Onslaught mtg-1

by J. Robert King

  Locus was his tribute to Nivea: beauty defying ugliness, life defying death. Now death's ugly parasite clung to it.

  Ixidor rose. His five remaining unmen did so as well, standing in the center of a beautiful garden. Beneath their feet, four paths diverged, each leading outward to one of the white walls. At the terminus of each path stood a huge frieze of Nivea's face. Four Niveas peered inward.

  "My north, south, east, and west."

  The flowers of each season were planted around her faces so that as the fickle year turned, she would never be without adornment. This was Locus at its finest-beautifully defiant. It was the perfect place for Ixidor to battle the wurm.

  On the tower above, it finished its depredations and withdrew from the ravaged bedchamber. Its head waggled in the air, seeming to sniff, then, with slow magnificence, that sinewy thing turned toward Ixidor. Recognition glinted in its ink-ball eyes. Shifting feet on the stony side of the tower, the wurm wound its slimy way down the tower.

  Ixidor strode to gather his weapons. He would not wield killing things, for the wurm embodied every killing thing. Ixidor would fight only with life, with beauty-the essence of Nivea.

  He started small, gathering a broad bouquet of fresh blooms. His arm was its vase, and his life energy was its water. It was a work of art, his greatest weapon.

  The wurm slithered over the courtyard wall. It was quick. Extending its rubbery form down to the river-stone walk, the wurm wound toward Ixidor.

  The man only stood and waited, his unmen surrounding him. He held his bouquet ready as if the wurm were a coming bride. The flowers were no longer mere flowers, though. They had transcended their material forms. Ixidor had infused each stem, leaf, and petal with his life essence. The bouquet solidified in this precise form, this exact orientation. He completed his creation by extending the flowers toward the wurm. He said, "These are for you, Nivea-my love. For you alone."

  Wet and lunging, the wurm flopped up the trail and opened its black mouth.

  Ixidor leaned forward like a man flinging flowers into a grave. He opened his arm, hurling the bouquet into the jaws of death.

  The wurm snapped closed on the flowers. When its mouth opened again, the blooms were gone. It leaped on Ixidor.

  He flung himself sideways through one of his unmen. The other four followed. Ixidor left the bright garden and the black wurm and landed in a long art gallery. The remaining unmen tumbled down around him, while their comrade vanished in the face of the wurm.

  Ixidor stood, feeling the thick woolen rug beneath his feet. He wished he could have remained to watch what his bouquet did. It would tumble intact through the monster's gut and seek out whatever essence of Nivea remained there. It would find her, and he would find it.

  Or perhaps the bouquet was a foolish fancy, and Ixidor was simply mad.

  He peered around at the gallery, and his misgivings deepened. Perhaps he was mad. He'd only half imagined this space. The long rug beneath his feet was extraordinarily detailed, but the paintings on the wall were indistinct, the sculptures shapeless, the ceiling irregularly bossed and in places receding into misty uncertainty. Ixidor had known he wanted an art gallery in his palace, but had been so busy creating living art that he had neglected dead art.

  It was just as well. He could finish the gallery now and finish off the wurm.

  Even as he stood there among his unmen, the rose window at the end of the gallery shattered. Where once bright panes welcomed the sun, now jagged fangs of glass ringed the frame. The wurm broke through. Glass cut long furrows in its sinewy flesh as it squeezed in.

  Ixidor turned away from the coming beast. He lifted his hand toward the empty frames on the walls and sent out mental images of himself. Each painting became a precise portrait of him-so precise that it lived and moved. Ixidors stepped from their frames and mingled upon the floor. Death would have to eat them all before it could find him.

  Lowering his hand, Ixidor flung it out toward the sculptures. They too took shape, life-sized images of him. They jumped down from their bases and stood staring at the monster that flopped toward them.

  "All for you, Nivea. I give these folk only to you."

  Just like the immutable flowers, these works of art would not dissolve in the tract of the beast. They would climb through it, giving Nivea company and killing the monster from within.

  Or Ixidor was mad.

  The wurm would not be stopped. It smelled the true Ixidor among all these false ones and bashed the creatures aside. They scrambled up along its muzzle, and when the beast gnashed at them, the Ixidors leaped into its mouth. An army of semblances invaded the monster and ripped out fistfuls of flesh as they went.

