by Hunter Blain
Instead of lowering herself to the battlefield, which would leave her on even level with the sorcerer, Lilith decided to keep the high ground both as a tactical decision and a statement.
“Speak your last words, child,” Lilith announced, letting her crimson eyes flash once in warning.
“He…is mine,” the unnerving voice that spilled from Magni’s lips uttered, a single hand with an extended finger pointing at the remaining section of courtyard wall.
Lilith shifted her entire body to better see what was being indicated while still keeping Magni in her peripheral vision.
As if on cue, the incredibly resilient King TalGoid let loose an earsplitting scream of agony, drawing Lilith’s full attention.
Taking a step forward, Lilith shifted and appeared directly next to Taylor, who had fallen to one knee, his shaking hands grasping a swelling leg. His helmet had vanished, revealing a face twisted with anguish and coated in glistening sweat.
Lilith bared her sharp fangs in a growl as she saw the Ether spreading.
The queen raised a glowing finger, ready to sever the poisoned appendage, when she saw the protruding veins in Taylor’s neck darkening to the color of night.
“You’re too late,” the sorcerer spoke with a grin evident in his voice. “It has already spread.”
“What do you want?!” Lilith barked, refusing to pull her glowing eyes away from the injured king of the Seelie Court…her needed counterbalance which kept Midworld from falling to biblical disasters, and her own personal check for when the darkness in her heart eventually took over. No one—not even the Queen of Air and Darkness herself—could resist the mantle for long.
“Relinquish your crown,” the sorcerer demanded, extending a hand, palm up. His other hand rose in an identical imitation of the first. “Both of you.”
Even through the immeasurable pain, Taylor lifted his gaze to lock with Lilith’s, the king and queen of Faerie having an entire dialogue without saying a word.
“Do it now…or he dies.” To accentuate his point, Magni clenched one of his outstretched palms into a fist, making Taylor fall over backward, shrieking in pain, as his body violently convulsed.
“Don-don’t…don’t do it,” Taylor wheezed with spittle sloshing down his chin.
Leaning down and moving a hand over his blackened wound, Lilith whispered, “I’ll try to destroy the Ether inside of you.”
Taylor nodded once and slammed his eyes shut in preparation for the pain.
From the ground, lightning-fast black snakes slithered to wrap around Taylor’s throat, both hands, and his uninfected leg.
Lilith raised her hands in preparation for a surgical strike at the new threats, until the snakes did something she wasn’t anticipating: they bit into Taylor’s flesh, the snakes on his arms and leg piercing through the enchanted armor with alarming ease.
“The elf belongs to me now,” Magni announced, lifting himself several yards to hover above Queen Lilith and King TalGoid.
Lilith cried out at seeing the Ether begin to spread throughout Taylor’s entire body with alarming speed.
Taylor was whimpering like a helpless child as he attempted, and failed, to control the unimaginable pain he was experiencing as his own cells were first devoured and then replaced with the Ether.
Lifting glowing red eyes to the sorcerer that hovered above her, Lilith let her power retract, leaving behind alabaster skin and eyes as pale as moonlight.
For the first time since the Ether had taken over his body and mind, Magni could feel his lips curl upward in a smile of pure victory. It made him sick to see what he had allowed himself to become.
The bested Lilith reached a hand to Taylor’s breastplate and removed the sigil of the blooming Yggdrasil.
In her grasp, the piece of armor grew around Lilith’s hand until a crown of vines formed, lush leaves and colorful flowers adorning the symbol of the Seelie ruler.
Lilith took a moment to adore Taylor for not wearing the crown on his head, intentionally reminding both himself and his subjects that he had come up as one of them and would always care for their best interests first.
Her free hand edged up her body until her fingers touched the crown of ice atop her skull, and she removed it with a sudden jerk of anger.
The flood of power began to drain from Lilith as she removed the mantle, reminding her that—though she had been incredibly strong before—the mantle offered top-tier power that couldn’t be duplicated. Then again, she had specifically made it that way.
Raising both powerful crowns of Faerie, Lilith lowered her head in defeat and shame as Magni reached out with an invisible force. The crowns of vine and ice floated through the air until the sorcerer wrapped obsidian fingers around them.
Lifting her gaze, Lilith felt despair clutch her throat and heart, making it hard to breathe as Magni moved his hands together.
The crowns fought the push as if they were magnets of the same charge, vibrating the air as they attempted to flee Magni’s tight grasp.
Black smoke flowed from his wrists to encompass the crowns before his hands slammed together with a crack that punched Lilith’s breath from her chest and threw her to the floor.
The resulting shock wave would break countless branches for miles in all directions while, further out, sending a mass exodus of leaves cascading to their deaths.
Recovering on shaky arms, Lilith looked up to see Magni lifting an onyx crown that resembled dead vines adorned with jagged ice.
“Let…chaos…rule…” Magni said as the crown was set upon his head.
Black clouds lined in glowing white roiled overhead as lightning the same color cracked the air. A frigid breeze flooded over the area like a tsunami, making Lilith’s skin prickle with the cold.
