"Push him through it, if you can. That may grant us our time."
"That is enough," the Eiden Rane declared. "And so it ends."
Ether filled him like the light of dawn spilling across the valley. It lanced toward Dante with such force his heart seemed to freeze in his chest. He drew forth as much nether as he could—more than at any time since he had split open the rift in the courtyard of the Sealed Citadel. Beside him, Gladdic summoned ether of his own, entwining the two substances into a combined shield.
The lich's assault rang against it. A blizzard of sparks spewed across the chamber with a thunderous clap. A dull, unseen power rammed into Dante's chest. He and Gladdic flew backwards, skidding through crops of mushrooms. Dante couldn't tell which direction was which, but he knew the lich would have a second attack right on the heels of the first, and he cried out for more nether to come to him. It swooped out from the darkness with the frantic speed of a school of fish being hunted by something much larger.
He barely had it in hand before the second attack poured toward them like a dazzling river. Gladdic cursed, propping himself on his elbow and spraying an incoherent mix of nether and ether at the coming flood. Dante coordinated with it the best he could. Spikes of shadows flew at the lich's light, chipping and splintering it. Yet the bulk remained intact as it plowed into the curved shield the two lesser sorcerers had raised to protect them.
The shield flew apart like a hammer-struck vase. The river of light broke, too, squiggling away with a chaotic energy Dante had never seen within the ether. He had no time to reflect on this, though, as another clap of power hit them like the trunk of a tree.
Dante's head skidded over a rock. Something seemed to kick him in the ribs. He was aware that he'd come to a stop, but he couldn't seem to lift his head.
The lich walked forward with the untroubled and unhurried manner of a farmer who knows precisely how much work is left to be done and how much time he has to do it. Light trailed from his fingers. Dante grabbed at the shadows, but didn't quite know what to do with them. The light grew painfully bright. He closed his eyes.
Something clanged through the air; Dante assumed it was the noise of the attack about to kill him, but there was something metallic to it. Familiar. He opened his eyes. Back near the portal, the White Lich swayed forward. Standing on the lich's massive shoulders, Blays raised his sword high and slammed it down on the enemy's head.
The blade landed with a spray of purple light. The Odo Sein weapon would have cut through any man and a good number of trees, but it did no more than split the lich's scalp. The lich shouted a second time, glowing white blood pouring down his face.
Dante scrambled to his feet. "Gladdic! We can't hold our own. Go at the portal as hard as you can!"
Wordless, Gladdic stood, heading toward the portal in a swaying jog. To his left, ether twirled to the lich's hands. Blays jumped from his shoulders and vanished into the nether. Dante fired a swarm of shadows at the lich, but the light blasted through them, slapping Blays out of the netherworld so hard he flew twenty feet before coming down in a heap.
Gladdic seized the brief distraction to chop at the cords that suspended the doorway between worlds. Those that were cut snapped back and disappeared into nothing. They had already dealt some damage to it between the death of Adaine and the arrival of the lich, but some two-thirds of the cords were still intact.
The lich thrust forth his hands, gathering ether. Dante moved his mind into the ceiling. It had already been broken open by Adaine when he'd unleashed the worms and Dante quickly located the cracks and fissures left by this. Rather than liquefying the stone and turning it against himself, he extended the cracks, hard and fast.
Light seared from the White Lich. Gladdic spun to face him, preparing to meet it the best he could. The ceiling groaned, grinding against itself, then collapsed on the lich's head.
Dante crouched and turned his back to ward off the hail of loose gravel. Before the rock had finished sliding to a rest, he jumped to his feet and sprinted toward the portal, barring his arm over his mouth and nose to ward off the cloying dust mushrooming through the cavern. Gladdic stood from cover and hacked furiously at the tethers to the portal. Dante took up a shadowy blade and joined him.
Gladdic's face was caked with dust. "Is he dead?"
"I don't know," Dante said. "He didn't think to tell me."
Within a matter of seconds, they'd cut the doorway's ties down to half their original number. The portal shimmered, the Blighted marching through it turning blurry.