  Ixidor laughed. He had reached the farthest vestibule in his gallery, and the wurm thundered angrily toward him. It swallowed its killers obliviously-deadly portraits, beauty against ugliness. Ixidor laughed.

  The great beast lunged.

  Ixidor hurled himself through another unman. The final three followed. They and their master tumbled to the ground elsewhere in the palace, and the one who had been their portal snapped shut.

  Air hissed into Ixidor's inner ears. He clutched his head while the pressure equalized and then looked around at the deep chamber, stony and dark. Though he had created this windowless space, he had never been here before. There was no way into this deep sanctum except through a single stair that wound down within one of the foundation pylons. They were fifty feet beneath the bottom of the lake. Even if the wurm could smell him under stone and silt and water, it could not hope to squeeze down the pylon to reach him. Here he would be safe.

  Ixidor smiled. He snapped his fingers. Lights flickered into being along the stony walls. They showed an opulent chamber with thick red carpets. Before him, a long and elegant dining table stood in the midst of tall seats. To one side, a canopy bed waited, and next to it stood a giant wardrobe. With a huge and well-stocked pantry, a deep cesspit, and burgeoning bookshelves, Ixidor could remain in this room forever.

  He had forgotten about this place. He should have come here first. Let Topos take care of itself. Let mortals ravage his world, and when they were done, he would rise to live again.

  Ixidor strode toward the canopy bed, and his three remaining unmen followed. Heaving an exhausted sigh, Ixidor climbed onto the silken sheets and laid himself out flat. He would wait out the war here with his unmen.

  He must have slept. He had right and reason to.

  Ixidor awoke to see an unman grasping at him. It tried to shake him, but its empty hands laid hold of nothing. Its silent shouts had not awakened Ixidor either. He rose because of the steady trickle of water off the canopy onto the carpet.

  "What is it?" Ixidor asked.

  In reply, a deep whuffling noise came from the stone ceiling.

  Ixidor stood and stared at the great slab. It had cracked. Water traced out the jag and dripped down to strike the peak of the canopy. Even as Ixidor watched, the drops grew larger, and the crack began to spray.

  "What's happening?" Ixidor wondered again. It sounded like something massive was burrowing into the silty bottom of the lake____________________

  A chunk of stone bounded free of the crack. Water poured down in a white shaft and spread across the floor. The shaft widened, and the ceiling cracked out in the precise diameter of the deathwurm's head.

  Ixidor turned and took a step, trying to spot the stairway out.

  The wurm broke through.

  Massive blocks shattered and fell. In their midst came a true horror. Where once a slender column of water rushed down, now a fat and meaty wurm crashed through the ceiling. Water poured in a roaring cascade all around it. Its jaws snapped up the canopy bed, crunching it to splinters and feathers. Down stuck to its translucent teeth as it turned its head. Stupid little eyes fixed on Ixidor.

  "I should have known. There is no safe place, not even in my mind. Especially not in my mind."

  With one last, longing look at the deep sanctum, Ixidor hurled himself t
hrough the unman who had awakened him.

  He landed on his side in another corner of Locus-a private theater that had never held a play. Ixidor lay there panting. That had been a close one. Would he be running forever?

  Water poured out around him, sluicing through the legs of the unman. Ixidor blinked, seeing twin floods gush across the ground. The unman hadn't closed. He yet stood there, a portal between the deep sanctum and the theater. Why hadn't he closed? And where were the other unmen?

  Ixidor hadn't seen them since he fell asleep. They should have been incapable of leaving him, for he had never granted them free will.

  Two of his unmen had abandoned him. The third remained open, waiting for its companions to jump through. The open gate would allow any creature to pass Ixidor lurched backward Through the unman burst the head of the wurm. Its mouth gaped, teeth spread, and jaws snapped.

  Ixidor could not get out of the way.

  The thing's mouth closed around him, and its cold gullet swallowed. All was darkness and agony.

  The wurm withdrew its head through the unman.

  Deprived of its master, the unman only stood and trembled, water pouring through shuddering legs.

