Crown of Ash bs-4

by Steven Montano

  The two remaining Shadow Lords — Tregoran and Marklahain — turn their masked faces to regard the approach. Cross senses their fear. Their p inprick eyes narrow beneath their featureless masks and their hands crackle with the glow of pale frost.

  He tries to rise, but they push him back down. He can’t find his sword. Blood and puss ooze out of his wounded arms. H is eyes are crusted over with scabs.

  He isn’t sure how long they’ ve beat en him. Shadows seep into his pores. Only their proximity to the gap in the worlds, the hole that leads to the Carrion Rift, keeps hi s body stable.

  Only the living are lost. He still can’t determine what that means, what significance the message is supposed to hold. His mind races for an answer. It ’s something to focus on as he battles his way through the pain.

  Blood pounds in his ears. He feels himself grow more corporeal by the moment. H e turns and looks at the Obelisk. T he gap in the wall is widening. Solid matter spreads like water. T he shadow dust and spectral smoke that’ s closest to the artifact slowly transforms in to crumbling granite.

  Inch by inch, the cavern grows more solid, more real. He realizes this is the Shadow Lord’s doing, their way of transporting the Obelisk home.

  Dark crafts float in the canyon on the other side, black iron vessels like half-moon platforms, iron dreadnaughts covered with spines and guns. They are Sorn ve hicle s. He sees the giants on the decks, grey silhouettes with crackling harpoons and massive guns. Their l one eyes shine like diamonds in to the bleeding dark of the Whisperlands.

  The Shadow L ord s have communicated with them somehow, told them the Obelisk’s location in the physical world so they can come to haul it away. He c a n’t fathom how the giants ha ve survived the horrors of the Carrion Rift when no Southern Claw or Ebon Cities expedition ever has. He imagines the backing of a cadre of powerful mages and vastly superior alien technology plays some part, as does finally knowing t he Obelisk’s resting place, which the Shadow Lords had sought for so long. They had found the caverns, but they could have searched that labyrinth for years and never found anything.

  And I led them right to it. Like a fool, I blundered my way to something they’d have never found on their own. Soulrazor/Avenger led the way. It knew the location all this time.

  Only the living are lost.

  Cross’ s heart s i nk s. The Eidolos wanted him to lead them to the Obelisk all along. It had doubtlessly been promised some power, some reward for helping the mages find their prize.

  Only the living are lost. But the sword was n’t lost, and it never has been. A nd the Eidolos knew it. That clue was inc luded only as a mocking promise, a taunt to make him realize how easily he’d been used.

  The Shadow Lords strike him with bludgeoning maces made of ice and darkness. The wounds dully sound in the echoes of his mind. His body twists and contorts with hurt. Blood sprays and bones crack.

  Cross tries to strike back at them. He sees the sword, his sword, in Tregoran’s hand, and while the Shadow Lord can’ t use it, could never use it, the weapon is out of its yielder’s reach. He tries to grab it, and they beat him back down to the ground. His hand slips in a pool of his own blood. Frozen charcoal stone presses against his face.

  The dark metal howl sounds again. A shadow stands at the edge of the shifting chamber, a man’s silhouette. It fades in and out of sight, flickers like a shadow in dying candlelight. The shape expands and recedes, twists and slithers out of view.

  He knows what it is. He’ s faced it before, or something like it. Coal black skin fuses around a hardened meteor core that shines through the eye s and mouth, like the creature has swallowed an exploding star. The darkness rests in a human shell, a crumbling skin mask cloaked in black armor. The red-headed figure ’s broken skull barely contains the darkness within.

  It isn’t The Sleeper — he’ s sure of that. But it’ s another refugee of the shadows, another aspect of The Black.

  Tregoran and Marklahain recognize it, and they hammer it with arcane power. Acid bolts and razor lightning stream across the cavern. The air turns hot and molten. Stone melts and drips from the walls. P arts of the passageway collapse in a hail of steaming rock. He smells burning stone and scalding water.

  The shadow advances, unscathed. The magic bend s around its outstretched hands and burn s new passageways in the shadow stone. Hollow screams echo through the cavern. Sonic bursts cut through the rock.

