The Crystal Mountain

by Thomas M. Reid

  “We will hold them to the last of us,” one of the archons said over his shoulder.

  “Leave me,” Nilsa called, from the center of the makeshift fortress. “Do not sacrifice all these good soldiers for me!”

  Garin turned to look down at her. She stood in the center of the circle, her lone wing folded against her body, and gave him a reassuring smile. He knew she was right. He didn’t want it to end like this for her, but the rest of the archons could be saved. “I’m sorry,” he said. He nearly choked on the words. His chest felt leaden.

  “Torm is with me,” she said with that same soft smile. Then she turned away to deliver another blast of holy energy. “I will die content.”

  Garin was on the verge of giving the order when a horn blared from nearby. He turned in place and peered in that direction.

  Twin shapes skimmed low over the trees and soared past, throwing their enormous shadows across the group’s last stand. The force of their passing ruffled Garin’s hair. The demons, once so certain of victory, faltered and wailed.

  The angel wasn’t sure he had seen correctly. The twin forms looked like dragons, one silver and one gold.

  But where—?

  He whipped his head around and caught sight of them. They flew together, gliding low over the endless swarm of demons. They dipped their tails into the seething mass, thrashing them back and forth. Where they flew, bodies scattered. The gold one drew up at the closest of the fume-belching gashes in the ground and raked it with its fiery breath. The cascade of flames inundated the hole, destroying demons by the score.

  Seeing it made Garin wanted to weep for joy. He felt hope again.

  “Garin!” Nilsa called.

  He looked down. She was beaming up at him, but what he noticed was the dozen or so new arrivals with her. Archons had joined their companions in the outer ring, strengthening it, and were driving the demons back from their position. Others filled the circle, surrounding Nilsa, waiting to escort her forward. He spied the warrior from before, the one he had sent for help, among them.

  He looked toward the woods and saw a glorious sight. An entire legion of archons rushed from there, accompanied by angels, solars, and planetars, as well as other creatures he didn’t even recognize. They ploughed into the demons, driving the fiends back with superior numbers. The doomed creatures cried out in anguish as they scrambled to retreat from the new onslaught.

  There was nowhere for them to go, and they died in droves.

  Garin settled to the ground next to the archon he had sent away. “Torm blesses us with your return,” he said, grinning. “What is this?”

  Nilsa stepped beside him and wrapped her free arm around him. Garin returned the embrace.

  The archon gave him a quick smile in return. “The reinforcements you requested,” he said.

  “Yes, but who in the heavens are they?” Garin asked, bewildered. “Dragons?”

  The archon chuckled. “Bahamut’s legions,” he said. “They have answered Tyr and Torm’s call for help.”

  Tauran nearly sank to the ground in despair upon seeing the abomination rushing toward him. His hand went to his breast.

  By the gods, Micus. No!

  His old friend’s eyes, once so darkly intense and inquisitive, bulged with animalistic rage out from a blotched, puffy face. His long, forked tongue protruded from between twin fangs. Below, at his abdomen, Myshik’s gaping maw filled with jagged dragon teeth opened and closed below a second set of eyes, beady and yellow.

  You did not deserve this, Tauran thought. He wept.

  The twisted thing landed upon the sands of the Lifespring beach and glared. Both heads roared in unison as the creature reared, his front feet pawing the air. When he dropped to the ground again, Micus lunged at Tauran.

  “Micus!” Tauran called, stumbling back.

  The aberration swung Myshik’s war axe. Even as it sliced through the air above Tauran’s head, Micus reversed its momentum and took another step forward.

  Tauran scrambled out of the way as the beast continued to chop at him, swinging the massive weapon back and forth wildly.

  “Micus, it’s me! It’s Tauran!” he cried out in a broken voice. “Stop this! We can help you!”

  The monstrosity rolled his head back and screamed. “Must kill you!” he bellowed. Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth, which curled in a hateful snarl. “Must kill all!” He took another step forward and aimed the axe again.

  From behind, Eirwyn grabbed Tauran’s arm. She dragged him back, out of reach, as the axe slammed into the sand and sent grains of it scattering on the winds. “He doesn’t recognize you!” she yelled. “He’s too far gone.”

