by Billy Wong
Made? What was it talking about? But Hope didn't answer his question, replying to itself, "You were never meant to exist. One mind is enough for a body, and for you to grow beside me is an aberration. Why can't you just leave me in peace?"
"Of course I'm an aberration, and don't dare deny it. But that is not necessarily bad. Certainly, better an aberration like myself than the spineless original you are. Things are as they ought to be now—my strength takes over in place of your weakness, and I lead this world into a better time—as I would have if not for the creators' blindness."
Unable to keep his silence any longer, Derrick prepared to run and yelled into the cave, "What are you? How did you split off from the mind meant to rule your body?"
"Derrick?" Hope said. "Flee, while I still hold it in check! It is not a natural part of me, but a shadow of the ancient demon!"
"What?! How can that be?"
The shadow laughed before allowing Hope to give its answer. "I drained part of the demon's energies in an attempt to destroy him during an encounter. But unknown to me, those energies reshaped themselves into a new consciousness which sought to take control of my body! That's why I was sealed away, so that it could not destroy as the demon had, but now it has awakened again with me!"
"Why didn't you tell us?" Derrick asked. "Why did you even come back, knowing the evil within you?"
"Being called back using the mechanisms set up to do so, I couldn't refuse. As for not telling you, after all that time in slumber where I felt no hint of its presence, I thought the shadow might have dissipated... a vain hope, I know now."
"Yes," the Shadow mocked, "tell him all you wish to your heart's content. It's of no use to him to know where I come from. I cannot be defeated—in this age, there is nothing that can stand against me."
Great crashing footsteps began towards him from inside the cave and Derrick ran, knowing that the Shadow had overpowered Hope's will and now controlled their body. Was the human race doomed to be subjugated by the very weapon meant to save it? He couldn't help taking a glance back and saw the Shadow emerge, even larger than it had been now that it drew upon demonic power. The golem must have stood near half again its prior height, and its silver color had grown tarnished with the dark energy within. Its formerly smooth frame now bulged with lumps of misshapen metal on its back and shoulders, and the eyes of its mask blazed with black rather than white light. As he continued to flee, it fired a roaring beam of darkness from its mouth.
He surely wasn't going to outrun the blast, so Derrick dove flat to the ground, letting it travel over his head. The mere proximity of the energy physically chilled him to the bone, and as it rushed over him into the forest beyond, he looked up to see a wide swath of trees wilt upon its passage through them. Then, somewhere in the distance the blast exploded, and even from here Derrick felt the numbing cold of death wash over him.
Somehow, he fought off his spirit's urge to give up and flee his flesh, but lay shivering paralyzed merely from the brief closeness of the dark power. He knew the Shadow could kill him easily now, whether with a more well-aimed blast or just by stepping on him. Instead of finishing him off, though, it laughed and walked away. Why? He wanted to believe Hope was somehow affecting the Shadow's actions without its knowledge, but knew in reality that wasn't likely the case. More probably the thing simply wanted a witness to its display of power, and perhaps have him be the unwilling herald of the new age it would bring.
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"Where do you want us to go together next time, Mom?" Amber asked at the dinner table as Jacob brought over another wide platter, today being his day to cook. The restless girl acted more than eager to go on a family adventure now that Rose was back, even if her brother seemed to feel the opposite way in terms of wanting nothing to do with any kind of excitement or danger for the time being.
Reaching for a large portion of ribs which dripped with sauce made from tomatoes and spices only to have it snatched away by Finn's greedy hand, Rose elbowed her husband and shrugged. "I actually think I want to take a break and stay home for a few months. I just got back from hell, you know, and I'm getting old."
"You're not old," Finn said with a smile, and again took the piece of chicken she had her eye on right before she could reach it.
