Fallen Sepulchre

by J D Franx

  Knowing how dangerous she was, Kael played along. He refused to attack the unarmed woman to avoid falling into another Ancient’s trap.

  “Not interested,” he hissed. “Sythrnax already gave me the sales pitch. I gave him the same answer right before I tore his soul from his body.”

  “Impossible,” she snapped. Even still, Kael heard the disbelief in her voice.

  “I may be a lot of things,” he replied, “but a liar isn’t one of them.” He placed the butt of his scythe on the ground and called to the ancient spirit inside it. Akai.

  Show her?

  Yes, she likes to play mind games. It’s our turn, he said inside his head.

  You will need the double reapers, you can only pull a soul from its original form.

  Kael let the double-fanged scythe vanish and instantly called forth the Vai’Karth in the form he had found them. One of the double reaper blades appeared in his left hand, and he slid his finger along the scythe’s short blade to draw his own blood. The longer blade flared with power as vibrant blue glyphs sizzled and appeared along the scythe’s dark surface. As he pulled his hand back slowly, a screaming soul was drawn out from the metal. The distorted ethereal face materialized before them, and its identity unmistakable.

  The Vikress shrieked with rage as he let the weapon re-absorb the soul. “How dare you! You verminous dosa,” she spat. “How dare you defile the soul from one of my people? My brother!”

  “Simple, really,” he barked. “Because it makes me stronger. The stronger I get, the more of you I can kill until there are none of you left.”

  Illara cocked her head to the side, and a smile tugged at her mask. “With a thousand years of training and experience fighting my people, I believe you would accomplish that goal. I do. But most of your power is far beyond your ken, and it will remain so. Those who could teach you are long dead, and you will follow them today. I will not permit you to leave here alive.” Her glaive reappeared intact in her hand.

  Kael lifted his scythe and attacked. Using the outer edge of the Void as a conduit, he lunged forward without the cover of black smoke. His scythe slammed into Illara’s glaive and locked tight. The Vikress pushed back on the entangled blades. Even using all his strength, he still slid backwards on his heels as she forced him back.

  Akai?

  On it.

  White smoke poured from the handle of his weapon. A sharp crack echoed as the handle snapped, freeing the bottom half. Spinning the half in his right hand, Kael grinned as two blades jumped from the broken end. With her glaive still locked tight to the scythe, the Ancient warrior was defenseless as his short-handled scythe raced for her exposed rib cage. Her glaive vanished in a puff of white smoke.

  Losing his balance, he was not fast enough to recover. Illara’s right hand hammered the inside of his right elbow and changed his weapons trajectory. His own blade sank into his stomach as Illara snatched him by the throat. With no other choice, he released the hold on his weapons and they vanished. He was left with a garish wound in his lower abdomen while at her mercy.

  “Kael!” Ember cried out as he dropped to his knees.

  The Vikress pulled him sideways by his throat and dragged him closer to the seal. “You were right about one thing,” she said. “We don't kill unless it serves our needs, so why don't we test my theory? Lady Mosen?” Turning to one of her priestesses, she nodded. The Sect priestess drew a thin blade.

  “Leave her alone!” Ember yelled, rushing forward. Two warriors caught her before she could get close.

  Again, the Vikress' smile pulled at her mask. “Easy, my dear,” she said. “Lady Mosen? I will not ask, again.”

  The priestess dragged the point of her dagger across Eva's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. “Sja megin,” she whispered, flicking the blood from her blade onto the seal in front of Eva. The Fae Matriarch's blood reacted with the seal's magic instantaneously. A shadow matching the seal’s size appeared. It quickly grew straight into the air, where it branched off in three different directions. One headed toward the Forsaken Lands, the one went toward the Dragon Isles, and one far beyond the Cauldron's Teeth mountain range where the Sea of Storms lie.

  “Amazing.” The Vikress laughed. “For those of you who do not know—I give you Jasala Vyshaan's Sepulchre Prison. The magical lock that kept the Ancients away from Talohna for an extra five thousand years. The first seal was already crumbling when she died, and her life force created this monstrosity.” Turning to Yrlissa, she continued. “Very good. You taught her to use the dimensional bleed from the seal to power the Sepulchre continuously. Had Sythrnax not escaped the seal before her death, we would never have gotten out. Even in death, he will be a hero to our people forever.”