  He was gone.

  *****

  Above the ravenous wurms and the sucking pits, Akroma somehow sensed it. The creator was gone. "Ixidor."

  She could do no more. Battered and weary, Akroma had killed fifty deathwurms. More than a thousand remained. She had fought because she knew Ixidor wished it. Now he was gone.

  Akroma labored into the uncaring sky.

  Beneath her feline feet, wurms bounded across the nightmare lands and entered the sandy desert. They continued on, gobbling up folk as they went. They could not bite through the world anymore, but they would scour it of all life.

  Akroma hung in the sky and watched the end of Otaria.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE SAVED AND THE DAMNED

  Kamahl knelt before Jeska. She lay limp in his arms, panting miserably. She was dying once again, dying of the old, unhealing wound. An identical injury crossed his own belly and made him weak. It would kill him too, if he and Jeska and Otaria somehow survived the third laceration-a wound on the world.

  Like giant black maggots, deathwurms galloped across the nightmare lands. They had already scoured the battlefield of all living things and left the soil itself riddled with holes. The infection spread. Many wurms had plunged onto the desert, pursuing the routed troops. No one would survive this battle-not warriors, not countryfolk, not anything on Otaria.

  A deathwurm bounded straight toward Kamahl and Jeska, its mucousy muzzle homing on their scent.

  "Go, Brother," Jeska said faintly. "They cannot kill me."

  Clenching his jaw, Kamahl stood, a bulwark of flesh between his sister and the monster that thundered down on them. "They will not."

  Jeska shook her head fiercely. "They cannot. They did not kill me from the inside, and they cannot kill me from the outside."

  Kamahl turned away and said to himself, "Delirious." He faced down the wurm.

  It was lunacy. The thing's head was the size of a house, and its body was a league long. Kamahl did not even have a weapon. Still, rage and desperation had been Kamahl's greatest weapons in the past. He smiled. Of all the deaths that he and his sister could suffer, at least this one could be punched in the face.

  The wurm pounded the ground, almost flinging Kamahl off his feet. One more leap and it would be upon them.

  Kamahl clenched his hand into a fist, and he reared it back. "Good-bye, Sister."

  He swung. His fist crashed into the black nose of the beast, but it in turn smashed into him, hurling him back. Kamahl flew over Jeska. The wurm plunged atop her, its mouth agape.

  Tumbling, Kamahl realized he had done it again-had survived the death that would take her. He hit the ground just as the wurm did and rolled miserably, knowing his sister was gone. Kamahl spread his arms, heels digging in, and flopped to a stop on his back. He flipped over, a shout of grief erupting from him.

  Jeska yet lay there, trembling. The wurm was nowhere to be seen.

  Staggering to his feet, Kamahl scrambled toward her. "What happened? What did you do?"

  Jeska smiled wanly up at him. She seemed somehow stronger, her skin less pale. "I told you it could not kill me."

  Falling to his knees at her side, Kamahl saw the dark glint in her eyes, the gray tinge to her flesh. "It is within you, isn't it? You absorbed it back into yourself."

  "I once held thousands. There is room enough in me for all of them."

  "What are you talking about?" Kamahl blurted.

  "I have made these deathwurms. I made them by killing-"

  "You didn't kill. It was Phage."

  "I am Phage. She is the dark side of me."

  The ground thundered with impacts coming straight toward them.

  Clenching his fists, Kamahl rose to meet the new menace.

  It wasn't a menace at all, though. Eight hooves pounded the ground-a giant centaur galloping beside a giant mule and its rider.

  "Stonebrow!" Kamahl gasped in relief. "And… and "Zagorka," Jeska said softly.

  The centaur and mule galloped up and skidded to a halt. Dust rose in clouds around them and continued on over the desert sands.

  Stonebrow extended his hand to Kamahl. "We must flee! It is death to remain."

  "Yes!" Kamahl said. "Carry me away, and Zaborra can take Jeska."

  "Zagorka," the old woman corrected.

  "She cannot take me," Jeska said. "I'm staying."

  Kamahl's mouth hung open. "There isn't time for this!"

