The Path of the Fallen

by Dan O'Brien

  “Lord M’iordi, the enemy forces have erected barricades at the base of the stairs. They have sealed over the main entrance, and have archers along the wall towers.”

  M’iordi held his breath, bringing his hand to his face.

  Leane laughed at his back.

  “Seems we are not so defeated, pig,” she spat.

  The councilman wheeled, his foot lashing out and striking her across the face. A satisfying crunch emanated as he felt her jaw break under his boot. She fell back against the wooden floorboards, her head striking the ground and then rebounding back. She looked out across the floors and saw the crumpled figure of Arile.

  He had not moved since Fe’rein left.

  M’iordi kicked her again along her ribs. His face was red and his lips were pressed together so tightly that they had gone pale. He continued to kick her several more times, each with more force and authority than before.

  He did not stop until the soldier cleared his throat, bringing a closed fist to his mouth. His voice was controlled as he spoke to the councilman. “What are your orders, Lord M’iordi?”

  M’iordi breathed hard as he watched Leane’s eyes roll back into unconsciousness. He smoothed out his hands against his robe and turned, pressing one hand into the other. Gripping them tightly, he fought the rage that had momentarily claimed his judgment. “I want these soldiers rooted out. Find them and kill them, captain. I will not be the one to tell Fe’rein that we lost Illigard in his absence.”

  The soldier bowed and looked to the curled-up Leane before he spun and left. He melted into the sounds of orders being barked. He turned back once more to look at Leane and merely stared as he lost himself in the sounds of war.

  ⱷ

  Culouth

  E’Malkai materialized upon the Avenue at the heart of Culouth. The sprawling skyline was hidden behind a gray cloud of toxic fumes and smog. Pristine buildings had crumbled and withered. There were riots in the streets; PTVs overturned on the Avenue, flames rising from their cores. Men scampered about, plasma rifles held in hand. Wild looks infected their gazes, watching everything through the eyes of a maniac.

  The Original Creator walked without care.

  He wanted the Intelligence and he would not be made to wait. As he continued to walk, he saw through eyes that had once been. He remembered the city as it was, and would never be again.

  Culouth was the tree to which the poisonous root was latched. It, too, needed to meet its end. Acts of perversion and moral degradation were flaunted before the bearer of life and creation. They paid him no more than a moment’s notice.

  E’Malkai could sense the mion.

  He dematerialized and materialized once more as the walking became tedious. His objective was clear to him. He reached the gulch that delved deep into the epicenter of Culouth. It was the hole in which the Intelligence chose to hide.

  He stared down into the dank pit of machine refuse and grimaced, the lines of his face hidden behind the mask of what he had become. During his battle with the being called the Polypheme, he absorbed some of his power without realizing. Now he bore a red vein of energy as a reminder of that, a testament to his journey.

  Jumping forward, he allowed for a moment the absurdity of gravity to pull him down into the cesspool of toxicity. He watched as the lights faded and the shadow claimed what had been. He felt the doorway, the gateway into their world. It was something that they chose to hide, and then only to reveal to those who they felt were worthy. Unfortunately for them, there was nothing that was outside the understanding and influence of the Original Creator.

  Reaching out with his hands, he closed his eyes as he felt the prickle of energy crawl along his skin. He opened his eyes, the energy leaping from his hand and colliding with the wall. The emerald and white electricity danced over the shadow until the gateway revealed itself in the light.

  He smiled.

  The white halls that Fe’rein had seen were no more. There was no convoluted entrance through which the Original Creator was forced to walk. Instead, there was a dank, rocky cavern at the end of which stood Fe’rein, his dark power a guise.

  The Intelligence stood behind him in its true form.

  Three heads rose from the ground. Each bore coils of electrical tubing that ran back into the wall behind them. It was the central nervous system of an entire city controlled by so few.

  Fe’rein’s arms were crossed over his chest. He wore a smile across his scarred face. “How nice of you to join us, child,” he called over the expanse of the caverns.