  The Vikress turned to her priestess and nodded her directive once more.

  “Take me!” Kael screamed. “Use me!”

  “No, Kael,” Ember begged.

  The Vikress glanced between him and Ember. “You must think I am stupid beyond the dimmest dosa to ever live,” she snapped. “I would never give you the chance to walk from death a second time. You are already far more powerful than any Kai’Sar before you. You will die, Kael, but it will not be on that seal where its magic can create a way back.” The Vikress pulled him close until they were nose-to-nose. She winked at him, clearly taunting, before turning to Lady Mosen and gesturing for her to continue.

  The priestess slid her dagger into Eva's throat and let her drop her face down on the seal.

  Ember’s scream pierced through the fog of agony and red buzz of suffocation plaguing his mind. He watched helplessly as she was forced to the ground along with Max and DormaSai's king and queen. The Ancient wizards chanted as the world heaved and split open around the seal. The dark Sepulchre groaned and fell, fading as if it had never existed. The wizards completed their spells. More than a dozen shields sprung to life, covering everyone including Kael and those with him. The earth twisted and tore itself apart. Large cracks exploded outward from the seal, rocketing across the ruins and into the dark forest as they widened.

  A scream of savage agony rolled through Kael's mind. It took him a moment to register that it was the forest itself crying out. The scream lessened and an intense feeling—a plea for help—followed, but there was nothing he could do. His heart clogged his throat as he looked to where the door to the Still Dimension was open.

  A giant horned warrior jumped through the breach and landed on his left knee. The massive sword in his hand slammed into the ground, cracking the earth around him. Slowly rising, he snorted and stared around the field as two dozen others walked from the dimensional rift. Ten Ri'Tek wizards dressed in black followed, and the large warriors stepped to the side, bowing as they passed. Ember’s sobbing was drowned out by the sound of hundreds more Ri'Tek warriors rushing through the breach. In seconds, they were outnumbered several hundred to one. The earth trembled one last time as the dimensional doorway collapsed, and the wizard's shields disappeared.

  The Sepulchre had fallen.

  Staring over her shoulder, the Vikress winked as Ghul joined her, and they both turned towards what could only be the head wizard from the Animus seal.

  The wizard bowed low at Ghul and Illara’s feet. “Vikress. Master Ghul. You are alive!” he said and looked around. “And we are free.”

  “Tehk, my apprentice. It is good to see you once more, boy.”

  “You now have your Syddic priests back, Ghul,” the Vikress said, giving him a slight bow.

  The young wizard and the others from the breach dropped to a knee. Their heads nearly touched the ground. “You have our thanks, Vikress Illara,” Tehk said.

  Ghul nodded. “I feared they would never be free.”

  She gestured for them to rise and examined the freed wizards. “Ten from your order? That is it?”

  “Yes, Your Holiness, along with a few young novices,” the Ghul’s apprentice told her. “Most of the Syddic Order perished in the battle before we were pulled in. Twelve of the Syddic Gu
ard also survived. It is a start,” the young wizard replied, but clearly something was bothering him.

  “Yes, Apprentice Tehk?” the Vikress asked.

  “Forgive me, Vikress, but why are we speaking the dosa tongue?”

  Illara sighed. “Because we have been gone a very long time, and it is now the common tongue everywhere in Talohna. It is a change we must suffer through.”

  The mask on Ghul's face scrunched in what could only be a frown. “I agree, but change is... good. Now, come There is someone I would like you to meet. Say hello to the most powerful Kai'Sar ever born and the reason we are free—as well as the reason my father is dead.”

  The young wizard stepped closer and leaned over, gently touching Kael's cheek. “May I?” he asked.

  “Of course,” the Vikress replied. “He is to be a dead man, anyway.”

  The wizard knelt beside him. “I am known as Tehk. Do you know what I am? What my master is?”

