by Mark B Frost
He had been by himself for some time now, and it was becoming difficult to keep his thoughts from wandering. In the back his mind was the concern that he feared the upcoming confrontation. He had never been afraid of anyone, any monster, in his entire life. For many of his fiercest adventures he had stood by Calvin’s side, and had always known his master would never allow them to fail. Since then he had faced many fearsome enemies, creatures such as the behemoth, but he had never once feared.
Abaddon was different from them all. Even the first time they had fought, Atheme knew he had been lucky to escape with his life. A single mistake against the Daemon resulted in death. His combination of fighting instincts, Atheme’s own training, and the physical superiority granted to him by his mysticism were intimidating enough as a combination. But even all that was not what concerned him most.
His gravest concern was that Abaddon knew how he thought. The advantage that Atheme held over nearly all opponents, even creatures far more powerful than him, was his versatility and ability to improvise. No matter how badly outclassed, no one could always match Atheme Tethen. Sooner or later, you were blindsided. Sooner or later, you were taught that you were not as prepared as you thought, that you were never prepared.
Abaddon had seen it all. Atheme had shown it to him willingly, partly in the name of their friendship, partly from a sheer need to use all of his creativity and complexity as a fighter to keep up with the man for these many years. He could not surprise Abaddon. He could not trick him. In a true fight, where the stakes were at their highest, he was not sure he could defeat him.
He blinked hard, once more banishing the doubts from his mind and focusing on his next step. As he flew over the western mouth of the canyon he looked upon territories he had never before seen. The first invasion had not made it this far west, while the second had not come this far east. He could make out the general shapes of towns and properties, but as he enhanced his eyesight his expression turned to dismay.
The towns below him were scattered with bodies of the dead, some undamaged, some maimed, some mutilated beyond recognition. In places, entire houses or even settlements looked as if they had been scooped out of the ground and then dropped from the sky.
The Lord Councilor began to shiver from head to toe. The wyvern gave an odd response to his movement, so he steadied himself and his mount. He could not believe Abaddon had tapped into the secret powers of the sword. It had taken Atheme years to learn Kargaroth’s destructive techniques, even with Calvin’s training on each one.
He flew over the remnants of what had once been a civilization and experienced sorrow for those he had once considered his enemies. He looked forward and saw the largest central city of Revian, and after further adjustments to his vision he saw a tiny black glint in the city streets.
He broke off his approach and set his wyvern down on a rocky outcrop below. He patted the creature on the head, left it some food, then turned and looked into the city. He was still far away, probably about half an hour’s walk, but he did not wish to see Kinguin’s wyvern caught up in the battle.
He hopped from the rock formation and ran swiftly to the city. He could see that the black glint had not moved. He wondered if Abaddon had finished clearing out the Revian population and had nothing better to do than await his arrival.
“I can’t believe he could kill an entire country in such little time,” he said between clenched teeth.
He began gathering ether into his body, bracing himself for the energy he was about to expend. He ran into the city limits, carefully hopping over corpses that littered the ground, and came to a stop not more than ten yards away from where his friend stood between a pair of large buildings.
Abaddon kept his back turned. The silver blade of Kargaroth—which Atheme recognized all too well—sat on his shoulder, and the Dual Blade hung at his side. A slight breeze ruffled his dark hair and purple cape, but otherwise there was no movement from him. He seemed unaware of Atheme’s presence.
“Daemon!” he shouted over the wind that whipped between the buildings around them. “You will answer to me this instant!”
The man spread his arm wide and looked to the sky. “How do you like my gift, Atheme? This was all for you.”
Atheme began to breathe heavier, his rage nearly getting the best of him. “You think this is what I wanted? What did I tell you about the Cleanse? As Lord Councilor, my greatest duty was to prevent atrocities of this nature. How could you put this on Felthespar? How could you put this on me? All because I got hurt in a fight? This is a far more permanent injury than that one!”
