blasted her in the chest. “Hate is endless.” Fovos became Sirend and blasted him in the face. “Hate is limitless!” Fovos transformed into Nisi and stabbed her through the leg. “Hate is true power!”
Reinala stumbled back and fired a gout of celestial energy. Her copy fired back, but hers was stronger, pushing Reinala farther and farther back, her face sweating and her body straining.
Scooting himself as fast as he could, Storgen finally reached the trees where Agaprei was bound. Tucking his staff underneath his armpit, he pulled out a dagger to cut her free. “Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here.”
“No, save my family first.”
Above there was a clang, and Nisi’s golden gladius came crashing down, cracked and burred.
“This place is a war zone,” Storgen said. “There’s no time.”
“Please, if you love me, then save them.”
Storgen struggled, then nodded. “All right.” He scooted over, and began cutting the others free.
Suddenly, the trees groaned, and a dim figure came falling from the heavens. Reinala hit the ground hard, shaking the forest, her light almost completely extinguished. She rolled on her back, her immortal body battered and bruised.
A heartbeat later, Sirend came slamming to the ground as well, the very stone cracking as he groaned and lost consciousness.
Storgen laid Lachan across his lap, followed by Naenia and then Kaia. Now heavily laden, he found it difficult to scoot himself back over to Agaprei.
“Get them to safety,” she yelled over the sounds of battle.
“Not without you!” Storgen yelled back, cutting her hands free.
Finally, even the great Nisi, Goddess of War, was bested, and her beaten form came falling out of the sky, smashing to the ground with a mighty thud.
Her copy floated down, a sinister smirk on its face, then reverted back into a being of tar and slime. “The power of hate really is remarkable,” Fovos mused. “What can possibly stand against it?”
“I can.”
Storgen held up his staff, his deep blue eyes defiant.
Fovos let out a gurgling laugh. “Surely you don’t mean to use your crimson stone in here, do you?”
Storgen tried to keep his expression neutral, but his eyes instinctively flicked over to his hand, where his thumb rested on the crimson stone embedded into the staff.
“You saw what happened when a single celestial tree exploded inside the tower,” Fovos explained. “Move your thumb now, and every tree around us will detonate just like it. Your little siren family will be instantly vaporized.”
“Well, what about you?” Storgen bluffed. “Robbed of magic, you’d die with us.”
“I’m already dying,” Fovos bubbled. Sirend and Reinala knew what they were doing when they imprisoned me. Even if I am victorious today, I’ll be dead within a year. I’m not here to win, I’m here to avenge myself before I die. So, go ahead, unleash that ancient curse; nothing would make me happier. Destroy the Eternal Orchard for time and for all eternity. I’ll die happy, knowing that every single god who betrayed me will die with me.”
For a moment, Storgen and Fovos stared each other down, but Storgen knew he had already lost.
“Blast,” Storgen said, lowering his staff.
Fovos picked up Agaprei’s belt, and began to twirl it nonchalantly in his grip. “Of course, it will be a lot more fun to kill all of you slowly. I think I’ll start by flaying off your skin.”
Agaprei finished cutting her feet free, then stood between Storgen and Fovos. “Storgen, get my family to safety. I’ll hold him off.”
Fovos laughed. “You?”
“You can’t ask me to do that,” Storgen said.
Agaprei shook her head. “You don’t understand. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I have to save the people I care about.”
She looked back, her expression tender. “All of the people I care about.”
Before Storgen could respond, Agaprei took off at a sprint towards Fovos. The being of tar became a copy of her, and clipped her belt around her waist. The two clashed, throwing roundhouse kicks, back hands, and spear-hand strikes as if they were mirrors of one another.
Storgen fought within himself, scooting and wheeling himself towards the bare stone as best he could with three people on his lap.
Agaprei co
uldn’t believe how fast her opponent was. It was as if she herself were fighting in slow motion by comparison. She took a knee to the chest, a palm-strike to the neck, a reverse kick between her shoulder blades, and a knuckle strike to the thigh before she could even react. Agaprei fell to one knee, her wounds screaming in her brain.
“You didn’t think you could actually best me, did you?” her mirror goaded, standing over her.
“That wasn’t the plan,” Agaprei said, spitting blood,
Her copy became aware of a ticking noise. It looked down and realized that clockworks inside the belt buckle were ticking down.
