by Ren Ryder
Duke Regulus Maddox was at death’s door.
“Pity for you, this barrier cannot be broken until my rituals are complete. None may interfere, but I welcome you to stay, bear witness to my ascension,” the Duke said.
There were few things I wanted to do less.
I couldn’t just sit back and let things progress in the Duke’s favor.
I ran at the barrier, striking it again and again and again. Each time I would get repelled, I got back onto my feet to try again. A few cracks formed in the barrier only for it to reform a few seconds later. It was a futile effort.
“Bell!”
“I’ll try!”
Bell threw a smattering of wind workings at the barrier. Spears and daggers of shaped wind hit the barrier in a concentrated area. Finally Bell sagged with exhaustion and finished her attempt to land on my head.
“Satisfied?” the Duke asked, then broke out into a dry, raspy coughing fit.
“Far from it,” I said, staring straight into the Duke’s dead fisheyes.
The Duke waved a bloody hand at me. “Worry not little fly, once I become an undying force of nature, I will see to you.”
Duke Maddox tottered over to a chest set on a squat column, throwing the hatch back to get at its contents. “Blood of the ancient vampire, Vlad Tepes.” the Duke broke the seal on a vial of viscous red liquid, tore the cork out with his teeth, and drank the whole thing in one go. “Ten times out of ten, the subject died from blood poisoning, but I am no statistic.”
Stigmata formed on both the Duke’s palms, as if he’d been lanced by rusty nails. Blood flowed from the fresh wounds, dripping onto the marble floor of the temple proper.
The Duke fell to his hands and knees. His skin turned translucent, revealing the web of pulsing veins beneath. Tilting his head back, Maddox screamed, revealing the growth of a sharp set of fangs. Shaking with insane laughter and his eyes flashing crimson, the Duke stood back up to his full height.
Without hardly a pause, Duke Regulus Maddox stomped over to the far side of the temple. “Now. Little djinn. You will buoy my spirit for eons to come, o formless one.”
The Duke procured an old brass lamp resting on a stone plinth and set it down inside a circle inscribed with a rune sequence. He stepped into a sympathetic circle some few feet away, struck a match and lit the circle on fire. Though there was no direct connection by which the fire could spread, the circle containing the sealed djinn caught flame a few seconds later.
Flames licked the sky, and shadows flashed throughout the tongues of flame. The djinn’s lamp glowed cherry-red, then a formless darkness exploded out of it. On the edge of hearing, a high-pitched, warbling scream of agony bounced around the temple.
All of a sudden, all sounds were vacuumed from the area, even the sound of my own breath and heartbeat. A column of shadow formed, then was ripped into the containment circle. A veil of shadow passed through the intervening space in an instant to fill the sympathetic circle holding the Duke.
Duke Regulus Maddox opened his jaws wide and tilted back his head. A thin tornado of darkness passed through his lips and traveled down to his gullet to be consumed. The Duke’s whole body was wracked by spasms, then he collapsed. His skin flushed from pale white to ashen gray.
After what felt like minutes but couldn’t have been more than a handful of seconds, the Duke jerked awake and pushed himself onto his knees. His scarred face stretched into a triumphant grin.
“Everything is according to plan. I’m ready.”
Duke Regulus Maddox pushed a wooden cart into a gigantic summoning circle that spanned almost the entire length and breadth of the temple. Inside the cart were two-dozen beating hearts. Laid to rest amid the swirling geometric patterns that met in the center of the circle was the pilfered relic from the Grand Library, glowing bright white.
“On the eve of the Winter Solstice during the Full Moon, I make my plea to you, o god of death. To whet your appetite I offer up the hearts of these twenty-four slain in your name in exchange for power.”
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed while the storm clouds above swirled in an ominous, irregular fashion. Warping, the storm clouds, whipped up by some magic, formed a hole in the sky. A tiny pinprick of moonlight flashed through the hole and struck the relic on the temple floor. A beam of light connected the earth and sky, and within that light, a spectral form descended.