  Pulses of black and red energy peel away from the shadow like waves of rolling water. T he Shadow Lords are crushed and eviscerated by storms of black sound.

  The creature doesn’t stop. Its howl shakes the cavern. His ears bleed.

  Its dark hands conjure a vitriolic ball of acid shadow, a sphere the size of a human heart. The missile flies at Cross. It s plits reality like a razored wedge pushed through an icy floe. He twists out of the way.

  The sphere barrels past the Obelisk and knock s it aside. The artifact teeters at the edge of the cliff face. It dangles over the precipice, nearly fall s into the Rift.

  The sphere of dread matter shatters the barrier between worlds and tears into th e Sor n vehicles on the other side. The vessels explode. Charred metal falls in to the Rift’s hellish depths.

  The Shadow moves towards him. What’ s left o f its disguise melts away. It’ s just darkness now. C rumbling bits of bone and flesh dangle from its ebon body like shreds of paper. The ground melts beneath it. Glowing eyes capture Cross and freeze his heart.

  A blast of fire strikes the Shadow from behind. The attack does no harm, but the flames distract it.

  Danica stands in the distance, the source of the roiling flames. She has changed, somehow — the sense of her spirit is muted, the pulse of her life force has been altered and shifted, but there is no question it’ s her, in the flesh, adrift in the Whisperlands the same as he is. S he hammers the minion of The Black with as much power as he ’ s ever seen her channel at once. He feels the pain as it roll s through her body, and he senses her fatigue.

  The Shadow turns toward her. In that fraction of a second, Cross’s hand closes around the hilt of his blade, and he lifts it from the ground. H e rises and strikes with every last reserve of his strength.

  He pushes Soulrazor/Avenger into the Shadow’s back. The creature’s howl blasts the ceiling apart. Stone rain falls around them. Frozen vapors blast against Cross. His lungs crystallize, and his fingers go black.

  H e manages to hold on. T he gale shoves against him. He clings to the hilt even as his feet slide back ward s al on g the ground. He smells the creature’s void heart. M eteor blood drip s like silver from its wounded shadow flesh.

  He g rip s the hilt of his b lade and throws his body forward. He pushes the sword all of the way through the Shadow with a cry of pain and rage.

  The Shadow explodes. Cross is thrown back. He loses direction. Everything twist s around him.

  He sees Snow and Graves. He sees Dillon and St one and Cristena. He sees Mom and D ad. All of them stand together at the edge of a forest glade. He wants to run to them, to be with them.

  Mold darkness fills his vision. He smells brimstone and hex fumes, forest rot and burning coal. He smells fresh cut wood and acrid smoke.

  He smells the train.

  Backwards. I’m fading backwards.

  He sees the train fal l up through the air. I ts bladed crenellations fuse together. Thick cars bound with blade s and wire s collapse inward. Stones and rubble ascend along the cliff face, an inverted waterfall.

  For the briefest of moments, he feels himself drawn into the past.

  A face pulls him back. It hangs right over him. Green eyes like smoothed emeralds bleed into view. Hair turned pale blonde falls around his face. He feels her warm breath and her moist lips. He kisses her back.

  His body knits itself together. Blood seeps out of wounds as they seal from within. His b ones realign and pull themselves into place. Sharp cuts hiss closed as if cauterized. Tears of pa i n roll down his face. He grips the earth w
ith one hand, and holds her hand with the other.

  Danica Black’s spirit heals him. S he mends the warlock’s broken body. Veins fuse closed. Muscles twist and right themselves. Internal organs that had been bruised and gashed pump o ut hostile fluids and eject them from the rents in his flesh before his injuries seal shut.

  The process is agonizing. He feels every muscle shift, every ventricle fall back into place, every bone re- set and every inch o f broken skin pull back together. He screams.

  His eyes open. He can’t be su re how long it’ s been.

  Danica looks down at him. She is so beautiful. Her eyes glimmer in the half light. Her hair is paler, faded, but it feels like silk in his fingers. One arm is encased in armor, and it feels cold against him, but the rest of h er smooth skin feels so warm. She hovers just inches over his face.