A booming laugh echoed across the town, shaking the ground at their feet. Atheme could not tell if the sound came from Abaddon or from the sky itself. “Because you got hurt? Is that why you think I did this? No, you locked me in a cave. You sent me to perish, to waste away for eternity. You didn’t think there would be a price to pay for that?”
Atheme narrowed his eyes, his rage displaced by confusion. “To whom am I speaking?”
Abaddon’s shoulders began to shake. It looked as if he may have been laughing, but there was no sound to match the motion. “Your ignorance is astonishing, Atheme Tethen.” He turned slowly, and it looked to Atheme as if a haze of smoke formed between them and then cleared away. It was then that he knew what he was looking at was decidedly not Abaddon.
It was a cruel abomination of Abaddon’s visage, standing over nine feet tall and covered in an impressive array of demonic armors with various spikes and blades protruding. The parts of the body not covered by armor were nothing but darkness, and a black shroud resembling a cape floated behind. The face was Abaddon’s, but it was frozen in a terrifying grin that resembled a silent scream. Where the man’s eyes had once been, two empty craters had been carved into the chiseled face, and his long black hair flowed down to become one with the dark shroud behind him.
Kargaroth had also transformed. Instead of the beautiful broadsword that Atheme had known long ago, it was a huge serpentine twist of metal, well over ten feet long, with the entire length of the blade coiling up and out into hooks. The black metal of the blade seemed ethereal, and a slight shimmer of purple energy arose from it.
Atheme took a couple of steps back and drew his sare out in front of him. Never had he seen a creature more terrifying. It was as though his own nightmares of Abaddon had somehow taken life before him.
“What are you?” he could not stop himself from whispering.
When it spoke the grinning mouth did not move, but rather it seemed as if the sound came from every direction. “I am a force beyond your comprehension. Your Abaddon wished to use my power to accomplish his own goals. I allowed this, if he offered his body as payment. He accepted, and the ledger has been balanced.”
Atheme clenched his teeth with rage. “You lie. If I know anything of Abaddon, it’s that he would never relinquish control of his mind. Not to you, not to anything. You somehow tricked him. Admit it!”
The echoing voice was empty and impassive. “That is inconsequential. Whether he knew or not, whether he agreed or not, the terms were set the moment he touched The Unholy Blade. He is no more, and I am born.” He paused briefly, then continued, “I have chosen a name in your tongue. You may know me as Hell, for that is all I will leave as I destroy your world.”
He shook his head. “You’ll destroy nothing until you go through me, Hell Knight.”
“Go home, Atheme Tethen. Go back to Felthespar and await your time to die. There are other countries for me to destroy before I come to yours. I may even give you a lifetime.”
“Now that Revian’s gone Felthespar is the only thing you’ve got left, unless you think you can walk across the ocean.”
“There is no limit to my potential.”
“Enough,” Atheme barked. Nothing that this abomination had to say was going to make him back down. He stepped forward and extended his sare to seven feet, blades still retracted. “The more time we waste with words, the longer it’s going to
take me to kill you.”
“If you wish to die so desperately, then proceed. I’ll give you time to recognize your mistake and reconsider. Do your worst with your feeble strength.”
With a surge of grey magic to his legs, Atheme launched himself forward. He landed just in front of his hulking opponent, then spun his sare and delivered a powerful blow to the side of the Hell Knight’s head. He reversed his follow-through and turned it into a brutal thrust to the chest. Then he hopped back and spun the sare over his head for a second, launched forward again, and planted the long pole squarely in the center of his enemy’s face.
Atheme used a few hops to distance himself and noted that none of his attacks had caused the monster to react. He flipped a switch on the sare, releasing the blades, and tuned his strength-enhancing grey magic to maximum levels.
He dashed in directly under the Hell Knight and executed an impressive array of sweeping attacks, slicing, stabbing, and ripping across every available opening on the massive body he could spot. As a finale he thrust the sare into the black-armored shoulder and used it to spring himself over and behind, then took the fanned blades of the flexible weapon and embedded it deep into the back of the Hell Knight’s neck. The evil head was almost severed, but still there were no signs of pain.
