Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming (The Above Book 1)

by Van Allen Plexico

  The engineer god scowled at both of us, visibly shaken by this unexpected resistance.

  “Baranak will not look upon this insolence of yours with favor, Karilyne,” he seethed. “You had better think twice before—“

  “You had better think twice before threatening me in my own home, god of toil,” she shot back sharply, “whether in Baranak’s name or your own.”

  “This is far from settled,” he barked, moving brusquely toward the front door. By custom and good manners, we had always observed the courtesy of opening our travel portals out of doors, rather than appearing and disappearing in the midst of one another’s homes. Vorthan’s anger overcame him, though, and he halted short of the door, gestured angrily with his left hand, and ripped open a blazing red portal. Without a look back, he stomped through it and was gone.

  “Good riddance,” Evelyn said. “That guy gives me the creeps.”

  Karilyne favored her with a smile.

  “I have always thought so, too.”

  She turned her attention to me then, and the smile vanished.

  “Lucian, let none of what just transpired and what was said cause you to think that I have taken your side in this dispute, or that I believe your story over that of Baranak and the others. I merely know them well enough to understand that if you are handed over to them now, you will never have the opportunity to prove that what you say is true.”

  She leaned closer towards me, her eyes flashing.

  “And if you, prince of lies, have been lying to me now, then my retribution will be swift and terrible. Far worse than anything the golden god has planned for you. That I can assure you.”

  “I believe you,” I replied—and I did.

  # # #

  We sat on a broad terrace overlooking the valley, far below. The sky, streaked with gray clouds, was not terribly bright for midday, but with the additional glare from the snowy slopes behind us, it provided ample light for a picnic lunch.

  Around a small table cut from the ice we sat, various sandwiches and other snack foods arrayed before us. The ladies both ate, but I had no appetite. In truth, I had yielded to Karilyne’s suggestion of an elaborate, alfresco meal with great reluctance. Time now seemed of the essence, yet with my oath to the silver goddess still in place, I could not flee, and could think of no other action I might take, while remaining in her custody, to protect myself. Evelyn and I were completely at her mercy, and she surely liked it that way. The problem was, she could not seem to understand that she was, in turn, now at Vorthan’s mercy, and therefore at Baranak’s. I had tried to explain this to her as soon as the god of toil had stormed out, but her legendary stubbornness, as I saw it, prevented her from fully accepting the facts. So here I sat, on the terrace, cool winds blowing around me, watching Karilyne as she behaved as if she had not a care in the world. And, for my part, I leaned back some distance from the table, hands folded before me, fingertips steepled at my lips. And I brooded.

  The most buoyant vessel must, at some point, notice a heavy anchor that has been tossed over the side, dragging at its progress. Karilyne finished a small sandwich, set her palms down flat on the table, and turned to me.

  “Lucian,” she said. “Relax. Eat.”

  “Relax?”

  I regarded her with equal measures of surprise and bewilderment.

  “Do you not understand, Karilyne? They know where I am, now. Vorthan will be back. Or perhaps a contingent from the City. Maybe even Baranak and his Hosts.”

  I spread my hands wide.

  “Do you wish to have them knocking at your gates? Perhaps even storming in here directly?”

  She nibbled at another sandwich, then shook her head.

  “You exaggerate the situation, Lucian. None of them would dare such an action. Not here. Not in my refuge, with my own honor pledged to your safekeeping.”

  “Once, that may well have been true,” I replied, as calmly as I could manage. “But not any longer, I fear. You do not fully appreciate the intensity of their animosity toward me, nor the level of their desire to recapture me, and to lay the blame for every ill that has ever plagued the City upon me.”

  I breathed in and out deeply, forcing my taut muscles to unwind somewhat.

  “With me here,” I concluded, “you and your people are not safe.”

  “That is just what Vorthan told me this morning,” she said with a wry smile.

  “In that, he was correct. But the source of the danger was not what he surely intimated.”

  Karilyne nodded her head once, then motioned for a servant to pour more water for each of us.

