Wrath of Kerberos tok-9

by Jonathan Oliver

  “Across the face of our world raged many storms: the seas rising up all around the coasts and washing away cities that had stood for thousands of years in one violent deluge; hurricanes tearing into the sturdiest of structures and scattering the people sheltered within like dandelion seeds; torrential rains putting whole lands under water within moments.

  “When Kerberos moved once more, the god that it had eclipsed was gone. It was as though it had been consumed by the usurper.

  “Those of the new faith who had survived the maelstrom sang the praises of their god with renewed fervour, reasoning that as survivors of the storm they were truly of the elect. And they were indeed chosen, but not in the way they had hoped.

  “The adherents of the new faith were the first to die. There was no warning, no prelude to this mass cull; they simply expired where they stood, each with his or her eyes raised to the heavens and a look of abject horror on their faces.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dunsany said. “Are you saying that Kerberos killed your creators?”

  Again, Silus wondered whether Illiun was lying, perhaps to hide the crime of which Kerberos had told him his people were guilty. But then there was still that doubt — what if Kerberos Himself were deceiving Silus? After all, as Dunsany had pointed out to him many a time, who truly knew the mind of a god?

  “That is indeed what I am saying.”

  “Then how did you escape?” Silus said.

  “Not all of us did escape. However, as Kerberos had been approaching our world, some of us had been working on a project that would enable us to leave it. Those who had created us had tasked us with turning our minds to the exploration of the void. They had observed other bodies out in the darkness, so they set us to building a vessel that would enable us to reach them. In the thousands of years it took for Kerberos to reach our planet we’d built a ship, though instead of being used for exploration as intended, it was used to escape the wrath of the entity.

  “When it became clear that Kerberos was going to harvest the planet of the lives that populated it, I gathered together those I could and herded them onto the ship. Even as we took to the skies, the planet was dying all around us, food for the vile leech that had come to feed upon us. The entity was not expecting anybody to escape, and once it realised what we had done it came after us. And we have been running from it ever since.”

  And now I’m to complete what Kerberos began, Silus thought.

  No matter the truth of Illiun’s story, it did not change the facts. If he and his people were allowed to remain here — to breed, to grow into a new civilisation on this young world that was destined to become Twilight — then everything they knew would never be; they would tumble into oblivion as their future history unravelled.

  “Dunsany! Dunsany!”

  Kelos came running towards them, kicking up great plumes of sand in his haste. Silus unsheathed his sword and stood, ready to face whatever threat was now coming their way. However, as Kelos stumbled and slid down the dune towards them, it was not an expression of fear he wore on his face, but one of anticipation, excitement even.

  “It’s here!” the mage said, gripping Dunsany’s arms.

  “What’s here, Kelos?”

  “Magic. I can finally sense magic. This world isn’t completely dead after all.”

  “Where?” Silus said.

  “Not far, perhaps a day’s travel in the direction the star is leading us. Gods, I never thought I’d find the threads again. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am.”

  Silus looked towards the star burning low on the horizon. Kerberos had said that Silus was to guide Illiun and his people towards a certain creature. Was it this that Kelos had sensed?

  As Silus prepared to gather together the camp, he thought that he heard a low, distant keening.

  Emuel barely had time to scrabble onto Calabash’s back before the dragon took to the air. Below them, Piotr sniffed at the ground where the last of the orcs had been destroyed, before following them. The dragon kept its distance, however, as though not wanting to intrude on Calabash’s grief. And was this what the dragon was feeling, Emuel wondered? Was this why the creature did not respond to his touch? He felt sure that he couldn’t know the mind of a being so alien, but he thought that he sensed a certain tension in Calabash, a certain heaviness in the way it held its head.

  They followed the light of the setting sun as it retreated before them, and Calabash put on an extra burst of speed, as though trying to outrace the night. The temperature quickly tumbled as the stars wheeled above them and Emuel tried to pull his cloak closer about his shoulders. The wind that tore at him made this a far from easy task, and at length he had to sacrifice his cloak to the wind, lest he also lose himself. In shirtsleeves and tunic the cold bit deep, but though he shouted at Calabash to land, to seek shelter, the dragon flew on.

  Emuel could see nothing below them now; there was only the dark, featureless plain. Kerberos hung low to their right and Emuel offered up a prayer to the god to intervene: to remind its creature of the passenger that clung on even against the gales and the cold that assailed him.

  When Emuel lost the feeling in his hands, he gripped even harder with his knees. He found himself reminiscing about the mines he had worked in as a boy. How absolute and shocking the darkness had been the one time his lamp had run out of oil as he’d been operating a trap; the stink of guano and the small soft sounds of movement close by; the tickle of insects as they crawled across his exposed flesh…

  Only when a brilliant flash shone through his eyelids did Emuel realise that he had fallen asleep. He snapped open his eyes and jerked upright, almost losing his hold on his mount.

  Ahead of them a burning ball of rock was spiralling towards the earth, a tail of black smoke trailing from its rear to entwine the dragon and the eunuch. Emuel gagged on the stench of sulphur as the smoke rushed against his face. Calabash wheeled to follow the meteor, dipping its wings as it went into a dive, calling out to Piotr as it went.