The Hell Knight took a step away from Atheme, freeing himself from the sare, then turned to face the small man. Still Kargaroth rested patiently balanced on his shoulder as the booming voice echoed through Atheme’s mind. “Your power has always been impressive, given your humble limitations. Your time for consideration has run out, however. It is time I participated in our battle. Make your decision now. Return home or die horribly.”
He finally moved his right arm and lifted Kargaroth above his head, pointing it toward the sky. The sun began to grow dim, as the sky became dark and veiled. Atheme held his sare in front of him in both hands, parallel to the ground in one of his best defensive stances. The Hell Knight waited nearly a minute for the man to run, but he did not budge.
A light rain began to fall, and finally the Hell Knight dropped the sword like a hammer, aiming straight at Atheme’s head. The Lord Councilor twisted the fan of the sare up at the attack, catching Kargaroth just before it reached him. With a colossal surge of strength he managed to throw the sword off to his side, then spun about and stabbed his enemy in the throat.
Immediately the Hell Knight swept Kargaroth back at Atheme, smacking him with the broad side of the sword. The stricken warrior went flying to his right, smashing clean through a building and landing in a pile of rubble on the other side. He gasped in pain, then disentangled himself from the rubble and managed, with effort, to rise to his feet again.
As he looked up and squinted through the dust and tears in his eyes, the building in front of him was destroyed. A geyser of dark energy rushed from the ground and devoured it, rising as far into the sky as he could see, then faded. The Hell Knight walked over the smoldering ashes where the building had once stood, Kargaroth held out in his right hand.
Atheme turned and inspected his side where the greatsword had smacked him. The flesh was burned and cut in dozens of places, and he was losing blood fast. He took a deep breath and stabilized himself, using powerful white magic to undo the damage. He had to work fast, but he rebuilt his body just before the Hell Knight reached him.
The towering figure stopped a few feet away and grinned down emptily. Atheme noted how he hated fighting an opponent that he could read no emotion from. But then, he thought, he also hated fighting an opponent that had the power to destroy entire buildings in a swing of his sword.
“The building was poorly placed, wasn’t it?” the Hell Knight quipped bitingly. “Let me clear some space for our fight.”
He leveled Kargaroth out in front of him, then took his left hand and began smacking the surface of the blade. Each time he hit it, a massive booming sound emanated, which quickly rose into a shrill shriek. After a few of these, the sword created a massive explosion of energy that expanded outward into a large black sphere. Atheme used a more powerful version of the spell he had used to anchor himself to the wyvern, and still was nearly thrown aside.
When things settled he looked around him. All of the buildings, bodies, trees, grass, and anything else that might have ever served as proof that this place had once been a town had been disintegrated. The two antagonists stood alone in a barren wasteland, where nothing remained but the blackened ground below. The rain was beginning to pour harder, and already Atheme found himself standing in one or two inches of grey mud.
The Hell Knight made no further move, but seemed to be watching Atheme curiously for his reaction. The Lord Councilor had never been one to disappoint, so he charged recklessly forward and went on the offensive once more.
He leaped into the air and planted the sare into the Hell Knight’s chest, then sprang himself back and away. As he flew from the Knight, he rapidly began releasing matrixes and hammering spells into his foe. Lightning crackled, flames roared, and ice crashed torrentially where the dark figure stood immobile. After Atheme had emptied his matrixes he did a backflip in midair, closed his sare and put it back on his belt, then landed and executed an Aura Blast larger than his entire body.
The black magic had bounced harmlessly off of hollow armors, but the Aura Blast had a different effect. The Hell Knight was forced back a few feet, and when the spell dissipated his body was smoking.
“Finally,” Atheme exclaimed to himself, “something hurts the bastard.”
Abaddon’s twisted, grinning face looked up and purple energy crackled over his body. He touched the tip of Kargaroth to the ground. “Hatred Wave,” he chanted. In an instant a giant wave of earth and energy came rushing at Atheme.