  “I understand all of this, Lucian. Frankly, I am somewhat offended that you would suggest I do not.”

  “Then why—“

  “Nevertheless,” she continued, raising her hand, “I must continue to observe the forms of conduct in such matters. I have pledged your safety here, and the others must respect that, until I have made my decision regarding your disposition, and that of your friend. And you, in turn, must continue to abide by the terms of your oath to me. That is the beginning and the end of it, for now.”

  I ground my molars together till I feared they would rupture.

  “Were these normal times, my lady, I would stand in full agreement. These are, however, anything but normal times. Seventy-two of us—at last count—are dead. Someone—not me—killed them, and probably also engineered the shutting down of the Fountain during that time. How can we expect anyone to abide by ancient rules at a time such as this?”

  “I expect you to, and that is all you need concern yourself with at the moment.”

  She stood and walked briskly away from the table, out to the railing overlooking the valley, and she would hear no more from me on the subject.

  In the few seconds between that exchange and the moment the black star appeared in our midst and opened, I formulated a dozen new arguments on the subject. They instantly became meaningless. Sirens shrilled from all around as the sensors arrayed about Karilyne’s palace detected the ripple in space-time, but the warning came far too late to do any good.

  In the center of the terrace, a crystalline star flared from nothingness to blinding intensity over the space of a heartbeat. It expanded outward in every direction, forming a blazing oval, the center of which filled with darkness, as if the light had been sucked violently out of it. From that void emerged a horde of demons—the same sort Evelyn and I had encountered earlier, in the bowl-shaped world. Skin blackened as if burned by some other-worldly flame, clothing hanging from their twisted frames in tatters, deepest space reflected in their gaping mouths and fearsome eyes—these nightmare figures grew no less unsettling upon repeated encounters. They charged out of the dark depths and swarmed across the terrace, making no sound yet filling everyone who saw them with fear and dread.

  To her credit, Karilyne reacted before anyone else, her silvery robes transforming in an instant into hard plate mail, her axe and her sword in each hand, at the ready. Even her stature appeared to increase, and she rushed to confront the hellish intruders, her long, raven hair flaring out behind her, like some beautiful and awful force of nature.

  Pushing Evelyn behind me, I summoned up the Power and created a strong defensive sphere around both of us. Personal safety thereby seen to, as best it could be, I moved forward to assist Karilyne, even as the doors leading out from the palace crashed open to my left and a cadre of her personal guard charged out, weapons brandished. To their credit, the soldiers hesitated only briefly at the sight of the attackers, before quickly moving to confront them.

  “Here they are again,” I called to Karilyne. “Those demons that do not exist, doing things that are impossible.”

  “Indeed,” she called back, from the center of the fray. “Someone is using them as pawns, as catspaws.”

  “You think?”

  Shaking my head in frustration that it had taken something like this to get through her thick skull, I drew upon the Power and prepared to unleash what few offensive cap
abilities I possessed. Raising both arms, palms facing outward, I spilled small, blue orbs that rolled across the terrace to explode upon reaching the attackers’ flanks.

  In response, the demons redoubled their assault—but not in my direction. They seemed intent upon one target—the silver lady. Karilyne roared, her sword and her axe singing their own songs of destruction in a swath all around her. The horde broke upon her like a wave upon the rocks, and I stood back momentarily, watching her in awe. Only Baranak, I imagined, could have equaled or excelled her skills at massive, devastating violence. Then, as a renewed attack by the demons pressed at her, I moved forward again, lending what little I could in terms of offensive firepower.

  Another battalion of guards arrived then and opened up with their firearms, for what little good it did. The demons shrugged off the energy beams and solid projectiles with ease, and continued to focus most of their attention and their murderous efforts on Karilyne. She beat them back, hacking at them savagely, yet I saw no bodies anywhere around her. Either they were carrying their dead and wounded away as they fought, or the bodies left no trace after death. I had no idea which of those might be the case, but it scarcely mattered at the moment. Hurling exploding blue spheres of energy, I chipped away at the flanks of the enemy, opposite the side where the guards did the same.