  E’Malkai stopped a distance from him. The haunting white glow of his body made him a beacon within the darkness. He stared beyond Fe’rein to the Intelligence. “I am no child. I have walked across the Dead Sands, seen the peaks of the Kien’jedai, and witnessed the splendors and terrors of the Grove. I have lived a hundred lifetimes and you have yet to live one,” returned E’Malkai, the ethereal tone of his voice wiped the self-righteous smirk from Fe’rein’s face.

  The first of the voices called out.

  “We tried to warn you…” spoke the child.

  “But you would not listen…” continued the grandfather.

  The darkest of the voices boomed in the cavern. “Fe’rein.”

  Fe’rein turned back to the Intelligence, his arms at his sides once more. “You fear this child,” he marveled, pointing at the youth.

  “He is the Original Creator, the Light born before the darkness,” screamed the child, her voice ringing across the halls. Fe’rein held his hands over his ears as the shrill pitch rebounded.

  “You are a mere shadow of what he is.”

  Fe’rein turned to the darkest of them, waiting.

  “You must kill him. You are our guardian,” the shadow voice concluded. His was the most somber of all.

  E’Malkai sliced his hand through stale atmosphere of the cavern. A wave of solidified air passed across Fe’rein, knocking the wind from him. “I call your true names: Talmar, father of pestilence; Meinen, whore of the winds; and Culouth, deceiver of the darkness. I shall take you from this earth as my father was taken, and all others who have fallen because of your depravity.”

  Fe’rein held his hand over his chest and grimaced. The force of the air that had struck him had actually hurt. He had not felt pain in longer than he cared to remember; the very thought of it now ignited his hatred, his rage. He moved forward, but was thrown aside again as E’Malkai cast his hand back without looking, knocking the mion back once more.

  “If you destroy us, this city will wither and die,” warned Meinen. Her childlike voice pleaded. The synthetic face shifted as if shaking its head. Her feminine features diminished and sputtered. E’Malkai reached out. Lightning and white fire leapt from his hands, disintegrating the metal and wire, reducing the machine to smolder.

  The second face, the one called Talmar, shimmered. The exact features of the fatherly face were distorted. “By killing us you make your foe stronger, far more powerful than he has ever been,” roared Talmar.

  E’Malkai shook his head and hovered forward. Placing his hand on the external skin of the synthetic head, he let his power flow freely. Consuming it, E’Malkai listened as the machine cried and writhed. The Original Creator swept away the smoke from the enemy at his feet. Two of the minds of the Intelligence were dissolved into nothing more than burnt and melded wire that no longer served a use.

  The final of the three, the one called Culouth, did not plead.

  Its coal black eyes stared at the Original Creator incarnate and glowered. E’Malkai hovered just in front of it. Fe’rein sat away from them, holding his breath as the child he knew confronted the masters who had held the mion in bondage for almost half his life.

  “You have taken life from two realms: the one who birthed the line of Armen and another who was innocent to your claim. The wrath that you have invoked extends beyond this life and will follow you into the next, if there is a mortal frame to which your consciousness may flow.”

 
E’Malkai settled back down upon the ground.

  The glow of his figure hummed as E’Malkai extended his arm as he had done to walk through the fabric of space and time. The energy poured through his outstretched hand; a disc of emerald and white energy grew with each second. The Original Creator called out from within E’Malkai, a war chant in a language that had never been.

  The power leapt from E’Malkai’s hands and crawled through the air. Energy eradicated everything in its path, dissolving the rock and earth, the wires and machines that had kept the Intelligence alive. The world fell out from beneath the mion and E’Malkai, and for a moment Fe’rein cried out.

  Blue skies had darkened.

  War seemed to even affect everything it touched.

  E’Malkai turned back to Fe’rein.