The Lord Councilor again took to the air, drawing his sare and wrapping it in a Holy Aura spell. The sare glowed with bright white energy, and he braced himself to strike his opponent with it. The Hell Knight lifted Kargaroth and pointed it at him. The same blast of energy erupted from the blade, this time flying through the air.
Atheme was forced to quickly change tact. He took his sare and spun it in front of him as fast as he could, making a solid white shield. The black wave crashed into the barrier and tried to force its way through. Atheme reinforced his defense with another Aura Blast, and the dark attack scattered. He used the force from the impact to throw himself back and landed several yards away from his foe.
“Damn you!” he roared with rage. “Why don’t you put that sword down and fight at my level? Can’t you handle me without your crutch?”
The monstrosity stared with empty eyes for a moment, then threw Kargaroth off to his side. “You believe the sword holds my power,” he answered. “Very well. I shall fight you with this instead.” He reached his left hand to his side and pulled forth Abaddon’s Dual Blade. Thick waves of dark energy surrounded his right hand, and he smacked the surface of the Dual Blade with it. The blackness spread over the weapon and it began to transform.
The hook of the sword grew and became huge, extending below the hilt, as the blade itself expanded outward, twisting up and becoming sickle-like. The hilt elongated as the weapon became a huge polearm, and a dark pattern spread across the blade and finished the wicked design.
Atheme would have been awestruck, but had little time to consider it. The Hell Knight thrust the newly created weapon in his direction. The pole extended to cover the twenty-foot distance between the combatants, and Atheme was only barely able to leap away from the giant spearhead that tried to skewer him.
The Hell Knight whipped the weapon out of the ground and back up at the nimble warrior, moving it in rapid patterns and aiming to cut him in half. Atheme did some remarkable aerial maneuvering and managed to make it back to solid ground without being touched. When he landed the Hell Knight once more thrust at him. This time Atheme slid his body around and lodged the sare between the blade and the pole of the weapon. With a sharp, powerful twist he severed the two, and the Dual Blade reverted to its
previous form and fell to the ground with a dull twang.
This move caused him to leave his back exposed to his enemy, and instantly he felt a powerful arm wrap around him from behind. The Hell Knight hugged him close, then took the recovered Kargaroth and placed it beneath his chin. Atheme could practically feel the sword hissing to taste his blood, as it pulsed viciously with dark light.
He felt his body crushed against the Hell Knight’s own. Spikes and blades from the armor cut into his skin, and he was burned by a heat whose source he could not determine. He struggled to move the sare and hit his captor, knowing that even if he could it would do him no good. He briefly considered using another Holy Aura to strengthen the sare, then decided on something more extreme.
He used his strength to gather a deep breath, and let out a fierce scream from the core of his being. “Holy Wave!” he shouted. An explosion of white energy rocked the battlefield as it rushed from Atheme’s body in every direction. As the Hell Knight flew from him in one direction, the monster’s arm and Kargaroth went flying in the other. Atheme turned and focused his attack in, narrowing it into a solid tunnel of light that ripped through the Hell Knight’s body, holding until he could maintain its intensity no longer.
He gathered the residual white energy in the air and used it to stitch his body. His opponent had lost his left arm and his chest had collapsed. Still he looked up at Atheme with the same frozen grin.
“How’s that?” the Lord Councilor drawled laconically. “Not bad for my ‘humble limitations’, would you say?”
The fiend gave no response, but instead reached up with his right hand and snapped. His left arm and Kargaroth immediately flew back to him and rejoined to his body, and his chest expanded outwards and rebuilt itself.
Atheme’s confidence began to waver. He had always considered himself a match for any foe, but the creature he fought now was truly beyond his comprehension, as it had boasted. White magic was the only offense that harmed it, and even that damage was merely superficial. It seemed that even if Atheme destroyed its body altogether, it would crawl from its own ashes and be born anew.