Every time Manzak injured one flailing limb, another wrapped around him to take its place.
The creature was growing new limbs to replace severed ones and Manzak was fighting a war on many fronts.
Alfred and Deena at his side. Sword and hammer ignited in white flames and hurtled into the putrid flesh of the beast. It made unnatural screeches and chittering as it fought the three paladins. It lashed with metallic stinger, clawed fingers and snapping jaws. It was part animal, part plant life and part machine. Every limb that came his way Alfred hacked off onto the floor in a glut of mucous and green blood.
Moment after moment the behemoth crawled backwards. It was eager to escape the heat of the holy weapons. But these three had not communed with the mercy of Angall. Not warmth and the cool light of kindness and dawn.
The other light.
The fire of retribution and judgement. Sword and hammer swung down until the warped creature was little more than a quivering pile of flesh. Swollen pustules burst on its filthy skin as the remains dissolved.
Alfred, Deena and Manzak stood there staring at the creature that had up to that point seemed invulnerable. It had been a thing of nightmares only to flee from. It had killed most of the aspirants.
They looked at it now dissolving on the floor and for the briefest moment they thought about what had changed. How different they felt and the spirit that was coursing through their flesh. It was changing them and evolving them by the second though they did not know it yet.
And they did not have time to dwell further on it. The army of the dead was still closing in.
Alfred turned to the shattered stone door at the chamber's end. It collapsed in a cloud of masonry and dust. Rotting undead poured in like loathsome insects. More behemoths followed. Other wretched mutations they had not seen before joined them. Things crawled in that had lain dormant in the earth for a thousand years, soaking up the polluting essence of the Sorrow in the soil. Black scuttling things with snapping mandibles.
Now the great door had broken, the filth poured in like a tidal wave. It was endless. Within moments the creatures crawled on top of one another to surround the paladins. They drooled and slavered on their weaker brethren, clawing their way to the irresistible living souls they could smell.
Alfred stared at the wave of ravenous mutations spilling into the room.
It was familiar. He glanced down at his gauntlet that gripped the hammer. The furnace pulsed between the plates. Thick gore and slime coated his knuckles, dripping to the floor. The hammer's fire brightened, sensing the fight. He glanced across and saw Deena. And his heart ignited.
Her red hair flailed as she spun amongst a horde of undead. He pale face was splattered with blood. Deena's sword cut through the creatures with a hiss, cleaving swathes of them at once.
Alfred thought that she looked different now. Her skin was not just white but like marble. Her eyes not just blue but like frozen flame. Whatever was part of her now was changing her from the inside. Alfred could feel his own flesh changing like a shiver.
But the thing that made this moment seem familiar to Alfred was the expression on Deena's face.
She was smiling.
It came to him that this had been his dream. She was now the terrifying knight that had charged at the monsters in his dreams for years. Except now he was no longer afraid of her. He was in awe of her. He looked back at the overwhelming tide of Sorrow that was pouring down into the chamber. It was the one that had caused him to wake up screaming in a cold sweat so many nights over the years.
Except now he was no longer afraid either.
Alfred heart sang with joy as the pure light surged through his veins. All human doubt and hesitation had left him and there was only the ecstasy of war. It was no longer his nightmare, it was his dream. Alfred stepped back from the tide of beasts and called across to his Order.
"Paladins! To me!"
The other two closed ranks and they stood back to back as the darkness circled. Alfred gritted his teeth and shouted over his shoulder.
"So are we back in this fight?"
Deena was as ecstatic as him.
"Can you feel it Alfred? Manzak? The power of the heavens in you? The purpose and the fire?"
Manzak laughed too. He turned his head and gave a wink.
"More than we ever prayed for, eh Bookworm?"
Alfred stood looking out at a thousand pairs of venomous eyes staring back at him. He could feel the hate building up in the horde of beasts. Getting ready to pounce. Too many.
A thought came to him. Prayer.
Alfred visualized the armour opening and instantly the breastplate rent in two. He reached in to his robes and pulled out a rolled piece of vellum. Deena stared at him in confusion.
“What are you doing, Alfred?”
Alfred unrolled the page and kneeled. Placing it on the stone floor he flattened out the material. Deena gazed in awe.
“Is that…? Alfred did you…?”
“I stole it alright! If theft was so bad the archangel would have burned me up for it. I thought we needed all the help we could get in here!”
Manzak looked out at the horde and shrugged.
“We could have used that help for a while now.”
Alfred scanned the Angallic script, trying to make sense of it.
“These prayers can’t be used by people, even with our Magus. It would kill us. We needed to be communed first. But for all I know it still might kill us.”
Deena gathered close and kneeled next to him.
“What does it do?”
Alfred chewed his lip as he opened his mind to the words on the page.
“It’s called the Prayer of Dusk and Fury. It blesses the earth at your feet, but...but all of it, if I read this right. I can’t do it on my own. I don’t have the strength yet. Put your hands on the page. Both of you.”
Manzak and Deena closed in and placed their palms on the Libram page. Alfred did the same. Instantly the Angallic script lit up golden. Around them the horde of undead closed in.