  Nodding, Kael struggled to speak. “You're—” he coughed, and the Vikress released her grip on his throat a bit. He coughed as air rushed in for relief. He continued, “You're a parasite. No magic of your own, so you steal power from others.”

  The apprentice smiled but said nothing. Stepping back, he let Ghul take over.

  “We have no magic of our own,” Ghul said. “Because it was stolen by those who created us and swore to protect us. Now, I steal magic. It is balance, as all magic must.”

  Tehk slid his hand inside his robe and pulled out a binding stone with faint traces of black inside it. “I fought one of your kind here on this battlefield. See the traces of black in the stone? I had him, but the fool opened his seal before I finished. Perhaps we should see how powerful you really are?” he asked but looked at the Vikress for consent.

  Getting a nod, he began. Tehk spoke in a strange language. The words assaulted Kael's senses. Waves of vertigo washed over him, and he crashed to the ground, screaming. Punishing blasts of dark power gushed from Kael and even the Vikress stumbled. Ghul merely smiled as the energy flowed into him, his apprentice, and the black stone. The stone filled with an inky black mist.

  “Very good, Tehk,” Ghul complemented.

  “Fight it, Kael!” Ember yelled. “Fight them!”

  “Yrlissa, Sephi,” Max called out. “We have to do something. I won't let him die, again—not without doing something this time.”

  “Neither will I,” Ember snapped. “I may not be able to cast a jump spell, but I'll fight.”

  As fast as it began, Tehk was finished. He stood, turning to the Vikress. “For my Vikress,” he said handing the Ancient warrior a solid black stone. “Pure as they come.”

  “It will be days before he recovers,” Ghul added.

  Vikress Illara grabbed Kael by the throat again and lifted him back to his knees. “That is why you will always lose,” she told him softly. “The seals are all open now and time is up for your disgusting race of monsters.”

  Kael chuckled.

  “I doubt you will find your death humorous this time, Kael. Even you will not return a second time. It is all that is left to be done here.”

  “Go ahead.” He wheezed, laughing. “Killing me will either return me to the afterlife as a god or merely just grant me the eternal peace of nothingness. Either way, I will never have to see your race, again.”

  “You can have the world of death, Kael, or you can cease to exist.” she said, the mask tugging up in a smile, again. “I will take this land and the living world with all it has to offer. Last words?” Her hand tightened around his neck. He knew without his magic he would never break free of her grip.

  “We need to move, Yrlissa. Now, for fuck's sake,” Max hissed.

  “Wait,” the assassin said. “What she said about the world of death—that's the answer. Kael! The for—”

  A sword pommel to the back of the head cut her words short and he watched helplessly as Max grabbed his hammer from the ground and exploded with violence. He punched the guard in the jaw and swung his demon hammer. It caved in the second guard's chest, and he whirled to help Kael. Six of the massive Syddic Guard warriors stood between him and his best friend.

  Max’s huge smile was the last thing Kael saw as the throbbing red in his eyes turned black.

  In the darkest corners of his mind, flashes of memory jumbled together one right after another: him and Ember playing in the creek by her father's house as kids… arriving in Sam's Bay… the dance floor on the patio of Tinker's Bar where he gave her the ring he had made… waking up in Talohna… being tortured for months by the Dead Sisters… dying…

  The flashes came faster and faster. He saw his years in the afterlife in what he thought was Paradise… he saw the first time he met Jasala—Jasala!

  The flashes came to a screeching halt as her voice hollered inside his head.

  Embrace the corruption, Kael! Make it serve your will!

  At the time, she was talking about the corruption of death. His time in the Ether had taught him the corruption of death was not an insidious entity or even a corruption at all but simply the energy—the magic of the Ether. But he access to another type of magic, the magic of death itself and it could only be embraced and controlled—used by one who had conquered it.

  It had made no sense to him before.

  Kael’s eyes shot open and filled with the black power of the staggering amount of death around him: the Midnight Canopy Forest.

