by Eric Vall
“I killed him, and his blue blood spilled upon the ground of the heavens and dripped down onto the earth,” Nergal told me. “I took his land and his women for my own. Under my control and power, they flourished for years until the heavens found out what I had done, and I was cast down from my rightful place.” I scrutinized his face, attempted to dive deeper than the surface of the human’s face and see the true god underneath. “The only consolation of my banishment is that one of his mistresses, Cybele, was heavy with the weight of my child, and that child has broken the chains of heaven to walk upon the earth and wreak havoc to all in her path.”
“Broke the chains of heaven?” Annalise asked as she took a step forward and tilted her head at the god. For a moment, Nergal’s eyes swiveled behind me where he thought the High Queen was, and I caught a flash of the true god underneath the flesh and bone of the human shell. “What do you mean by that?”
“In case your Master hasn’t told you, gods and deities are only allowed to leave the heavens with the permission of the Holy Order, usually when they are visiting temples or rewarding the people who follow them,” Nergal croaked in his ancient voice, and I glared at him as he spoke again.
“Some gods leave without permission, like your Master when he journeyed down to meet his lover,” Nergal crooned. “There are other ways to leave, say a witch summons you to her, or you are called upon through a ritual, right, Dark One? If a god wants to leave according to the law, you must pass through the Sanctus Gates before stepping down to earth which is guarded by ten thousand armed gatekeepers called Pueros.”
“You’re boring me with all this talk, old man.” I snarled through my teeth, but Nergal only chuckled lightly as he shifted his cloudy white eyes back to my face.
“Patience is bitter, young one, but the fruit is sweet,” Nergal replied back coolly as he went on. “Ruituri gathered up some friends and took down the gate. As a father, I’m very proud of my dastardly creation. The gate is open, and now, anyone can come and go as they please.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise, for the old god had given me some beneficial information after all. When I finally moved on to the heavens after the earth was under my control, I would have a clear path to do so.
Nergal moved his hand from my forehead to my shoulder as he read my thoughts. “It seems I have given you more information than I have received,” he admitted, and I gripped the God Slayer in my hands as I prepared to slam it down on the stone floor. I urged the thoughts of my clones on faster and louder than before to drown out my and my minions’ thoughts. I heard the sound of Annalise unsheathing Bloodscale behind me and the sound of Carmedy’s bundles as she mixed them together.
“Sulfur trioxide and batrachotoxin, since he relies on smell and sound instead of sight, a pinch of thioacetone for fun,” the feline muttered to herself as she hastily poured two liquids into a pouch then a just a drop of a burnt-orange-colored liquid. She closed the bag right as it started to smoke and sealed it tightly as her emerald eyes met mine, and she gave me a quick nod as she dropped the sizzling pouch into the cradle of her golden slingshot.
As my clones and I stepped aside, Carmedy brought the slingshot up and pulled back on the sling. After a split-second of aiming, she let the bundle go with a snap, and it shot through the air right as the decaying god heard her thoughts and realized what happened. Unfortunately, his feeble human body was too slow to react.
The bundle hit him directly in the forehead, almost exactly where he had touched me, and exploded with the crackle of chemicals. The leather pouch that held the liquid contents disintegrated within seconds as the brown liquid dripped down Nergal’s face. The god screamed in pain as he brought his hands up to wipe it off. The skin of his face began to melt as the concoction did its work, and Rana hissed between her teeth as the muscles of his face exposed themselves through the dissolving flesh.
Nergal’s screams were hoarse and constricted as he covered his face and bent over in agony. He nearly dropped his staff in the process, but he still managed to hang onto it despite the immense pain. With the opening volley thrown, it was my turn to advance, so I slammed down the polearm on the rock below my feet. The great weapon sang to life with a chorus of unseen voices as the three hidden blades emerged from inside of the haft. However, Nergal didn’t hear it as the voices of my clones chanted in his head, each one speaking a different tongue to confuse the god.