My pulse raced as the form materialized into a titan of a man— no, a god. His skeletal face was devoid of flesh and his eye sockets contained a cosmos of darkness. A dress of bones formed around the naked man as I watched, then a black ebony staff topped with an orb of pure darkness appeared in his right hand. Unaffected by gravity, the god floated a meter above the marble floor of the temple.
“Frail mortal. The time allotted to you on this earth is nigh expired. Before I decide to ferry you to my domain, state your purpose in summoning me. And do not be so foolish as to think this puny circle can contain me.”
“I do not delude myself, honored god,” the Duke spoke quick. “I wish to barter with the god of death, Thanatos: lives for power over death, to deny its due forevermore.”
“So you wish to upend the natural order. So be it. Have you sufficient payment for such a distortion of fate?” Thanatos asked.
The Duke pointed down. ”Beneath our feet, one hundred souls lay in wait.”
Thanatos tilted his head. “This… creature inside you complicates matters. Do you wish to proceed knowing the possibility for failure?”
“My ascension is predetermined. Nothing will stand in the way of me attaining my true form,” the Duke said, his voice weak but sure.
Thanatos chuckled, dark and knowing. “A fine belief, so long as it is proved true. Then let us begin.”
A black wind blew out of the temple, flattening the grass around me. Thanatos raised his skeletal left hand of bleached bone and summoned a dark power into the world. For a moment the Duke’s withered form was encapsulated by a lattice of crackling black energy, then he disappeared inside a pulsing cocoon of darkness.
Sparkling white orbs, souls, filtered up through the marble floor, floating towards the death god like a sea of stars drawn inwards by an inexorable gravity. Tilting his head back and throwing his arms wide, Thanatos basked in the souls bright energies as he absorbed them into his body.
Thanatos anointed the pulsing cocoon with his staff. Tendrils of dark energy shot out from the orb of pure darkness affixed to the staff then latched onto the chrysalis like a living mesh of veins. The black veins pulsed, sending a constant stream of dark power into the cocoon.
Someone grabbed my shoulder, hard, forcing my attention away from the spectacle.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” Neil said, staring past me at the temple.
Bell blew a raspberry. “Oh, just admit it— you’re happy to see us~”
I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t noticed Neil’s contingent of imperial soldiers and battlemages surround the temple. The sub-captain studied the barrier with a keen eye, drawing his rapier to test its strength. The barrier repelled the foreign object, snapping Neil’s wrist backwards so he slapped himself in the face with his weapon.
I chuckled at Neil’s expense. “The barrier regenerates any damage done to it and repels anything that tries to enter— how do you feel about combining forces to make a hole?”
Neil sheathed his rapier and leaned forward to get a better look inside the barrier. “You couldn’t just sit this one out, could you? The Arcanium is going to have a field day with you, and I won’t be able to protect you.”
“Aw, our knight in shining armor,” Bell cooed.
I clenched my jaw. “Duke Maddox drank the blood of an elder vampire, absorbed a djinn, then summoned a death god with twenty-four beating hearts. He sacrificed a hundred souls for whatever transformation he’s undergoing in that cocoon. So excuse me if I’m not too worried about some potential consequence in my future.”
Neil swallowed and turned
to address his raid party. “Battlemages, on me! We’re making a hole in this barrier! The rest of you— prepare to rush the gap before the barrier repairs itself!”
“And what are we to do about… a god?” Neil asked in a pained whisper.
“The death god, Thanatos,” Bell corrected.
I grunted. “I’ll try to bargain with it.”
Bell’s tinkling laughter pierced my ears. “That’s your plan?”
I grimaced. “You got a better one?”
Bell shrugged. “Well, no, but yours still sucks.”
Battlemages assembled on Neil, their auras blazing with spectral power. All twelve of them were dressed in black and purple-trimmed robes emblazoned with the eight-pointed star of the enforcers. Each of them carried either a staff or wand made to their specifications.
Neil raised a hand in the air. “On my command, focus fire. Fighters, form a double-wide line to either side and prepare for entry.”