  He wants to tell her how he feels, but he can’t find the strength.

  Something looms over her shoulder, something pale and monstrous. Glittering onyx eyes hold the reflection of he and Danica, many versions of the two mages as they rest there on the ground. They are happy and together in some reflections, and they lie dead in others. In the largest eye, the one he can best see as the massive spider silently twists in the air behind Danica, the image is clear. H e is alone.

  The spider snatches Danica Black and rips her backwards into darkness. Ice tendrils and webs of iron wrap around her body. She doesn’t even have time to release a scream. The spider falls away and fades into the shadows.

  It was her, he realizes. All this time, all of these events it manipul ated…it wanted Danica all along. B ut not just Danica… the transformed Danica. Whatever happened to her, whatever was done to her, it had to happen before the spider would take her.

  He tries to rise, but he can’t. He’ s still far too weak. Tears pour down his face, and his heart pounds with loss. Wracking sobs overtake the warlock as he lies there, alone in the dark.

  He looks out from the void.

  He is nothing. A ghost presence. A phantom.

  He has been t here for so very long.

  He can’t be sure how long it’ s been since Azradayne took Danica. He can’t begin to imagine what the spider wants with her, or how Black was changed. He remembers her armor arm, and he somehow knows that her spirit is bound to it. He ’d felt the change in her, the shift in her life force. S he’d been prepared for some dread purpose of the spider’s design, even if whoever had altered her had n’t been aware of what that design was.

  And it’ s his fault.

  H e stands at the edge of worlds, finally given a way home. To get there he will pass through the Carrion Rift, a place where no human or vampire has ever returned from. He doesn’t doubt that the place will likely be his end, but he has to try.

  He can’t return to the Whisperlands. He knows the spider is no longer there. It has plans for Danica, and he has to find out what they are.

  If I have to search for you for the rest of my life, I will.

  He stands next to the Obelisk. The wavering shadow curtain marks the final bound ary, the tapestry between realities. Everything is uncertain behind him, fading shadow s and repeating moments, tangents of himself folded one over the other. Everything ahead is solid.

  The Obelisk isn’ t safe there. Not anymore.

  H e throws his body against it. M uscles strain. His calves and shoulders ache, and he fears he isn’t strong enough, but finally the stone shifts, the dirt cracks and parts, and the Obelisk pitched forward into open air. The atmosphere was toxi c. Cross gagged on the scent of burning bodies and hex rot, and he fell against the canyon wall to catch his breath.

  The Obelisk plummeted. The artifact struck the dark and jagged walls before it vanished into cloud s of black fog below. Cross heard no impact, and knew that he wouldn’t — it was just stupid luck that the Obelisk had ever landed t here and been lodged in that fissure in the Rift wall. I t had dangled there for years, stuck between worlds on a crumbling ledge.

  M onstrous calls echo ed all around him. The ledge he stood on climbed up wards at a steep angle, forming a rough path along the canyon wall. When he was in the Whisperlands h e’ d spied clefts in the Rift’s wall s, shallow rock shelves and steep slopes, walkways and ancient ladders. If he was lucky he might be able to find his way to the surface.

  Cross held the blade in his leathery fingers. He felt the beard on his face, and he ran his hands over cracked and aging skin. He shook as he stood t here, burdened with regret. He had n o idea what had happened to the rest of his team. He didn’t even know if any of them were still alive. He had no idea how to find Danica, or how to even start.

  For a moment his eyes went to the black smog below, to the void of shadows and screams and vented cold fumes. I t would be so easy to go there, to drop down into that utter darkness. To be done with it all.

  The notion only crossed his mind for a moment. He shook himself. He would n’ t take that easy path. All his life Cross had tried to do the right thing, to make the right choice.

  And that means pain sometimes, he told himself. That means walking the difficult road and finding your way, even when there’s no one there to help you. The dead have the easy road: they know the way, because that decision has already been made for them.

  Only the living are lost.

  He held the image of Danica’s face in his mind, then turned and started the arduous climb up the narrow ledge. He had a long way to go.

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