"I’m not really sure what this will do."
Manzak raised a brow.
"Then we take as many of these bastards with us as we can."
Deena bowed her head.
"I have faith. I have faith that Angall will not let us die just yet. We've got too much work ahead. But if dying is his will, so be it."
Alfred took a deep breath and turned from the beasts. The other two did the same. Their skin shone pale white and their eyes burned bright. Smiling.
As the army of monsters closed in at their backs, Alfred whispered.
"I'm proud to be here with you both."
Deena's eyes glistened with tears but her smile was honest and happy.
"I'm proud too."
Alfred Sorrowhammer closed his eyes and moved his lips in silent prayer. The snarling and scuttling closed in behind him like a great shadow. He leaned his face forward and the three paladins stood with foreheads touching. Alfred was surprised at how cool the skin of his companions was. But he had only a moment to wonder at this.
Light erupted in the room. Like the sun had fallen from the sky. It spread out from the three, turning every crawling thing to cinders in a single scream.
It was enough power to scorch an army of undead. And enough power to turn any three paladins to dust.
15
"Oligan, are you awake?"
King Oligan's eyelids fluttered. He saw the sheer yellow curtains blowing in the breeze. Felt the goose feather duvet around his waist. He heard the sound of his wife's voice. He waited for the knife. After a moment he turned around in bed and saw her there standing in the doorway. A horrible parody of the beautiful woman he loved. Her skin a sickly grey, her eyes as dark as pitch. She wore a beautiful silk dress patterned with roses and propped with whalebone. Oligan could smell the rot on her from his bed. It broke his heart in every moment.
He had prayed when he had fallen asleep the night before that he would be killed before h
e woke.
"Cassandra. I was dreaming about you. About us. Long ago."
Cassandra had a strange moment then. Something flickered in her eyes and an old expression Oligan recognized surface on her ghoulish face. It was as if the woman he had married was somewhere, trapped in a deep chamber within this entity. She had escaped for a second and swam to the surface, before being dragged back down into the depths by suckered tentacles. She shook her head.
"I try to remember those days Oligan. But my memories are hazy. All is tinged green and I remember through fog."
Oligan knew that it would be amusing to the Sorrow to send his own wife to do the deed.
"Are you here to kill me?"
Cassandra took a single step forward, confused.
"My love?"
Oligan swung his legs around and sat at the edge of the bed. In another age it would have been the moment when he beckoned her to share his bed. But that age was long gone.
"I was waiting for you. I did not think I would open my eyes on this day. I thought you would slit my throat or smother me while I slept."
Cassandra broke in to slow, demented grin.
"But why, husband? We are accomplishing great things."
Oligan gazed on the shell of his wife and mourned her. He felt the sun on the injured side of his face and breathed in the morning air.
"Yes. Great things. You do not sleep these days, Cassandra?"
Cassandra shook her head. Oligan heard an unhealthy creak in the bones.
"I do not need to. The Green King gives me all the nourishment and vitality I need to do our great work."
Oligan sank back on the pillows in quiet despair. She may be sent here to kill him, but their dark gods had decreed she would torment and toy with him first. Offer him kindness and a glimpse of the woman he once knew.
"Then why do visit me so early? It is dawn. And my bones ache."
She stepped a little closer. Tentative but excited.
"Because I have the most wonderful news, my darling. Please, rise and come with me."
Oligan rose again and got to his feet. He looked across to the marble dressing table where his bronze mask lay next to a jug of honeyed white wine.
"I will come with you, Cassandra. But let me fetch my mask. And have a last glass of sweet wine. The one we used to drink together."
Cassandra reached out and touched his arm. Her fingers cold and clammy as a hibernating frog.
"You do not need your mask, Oligan. I have told you since I woke, the true gods think your damage beautiful. Your pain is gift to them."
Oligan looked into her ancient eyes for a long moment and accepted his fate.
"Very well. You will see my face at the last, Cassandra. But I am still king in this moment, even if it just a king of ash. And I will have my wine."
Cassandra let her fingers slip back to her side.
"Hurry Oligan. Your daughter is waiting for you too."
King Oligan turned in concern as he poured a cup of wine.
"Aspen? You would put her through this, Cassandra? Whatever you have become, whatever she is, she is still your daughter. She should not see her father suffer."
That strange vacant expression of reverie fell over Cassandra again. Her voice was dreamy and distant.
"Suffering is sweet, husband. But it is her who called for me to come find you. It is Aspen who first met the wondrous miracle I have to show you."
Oligan quaffed a big mouthful of wine. He let it coarse through his veins.
"A miracle? What miracles can there be in this time of curses? Just be done with it and do not turn all into theatre."
Cassandra seemed to not understand. It was such a strange contradiction to Oligan. She was at once wise beyond centuries and innocent as a child. He drained the dregs of his cup and followed her as she glided out of the bedchamber. They travelled through the vacant corridors of the high palace, ascending levels all the way.
Oligan knew where they headed. The vast vaulted war room lit with coals where so many dark deeds had been planned over the years.