  A dark mist hovered above him, specks of red and white darting in and out of his body. He reeled back, his body suspended in the air. With his mouth open, the shadow within poured free. His arms reached out from his sides and then drew back into him, hands convulsing into claws that dug at his flesh.

  E’Malkai watched without remorse.

  He knew that he was being given the power that he had received as payment for the blood of his brother. “That is the power you accepted. It hurts doesn’t it, burns from the inside? Your masters are gone, their control diminished,” echoed E’Malkai, his arms linked across his chest.

  Fe’rein fell forward, his head weightless as the shadow receded. “I can feel it once again, as it had been when it first came to me.” He flexed his hand, clenching it into a fist and then opening it again. The winds attacked his figure, blowing the tunic he wore. The sash around his waist fluttered as if it were another entity altogether. He stretched out his body, flexing his hands into the air.

  His stare fell upon E’Malkai.

  He saw the intermingling of the energies and the red strand that ran across the youth’s body. “What is the crimson streak for? Why do you bear red lightning?”

  E’Malkai stood steadfast against the winds. His white clothing did not move as Fe’rein’s. “There was a being called the Polypheme who guarded the Grove. He was a powerful creation. I wear it as a reminder of his strength, of his sacrifice, so that I would inherit this power.”

  Fe’rein laced his fingers and extended his arms as he cracked them, the sound lost over the howl of the gales. “So you travel across centuries and sands of death and despair to come back and destroy me? I must say that I am distressed by this. I could have killed you months ago. I spared your life when it should have been taken from you.”

  Arms folded and his most hateful glare summoned, E’Malkai responded. “My life was spared only so that I may return on this day and end the life of the monster that killed my father.”

  Fe’rein laughed. “That is what this is all about, your father? I ended his life for his own benefit. He would have resented this power. He would have found a way to rid himself of it, foolishly I might add.”

  The extremities of E’Malkai’s power spiked violently. “I do this because you have abused your power, brought war upon Terra.”

  Fe’rein pointed at himself, touching his chest with his fingers. A mocking glance was pasted over his features. “You think I started this war? Have you ever thought that all the violence you see was created because of you?”

  E’Malkai glared at his uncle.

  Fe’rein smirked and tilted his head.

  A giddy laugh escaped his lips as he did so. “I see that I have your attention now. If you had not been the son of your father, then you would not have inherited the power that would have inevitably led you into a battle with me. Your defeat prompted the wayward Field Marshal and your mother to carry out a crusade, which was not completely unreciprocated, against Culouth. War greeted the realm and hundreds of thousands of soldiers have fallen on each side because you were too weak to defeat me when you had your chance.”

  E’Malkai’s eyes steeled, his lips held tight.

  He flashed forward, the emerald and white trail of his energy billowing off of him. His elbow caught Fe’rein across the jaw. Before he even drew back the elbow, E’Malkai’s clenched fist slammed underneath Fe’rein’s chin and lifted him into the air and through the metallic layer below Culouth.

  E’Malkai pulsed forward, following Fe’rein as he collided through layer upon layer of steel and wire. The force of the blow, and the heat of the shadow fire that burned around him, carved a tube through the lower layer of the city until the mion emerged through the cast metal of the Avenue.

  A cloud of dust trailed behind him.

  Colliding with a length of building, the stone and metal fell away as Fe’rein glanced off and fell to the ground. E’Malkai emerged from the massive hole that had been created. He landed gently on the ground, several feet from Fe’rein. His chest heaved and his face was marred in dark lines. E’Malkai stalked toward the mion, his feet searing rivets into the surface of the Avenue.

  He loomed over his enemy, his family. “Where are the trite words now, bringer of deceit? Do you yet fear me?” spoke the Original Creator indignantly, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Fe’rein ran his arm over his face.

  Dark red blood covered the sleeve of his tunic. He looked at it incredulously as he gritted his teeth. They were as well stained in blood. “Seems you have gotten a bit stronger since than last time we met,” spat back Fe’rein as he held his hand to his chest.