  Not enough. Our efforts were not enough. I had seen it happen before, with Vorthan, and now it was happening again with Karilyne. The silver warrior vanished beneath the press of twisted, grotesque bodies, and within moments only the tip of her sword and the occasional swing of her axe appeared above the fray. Seconds later, neither of those weapons could be seen at all, and the horde had grown noticeably smaller. This time, I understood. They had some sort of escape portal at the center of their crowd, and surely Karilyne had already been carried through. She was gone—at least for the moment, though Vorthan’s own apparent escape gave me some reason for hope concerning her fate.

  The crowd of demons had dwindled down by this time to a relatively small clump, heatedly battling with the palace guards. Neither group seemed terribly interested in Evelyn or me. I turned back to her, and saw that she had drawn one of the pistols from her duffle bag and was preparing to fire.

  “No,” I said. “Save it. There is nothing more to be done here.”

  She looked at me wonderingly, but replaced the gun in the bag.

  “Then what—?”

  I watched the last of the demons fighting what must have been a holding action, keeping the guards away while the majority of their brethren spirited Karilyne away. Only a few of the guards appeared injured; Karilyne had trained them well. Turning away from the scene of combat, I motioned for Evelyn to follow me, and we moved to the far side of the terrace, away from the commotion.

  “The pact I swore with Karilyne is dissolved,” I said. “Whether of her own volition or not, she has departed this plane. She is no longer serving as my guarantor and protector. The terms were clear. I am free to go.”

  Evelyn thought about that for a second, and nodded.

  “An interesting interpretation, but I would tend to agree with it, given the circumstances.”

  She pointed back past me.

  “Especially since they seem to have taken notice of us, finally.”

  I glanced back, saw that the last of the demons had vanished and that now the household guards were coming our way. They moved uncertainly at first, unsure of my current standing in their house, and what with their mistress not being present to give them orders. Quickly, though, they gathered their confidence and advanced.

  “Hm. Yes,” I said, “I would definitely say that it is time to go.”

  Raising both hands, I willed a portal to open between the troopers and us. They stopped short, then regained their nerve and charged. I stepped forward, into the blue, and Evelyn moved with me, reaching back to wave goodbye to Karilyne’s crack forces just before the doorway to elsewhere slammed shut in their faces.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  My plans now in ruins, perhaps the only god willing to listen to me now in the clutches of the demons, and my mood black as night, I led Evelyn on a silent, circuitous, roundabout journey back toward Mysentia. I had little to say and, in truth, nowhere else to go. Mysentia had been my power base during the period of my exile, and it held a quick route to my only hideaway that remained a secret, the floating island. It was therefore as good as any other place, and better than most. That did not change the fact that my only avenue of redress against Baranak and the others had been lost, when my weapons had been destroyed and I had failed to secure the gemstones that powered them. Finding safety and solitude and time to regroup, to create a new plan… my thoughts did not range far beyond those parameters as we made our way from Karilyne’s ice world, through jungle and valley and meadow and forest, back toward my adopted home.

  “That’s twice,” Evelyn said at some point.

  “Twice?”

  “Vorthan and Karilyne. Both abducted by the demons. Both times with you present. And this time it even helped you. If I didn't know better, I might think you were behind it all, too.”

  “But you do know better.”

  Fortunately, she nodded.

  “There has to be a connection, though,” she said.

  “…I know.”

  On we marched along the path. One path among so many I knew; so many I had walked over my centuries and centuries of life. So many footsteps. Enough footsteps to circumnavigate the universe, surely. All of them leading me ultimately, inevitably… where? Here? Trudging through some lost forest on some remote world important only because it lay along the dimension-hopping road I had mapped back to Mysentia. Millennia spent in the effort to acquire power and glory and the mastery of the Golden City and its inhabitants—and here I walked through brush and vine and thorn and mud. Had I truly fallen so low? Misery dropped upon me like some giant’s boot crushing down on my head, and I may have even groaned softly in my throat. I must have, for Evelyn looked over at me as we walked, concern etched clearly on her face.