Behind them, rocks ground and clattered. Dante sliced at the cords as fast as he could, but the lich was already arising, pebbles tumbling from his shoulders and cape. Dust fell from his clothes and skin as if unable to stick.
"Pull down the very cavern," he said. "Flood it with the bottomless waters of the lake. You will only succeed in destroying yourselves."
He brought ether to both his hands. Dante didn't turn away from the damaged doorway until the light was streaking toward him. As he countered, the nether dashed about in a panic, as if it understood that everything hinged on the next few moments. With Gladdic's aid, he blunted the attack, but the sizzling energy was enough to push them away from the doorway.
Ether gushed from the lich's other hand. It might have been enough to smash them, but instead it traveled to the portal, swirling in the strange eddies there. A new cord faded into place behind the passage through the Mists. As Dante watched, a second appeared as well.
"He's restoring it," he said. "We have to beat him back!"
The two of them rained fury at the lich, filling the air with burning cinders of shadow. But for all their efforts, the lich held his ground, fending them off with one hand while continuing to mend the portal with the other. Vaguely, Dante felt Blays approaching him from behind through the nether, but the lich, now wise to him, cast him from it with a flick of two fingers. Three bolts of light sped toward Blays. He stepped back into the shadows and retreated across the cavern. The ether burned harmlessly into the darkness.
"He will soon undo all that we have done." Gladdic hit at the lich with another wave of ether, illuminating the giant's face, but the lich dispelled it effortlessly, attention fixed on the portal. "Once that happens, all hope is lost."
"I'm open to suggestions!" Dante said.
"I've got it!" Blays yelled. "What if we stretch the portal so hard it reaches back in time and we show up here with an army instead of just us? Or better yet, we go back even further and kill the White Lich's mom?"
The first suggestion reminded Dante they weren't quite as alone as they thought. He turned, lifting both hands. A rope of nether extended from each palm to the dead worms lying across the chamber. They quivered, then shook themselves like wet dogs, rising up. At Dante's silent command, they aligned themselves and charged at the lich.
The lich laughed, perhaps at seeing his own guardians turned against him. Still contending with Gladdic and Dante, he diverted the ether he'd been pouring into the portal toward the worms instead. With this offensive en route, he turned back to the doorway, restoring another strand to life.
The worms tucked their heads. Beams of light struck them on their closed mouth-flaps and necks, scoring their hides down to their semi-translucent bones. Yet both wriggled forward undaunted. With a low utterance that might have been a growl, the White Lich turned back to them.
As soon as he did so, Dante shifted his nether back to the portal, severing the restored cords, which seemed weaker, then slashing into the others. A second wave of ether battered into the worms, shredding off portions of flesh. Yet the creatures were even tougher in death than they'd been in life. Leaving a trail of their own flesh behind them, they closed on the lich.
He ceased his attacks on Gladdic, laying into the worms instead. With grim pleasure, Gladdic turned against the portal's tethers. If they had a full minute of uninterrupted work, Dante thought they could finish the job.
Light flashed through the room; the lich
had cut one of the worms in half with a huge blade of ether. But it rolled its head toward him, spread its mouth wide, and clamped down on his knee, grinding its blocky teeth while its dagger-like fangs held fast.
The lich cried out in pain. Dante thought it was the first time he'd heard such a thing from him and the primal pierce of it made him flinch from his assault on the doorway. A bloated ball of light grew around the lich's hand. He lowered it to the gnawing worm and blew its head to smithereens.
The Eiden Rane's leg was scraped and gouged. He had a slight limp as he turned to confront the second worm, which was already launching itself at his body. He threw up his arm in warding and the beast grabbed it in its mouth. It threw its weight from side to side, looking to sever the limb at the elbow. It staggered the lich, pulling him one way and then the other, but his arm seemed as strong as the roots of a mountain.
The worm's mouth shined white, lit from within. Ether exploded from it, splattering the worm's head all the way to the ceiling. Immediately, the White Lich renewed his assault on Dante and Gladdic, looking to push them away from the portal again.