  E’Malkai stepped forward again. Reaching down, he grasped Fe’rein by his tunic and lifted him into the air, high above his own head even though they were very nearly the same height. Fe’rein fought E’Malkai’s grip, faltering as he met the dead eyes of the youth.

  “Your pain has only begun.”

  E’Malkai slammed his fist into Fe’rein’s chest, which launched him across the Avenue. Falling another building in his wake, he continued through. As he flashed forward, E’Malkai wished only for the strength to repay the anguish Fe’rein had visited upon the realm a thousand fold.

  ⱷ

  Illigard

  Leane stirred awake. Elcites hovered over her. His usually unsympathetic face seemed full of emotion. He held one hand over his waist. The wound there no longer bled, but it seemed sensitive to the touch. Stroking back the hair from her face, the plastered curls were slick with blood and tears.

  The building was deserted except for the guards posted at the entrance. Arile stood over T’elen, pressing a damp washcloth against her forehead. He turned as Leane did, meeting her pitiful smile with a sour nod.

  “I am sorry that I could not defend you as I should have, Leane ilsen,” spoke the Umordoc guardian, sitting back on the floor as he breathed out heavily. The wind blew through the hall and even the grand warrior shivered at its cold touch. “I am no longer the warrior that I once was.”

  Leane pushed herself to her feet as best she could. She could feel the heaviness from where she had been hit along her jaw, as well as on the side of her body from where M’iordi had kicked her into unconsciousness. There was relative silence and that worried her more than getting beat had.

  “Is it over? Has Culouth taken Illigard?”

  Elcites shook his head, his chin almost touching his chest as he did. “The fools started a fire as a way to keep Illigard soldiers back. In doing so, they have trapped us here in this building with the Culouth soldiers who had followed us. The others have met their fate.”

  Leane laughed, the action hurt her lungs.

  A fire built in her chest as she shook.

  “It will not be long now.”

  Arile pushed himself to his feet, running his hands along the cheek of the Field Marshal as he walked toward Leane. He sat alongside the guardian, his arms stretched out behind him. His gaze was fixed upon the guards in front of the entrance. “It seems that our prayers will not be answered, Lady Leane. Your son has perished in his mission.”

  The soldiers shifted, exposing the outside.

  Columns of smoke and fire r
ose from below the stairwell. Startled screams and shouts echoed from deeper in the thick haze of violence and war. Arile shook his head as he watched bodies being dragged aside; some thrown upon the fire. “So many have died. The people of the tundra are no more. The time of the hunter has passed.”

  Elcites nodded, his hand clasped over his wound.

  “As has the time of the guardian.”

  The wail of a horn was shrill in the night air.

  The time of day had become increasingly difficult to tell between the overcast skies and the fog of war. The soldiers parted as M’iordi stepped through, his regal robes stained by smoke and dirt, as well as the blood of those fallen around him. Yellow-striped soldiers poured from either side of him, their faces soiled from whatever plunders they had dabbled in.

  He took long strides across the hall. His bright cape wrapped against his body, wet from the storm that raged outside. His uneven stare fell upon Leane and he pointed his hand out. The soldiers fell in line with his wishes without thought or question. They grabbed her bound hands and pulled her to her feet roughly.

  Elcites reached up as if to stop them and felt the brutal end of a plasma rifle across his face. He gripped the wound at his side with a twist of his lips. Arile as well tried to intercede, but instead felt the sting of a weapon against his chest, the shock of electricity crawled across his skin as he gritted his teeth.

  He fell back, his hands clenched.

  The soldiers threw Leane at M’iordi’s feet.

  A cry escaped her lips as she landed hard on her side; a place already bruised from abuse. He stared down at her, his eyes wide from sleeplessness. The days that had passed since last he had beaten her had found no sleep for him, only the torment of a prolonged engagement of war. “Three days have we laid siege to this damnable place and all that we have accomplished is more death. Now we are trapped in this useless tower.”