At that moment, Lilith missed the chill of the Winter Mantle, and knew she had only traded mere seconds of time for King Taylor’s life; fleeting seconds which had been exchanged for absolute power over Faerie…and Midworld. Had she simply chosen to flee, Magni would have only had access to the Summer Mantle.
With complete control over the Unseelie and Seelie Courts, Magni could rain biblical catastrophes over Midworld, causing untold chaos over the lands of men.
The thought that Magni would not honor his agreement to spare Taylor struck Lilith. Why would he? Now that he held all the cards, Taylor and Lilith would be but ants beneath the gleeful scowl of a child and his magnifying glass.
Without further consideration to the situation, Lilith acted on instinct and used the remaining power of Winter before it left her forever.
A hand was thrown in the direction of Taylor, who was immediately encapsulated in a block of ice that no fire could ever melt. The snakes were frozen solid, unable to act, and thus prolonging Taylor’s existence, though in a prison of ice.
Magni shot her an angered look and pointed a finger toward the once queen of Faerie, unleashing a blast of pure energy that could have destroyed an entire town.
Lilith threw herself on top of Taylor’s block of ice, and the two blipped from the plane right as the attack reduced the courtyard wall to atoms. The city beyond was flattened for thousands of yards in a cone, causing further loss of life for the endangered citizens of Faerie.
Modern-looking buildings collapsed while fearful innocents cried out in terror. Several dozens were crushed by toppling structures or were obliterated by the blast that tore straight through the city like a bullet through blades of grass. The few people who weren’t killed fled toward the outlying forests that encircled the Seelie castle. The emergency portal that had once been used by King Taylor when the vampire had brought the darkness was gone, reduced to ashes in the blast before being buried in rubble.
“Run, little queen,” Magni whispered as power pulsed all around him. A sphere of blackness grew from his hate, rebuilding the destroyed courtyard into a scene from nightmares that befitted the sorcerer’s tastes.
The ground—which was once covered in flat stone—was no longer level. Swooping
curvatures dug deep before lifting high above the ground, like a still frame of a churning ocean.
The wall mutated into something from a Tim Burton movie, with erratic architecture that seemed structurally impossible and appeared to give no thought to symmetry.
Next was the castle, which began groaning as it matched the stylings of the courtyard, the ground rumbling underneath.
The entire black castle seemed to have been made from fat pillars of clay, with ample liberties granted to an artist high on military-grade psychedelics. It almost resembled a cluster of aggressive, asymmetrical mushrooms rather than a castle.
With a smile that would have produced insanity in any that bore witness to it, Magni declared, “All…hail…chaos.”
13
John
Thunder rumbled from all around as the sky grew precipitously darker with each second that ticked by. A single drop of rain grazed the end of my nose as it fell to the ground, making me blink in surprise.
“We are out of time,” Gabriel revealed, looking up to the blackening sky with a somber look.
“What? Why? What’s going on?” I rapidly asked, unnerved by the archangel’s demeanor. “Is it Lolth?!”
Ignoring my question, Gabriel spoke. “Quickly. Wrap Jose in a sphere.”
With a stuttering mind, I shook my head to clear the confusion and concentrated. A sphere of ivory popped into existence, completely enveloping Jose. To his credit, the were didn’t so much as gasp in surprise as something that could easily be described as a prison—or perhaps more appropriately, a coffin—sprang to life in an instant.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go,” Gabriel warned in reference to the sphere.
With a single nod and a flick of my eyes to the now stormy sky, Gabriel took in a quick breath like he was about to dive into water, and then shifted the world around us.
A sight of pure wonderment filled all that I could see. Washes of color spilled into one another as countless dots of light twinkled all around on a canvas of varying shades of black. Swatches of colorful vapor, which were actually light-years in length, seemed like nothing more than drifting clouds frozen in time.
Directly in front of me, floating in a sea of light, was a black dot with bright, distorted circles encompassing a literal hole in space.
“Listen closely, as we are running out of time,” Gabriel started with an urgency that stole my tongue. “You must go in now to save our world from chaos.”
Looking between Gabriel and the black hole, I swallowed deeply while making sure to keep a portion of my mind on the sphere encasing Jose.
“Go, find Depweg, and bring him back to our river of time. By any means necessary, John. Do you understand?”
Slowly, I nodded with my mouth agape.
“What about Lolth?” I asked with a shaky voice.
“Destroy her,” Gabriel commanded, grabbing my shoulders tightly and shaking me once.
“How?”
“Go. Now!” Gabriel bellowed as he pushed on my body with enough force to blur the stars around me. But unlike on Earth where pesky things like gravity and air resistance were a factor, I didn’t have all my bones shattered from the force. Instead, it felt like I had picked up a big wave while surfing.
After a few seconds, I realized I was traveling through space with enough speed that the stars were streaking like meteors. I might have screamed but couldn’t be sure as terrified eyes locked on the enormity of the black hole I was heading toward. What I saw made my mind want to break as it tried to process approaching a literal hole in time and space.
The most destructive force in the entire universe, and I was heading straight for its gaping mouth.
“Oh…my…Lilith…” I drawled, not even realizing the name I had used due to the sheer awe I was experiencing.