Battlemages prepped their magics, summoning balls of fire, globes of water, lightning orbs, dense clods of earth and spears of wind. The air buzzed with magic, and my skin broke out in goosebumps. Fifty imperial guards spread out to either side of the cluster of mages, forming two lines.
Neil dropped his hand and made a fist.
A barrage of magics hit a four-meter wide section of the barrier. At first, it didn’t seem like even the focused fire of a dozen battlemages was going to be enough to pierce the protective magic. Then a spiderweb of cracks formed across the barrier as the cumulative attacks took their toll.
Neil grabbed my elbow. “It’s not too late to turn yourself back in. Leave this to us professionals, Kal.”
I shook off his hand, saying, “I’m going in, don’t try to stop me.”
Neil sighed but didn’t push the issue.
Like drawing in a deep lungful of air, I pulled as much mana as I could contain off my source, flooding myself with power. I strained to wield all of it, forcing it through my mana channels to fill my body to bursting. I dipped into my source again to fill the sigil on my chest with an overload of power, then blew off the excess into my aura. I drew my sword and passed my hand across the blade, letting it absorb some of the excess mana.
I lowered myself into a stance and locked my eyes on my target. “Bell, we’re breaking through.”
Bell took to the air and hovered at my side. “I’m with you.”
Flashing across the intervening distance, I slashed my sword across the weakened part of the barrier. A four-foot wide section of the barrier broke down even while wispy tendrils reached across the space to fill back in the hole. I rolled through the opening and jumped back onto my feet on the inside of the barrier.
Neil came in swinging behind me, widening the gap I’d made with his rapier so his forces could follow in behind him. “Move it, double-time!”
Three battlemages and ten imperial soldiers made it through the gap before it regenerated itself, stranding the remainder of the raid party on the outside.
Neil punched his thigh, a look of bitter frustration flashing across his face. “The rest of you, clear the estate. If you encounter resistance, retreat and fight as a unit.”
Ignoring the byplay, I ascended the temple’s steps and walked through a set of columns to stand on the outer ring of the summoning circle. The death god floated in defiance of gravity, the sockets where its eyes should be focused on the Duke’s chrysalis.
“Thanatos!” I called out.
I shivered uncontrollably as the skeletal face of the death god turned towards me. Thanatos floated towards me, its dress of bones flowing, rearranging and reforming as the god moved. I tensed my arms and locked my elbows to keep my sword from wavering.
Thanatos loomed over me, and I had to force myself not to retreat. “A faeling, how unusual. No, what is this I sense… what an interesting creature you are.”
I rearranged my priorities on the spot, trying to get more information before committing to a fight. “Pan said something similar. What makes me so interesting?”
Thanatos’s face stretched into a ghastly grin. “Oh? It seems you are unaware of your true heritage. How quaint.”
So he didn’t plan to enlighten me either. “If you like souls so much, take mine and undo all this,” I waved a hand at the pulsing cocoon containing the Duke.
Thanatos regarded me for a long moment, seeming to consider my proposal. Then the death god said, “No, I don’t think I will.”
In the same moment, Neil coordinated an attack on the Duke’s chrysalis with every man and woman under his command. Battlemages lobbed fire and ice at the cocoon while the imperial soldiers hacked away at it with their swords.
Thanatos swiveled to face the attackers. “I will not abandon a bargain struck. You dare interfere in my work, lowly humans? Have a taste of my power.”
The death god raised his staff and the orb of pure darkness affixed to it erupted with black streams of power. The energy shot off to strike each of the attackers, and for a moment everything stopped. To a man, their flesh wrinkled and grayed, then sloughed off their bodies all at once. Their skeletons crashed to the marble floor and turned to dust on impact.
Bell whistled. “And then there were three.”
Neil fell to his knees and stared at the ashes as they were washed away by the pouring rain. Looking dazed and defeated, the enforcer turned a blank look on the god that had rained death on his compatriots.
I laughed, hysterical. “Man we’re screwed."
We were so far out of our league it was funny. The Duke had a literal god overseeing his metamorphosis. I’d already offered my soul in exchange for the slim hope for a reversal of fate, and been denied. What could we do but wait for Duke Regulus Maddox to emerge from his cocoon fully developed into his new, monstrous form?