  “No!” Tauran cried out, his voice low and husky. “We have to reverse this. This is my doing. He was my friend.”

  Tauran yanked his arm free of Eirwyn and tried to approach Micus again. Rage filled him, rage at Zasian and Cyric and Vhok. All of them had brought this about. But he raged at himself most of all.

  I led him into it. I couldn’t get him to understand. “He’s this way because of me!” Tauran screamed. “Micus, I’m sorry!”

  Kael and Pharaun landed upon the sandy shore of the golden waters, one to either side of the creature. The aberration reared back as Kael threatened him with his sword. While he was distracted with the knight, Pharaun fired a series of magical darts that screamed into his flank. The monstrosity reared and roared in pain.

  “No!” Tauran screamed at them. “Don’t hurt him!”

  Blessed Tyr, please save him, he prayed, forgetting that it was to Torm that he had most recently sworn allegiance. If one of us must suffer this fate, let it be me, instead.

  Eirwyn took her companion by the shoulders and turned him to face her. “I know,” she said. “It’s horrible. But however wrong it might be, it is his fate, and you cannot let Vhok beat us because of it.”

  Tauran scrubbed the stinging tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Micus deserves better, Tyr. He was always your loyal servant. I’m the one who turned from you. I’m the one who betrayed you.

  Heartbroken, Tauran nodded at Eirwyn. “Make it merciful,” he said. Then, the muscles in his neck and shoulder cording, the grieving angel spun to face Vhok.

  The cambion was missing.

  “Find him!” Tauran croaked. “He can’t be far. He will not abandon his precious goal now, not when he is so close.” He turned and looked at Eirwyn. “Find him, so I can deliver him back to the hellish place from whence he was spawned!”

  Tauran flung himself into the air. He dropped over the side, hunting for the cambion with raw fury in his heart. It should have been me, he thought over and over. I was the one who betrayed you. Not Micus. He was loyal. It should have been me.

  He spotted Vhok circling beneath the mountain, heading back toward the top and the beach. Tauran raced after him, gripping his mace so hard his knuckles ached. The cambion landed on the sand well away from the raging battle between Kael and Pharaun and the abomination. The angel saw him watch for a moment, then take a tentative step toward the water.

  Tauran hit the ground running, his mace drawn back.

  Vhok heard his footsteps and spun away. He drew his blade.

  Tauran’s weapon hit the sand with a powerful thump where Vhok had been standing a blink of an eye before. “What you did,” he growled, circling the half-fiend, looking for another chance to strike. “It was too base even for you!” he finished with a scream and a lunge. Vhok retreated and blocked the attack. “No one should have to suffer such a transformation. Until today, I wouldn’t even have wished that upon you! You should have killed him!”

  Vhok glared at the angel and waved his blade threateningly. “And you should never have tried to bind me to your service,” he said. “I am not your lapdog, angel.”

  Tauran felt righteous anger overflow. “That has nothing—nothing!—to do with Micus.” He launched another furious flurry of blows at his foe. With each one, he punctuated it with a word. “He … did … not
… deserve … that!”

  The rain of attacks drove Vhok back, then down to one knee. Letting his rage engulf him, Tauran drew back for one final pounding.

  “Tauran, look out!” Eirwyn yelled, leaping in from nowhere. She collided with the other angel and knocked him out of the way as Micus swung Myshik’s war axe at him from behind. Tauran went sprawling, landing in the shallow water. The blade caught Eirwyn instead, biting into her shoulder and back. Blood spurted everywhere as Eirwyn crumpled to the ground, crying out in agony.

  Tears filled Tauran’s eyes as he witnessed another of his friends suffer. Rising to his feet, his mace still clutched in his hands, he snarled, “You’re finished.”

  He lunged at the cambion and swung his mace. As he did so, he channeled all the divine power he could muster into the holy weapon.

  Kael watched, sickened, as Eirwyn dropped to the sand.