Dammit... she was faster in combat, but he always had a sharper eye for the best pieces of food and consistently went for them before she did. But she beat him to the best lamb chop on the plate Jacob now carried to the table, lucking out by picking one at random to find it the nicest piece. Still, it wasn't that good, as was the case with all of tonight's dishes, and Rose called to her son, "You've got to learn to put more seasoning. All this food tastes kind of bland!"
"It seems okay to me," Amber said.
Were her taste buds going too? No, that couldn't be; it wasn't as if she'd been wounded inside the mouth, nor was she that old. Finn backed her, saying, "It isn't nearly as tasty as your mom's cooking though, is it Amber?"
Biting a big chunk off her chicken thigh, she admitted, "True... Jacob, give me some pepper."
He sighed as he stopped in the middle of pouring bowls of stew to run over and pass her the shaker. "I was afraid you'd think it too flavorful if I put so much in the way of spices, so I held back—better safe than sorry, right?"
Amber scoffed. "No, when in doubt put a lot like I always do."
"Yours is a bit too spicy for my messy guts," Rose said. "Just right is better than either extreme. But we'll work on that."
The door to the dining room burst open, and she turned to regard Derrick standing there with bloodshot eyes. Obviously, something was very wrong. "What's going on?"
The lighthearted food banter of moments ago became the furthest thing from her mind when her friend spoke. "Rose, you're alive! I'm so glad you're still with us, but there's something else we need to talk about. A shadow of the original demon lord has reemerged—it was hidden in Hope's mind all along! Maybe it's the true destroyer Jacob and Amber were foretold to revive... It's coming now, to take the center's magical secrets into its 'safekeeping' for the new world it seeks to make. You have to stop it!"
Rose recoiled. Stop Hope? She'd fought many a gargantuan monster, some even bigger than the golem, and won in the past. But at least those had been made of albeit tough flesh and bone, not magically strengthened, nearly indestructible metal. "So you expect us to fight a fifty-foot walking statue?"
"More like seventy feet. It... grew." He explained the whole situation to her and groaned. "Looks like you passed your bad luck down to your kids. Trying to save themselves from the demon's wrath, they ended up releasing yet another incarnation of the evil they were trying to stop."
It reminded her of one of the tragic ironies of her younger days, for which she'd never quite forgiven herself no matter that her surviving victims had, but Rose was more lenient towards her children than herself. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this, make sure this doesn't prove the disaster Justin feared. It'd be too awful for him to turn out to be right after all."
Jacob frowned with the doubt they all shared. "How, Mom? It's too powerful, even you can't possibly stand against it. What can?"
She didn't have a real answer, but Finn said, "She'll have me by her side, remember. I won't let your mom down this time, no matter how powerful this walking bucket is."
Magic would be the only way, she knew. She'd have to discard her usual preference for straightforward melee, because sword and strength alone would avail little against the golem's invulnerable body. But even if she and Finn were strong mages for their time, how could they hope to stand a chance of bringing down a weapon created by the much greater spellcasters in the old days? Yet despite its lack of flesh and blood, it did have a head, and if that head controlled its movements...
"We have to take out whatever passes for its brain. And if that doesn't do the trick, we're probably dead."
Chapter 11
Concerned about the massive scope of the golem's attacks, they tried to have Gust
rone evacuated before its arrival, but that proved an impossible task. Before the great city was even half emptied, thunderous footsteps could be heard in the distance. Turning to the west, Rose peered over the walls and said softly to her husband, "This is it, huh? One way or another, the prophecy will be settled today."
"It'll be settled when that pile of scrap falls in pieces," he replied with a fierce scowl, and she felt her love for him every bit as strongly as when they first professed it to each other almost two decades ago. There was no one she would rather die beside, though she'd prefer not to die at all. At least Jacob and Amber had fled to relative safety at her insistence; even if she and Finn turned out to be doomed, she needed to believe their kids would have a chance to make a decent life for themselves somewhere far away...