Resting my sword on my right shoulder, I walked over to Neil and crouched down beside him. I put a reassuring hand on his back while he shook with emotion.
“I killed them, Kal.”
“It’s not your fault. No man can stand against a god,” I said, shifting my attention to the terrifying death god.
“Get it together man,” Bell said, scrunching the sub-captain’s lips together.
Thanatos hovered near the throbbing cocoon, seeming to write us off as mere spectators.
“Come on, get up— get up, Neil.” I snaked an arm under Neil’s armpit and dragged him to his feet.
The sub-captain stumbled this way and that, lost his footing and crashed to the ground. With jerky movements, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees then stood on shaky legs to confront the death god who erased his compatriots from existence. While he maintained a stoic expression, tears streaked down the enforcer’s face.
I restrained the enforcer by latching onto his wrist with an iron grip.
Digging my nails into the enforcer’s flesh, I said, “Don’t throw your life away, Neil. Save your rage for the Duke. We’ll hit him the second he pops out of that thing. Together.”
Neil shook with rage and grief, but he stepped back to stand by my side. Together we awaited the worst possible outcome: a transformed Duke at the height of his power, who in all likelihood would kill us before blazing a trail of death and destruction to the imperial palace.
Chapter Seventeen
Rather than sit idle and wait for the Duke’s metamorphosis to be complete, I took out my etching rod and wracked my brain for the most destructive runes in my arsenal to turn the field of battle to our advantage. I etched fire, ice, and force runes all over the temple, imbuing each with a breath of power that could be activated with a word.
The chrysalis throbbed like a beating heart, a living mesh of black veins pulsing with dark power. Between one beat and the next, the cocoon ruptured lengthwise and spewed a small pond’s worth of black sludge. A wriggling creature with midnight-colored skin that only vaguely resembled a human was deposited on the marble floor.
It had long black ropes for hair, four arms, a long tail tipped with spikes e
xtending from its spine, and a large, angular head with slits where its nose should be. Bone spikes stuck out all over its chest and back. Gigantic jet black pools for eyes blinked once, twice, as the creature awoke, gasping for breath.
Between one moment and the next the pouring rain stopped and the storm clouds dispersed. “Good luck, little one,” Thanatos spoke to me, then vanished in a thick cloud of black smoke.
Weak and disoriented, the horrifying creature that could only be Duke Regulus Maddox transformed flopped around like a fish out of water.
“Now! Let’s move!” Neil said.
Neil moved at inhuman speed to ram his rapier home in the dead center of the Duke’s bony chest. Instead of piercing through, the rapier warped and bent like a piece of taffy.
I followed in behind the sub-captain, swinging my wind-enforced blade in a downward slash aimed at the left set of arms. My sword bit into the black flesh, but stopped penetrating after a mere few inches. Sludgy black ichor flowed out of the wound.
Neil and I leapt backwards in tandem as Regulus howled in pain and rage. A reaching hand latched onto my left wrist before I could get away. The hard bony musculature felt like daggers digging into my skin.
“Kal!” Bell cried out.
A startling weakness seeped into my wrist and hand, turning the skin an ashen gray. Creeping death oozed into my body from my trapped limb. Frantic, I pulled away from the Duke’s grasp, then hacked at the arm holding me hostage.
As my sword dug a shallow wound into the creature’s dense flesh, its hand unclenched on reflex and I skittered away.
Bell winged to my side, worrying over me like a mother hen. “Are you alright? That looks bad.”
My left hand felt weak and disconnected from the rest of my body. It flopped around, useless, whenever I commanded it to move according to my will.
“Don’t let him touch you,” I said.
The duke laughed maniacally. “Yes… yes! It worked. The perfect body, complete at last.”
Black miasma exploded out of the Duke’s body, filling the area with a dark cloud of mana. My mind was assaulted by the wriggling tentacles of an uncoordinated psychic attack. Neil fell to his knees with a piercing scream, his hands wrapped around his skull.
