Dark Gods Rising

by Mark Eller

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  Mercktos watched Tessla emerge from the human home and had to admit she looked lovely with her black talons and white hair. Her appearance was, he knew, another trap she had set to ensnare hellborn. He refused to be affected by her allure. The bitch had almost trapped him once with false promises of passionate love. It wouldn’t happen again. He had avoided the first trap by gifting his recalcitrant spawn to Athos. For the next year he listened to her scream, and those screams had cost him dear. Never again would he put himself in such a position, especially with her.

  During that long ago time, Athos had raped and broken her body every dimming, but each lightening found her complete, without blemish, proving yet again she wasn’t a normal spawn. The only change Mercktos had seen was to her white hair. Washed nightly in blood, it became, at one time, dyed the same color, but even this change had not been permanent. During the first few years after her escape, her hair gradually morphed from blood red, to pink, and now back to its original white.

  Tessla was unique. Not even her year in Athos’s hands was enough to make her spirit waver or break. Not once did her resolve wander despite all the deliciously horrendous things Athos did to her body. Frustrated, Athos eventually concentrated so completely on her he ignored Hell’s other spawn. He tortured Tessla until her screams became a regular sound in his halls, but she refused to cringe. She refused to crawl. Athos grew furious. He cast his curse, gave her his poison, and waited for her to die.

  Instead of dying, she escaped.

  Mercktos had never seen Athos so angry. Hundreds of demons and their lesser ilk were ripped apart in his attempt to discover which beings had helped her. Muses were called to track her essence. They cast out seeking webs only to discover she was invisible to them. Further questioning uncovered the fact she had served Flinstar, the neutral god, for a thousand years before being captured by Hell.

  Once escaped, Tessla’s loyalty had passed to Trelsar because Flinstar had disappeared during the time of her imprisonment. Some said Flinstar was dead, but Mercktos had his doubts. He knew Flinstar from long ago, from back when he was Eric Flynn before the landing. He knew somewhat how Eric thought, knew something of the twisty pathways of his mind. At one time they had been friends, almost brothers, and so Mercktos knew Eric would never have taken his own life. If he had been murdered, the murder would have been accompanied by explosions strong enough to shake the world.

  Only Athos’s discovery of Tessla’s former allegiance to Flinstar allowed Mercktos to avoid the purge. Now, decades later, a spawn had murdered a handler and stolen Athos’s Hook. No god claimed this spawn, no otherworldly being, but, like Tessla, it didn’t exist to the Muse’s seeking spells. Jolson didn’t bear Athos’s mark, missed when Athos had ignored marking thousands of his new spawn while concentrating on breaking Tessla.

  The murder of a mage was of no account, but the theft of his hook shamed Athos before Zorce, his father. Because of this humiliation, Athos cracked Hell’s vents wide long before the original plan called for, releasing his hunters into the middle world, ordering that none return until the spawn was dead and the hook returned.

  So Mercktos watched Tessla in the hopes she would lead him to the spawn. He watched her look one way and another. Shaking her head, she ran.

  Waiting until she was almost out of sight, Mercktos followed.