  The roar of the meteor grew louder as they followed it into a steep-sided valley, violet and emerald flames erupting from fissures in the rock, washing the scene below them in a strange, frenetic light.

  Emuel could well guess at what lay within the heart of the burning stone, and Calabash and Piotr sang it down to the earth as it streaked low over a desert landscape. They landed almost at the same time as the meteor, the sand thrown into the air by the great rock’s impact falling around them in a glittering rain. Emuel slid from Calabash’s back and tumbled to the ground, where he waited for sensation to return to his limbs.

  Ahead of him, the egg that lay in the centre of the glowing pit was bigger than any Emuel had yet seen. It rose over the dragons, its surface a pure obsidian that reflected their questing forms. Calabash moved in close, only to skitter back as the egg cracked with a sound like the breaking of a great slab. A single claw emerged through the rent, dripping with a pale viscous fluid, and Emuel was shocked by its sheer size. It withdraw as the egg shuddered again, the fractures marbling its surface multiplying in number as the creature within battered against its confinement.

  Emuel and the dragons flinched as the egg shattered. There was a powerful downdraft as the creature within unfurled its wings, and they looked up as the stars were eclipsed by the dragon’s vast form.

  The dragon howled, and the deep, bass sound of its call resonated in Emuel’s skull, bringing on a dizzying wave of nausea that threatened to take him to the edge of consciousness. He stumbled against Calabash, whose own voice harmonised with the monster; Piotr joined in, adding further depth to the song. The creature that now stood before them was more than twice the size of Emuel’s companions, its scaled flesh the same azure as the deity whose face seemed to race through the clouds above them, and indeed the dragon’s flesh appeared to move with the same urgency, the blue scales darkening and lightening in tandem with the god that looked down on them all.

  The dragon brought the song to an abrupt end and looked
down. Calabash and Piotr bowed their heads, and when Emuel didn’t do the same the azure dragon’s head snaked down — the graceful curve of its long neck reminding Emuel of a swan’s — until it was face-to-face with the eunuch. Emuel looked to either side of him, mentally urging his companions to give him a sign as to what he should do. He was about to reach out his hand and lay his palm against the dragon’s head in a gesture of friendship when — with a great intake of breath that sounded like the wind whistling in a deep cavern — the giant lizard roared.

  A foetid wind blasted against Emuel’s face, seeming to sink into his flesh and insinuate itself throughout his body. The eunuch felt his bladder and bowels loosen. He cowered, expecting to be devoured at any moment. Instead, the dragon rose on its haunches, its head held to one side as though it was listening for something.

  Hot piss trickling down his leg, Emuel heard it.

  From every direction came the response as the dragons spreading across the globe raised their voices, joined by Calabash and Piotr, revelling in the call of their fraternity. The blue dragon grunted and took to the air. Emuel watched it go, amazed that something so vast, so obviously heavy, could fly. He was still watching it snake through the skies when Calabash nudged Emuel onto its back and, followed by Piotr, took off after their new master.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They had all seen the star finally fall to earth, had felt it as a deep bass thud that made the desert sand shiver. Silus knew, then — looking towards the column of smoke rising from just beyond the horizon — that he could no longer bear the weight of his guilt. If he was going to lead Illiun and his people to their deaths, then he needed confirmation that he was doing the right thing from someone other than Kerberos. Illiun’s story had shaken his faith in the deity, and every kind gesture from the settlers, every act that showed them to be nothing less than entirely human, no matter their origin, made his task all the more difficult.

  So he approached Katya as she sat chatting by the campfire and said, “We need to talk.”

  She nodded as though she had been expecting this, handed Zac into the care of Rosalind, and let him lead her out beyond the light of the flames.

  Away from the camp, Katya turned and was about to open her mouth — let all her worries and fears flood out — when Silus held up his hand, silencing her.

  First he told her that he loved her and Zac — no matter what happened to them, that would never change — and then he told her of the task that Kerberos had entrusted him to perform and everything he had learned about this world; explained to her that if it wasn’t carried out then the future history of Twilight would be unwritten.

  “I’ve tried to justify it to myself,” Silus said. “After all, what are the deaths of tens of people, compared to millions? But this isn’t as straightforward as destroying the Chadassa; those alien creatures were demonstrably evil. No matter which way you look at it, these… these are people, Katya, human beings, and my god is asking me to murder them.”

  Seeing the despair on his face, she took Silus into her arms, and though she still didn’t know how to respond to what he had shared with her, she said, “Shh, it’s okay. I still love you.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Katya. How can I stand against a god? And how when the consequences of doing so would be so dire?”

  Katya sighed. All the tiredness and the toll that the journey had taken on her were written on her face.

  “I suppose that sometimes we just can’t fight against destiny,” she said. “Sometimes it’s impossible to understand the odds we’re up against. You were called, Silus. You told me that yourself. Last time you listened to that call, you helped save Twilight from the Chadassa invasion. This time the threat is harder to understand, but the stakes are higher. This will be our world one day, this is ourworld. We must make sure that nothing happens to interfere with that.”