  He had tried to corral the raging beast, but Micus would not be denied. He had pushed past the knight, heedless of the half-drow’s weapon, and tried to cut Tauran down. Kael felt helpless panic rise when he saw what was about to happen to his mentor, but before he could do a thing to stop it, Eirwyn had flashed into view.

  Swearing oaths that would have gotten him punished as a youth, Kael leaped toward the aberration and brought his blade down hard.

  The thing saw the movement and danced to the side. Kael’s attack cut harmlessly into the damp sand. Micus used the moment to counterattack. He leaped into the air and soared past the half-drow, attempting to slice at him with the axe as he went by.

  Kael barely managed to get his blade back into position to block the strike, but the force of Micus’s blow spun the knight around and sent him sprawling face-first into the sand.

  Kael scooped up a handful of the stuff and flung it from him. Rising to his feet, Kael saw Micus soaring out over the open sky, away from the Lifespring, but the abomination was already banking in a sharp circle to come back around. A few feet away from Kael, Pharaun made a few strange, complex gestures and flung a fist toward the cursed thing. A large glowing ball of crackling energy appeared in the air between Pharaun and Micus and, as the wizard gestured, it zipped forward, headed for the winged beast.

  Micus dipped and dodged and managed to evade the dangerous sphere, but Pharaun did a little spinning motion with his hand and had the ball racing back toward Micus from behind. Just as the cursed creature alighted upon the sand between Kael and Pharaun, swinging his axe at them both, the sphere reached its mark and struck Micus.

  The energy of the sphere dissipated, sending spidery tracks of electricity all across the thing’s body.

  Kael expected him to have a bigger fit than he did, imagining how much punishment such a spell would deliver. But the aberration only started in surprise and turned to see what had hit him.

  “Immunities,” Pharaun grumbled in disgust.

  Micus, perhaps realizing where the attack had originated, turned on the drow wizard and lunged at him with the axe poised to strike.

  Upon seeing his foe turn his attention away from him, Kael leaped close and sliced at the thing, cutting a deep gash in the aberration’s flank and ruining one of its legs.

  On the opposite side of the beast, Pharaun retreated and gestured at the ground in front of himself. A set of snaking, black tentacles wormed up out of the very rock and quickly latched onto the abomination. The tentacles curled around its legs and climbed to engulf its body. Howling in rage, Micus thrashed and kicked and fanned his four wings, trying to break free.

  Impressive, Kael thought. Don’t get caught up in those.

  Kael used his magic boots to go aloft and avoid the black tentacles, then closed in to cut at the creature again. Trapped as he was, Micus could not evade the impending assault, but he didn’t seem to care. All his bestial concentration seemed focused on breaking free of the magical appendages holding him.

  Kael swung his greatsword in huge arcs that opened the beast from shoulder to tail several times. Micus screamed and howled, doubling his frenzied efforts to break free. Finally, with its body broken and bleeding, the thing crumpled to the ground, still thrashing.

  Kael settled to the ground next to Pharaun. “What a pity,” he said.

  The wizard shrugged. “But also fascinating. Two creatures, fused in such a fashion. I’d love the chance to study—”

  “That’s enough,” Kael growled. “He was a high-ranking member of the Court of Tyr and one of Tauran’s closest friends, not an experiment. I will not hear him spoken of in that way.”

  Pharaun’s mouth twitched in the faintest hint of a smile, but he gave a slight bow and said, “As you wish.”

  Kael nodded. “Release your tentacles,” he said, “and I will finish him off.”

  Pharaun gestured, and the black, writhing appendages vanished, leaving the Micus-Myshik thing flailing feebly, its lifeblood soaking the sand and turning it crimson.

  Kael approached the creature. “I’m so sorry, Micus,” he said. He hefted his sword. “I wish that … everything had been different between us.”

  He drew back the blade and sliced downward. Micus’s grotesque, bloated head tumbled from his shoulders. Blood sprayed as the head bounced to one side and rolled away. The rest of the creature continued to flop and spasm.

  Kael turned back to Pharaun. “Tauran will grieve this loss for a long—”

  “Beware!” Pharaun said, grabbing Kael and shoving him aside.