  "If I flee," Jeska said, breathing slowly, "we all will die. There is one way for Otaria to survive this day… There is only one way for me to survive."

  Kamahl shook his head. "You can't do it, Jeska. You can't take them back into you."

  "They didn't kill me before. I can bear it again."

  "That's not you speaking," Kamahl said. He gripped her arm and felt the first tingle of hostility beneath her skin. "That's Phage. She doesn't want you to live, Jeska. She wants herself to live again."

  Her eyes met his, and for a moment the darkness retreated. She was Jeska again. "There is only one way, Kamahl."

  His brow beetled. "But all of this-I did this to save you."

  Jeska shook her head and stroked his jaw. "No. You did this to save yourself."

  He could only stare in amazement at her.

  "You have saved yourself. You killed the man you once were and saved the woman I once was. Your journey is done, but mine only begins. These deathwurms arise from the murders I have committed, starting with Seton-"

  "Seton!"

  "Braids killed him, but I took his life force into me. I took his life! That's where all the blackness began. You cannot destroy these wurms. Only I can. You cannot save me. I must save myself, and to do so, I must take these things back into me."

  "No, Jeska."

  "I will find my way out again," Jeska said, "or die trying. Better that than to die without trying."

  Stonebrow's eyes glinted with fear. "We must go now!"

  "Last chance," Zagorka said, reining in her champing mule.

  Kamahl drew a deep breath. He looked about. Wurms vaulted everywhere.

  "Go, Kamahl," Jeska said. "I will stay. It's the only way to save Otaria."

  Kamahl's nostrils flared. "Stonebrow," he said, his voice a low growl. "Get out of here. That's an order."

  Nodding his noble head, Stonebrow said, "As you wish."

  "I could use an order here, myself," Zagorka broke in.

  "Go," Jeska said simply.

  It was all the old woman needed. She dug her heels into Chester, and they dashed away. Stonebrow galloped beside her. In moments, they were lost behind twin clouds of dust and sand.

  "What are we going to do, then," Kamahl wondered incredulously, "lie here and wait for a thousand beasts to attack, and then absorb them one by one?" He stared out across the desert, where hundreds of wurms a
lready charged. "It will be too late."

  Jeska blinked. "We need Ixidor. To reach him, we must reach her."

  "Who?"

  "Akroma," Jeska said, pointing toward the sky.

  Kamahl sat back on his heels, stunned. Above the thundering wurms hung a single point of light, a star beaming down on an abandoned world. "She is sworn to kill you."

  "She does not fight me, but the deathwurms. She will help us," Jeska said. "Call her."

  Standing, Kamahl lifted his arms and his voice. "Akroma! Protector! We call you. Come to us!" Above the battling beasts, the angel hovered. No longer did she fight. She only hung there. "We wish to ally, to save your land and ours! Akroma! Come to us!"

  His summons did not bring the angel but only another wurm. It roared toward them across the same path of compression left by the last beast.

  Kamahl turned desperate eyes toward Jeska.

  "Step aside," she hissed. "I'll take this one in as well. Call her!"

  "Akroma! Come to us!" Kamahl shouted into the literal teeth of the deathwurm. At the last moment, he hurled himself aside.

  The black beast pounded down upon Jeska, its mouth wide. Instead of swallowing her, it was swallowed by her. The head was gone, and then the lashing neck of the thing. A half mile of wurm sank into her body as if she herself were a pit. A mile.

  At first, Kamahl could only gape at the strange spectacle, but then he lifted his hands again. "Akroma! Help us! Akroma!"

  *****

  Above the roar of black wurms came a tiny keen: gnat song. It broke through the lethargy of Akroma's mind.

  Someone called her. It was not the creator-Ixidor was gone- but it was someone like the creator.

  "Akroma! Come to us!"

  She stared down toward the sound and saw a strange thing: a deathwurm disappearing. It seemed to plunge down one of the sucking pits. It tail flipped once, and it was gone. Instead of leaving behind a round hole, though, it vanished through the shape of a woman.

  Not just a woman. The woman. Phage. She had been the bringer of all this evil. She lay on the desert, and her brother stood above her, calling out in his minuscule voice. Akroma cared nothing for the man, but the woman she wanted dead.