Rose was a little afraid the Shadow might bombard them from afar, which would greatly diminish their odds of surviving long enough to take the fight to it. She tried to convince herself those fears were unfounded; the thing seemed to have complete confidence in its power, and she knew as well it did not wish to destroy all humans. It would probably want to spare those people it felt could prove useful in helping it establish its new order, who she and Finn might also be counted among considering their magical knowledge and role in bringing spellcasting back.
Perhaps her image of an ideal future wasn't so different from the Shadow's, as she did hope to one day live in a society where magic was accepted as a tool for improving the quality of life. But while the sentient weapon would sacrifice as many lives as it needed to bring about the desired changes with maximal speed, Rose would never kill just to silence somebody's opposition to the revival of magic. And she wouldn't let the Shadow do it, either. No matter how strong it was, she'd never give up.
The golem loomed close now, almost within its tower-length sword's reach of the city. Rose swallowed at just how big it was—enough to peek over Gustrone's high walls, which she knew would be no deterrent at all to it. It was taller than many castles, and made of metal besides—could it really be defeated? For the sake of humanity, it must. She cringed somewhat too to think of the damage the colossus could do to those vital fortifications if it fell on them. Still, she had to take the risk. She waited just a little longer, wanting to take the best shot she could before it became aware of her.
It grasped the top of the wall with gigantic hands and started to push itself up and over, not seeing her and Finn crouching yards away. As its head leaned forward, she braced herself for the joint effort she hoped would end this fight before it started. It was after all in the most vulnerable position it might ever be in. But as she and her husband began a spell stronger than any they ever cast before, something happened they could never have prepared for.
Unable to support the massive weight all of a sudden thrust entirely upon them, the battlements it used for handholds broke off. As the Shadow came down on it, the top of the wall gave and crumbled. Rose fell alongside her spouse, the two tumbling towards the back of the also-falling golem as it crashed into the city.
It landed facedown amidst the rubble of Gustrone's wall and the couple atop its back. Still it seemed unaware of their presence, as if it thought them nothing more than pieces of debris. While it struggled to rise, Rose whispered to Finn, "It's now or never—let's strike!"
"But we can't even see our target."
True, the metal face they had meant to deform and blind was on the front of its head, and they on its back. Still, there would likely not be a better moment, and she said, "Just do it. We'll pierce right through with our attack."
Holding hands, they started to softly chant the spell which might be their only hope. Now the Shadow recognized potential threats, and reached behind itself attempting to grab them. If only its hearing was less sharp. As the hand groped clumsily behind it, Rose and Finn checked their instinct to evade, focusing on making their spell as strong as could be. They finished their evocation and dove off the golem's back while the redwood-thick stroke of lightning they'd shaped hammered into the back of its head. Like a puppet unstrung, its limbs went limp, and it collapsed on its face to lie still.
Was it over? Rose hadn't really expected it to be that easy and stared at the fallen titan. Such a massive adversary, done in by one single spell... Turning to Finn, she kissed him, grateful beyond words for their latest unbelievable victory. Truly, they were that much better together than alone... Then something like a surge of burning wind struck her from behind in—well, every part of her body—and tossed her through the air. Her flesh aflame with agony, she plummeted in a long arc to wind up in a pile of broken masonry. She looked up to see the Shadow shaking its head, then begin to rise.
Though in quite a bit of pain, Rose quickly crawled out of the rubble, blurred eyes darting to and fro in search of her husband. Had he too been struck? Was he all right? His hand reached down out of nowhere to grab hers and pull her unsteadily to her feet, and she flashed him a reassuring smile before they went at the golem again. It got its knees beneath it. They struck with their second joint attack, a pillar of flame which erupted from the ground into its front including their primary target of its face. Hopefully, the heat would warp its features and inhibit its vision.
The blast had little visible effect as it looked up and launched a volley of small black spheres from its eyes. Like living creatures, the motes of darkness adjusted their trajectory when their targets tried to dodge. Struck by three in rapid succession Rose toppled, her senses shattering with overwhelming pain.