The first thing I noticed was the accretion disk which circled around the spherical hole in space-time, curving at the back so that it looked like it went straight up before circling around again. There was also a smaller disk running directly beneath the black hole. I knew where the disks looked like they were bending was due to an optical illusion, the black hole curving space around it so I could see every side of the sphere all at once. It hurt my head to think about.
“That movie Interstellar had it dead-on, man,” I breathed, unable to fully catch my breath. Which was an odd thing to say when you considered I was floating in the vacuum of space.
“Please do not let your manifestation drop,” Gabriel reminded me while thumbing toward my ivory sphere.
“Oh shit!” I blurted, both in surprise at Gabriel suddenly traveling beside me and realizing I had almost dropped the focus that kept Jose’s trouble bubble in existence.
With Jose safe and my mind clear from the fog of awe at the sight of the supermassive black hole, another question came to mind.
“Hey, why don’t we shift to the In-Between before passing through the death hole?”
“No! You cannot!” Gabriel declared with an urgency that made my head rock back in surprise. It was odd to see the angel standing casually upright as we traveled, while I was positioned as if standing on a wobbly surfboard.
“Wh—”
“You could end up in a completely different dimension, John. Not even the most powerful of my brothers would dare it.”
I processed what he said until something else came to mind.
“But what about the doorway in Gehenna? I had to shift to the In-Between to access it. Right?”
“A doorway that is not a literal hole through the fabric of space and time.”
“Ah,” I breathed out, nodding my head in understanding and running a hand down my thick beard.
Gabriel continued to stare at me, apparently awaiting further questions.
“Um…now what?” I asked, confirming that my head was back in the game.
“I will show you how to condense space-time in front of you while expanding it from behind.” Gabriel began to demonstrate by turning sideways, with one arm fully extending to his left, palm up, and the other hand pointed to his right, his open hand flat like he was trying to stop or catch something. It almost looked like a yoga pose.
“Can’t I just use Baleius’s memories to learn?”
“I’m afraid this ability was reserved only for archangels; though all of my brothers knew how to do it, they were simply not allowed.”
“So there won’t be any memories if he was never allowed to do it,” I mused mostly to myself.
“Correct.”
“Why? It’s not like they could alter the time line, right?”
“For one, the sheer power required to bend the universe to your will could have adverse consequences that were simply not worth the risk.”
When he didn’t continue, I pressed my luck.
“Aaaaannnnd?”
“Not that it is of any importance, but Michael forbid such actions after Samael’s fall from grace.”
“What a dick. Why’d he punish everyone?”
Gabriel left his yogaesque stance to fully face me, debating on what words to share. After a moment, he decided.
“Stick to the mission, John. It is imperative that you locate Depweg and close the errant stream of time.”
“And what about Lolth? If she is the one that created the damn stream, I mean.”
“Close the stream, John,” Gabriel repeated with a slight downward tilt of his head. “Now do as I do.”
Gabriel returned to his pose, and I mimicked the stance while making sure to keep an adequate focus on Jose’s bubble.
“Close your back fist.”
I did.
“I have provided a small wave, which is what we both are currently riding. But to pass safely through the black hole, you must vastly increase your speed. Now focus on the fabric of the universe around you. Feel it as a malleable material with the help of your armor.”
My armor shimmered into existence as I closed my eyes and focused on feeling the universe around me.
“D
o you feel the wave?”
“I do,” I softly admitted, feeling the subtle, smooth power contained within the small bending of space.
With a Zen-like voice, Gabriel said, “All of existence flows around you, like being submerged in a vast ocean. With focus, you can control your position in the water in much the same way you can move through space.”
As he spoke, the fingers of my left hand began slowly wiggling as I felt the fabric of space push against my digits. The connection between my gauntlet and the universe was palpable in precisely the way Gabriel had explained. It felt like my hand was pushing against water, offering some resistance but ultimately bending to my will.
“I…I feel it,” I said just above a whisper as I focused on both Jose’s sphere and the new amazing sensation of the literal fabric of space in my hands.
Something wrapped around my waist, and I opened my eyes to see Gabriel tethering us together, including Jose.
“I will go with you as far as I can to ensure you grasp the technique. Then I will disconnect myself and let you have full control.”
I gulped as my eyes flicked to the glowing disks that circled the sphere of the enormous black hole in front of me. I was about to fly into a freaking hole at the center of the Milky Way that was large enough to swallow our sun, four million times over.
“But this is urban fantasy, not sci-fi,” I whimpered as my mouth went dry and chest grew tight once again.
“Grab a large swath of space in front of you and close your fist while imagining you are crumpling up a never-ending piece of paper into a tiny ball.”
Closing my eyes, I reached out with my left hand and grabbed the fabric of our reality before I began squeezing my fist closed. In my mind, I imagined a section of space in front of me that was taller and wider than the three of us were, and watched as it began shrinking into something the size of a marble inside my fist.
When nothing happened, I opened one eye and almost lost control against the desire to flail my arms and scream.
Stars were streaking past, but not mimicking lasers like the movies showed. Instead, they were like swarms of really fast, straight-flying fireflies.