I advanced on him as I pooled all of my dark power into the God Slayer and swung it over my head once, and black and purple light trailed after it through the air. I used the movement of the polearm and swung the haft in my hand then brought it down at his curled back, but right as I did, Nergal’s staff came up, and our weapons clashed together as the staff transformed before my eyes.
Nergal’s staff elongated, and the curled swirl at the end shifted and straightened to a point. The feathers remained and shifted in the parted air, but the staff changed to a deadly glaive, and the long-pointed blade that arose from the wood glinted hatefully as he lifted his burned face to mine. The human body he inhabited was badly scorched with nearly half of the face seared away to reveal the rotten muscles below, and part of his colorless hair had singed all the way to the scalp.
I stared at him with disgust, and Nergal smiled widely to show maggots crawling around the gums of his teeth. While I could have overpowered him there, I instead relented and ducked back… but not because I was showing the old man mercy. No, I had heard the whisper of a blade flying through the air behind me, and I stepped aside just as one of Rana’s elven daggers blurred past me and buried itself in Nergal’s left temple.
The god barely reacted at all. He only reached up one probing hand, gripped the handle of the knife, and pulled it out with a sickening sound before letting it clatter to the stone floor. Not one to back down at the first sign of trouble, the fox-woman simply placed a hand to her chest. Light began to stream from the center of her breastbone as she drew the Eye of Alipsis.
As she conjured the godly weapon, I brought the God Slayer in a brutal overhead stroke as I rose to my full height. Again as I moved to strike, Nergal’s milky white eyes swiveled to follow my motion, no doubt drawn to the sound of my blades cutting the air, and he brought up the glaive. Our weapons met in a clatter of sparks, but this time I did not relent. Instead, I threw all of my weight against the polearm and threw the rotting god off with a loud yell, a call to arms that my minions rushed forward at.
Gone were the times when they would hang behind and wait for me to finish the gods off, and I was proud of them for always being willing to do my bidding in these types of situations. Morrigan’s white hair was a blur in the corner of my eye as she raced past, and with a flick of her wrist, she unleashed the emerald green light. It raced across the floor towards Nergal and consumed the deity, in an emerald inferno. Screeching in agony, the rotting god managed to pull away a step, but the emerald light clung to him still.
“Master!” Annalise screamed, and the sound of her heavy boots pounded the ground directly behind me. I knew what she wanted me to do before the word fell from her beautiful lips. “Down!”
I dropped to one knee, brought the God Slayer down parallel to the ground, and ducked my head. Annalise leapt off the rocky floor, then used my back as a springboard to force herself into the air, something I assisted by pushing upward as she jumped. My blood pumped as she flew through the air, Bloodscale up over her head, and aimed the mighty sword downward as she came closer to the screaming god. Nergal ripped at his flesh as the emerald light consumed more of his body in vicious combination with the concoctions Carmedy had made.
With Nergal distracted by his agony and his glaive down at his side, my warrior queen was clear to bring Bloodscale down into the meat of his body where the neck and shoulder met. Nergal screamed even louder this time, his creamy white eyes wide as he struggled for breath, and with a wave of my hand, all of my minions took a step back.
It was my turn to play.
Nergal shi
fted his feet as he beat at the green power eating at his putrid flesh, and as I advanced, I poured my dark force into the three blades of the God Slayer. Black smoke formed around the blades in an undulating ball. I ran forward at him now, and he barely had enough time to react with the sounds of my clone’s voices screaming in his head. I swung the God Slayer in front of my body, but instead of chopping down like Annalise, I thrust upward with the blades.
They tore into Nergal’s flesh and penetrated into his chest along with my swirling dark power. Nergal gasped for breath, and both blind hands reached up and gripped onto the wooden shaft of my weapon as he struggled to pull it out, but I was too strong for him. The black energy seeped into his wound like an infection, and I watched it spread through his entire body like a ravenous virus.
The god gasped and gurgled as blackened blood spilled from his mouth and down his front, but I ignored him as I pulled up once more on the God Slayer to sink the blades deeper into the human shell he consumed. I was so close to him that I could smell the reeking stench of rotted skin, but I didn’t draw back. I only pressed forward.