What had she been hit with? It didn't seem to be pain of the body that she felt, she realized while she tried to gather herself to move again, but a different indescribable kind of anguish, like pieces of her soul had been ripped away. The closest thing she'd experienced was the death-spell of the archmage who had given Finn his spellcasting ability. But that had been an all-or-nothing attempt to snuff out her life, which left no lasting effect once resisted, while this seemed to have wounded her very essence. Wait. What had happened to Finn? She looked effortfully around and spotted her love on his back. She gasped to see him twitch with eyes rolled back in his head, drooling senselessly as if his mind had already left him.
Somehow rolling herself over him as the Shadow walked deeper into the city leaving them for dead, Rose cried, "Finn! Stay with me, don't die!"
He didn't respond, his convulsions slowing with his breaths, and she began to panic. Her limited healing magic could only mend the physical flesh to a degree, but do nothing for a failing soul... Complete agony engulfed her own being, dimming her vision as her torn, screaming essence yearned to lie here with her husband forever. But she couldn't stay down and die, could never give up the fight as long as there was even a single heartbeat left in her. She turned from her fallen Finn, hoping he could last until she came back, and lurched jerkily like a ghoul to her feet.
Glaring after the monster that had struck him down, she screamed, "Shadow!" It did not respond, but kept walking away, perhaps because it did not acknowledge "Shadow" as its name. She ran closer and tried, "Hope!"
It still didn't turn, and Rose glowered. Did it view her with such contempt it couldn't be bothered to face her? Wait. Maybe her and Finn's attacks had done more than she'd realized, impaired its hearing or even disoriented it. If so, this could be her chance to take advantage and turn the battle around. How though would she do lasting damage to that adamantine form? Then she noticed that much of the Shadow's front glowed red-hot from the heat of their spells. The metal might be softened, and thus more vulnerable to a physical strike. But she got a better idea. Muttering arcane words under her breath, she called a great volume of water vapor into the air around the golem and froze it. She dropped to one knee, the exertion overwhelming in her weakened state.
The Shadow spun, easily shattering its momentary prison. "You fool. How could you think to hold me with something so weak?"
Rose looked calmly back at it. "I didn't." While she spoke, a screeching sound could be heard and a crack split its ch
est plate, followed by others opening up all over it as the rapid heating and cooling had compromised the integrity of its shell. "Now," she whispered, her voice growing to a shout as she sprang at it, "you fall!" It shot a black beam down, but she rolled under it and came up before an ankle nearly as thick as she was tall. She swung her sword, blazing like a miniature sun with fire she had summoned, at the joint. It penetrated, ripping through plates and cables. There was a torturous noise as the thin strip of metal left connecting foot to leg bent under the Shadow's weight. It fell onto its side, staring at its relatively tiny attacker.
Still, it taunted, "Doomed woman, I feel no pain! I have no blood to bleed, need no organs to live—how can you defeat me?"
Undaunted, Rose spat, "You still need limbs to move." She charged to slash at its sword wrist, which its downed state put into reach. Its hand fell away, and its eyes flickered as with doubt. Hope filled Rose's heart. Continuing forward, she thrust her sword into an eye, melting it around the blade. It tried to grab her with its remaining hand. She ducked and took out its other eye the same way. Just a little more...
Without warning it fired a black beam blindly from its mouth, which she desperately tried to dodge. Instead of another attack on her soul, despite its similar appearance this turned out to be comprised of heat. As she fell backward to avoid the wide blast it grazed her shoulder and upper chest. Her armor instantly melted onto her, making her scream in agony while her flesh sizzled and cooked. Such power...
She might have tried to relieve her anguish from the molten metal burning her with a cold spell, but could not afford to slacken in her offense for the sake of mere pain. She could barely maintain the flame around her blade as it was. Instead she continued to attack, smiling grimly to know the golem was blind now, able only to detect her through hearing and touch. She wondered though if it might have some magical ability to repair itself—but if so, she didn't intend to give it the chance.