  “Are you all right?”

  I made a dismissive gesture and kept walking.

  “You don’t seem all right,” she said.

  I stopped, turned to look at her, frowning.

  “At least we’re free again,” she pointed out.

  “Wonderful.”

  She looked away.

  “It’s better than waiting for the others to come and take you back to the City.”

  I shrugged. At the moment, nothing seemed particularly “better” to me.

  She watched me for several moments, as if waiting for something, but saying nothing.

  I glared at her.

  “This is insipid,” I growled.

  She pointed at a nearby fallen log, moss covering one side.

  “Sit,” she said firmly.

  “What?”

  She pointed again.

  Grudgingly, I sat. I could not truly object. At that point, I felt I had nothing better to do. Misery surrounded me like a cloud.

  We faced one another, neither speaking. The only sounds were those of the forest around us, gently swelling.

  “You feel as if you’ve failed, don’t you?”

  I said nothing, staring at my boots, planted in the dark earth.

  “You’re not the only one who feels that way, who’s lost something, you know,” she said. “I’m still no closer to finding my crewmen. Honestly, I’m beginning to think it may be too late.”

  “We don’t know that,” I replied. “Arendal is not stupid. Unless he specifically wanted to kill them, he would have made arrangements to keep them alive in case he was detained.”

  I laughed sharply then, the first moment of anything other than depression I had experienced since the demons carried Karilyne away.

  “And we certainly detained him, did we not?”

  Evelyn smiled at that.

  “We did.”

  I eyed her with surprise.

  “I was
under the impression you felt I was perhaps too rough on him.”

  She scoffed.

  “Hardly. The jerk had it coming.”

  I leaned back, my eyes moving along the thick, twisted vines hanging down from the towering trees all around us. Sunlight trickled though branches high above to lie in dappled patterns here and there about us, but the overall effect was one of being within a small, darkened room, or perhaps a cave. I closed my eyes and tried to think of my long, lost Halaini, but her face was not the one that came to me. Disconcerted in the extreme, I opened my eyes, stood, and began pacing in the mud.

  “Maybe you can find more of the gems,” Evelyn was saying. “There have to be more, somewhere, right?”

  I looked back at her, forcing my thoughts back under control.

  “I don’t know. And what good would it do, with the weapons they power currently floating in pieces above Candis?”

  She nodded sadly.

  “Not all of them, though,” she said after a moment, patting her duffle bag. “I still have my three.”

  “And that is all we may ever have, I fear.”

  Sitting again beside her, I thought about what we had learned from Buchner.

  “I should have asked Vorthan about the gems when I had the chance, back at Karilyne’s. But I had other things on my mind then, obviously. He would have lied, in any case.”

  I chewed at a fingernail absently.

  “I suppose he and Baranak are assembling an armory to reinforce their group’s claim to power in the City.”

  “But they destroyed all your weapons the last time, didn’t they?”

  “So they claimed. Perhaps it was a trick. Perhaps they have stockpiles of the things.”

  “Then maybe they’re overconfident.” She shrugged. “They’ve surely struck me that way, every time I’ve met them.”

  I nodded once but said nothing. My thoughts were moving across everything I knew, everything I had learned, wrestling with each facet, searching for connections. Something connected with Vorthan had rung a bell, just then, and an unexpected one. He had appeared to us the first time as we were being attacked by demons. His removal from the scene then could have convinced anyone that he was as good as dead, or at least in imminent danger of being seriously injured. Instead, he showed up again later, none the worse for wear, with no desire to even discuss what had happened. Then, after that appearance, more demons. And just as I had someone important, someone powerful, beginning to listen to me. As if he knew. As if he were watching all along, and waiting. But if his goal were to capture me, to return me to custody in the City—as surely Baranak had instructed him to do—then why not come for me earlier? Why wait until I was besieged by attackers, on the bowl-shaped world? Or, if Baranak’s clique had already decided my fate, why not leave me to the tender mercies of the demons?