Agaprei jumped clear, and the belt exploded, breaking all the vials, and dousing her doppelganger with flaming, corrosive liquids. It screamed in pain, its body coming apart and dripping free in oily droplets of flaming tar. It flailed and stumbled, limbs dropping free in blazing, sizzling chunks.
Even through all the pain of being burned alive, Fovos saw Storgen making for the exit, and moved to cut him off, his black body gathering together, slurping and crawling towards him. Agaprei leapt atop Fovos, wrapping her arm around what she guess was his neck and yanking hard, pulling him away. Her skin burned from the flames as Fovos whipped out with scything tentacles, blindly slicing through earth and rock. Storgen shoved himself the final few inches atop the opal, and Agaprei sang out the melody as best she could. The rock became liquid, and he splashed down within, a scything swipe nearly decapitating him as he fell away.
Fovos roared in anger, flinging Agaprei hard off his back. She hit the ground, skidding and flipping end over end. Her vision blurred, her ears rang in her head. Before her, lay her dagger. As she looked up with wobbly vision, she saw the black form of Fovos growing to immense size, great black wings and obsidian scales. Twisted horns sprang from his head, and a mouth of jagged teeth like swords grew from his maw.
“Do you think you’ve won?” Fovos asked, his voice deepening. “They won’t get far. I’ll hunt them down to the ends of the earth. I’ll burn them alive. I’ll crush their skulls. I’ll eat them alive!” As his transformation into a dragon completed, the fires went out, unable to burn on his now fireproof hide.
Agaprei painfully rose to her feet, picking up her dagger and clutching her wounded side. “You will not lay a finger on Storgen. I will stop you.”
“Just try it, my unfaithful wife!”
Fovos breathed a gout of black hellfire, scorching the ground and digging up a channel in the earth. Agaprei leapt aside and scampered up a tree, her broken ribs crying out in agony. Fovos flicked out his razor-sharp spiked tail, nearly slicing her in half as she jumped up higher, climbing to the highest branches of the celestial tree.
Now eye-to eye with the scaly black monster, she held out her dagger and prepared to pounce.
“You can’t be serious,” Fovos snickered. “No puny blade can pierce a dragon’s scales.”
Suddenly something grabbed at his tail and he stumbled. Looking back, he found Sirend and Nisi gripping him as best they could with their exhausted hands.
“Let go of me!”
Fovos flicked his tail hard, smashing and bashing them until they let go. When he turned back around, he found Agaprei leaping through the air, coming down right on top of him. Reflexively, he opened his mouth and swallowed her whole. Agaprei slid down the wet, slick throat, slashing and cutting as she went, dousing herself in gallons of black blood and mucus.
Outside, she could hear the muffled screams of pain coming from the dragon. When she hit the stomach, Agaprei slashed the organ open, acid spilling out into the chest cavity. It was completely dark, wet, warm muscles and tissues pressing in on her from all sides, but in her mind, she knew exactly where everything was. She punctured a lung, sliced through a giant liver, severed the spinal artery. She burst open the appendix, stabbed the kidney, and plunged her dagger directly into the heart of the beast from below.
Outside, the dragon roared in agony, thrashing around in torture. It tried to take to the air, but the thrust into its heart made it stumble. Falling backwards, it landed atop the still liquid stone and fell through.
Back at the Nótos Peninsula, Storgen burst out through the liquid stone of the excavation, falling out of his wheeled chair. He grabbed onto Lachan and pulled him free as best he could, grabbing the siren by the collar with his one hand and crawling away, dragging him free of the center of the pit. Scampering back, Storgen pulled Naenia away, followed by Kaia.
As soon as Kaia was free, an immense black dragon came bursting out of the opal bedrock, kicking and writhing. No longer restrained by his touch, the crimson stone filled the area with red light, and the dragon howled even louder than before.
Fearlessly, Storgen grabbed the staff by one end and slid back down the pit, smacking Fovos with it like a club. Cut off from magic, the dragon’s body began to decompose, scales popping away like burst boils, blood spilling out from internal ruptures.
Again and again, Storgen clubbed the dragon with his staff.
“How?” Fovos gurgled, his eyes melting away. “I am a god. How can mortals be thrashing me with a stick?!”