"Well, that was all I've got," Dante said. "At least until you die and I can turn you into a zombie."
"It cannot be." Gladdic's eyes were sunken and feverish below the shelf of his brow. "He will restore it, as before. And my own powers are weakening."
"That makes both of us. Even if we can ward off his attacks, it's going to exhaust me in another minute."
The lich had already pulled them away from their progress against the doorway, where less than a third of the cords remained in place. The enemy seemed somewhat slowed, however, whether due to his injuries or that he was beginning to deplete his reserves. It seemed far too fast for the latter, but perhaps the energy he'd used to open the portals was vaster than Dante knew.
But what he had left would be more than enough. Dante was driven back a step, then three, giving himself more space and time to react to the steady crackle of ether. The lich passed a hand over himself, healing the worst of his injuries, then redirected his strength to the doorway. Severed cords began to knit back together.
Well behind the lich, Blays was veering back and forth through the nether, but the Eiden Rane didn't fall for the obvious distraction. Dante threw small counters at the enemy, sending them in chaotic loops, hoping to momentarily confuse him—or, if Dante got truly lucky, to slip through his defenses and strike him. Not a one of them got through.
"We were so close," Gladdic hissed. "So close!"
Another tether materialized into place. Swaying a moment before, the portal stabilized.
Dante skipped back another step as burning hot ether showered his face. "Maybe we can charge him. Catch him off guard."
"He will incinerate us before we get close."
"Better to get incinerated trying to do something than to wait for the end to come to us. This is the same reason we lost at Bressel!"
Gladdic said nothing. Dante channeled the shadows to himself, tensed his body, and charged.
Gladdic's hand shot out and grabbed his upper arm. "I have one last measure," Gladdic's voice was now steady. "But it may consume the last of my strength."
"Make the gamble. It's our only chance. What will you do?"
"Adaine was not the only one to ever die here." A wild look came into Gladdic's eyes. "Can you hold him for just a moment?"
"I strongly doubt it!"
"We are dead if you cannot. So you will have to try."
Without waiting for an answer, Gladdic spun and pranced across the chamber, robes flapping behind him. The lich, sensing an entry—or perhaps simply growing tired of these tricks and schemes—came down on Dante with an avalanche of light so bright and terrible that Dante felt blinded by it even when he closed his eyes.
He fought back against it by feel alone, drawing on every scrap of darkness he could reach. A searing coldness in his hands warned him of the coming shadowburn. A pulse of ether knocked him from his feet. He got up, throwing everything he had against it, but was clobbered down a second time.
"Gladdic!" he yelled. He opened his eyes, dazzled, but the priest was nowhere to be seen.
Ether raged around him in a blizzard, kept out by a dwindling sphere of nether. The motes of light churned so thickly that even the glowing hulk of the Eiden Rane was little more than an outline; the former clarity of the portal was no more distinct than a full moon behind a gauze of clouds; the cavern was just the suggestion of blank space.
Around him, his shadowy sphere shrank under the whirling assault of the light. A crack in his defenses appeared above his head.
"Think now on what you threw away," the White Lich said. "Think on the world you would have helped build beneath my direction. You saw the vision of what will be. And you know that it was beautiful."
"Maybe it was," Dante managed. "Maybe it was beautiful. But it's not how the gods made us to be. No matter how pretty your world may be to imagine, it would have become a nightmare."
"Remember it quickly now. For these moments are all you have. You will soon die, and so will the degraded hereafter you might have gone to."
The dark sphere of Dante's defenses shrank closer. He could have reached out and pressed his palm against its surface. A second crack pinged across it. Both fissures glowed with the light of the ether fighting to break through and rip him apart.
The air behind the lich shimmered. Blays was there, sprinting through the nether. But the lich felt it just as Dante did. He lifted his left hand behind him. Blays bounced from the shadows as if he'd collided with a speeding carriage, tossed backward across the cavern floor.
The two cracks in the sphere met, spiderwebbing across it.
Blays swung to his feet. Holding one of his swords in both hands, he drew back and threw it at the lich as hard as he could.