Oligan thought it fitting that he would die there on the cold old flagstones. His royal blood leaking out to sizzle against the bronze braziers.
He was so lost in his thoughts that before he knew it they stood in that very hall. A pillared hall that no one was ever allowed in except himself and the disciples of the brotherhood of vicissitude. He imagined dark assassins waiting for him in the gloom. Cassandra led Oligan across the cold stone floor to the other more ominous double doors. The ones sealed shut by magic for decades, where only the Brotherhood could step. The room called the Reliquary, where his family had been interred in glass coffins for years. A vault where a slumbering god lurked in a bubbling vat of fog.
A room where Oligan had done murder only the evening before. The doors open. Oligan sensed movement within. He braced himself for the assassination.
His daughter Aspen ran out and jumped up and down in front of him. In that moment she almost looked like the child she had always been. She gave him a smile and clapped her hands.
"Dada, I'm so glad you're awake!"
Oligan looked down at her, confused and relieved. It was not his little girl and he knew it. But here at the end he would allow himself some comforting delusions.
"Aspen, my little one. What pleasure and pain you are to my eyes. You are the ghost of all that was precious. But I cannot look upon you anymore. I will not fight. I accept my fate. I accept responsibility for what I have done."
Aspen stared at him for a long moment. Then she clapped her hands again and grinned.
"But Dada, what you have done is amazing!"
Oligan stood there, arms at his sides, vexed.
"Amazing?"
Cassandra stepped up behind Oligan and placed a cold hand on his shoulder. Her corpse voice whispered next to his ear.
"She is so proud of you, Oligan, my king. To think of such things. To pluck a child's dreams and make them flesh."
Oligan turned to his wife, suppressing the revulsion at being so close to her.
"Cassandra. I don't understand. I came with you here to die. To be executed for my actions. What child's dream did I make flesh?"
Aspen tugged at Oligan's sleeve, trying to drag him into the Reliquary room.
"The Kind Man, Dada! You made him real!"
Oligan's blood started to slow down, thick with fear.
"I did what? Aspen, you talk a child's riddles."
Cassandra squeezed his shoulder with her dead hand.
"No Oligan. Our beautiful god made anew, just for us. To talk with, to kiss and to kneel before."
Oligan shivered under her touch. He kneeled down into front of his once-daughter.
"Tell me, Aspen. What happened? What do you mean, the Kind Man? That comes in your dreams."
Aspen grabbed his hand and with a child's excitement she dragged him through into the room. What Oligan saw there made his heart shiver.
The huge glass and slowiron reliquary stood before him. A metal enmeshed hourglass that had been fed the Magus Hearts of his subjects for decades. It was the tomb of an ancient god that forever slept and could only talk through dreams.
It was empty.
The thick green fog that had always churned within the glass was gone. All that was left in the bottom of the vat, like a horrible residue, was the broken bones of countless dead.
Oligan just stared at it. Impossible.
"I was here only last night."
Cassandra smiled at him.
"We know, Oligan. You are so brave and clever to take such drastic actions. Who else would have thought it?"
Oligan looked at his wife and daughter. There was no point hiding his actions, they knew his heart.
"I killed him."
A voice from the gloom.
"Killed who?"
Oligan turned startled to the shadows. The voice was familiar yet not. Like the voices of his family. A good impersonation but not perfect.
A figure
stepped out into the light.
"You can't be alive, Merrick. I killed you."
The figure offered him a genuine warm smile. Unlike the old Witchfinder's sly grin.
"The sorcery in Merrick's blood was delicious and special. Sweet. Sour. Pure, in a way. But a perfect home. Consuming his light was the little nudge I needed."
Oligan stared at the being.
"You're not him."
The man offered the warm smile again. A smile one could trust.
"No."
As the man stepped further into the light, Oligan saw how much change had come over him.
The scars gone. His skin was a perfect opalescent glow unmarred by wrinkles. His lank hair was now a glossy black. He no longer limped. He was still thin as a spear but he carried it now with a grace never seen before.
He looked almost angelic.
It was as if the years had fallen away from Merrick Clay, and every blemish had been polished out. There was almost a porcelain quality to him now. But Oligan could see by the eyes that this was not Merrick Clay. All the thick, meat-flecked fog from the reliquary, and whatever ancient toad slept within it, had crawled into the mouth of its most devoted servant. It had commandeered the tortured flesh and possessed it.
What stood in from of King Oligan now was the Sorrow. The Green King.
It stepped forward and raised a hand to the Oligan's face, stroking the ruined cheek like a lover.
"King Oligan. Oligan the steadfast. Oligan the faithful and true. I have waited a long time to meet you. Face to face."
As soon as the perfect hand touched him, Oligan felt sadness within that he never thought could exist. Like the flickering death of the world's last hope. The creature's skin drained all joy. Aspen jumped up and down in excitement.
"It's the Kind Man. You made him real. You're the best father in the world!"
King Oligan Rathratta's failure was complete. He had murdered the wicked only to give birth to the unspeakable. He stared at the ancient horror smiling back at him. The first god to walk the world in millennia.
A Prayer of Freaks and Sinners Page 18