Storgen reeled back and whacked him again, breaking off a decomposing horn. “You want to know how I can do this?”
Storgen swung again, shattering a long, snaggled fang. “You want to know the secret?”
Storgen swung again, cracking the jaw. “This is the power of humans.”
Storgen broke Fovos’ nose. “This is what the fates feared when they created us.”
Fovos’ tongue burst and melted away.
“This is why they locked us away.”
Great black wings collapsed and boiled into vapor.
“Because even though we humans live in darkness…we believe in the light.”
Storgen pulled out the crimson stone and plunged it directly into the beast’s mouth.
Fovos went limp, his body boiling away into ash. “No…this can’t be…my vengeance…”
Storgen leaned back, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Why would you do all of this to us?”
Black limbs fell away and disintegrated. The mass of his body grew smaller and smaller, like a melting pile of black snow.
“Because destiny is cruel,” Fovos gurgled. “Because, while you were destined to have someone who loved you truly, I was destined to be alone. In my wrath I swore that if I could not be happy, neither could you.”
His head completely crumbled away, and the last of his body dissolved into nothing.
“I just didn’t want to be alone anymore…”
As the last of Fovos’ body vanished, Agaprei was revealed, shivering from her wounds.
“Agaprei? Agaprei, NO!”
Storgen slid and crawled to her. Her skin was burnt from the acid, her muscles quivering from the poison soaked into her flesh.
“Agaprei, Agaprei, speak to me!”
As he coddled her close, she looked up at him, her eyes blinded by the acid. “I remember,” she whispered. “I remember everything. We met by the Eidýllio waterfall in the underworld. It was the one beautiful place in such a dark realm. That was when you came for me.”
Memories began to trickle into Storgen’s mind. “You…you had bellflowers in your hair. They were your favorite.”
She reached up to touch his face. The skin of her hand was blackened and burnt. “You rescued me from the underworld. Your eyes were the deepest blue I had ever seen.”
Storgen nodded. “My mother trained me to be a warrior. I knew the thrill of battle, but I had never felt anything compared to what I felt when I saw you.”
Agaprei licked her burnt lips. “I understand now. I’d always loved waterfalls. When I was looking for waterfalls, I was really looking for you…”
Agaprei coughed, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. “This isn’t fair. We were never together.”
Storgen’s eyes filled with tears. “But you were with me. Every long night in the Tower, you were there, giving me hope, helping me to hold on a b
it longer, to try one more time. You kept me alive, for all those centuries. Every time I wanted to give up, you were there for me. I held your hand, and you held mine, so that I could survive long enough to escape. Long enough to finally meet you. I am so blessed to have known you, Agaprei. I am so grateful that you were with me all those years.”
Slowly she lifted up her hand and brought his face close. Carefully she whispered to him, her body straining to get out the last few words.
Then her hand fell away.
Her body went limp, and she died in his arms.
Storgen held her close. Her body was still warm, but she was gone.
His body trembling, Storgen began to cry.
It was a low mournful sound. Overwhelming in its pitch, engulfing in its timbre. Utterly broken, the sound of emptiness. Just listening to it felt like someone was reaching inside your chest and grabbing your heart, squeezing it so hard that you cannot even cry out from the pain. An overwhelming, torturous moment, stretching out in all directions--for eternity. A realm of tears, a zone of barren torture. It was the sound of trampled flowers. It was the color of grief. It was a sound that ages you just by listening to it. A thousand poets and a thousand musicians could not have replicated the sound that those gathered heard that day.
So weak they could barely stand, Sirend, Reinala, and Nisi exited the Sacred Orchard and drew near. Reinala wept as she listened to that horrible sound.
Sirend reached out his hand. “Tharros, I…”
“Just leave me alone! Haven’t you hurt us enough? Just…go away.”
Storgen nuzzled Agaprei’s lifeless body close, and bawled like a baby.
Sirend lowered his hand, and wept as well.
It began to rain.
It rained all the rest of that day, and all though the night.
Storgen’s true love was dead. And he was alone.
Epilogue
(20 Years Later)
The children of the town gathered excitedly as the colorful siren cart wheeled into the center of the square.
The sparkling curtains flapped open and Kaia stepped out. “Good morning, kids.”
The children all clapped and cheered, bouncing up and down with excitement. It was always a treat when a real life muse came into town.
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