  The last time such magic filled his soul, he had lost all control and an entire witch ternion had died in Arkum Zul. He was careful this time. This time, he was fully aware. The Midnight Canopy, a dark forest of death, offered him all its power freely. He felt it in his very core. Monsters and nightmare creatures shrieked and growled from deep within the forest, and hundreds of eyes along the tree line glowed in the failing light. The roots running beneath the ground hummed with energy as creatures beyond all nightmares begged for their release. It was a release he granted.

  “Thanks, Jasala,” he croaked aloud, unfurling the Vikress' hand from his throat. “You'd better run, Ancient,” he barked, climbing slowly to his feet.

  “You are still outnumbered, fool,” she snapped.

  Kael smiled. “Not for long.” Glancing to forest, he smiled as a pack of massive two-legged wolves burst from the trees and hordes of flying monsters swarmed in from the tree tops. A blonde vampire led the way. “Let's try this again, shall we?” he said. Mimicking the Vikress' earlier spell, he blasted her with compressed air that would have killed a Dragon. His smile vanished as she spun through the air, coming to her feet with her glaive staff in hand.

  “Let us,” she said. “Attack!” The Ancients' army responded, rushing for the forest monsters with no visible signs of fear.

  Ignoring the large battle, Kael lunged, skirting the outer edges of the Ether. Nearly invisible, the Vikress saw him too late, and his scythe passed through her magical shield before it formed. Shattering her glaive, his blade cut deep into her shoulder. Spinning on his heel, he saw Ghul syphoning magic from him. Kael released his control over the forest's power and dumped more magic into the syphon than the Ghul could handle. The intense blast of energy hit the Ri'Tek wizard and exploded. He flew back in the rubble and dust of the ruins and did not move.

  Turning back to the Vikress, energy burned along the back of his armor. The heat seared the skin on his back, and it sizzled as if under a branding iron. The pain merely fueled his next spell. Black roots leapt from the earth and snaked around the Vikress' legs, pinning her the ground. With a simple twist of his wrist, the roots writhed and twisted their way up the Vikress' waist and her chest. When they encircled her neck, Kael closed his fist and the roots tightened until she could no longer move.

  He played it safe, carefully approaching her. With his magical senses spread as far as he could, Kael sensed no threat. He smiled. “Say hi to Sythrnax, Vikress, if you end up wherever he is.”

  The Vikress laughed as he flipped his scythe back to strike. “Ah, Kael
, I already told you. You lose.”

  As he powered his weapon, a bright white light exploded from where the Vikress had been ensnared in the forest's root system. His scythe crashed into the vines and sunk deep into the dirt. Max's demon hammer slammed into the ground beside his scythe.

  “No, goddammit! No!” Kael yelled. Looking up, he watched helpless as the stolen Fae magic activated across the ruins.

  The Ancients were gone.

  “Fuck! That's twice I missed her!” Max grumbled.

  Kael sighed with frustration. “They got what they wanted. Her people are free, and we're no threat to them. Getting away was their only goal. It was simple, whereas we expected something complicated.” He watched on as Ember fell to her knees beside her mother. He gave her some well-needed space before finally going to her.

  “I'll check on everyone and get them ready to go,” Max said.

  Kael nodded to him and knelt beside the woman he loved but no longer knew. “I was told she was your mother. You got to know her?” he asked.

  “Yes. She stayed with us in Drae'Kahn—even took me to Vaenaria...” She gasped as she sucked in quick breaths of grief. Her heartache radiated in her aura, washing over him painfully.

  “Your real father?” he asked.

  “He was the commander of the Dwarven Host. He died a few months ago, defending their seal. I'm not sure what is more insane… the fact that I really did have a mother and father who cared about me or that they're both dead.”

  Kael smiled and pulled her close. “I can promise you that Dravik BloodPounder didn't die in the siege. I don't think that grumpy bastard can die. I spent a few minutes with him when I returned.”

  Ember glanced at him. “You sure?” she asked.

  “Commander of the Dwarven Host, yes. And probably the only person alive who hated Sythrnax as much as I did. You'll see him again, Ember. I'd bet on it.”

  “I hope so,” she said and rested her hand on Eva's shoulder. “Help me with her, please?”