It spun end over end, nether burning behind it like the tail of a shooting star. It struck the White Lich in the middle of the back. He staggered, bending one knee. The storm of ether sputtered. Dante resealed the cracks in his defense, pushing the sphere outward.
The lich turned in a half circle. The Odo Sein blade jutted from his back. It had sunk no more than half a foot into his body—which wasn't much, given his size—but that was the deepest they'd wounded him yet. He reached over his shoulder and slid the sword free with a gout of his pearly blood.
Expressionless, he cast it aside, turned on Blays, and unleashed a hail of ether. When the light faded, Blays was nowhere to be seen. Dante sent his mind across the shadows, but felt nothing.
The lich swiveled back toward him, globes of light appearing in his hands. Before he could throw them at Dante, two screams sounded from across the cavern.
But they weren't screams of fright. Nor were they human. Dante had heard them many times before and they still chilled him to his marrow. Two black demons bounded out of the darkness, the silver of their eyes and mouths streaking through the gloom as they trumpeted their joy of being called into combat.
"About time!" Dante hollered.
Gladdic ran in the demons' wake, limping heavily. "You are still alive. Thus I took precisely as much time as was correct."
The lich fired a stream of ether at Dante, obliging him to counter it, but as soon as he'd weathered the barrage and regained his footing, he slashed once more into the cords holding the portal. The Andrac spread their claws and jumped at the lich. Gladdic came after them, weaving nether about his hand.
Tethers snapped one by one. There seemed to be hundreds of them, packed more densely than should be possible, but Dante let no doubt enter his heart, hacking at them with furious abandon. The portal swayed, then found a new stability, yet it seemed looser than before.
To Dante's left, one of the Andrac reeled back, a gaping wound blown through its gut, ether flittering around the hole. Gladdic waved his hand back and forth like a musician, sending nether to seal the hole before the lich could suck the shadows out of the demon. Instead, the Eiden Rane launched an arc of light
at Dante. Gladdic hit it from the side while Dante spun to confront it head on. Despite the priest's aid, it was enough to slam Dante to the ground, dizzying him. Not trusting himself to stand, he resumed his assault on the portal from his knees.
The Andrac raked at the lich with claws as long as a man's hand, drawing blood from the enemy's arms and back. Yet few of the wounds seemed deeper than a scratch. As one of the Andrac leaned in to take another swipe, the lich gathered the ether to him and drove a thick spike through the demon's head.
The demon reared back, hooting in dismay. Before Gladdic could move to help it, or it could heal itself, the lich reached inside its head with his massive hand. The shadows forming the Andrac's head collapsed, curling up the lich's arm. He took them into his other hand and sprayed them at Gladdic, who threw up his arm to protect himself, ethereal sparks shooting everywhere.
Dante slashed at another tangle of glowing roots, separating them from the doorway; unmoored on one side, it rocked back and forth, causing the image of the Blighted within it to sway crazily. Less than a quarter of the cords were left and the more tension that was being put on them the easier it was to cut them.
The beleaguered Andrac shrank into nothing, absorbed and destroyed. The remaining demon shrieked with grief and rammed its claws into the Eiden Rane's belly. Yet they penetrated a mere fraction of their length. He grabbed the demon by the throat. Ether lanced up its head and down its chest. Gladdic slammed the lich with shadows, but the lich hardly seemed to notice, draining the very body of the Andrac into himself. The demon wailed, gouging at his face. The lich merely turned his head until the Star-Eater collapsed into a puff of black smoke.
"You stand alone, beggar-priest," said the Eiden Rane. "Time to die alone, too."
He jabbed his glaive at Gladdic, who leaped out of the way with a flutter of robes. The lich took up the shadows he'd extracted from the Andrac and swung them at Gladdic's head like a mace. The old man punched up with as much ether as he could grab, but the lich's attack pounded down on him so hard the ground cracked beneath Gladdic's feet. Monochrome sparks jumped like a hammer on red-hot steel.
The Spear of Stars Page 54