There was a moment of silence as my minions and mindless clones watched as the God Slayer’s blades broke through the skin of Nergal’s back, and his head fell back. His cloudy eyes searched the air for something though I couldn’t tell what, and I listened as his lungs struggled to fill. His blackened hand waved through the air like a dying bird then rested on top of my clenched fist for a moment. I lifted my head, and our eyes found each other even though he couldn’t see them.
“You’re the Dark One, the Unum Tenebris I’ve been waiting for,” Nergal gasped as more dark blood spilled from his lips.
“I am,” I told him in a whisper before I glanced over at my minions. They were too far away to hear what the old man said.
“I-I could have been an ally, you know,” Nergal garbled through a mouthful of blood, but his grip on my hand tightened. “You must settle for my daughter as an ally then. She came from my loins, she bears the same hatred as I do, stained into her skin like a tattoo. I know she too hungers for the end of the oppressive godly rule in the heavens.”
“I don’t need allies. I have both Tamarisch and Valasara on my side and will soon possess Tintagal,” I scoffed.
The blind man blinked silently as his eyes swiveled up to the ceiling and a slow chuckle seeped up from the depths of his chest. “Mortals will lay down their lives to you, but they are meaningless. We may have differing opinions on the weight and value of humans, but a war against the gods is nothing if you don’t have at least another god on your side to help. I would suggest that you allow Ruituri to help you.”
Those were his last words. Nergal’s head fell all the way back and hung down lifelessly between his shoulder blades as his burnt colorless hair swung out behind him. I pulled the God Slayer back, and the blades slid out of his body with a wet sucking sound. I let him drop, and he fell heavily to the stone floor, his dirty hair fanned out underneath him.
I watched his silent body for a passing moment, and as I did, a milky white orb lifted from his chest and hung in the air as if it was waiting for me. I stepped to it, and the orb came to me like an obedient dog. It pressed into my chest slowly as if the power he possessed was tentative to be joined back with a god’s body for the first time in thousands of years.
That power was strong, and I felt it join the puppet master’s power and strengthen it beyond what it already was. I knew that from now on, I wouldn’t destroy the brains of those I attempted to mind-read, regardless of any defenses or traps set up in their brains, for which I was grateful. The moment that Nergal’s power became mine, it blossomed out before me like a lily, and I turned back to my minions, and their thoughts flooded into my brain one by one.
I heard Carmedy’s sweet voice in my head as she took inventory of her herbs and other things needed for potions and concoctions. Annalise was watching me, and her raspy voice commented on how handsome I was. Morrigan’s soft, whispering voice murmured in her elven tongue to Fea and Macha. Rana, who bent down and picked up her discarded dagger, was grumbling that she didn’t get to use the Eye in this situation. I stared at them for a long moment, and all of them took notice of my eyes.
The cat-girl was the first to skip over and wrap her arms around me tightly. I pressed her to my chest and pressed a soft kiss into her midnight black hair.
“Treasure?” the redhead asked with a grin, and I looked over the feline’s shoulder to her with a broad smile.
“Treasure,” I confirmed in my deep voice.
The sun had already gone down as my shadow slaves brought out the last of the trove of treasures, and Rana, as usual, was the first to dive for it. Her paws worked feverishly as she dug through the gold and silver, and occasionally, she’d fling out an object of interest for the rest of us to examine it together.
I laughed heartily as the fox-woman tossed a large metal sphere over her head and I caught it easily before it slammed into the dirt. I moved my eyes over it but found nothing significant and passed it on to my other minions to check. Between all five of us, we had a vast knowledge of objects and their uses, but I knew in my heart that Rana was searching for something specific, one of the sacred items. The redhead moved quickly but efficiently as she searched each chest and trunk filled to the brim with riches.
“Goddamnit.” The fox sighed as she finished with the last trunk and sat back on her haunches.