  Silus looked up at the great azure sphere that had set him on this path, and silently cursed the fact that there had to be a god at all. Without Kerberos, life would be so much easier.

  A sudden pulse of light washed across the face of the deity and he knew that the time had come to put the final plan into action. But before that happened, he would once more have to commune with Kerberos.

  “Katya, promise me that you’ll protect Zac from all of this. He’s too young to understand.”

  “I promise. But you have to promise that you won’t hide from us anymore. No matter how strange things get, no matter how dangerous, you mustn’t forget that you are a husband and a father.”

  “I promise. I love you.”

  He kissed her long and deep, and then went to find Bestion.

  Kelos bowed as his audience applauded. The tiny apparition that he had conjured chased the children, who squealed with delight as they tried to escape from the purple bear with the glowing green eyes. Catch them it did, though, before exploding in a cloud of candy-coloured butterflies, each singing an aria before disappearing in a burst of bubbles. The children rolled in the sand, laughing until their eyes leaked and their sides ached. The adults looked on, amazed and delighted by Kelos’s conjurations. Ever since the mage had felt the presence of magic — the source not far distant from them now — he had taken to entertaining the travellers of an evening. Admittedly, he could do little more than basic cantrips and conjurations, but once they reached the source of that raw power, he would be able to do so much more. For now, these small sorceries were like a long drink of cool water on a baking hot day.

  “Someone’s enjoying themselves,” Dunsany said, as he stepped into the circle of spectators.

  “Ah, ladies and gentlemen,” Kelos said, performing a gesture with his hands that outlined Dunsany’s form in a glittering gold aura. “My beautiful assistant.”

  There were wolf-whistles from some and Kelos noticed the appreciative glances of a handful of women, not to mention a couple of men.

  “Well, you can’t have him. He’s mine! But for now, my glamorous assistant will help me to demonstrate… the disappearing man!”

  “The disappearing man?” Dunsany whispered.

  “Yes, the disappearing man. You remember that one, don’t you?” Kelos whispered back.

  Dunsany shook his head.

  “Back in the day? That grubby little place we had above the butcher’s shop in Allantia? Performing shows twice nightly down at the Broken Oar just to meet the rent?”

  “Ah, yes! Sub-dimensional pocket?”

  “Sub-dimensional pocket.”

  Noticing that the audience was growing restless as the performers whispered between themselves, Kelos produced a sack from the folds of his cloak with a flourish.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the disappearing man!”

  Kelos placed the sack on the ground and opened it out before stepping in. He pulled the hessian up around himself and above his shoulders, before finally ducking his head below the opening. Dunsany secured the mouth of the sack with a rope and stepped back.

  “Now,” Kelos said from within the sack, “I need absolute silence. Glamorous assistant, will you please intone the words of power? On the count of three: one… two… three!”

  “Dissapeariariumanissium!” Dunsany shouted.

  Kelos dropped feet-first into the sub-dimensional pocket — the opening to which was located in the base of the sack — before closing it around himself. The air within was musty and the darkness absolute. Sub-dimensional pockets were handy for storage, but weren’t somewhere you’d necessarily want to spend much time. Kelos knew that, above him, the sack would have crumpled, seemingly empty, and he was about to re-emerge with a flourish and reap the applause when he sensed a presence.

  Something was pushing against the walls of this mini-dimension. That should have been impossible; nobody but a sorcerer of the highest calibre could intrude on this reality.

  A thin line of light drew itself across the darkness before his eyes, as a wickedly curved and lethally sharp talon tore into the wall of the sub-dimensional pocket. The
re was the sound of voices raised in song — Kelos thought of Emuel — and then the mage was tumbling towards the light, his stomach turning over and over as though he were falling a great distance. He prepared himself for a bone-shattering impact, only to find himself kneeling on all fours, warm sand beneath his palms.

  He didn’t dare look up, because he knew that the source of the raw magic he had sensed from far across the desert now stood before him, and the thought of looking upon so much power filled him with terror. He considered that perhaps he was in the presence of an adept shadowmage; one who had mastered control of all the known threads of magic. The low growl that emanated from somewhere above him, however, put paid to that theory.

  A great clawed foot thudded into the ground just inches from Kelos’s head, and he cried out. Finally, he looked up.

  Nothing that Kelos had read in ancient texts or seen painted onto the walls of Old Race ruins could have prepared him for the sight of the dragons. He felt awestruck, deeply moved and profoundly honoured that he had been graced with the presence of these legendary creatures. Without understanding how, he knew that it was the dragon standing directly before him — its huge azure wings unfurled, its head held proudly to one side — that had plucked him from the sub-dimensional pocket. Although they were just as beautiful, the two smaller dragons flanking it didn’t exude the same raw power; they seemed subservient to the azure dragon, hanging back as it examined the mage. Experimentally, Kelos reached for the threads of sorcery that flowed from the azure dragon, and was stunned by the possibilities they offered. Usually when he prepared a spell, he found only the thread of elemental magic open to him, but here every channel of power was open. The azure dragon — he realised — was magic itself; the very stuff of creation.