  Crackling, blinding light erupted from behind Kael and engulfed Pharaun. Kael staggered to the ground and flung his arm up across his face. Spots swam in his vision and he shouted in pain and horror.

  When the afterimages of the stroke faded enough for him to see again, Kael, on his hands and knees, peered toward his father.

  Pharaun lay unmoving. Smoke rose from his scorched body.

  “No,” Kael pleaded, scrambling to his father’s side.

  Aliisza could barely keep aloft. Her muscles, weakened so much from her magic consuming her, struggled to work. She climbed slowly, gasping for breath with each pump of her wings, rising in a corkscrew fashion.

  Just one more time, she’d tell herself. Just once more. An easy pace. You can do it.

  But she didn’t think she could.

  The last of the demons were dead. She had slain them with her blade and watched them fall away. She wondered where they would land. If they would land.

  You could fall, too, she thought. Just let go. It would be easy. Get rid of this pain.

  No! Just one more time around. An easy pace. See this through. Kaanyr needs to understand.

  At last, Aliisza came through the tops of the clouds and spied the bottom of the great stone basin that held the Lifespring.

  She almost sobbed in relief, but she couldn’t give in even that little bit, or she’d lose her momentum.

  Aliisza circled around three or four more times until she crested the edge. She pitched forward and went limp upon the rocks.

  You did it. You got here.

  Yes, she thought, gasping and panting. Now for the hard part.

  She could hear the shouts of battle and urgency forced her up again. She sought her companions and spied them part of the way down the shore, still fighting. Kael and Pharaun opposed the thing that had once been Micus and Myshik. It had grown since she had seen it last.

  She felt a momentary pang of guilt and regret, remembering how Micus thought she had betrayed him. Then she shook it off. I am not that person, she insisted. I did the best I could.

  Farther along the narrow beach, Tauran and Kaanyr dueled one another.

  Eirwyn lay crumpled on the sand.

  Aliisza struggled onto her knees, then tried to stand. She wanted to rush forward, to join the fray, but her body was betraying her. She dropped back down.

  I can’t, she thought. The magic has taken everything from me. Just too much. I’m sorry.

  No, the defiant part of her thought. Get up. Die trying. Don’t lie here regretting. She listened to that d
efiant part, struggling to rise again. You must help them. Find a way, Aliisza.

  She staggered upright once more. She took one tentative step, and then another. Confident she wouldn’t tumble over from exhaustion, she moved forward, maddeningly slowly.

  She saw Kael take Micus’s head from his body and a sense of sadness, but also peace, filled her. Tauran will take it hard, she thought. But Micus’s suffering is over, at least.

  She was getting nearer to the pair when Pharaun jumped forward, knocking Kael to the ground. A booming crack of lightning erupted from the beast’s corpse. The concussive blast stunned Aliisza and she fell to one knee, watching as Pharaun, his back arched in torment, was engulfed in the blast. He toppled.

  “No! Pharaun, no!”

  Aliisza forced herself to her feet a third time and stumbled down the beach.

  By the time she reached him, Kael had recovered and had Pharaun’s head cradled in his hands. She dropped down beside the two and saw then that the wizard’s form had reverted back to its natural state. Kael held Zasian, whose broken and battered body sported several injuries. “Is he—?” she asked, her voice a near-whisper.

  Kael looked at her. “It caught him squarely.” His voice cracked. “I guess the ‘imperfect vessel’ finally had taken all the punishment it could. He was … interesting.”

  Ali isza stroked Kael’s hair. “At least you finally got to meet him,” she said. Then she looked down the beach. “Kael”—she tried to get to her feet one last time—“Tauran still needs us.”

  “I know,” Kael said. He set Zasian down gently and pushed himself up. “Come.” He took her hand.

  The two of them trotted down the beach as fast as Aliisza could move. She could see Kaanyr and Tauran battling furiously. Beside her, Kael was already clenching his sword, and she could see the lines of his jaw working as he clenched his teeth.

  She didn’t want to tell him to go on ahead. She didn’t want to be left behind. I want to be there when Kaanyr goes down, she insisted. But Tauran was in trouble, and Kael wanted to rush to his side.

  “Go,” she said. “Help him.”