“It’s okay, Rana,” Carmedy said as she came over and rubbed at the redhead’s shoulders. “We’re not going to find something every time, and you just got the Eye of Alipsis. It’s going to take more time to find the others.”
“I know,” the fox-woman muttered as she reached up and clasped the cat’s paw. “I’m just impatient… what if he’s hurting my family? What if they’re hungry or hurt or--”
“Enough,” I quieted Rana gently in the softest voice I could muster, and the curly-haired fox raised her bright blue eyes to me. “There is no reason to worry yourself when you don’t have answers. Though the sorcerer is an evil man, he did say that he would take care of them while you found the sacred items.”
“I just… I don’t get it,” Rana whimpered as she held the sapphire jewel at the end of the silver chain in her closed fist. “Why does he want all this crap anyway? They’re just trinkets… jewelry and junk…”
“I believe I know what it is, but I cannot be sure until we have all of the sacred items together,” I told her as I stroked the silky curls atop her head. Her ears drooped slightly but her free hand reached back and grabbed tightly onto mine for comfort.
“It’s gotta be something really important. Maybe, if we get all the pieces, we can use it against him and be rid of him at last!” The black-haired feline cheered.
“Yeah.” Rana smiled at her ever-jolly sister as she rose to her feet and hugged Carmedy to her chest. “I hope it’s a big weapon so we can blast his ass to kingdom come.”
The petite alchemist opened her mouth to speak more, but snapped it shut as her emerald eyes landed on something inside one of the trunks. The cat fell to her knees and lifted the object out with shaking paws. The object that Carmedy held was a large bottle, the size of a bottle of wine and entirely made out of steel. Engraved on the front was a strange symbol I had never seen before, and I squinted down at it. It was a large staff, and two snakes curling around it with their heads facing each other, and large feathered wings spread out above both the staff and the snakes. I looked down at it then glanced over at Rana for confirmation. The fox-girl shrugged and peeked over Carmedy’s shoulder as the feline held the bottle aloft in the air.
“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” the black-haired girl whispered, and from behind her, Rana stifled a loud bark of laughter.
“You really need to learn better sayings, my friend. I’ll teach you some later if you want,” the redhead chortled.
“I don’t care what sayings you teach me,” the petite alchemist breathed as she lowered
the steel bottle and stared at it in wonder.
“What is it?” Morrigan asked as she came over with Annalise at her side, and my black-haired minion held it out to the other women with wide, emerald eyes.
“None of you know what this is?” the feline asked in disbelief as her eyes searched each of our faces, and the elven woman reached out and took the bottle from the cat’s paws.
“I don’t know what the bottle contains,” the white-haired elf said as she moved the bottle back and forth and listened to its contents slosh. “But I do know this symbol. This is the caduceus. It represents healing or medicine, correct? That’s what my elven people use it for, at least.”
“This… this is Azoth,” Carmedy whispered as she took the bottle back and stared down at it in wonder. “It’s the universal medication… the universal solvent.”
The feline quickly pulled out an empty bottle from her pack, used one paw to open the lid of the Azoth, and transferred just the tiniest amount in. I could tell from the way to alchemist moved with utter caution that this item meant a lot to her. The liquid spilled out into the smaller container, and I stared at it in wonder as the waning light hit it and reflected off of it. The fluid inside looked like melted silver and moved thickly. Unlike other liquids, it didn’t transfer to the glass sides of the bottle but moved as if it were alive.
“It is beautiful,” the elf said as she reached out for the bottle. Carmedy handed it over gingerly, then Morrigan held the glass up to her eyes and turned the bottle to watch the azoth move and fluctuate. “You said it was the universal medication. What do you mean by that?”
“Azoth can be used for many things and can create thousands of different potions,” the feline whispered as she held the bottle closely to her chest. “Azoth can be found in every single living thing and some non-living things too. It’s part of our chemical make-up even at a minuscule level. As to your question, azoth can heal anything and everything, may it be a flesh wound or an incurable disease. I just can’t believe we found a supply of it.”