“Nay!” Serah shouted, raising a barrier above us both, just in time for a golden torrent of flame to fly from her fingers. I felt every bit of her magic pour into our attacker and almost crumble, but, somehow, the barrier stood. “You split your power with me when all others would have ruled. There is a reason I love you more than the world.”
Oh spare me, you two, the Trickster muttered. You were just about to start fighting!
Clearly you know nothing about marriage! I lifted my left hand and conjured my demonsteel armor around me. From my gauntlet poured forth a storm of frost colder than the World Below’s most savage blizzards.
The Seraph reared back, injured by the attack, perhaps not least because I had spent months refining every inch of my armor to magnify and strengthen my connection to my still ill-understood new powers. It did not react poorly, though, raising its four wings and delivering a bolt of brilliant golden lightning from each of them toward me. The first two struck the same spot and shattered a tiny hole in Serah’s barrier before the next two bolts passed through. I cut the first bolt in half, only to be struck square in the chest by the fourth.
The pain was indescribable, equivalent to being burned alive and if I’d been a normal man then I would have mercifully died from it but, instead, I lived on. I fell to one knee, my connection to the universe disrupted and my physical body passing away to become my ghostly self once more. Despite that, I staggered forward and slashed into its chest with Chill’s Fury.
The demonsteel blade was covered in flaming ichor from where it struck home. Chill’s Fury’s black magic warred against the Seraph’s holy essence and I felt the weapon quiver in my hand. For a moment, I thought the blade would explode, only for the true names of Serah and Regina on its side to glow brilliantly alongside the runes for Hope and Redemption.
The holy nimbus around the Seraph vanished.
And my strength returned to full.
“Unclean!” the Seraph shouted in a voice sounding like a thousand chanters speaking in unison. “You have made me unclean!”
“Death cleans us all,” I said, pulling my blade out from between the star-metal feathers and striking again with more force.
Serah, meanwhile, conjured a host of horrors that would have given me nightmares if I was still the kind of man to dream about monsters. Hideous creatures made from eyeballs, cannibal slime, tentacled abominations, and more assaulted the Seraph. They were all illusions but, in the astral plane, were as real as anything else. The Seraph destroyed them one after another but could not penetrate her barriers even as she finished her menagerie with a perfect replica of Regina. That joined me in slicing away the creature, whose wounds were growing worse all the time.
We were close to killing the creature, against all possible odds, when it released a powerful wave of concussive force that threw me backwards and knocked Serah to the ground. The wounded Seraph fled through a nearby doorway and I was about to pursue when I heard a powerful female voice shout, “Enough!”
That was when I felt the strongest presence I’d ever felt from a magic-user in my life.
Divine or mortal.
Ethinu had arrived.
Chapter Eleven
I looked up to the expansive balcony from that the voice came, forcing down any sense of unease I felt from her power. I hadn’t expected to be able to defeat the Seraph and, honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to if not for Serah. But with her at my side, I had a far better chance of protecting myself than if I had gone after Ethinu alone. Besides, I wasn’t here to do her harm, Jassamine’s mentor or not, but to look at Morrigan’s prophecy.
Still, I would be cautious.
Your lack of self-confidence is appalling, the Trickster grunted. A god should, if nothing else, be confident in his sovereignty.
Says the god killed by mortals, I replied.
Touché.
Standing above us, clothed in radiant azure robes, was perhaps the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I say this not to disdain either of my wives, but as a warning about Ethinu’s character. All sorcerers and sorceresses were vain things, myself included, adjusting their appearance to either reflect wisdom or beauty but elves were the most obsessive about it.
There was a quality about the sidhe that I’d always found vaguely disconcerting. They had the appearance of young men and women, even the eldest appearing to be in their late twenties at best, but their eyes always carried a far older look. Not the romantic agelessness spoken of by poets or the wisdom of sages but the ugly eyes of crones and bitter old men. Ethinu dwarfed them all with the kind of attention to detail she’d taken in giving herself unnatural beauty.
This woman had altered her face with magic both biomancy and illusion, I could tell at a glance, to be perfectly symmetrical with long, flowing flame-like hair that moved as if there was a light breeze flowing. Her skin was so porcelain as to look like marble and her height was at least a head taller than other elves, let alone that of regular human women who rarely reached six feet outside of Winterholme.
Her body was a pleasant hour-glass shape that her ostensibly modest robes seemed to cling to in a disconcertingly provocative way. Even her eyes were different, being slightly larger than average, as if she were a portrait an artist was trying to make more soulful. But those very eyes were every bit as bitter and contemptuous as any other elf’s.
Worse, I recognized her.
“Mighty Ethinu the Blue, Great Wizard and High Lady of the Oghma, I present myself and my lover, the new King Below, unto you.” Serah curtsied. “We come beseeching an audience from you so that we might avail ourselves of your tremendous wisdom gleaned through the sum of countless ages.”
I glared at her at the use of the word lover instead of husband. “You’ll forgive me if I am less courteous after your attempts to murder us.”
“What is the normal response to trespassers where you hail from?” Ethinu said in a voice that I found to be refreshingly unpleasant. It seemed the one element of her body she hadn’t altered with magic and thus the most real. “And please, dispense with the false courtesies, Serah, or we’ll be exchanging titles for hours. I’ve already heard the ludicrous new religion you’ve crafted around yourselves: Serah the Black, Mistress of the Night, the Black Sun…horrible joke that…the Hero Reborn, the Starlight Maiden, the Unicorn Queen, the Bloody Unicorn. Ugh.”
“The Black Rose of the Eternal Isles, the Befouler of the Eternal, the Fire that Dances on the Graves of the Innocent,” I said, repeating some of the titles I’d heard about Ethinu in my mortal days. “The Demon Counselor, Poison Tongue, the Bitch of Belenus.”
Serah shot me a look of absolute horror. Apparently,she had expected me to react with a trifle more respect to the Oghma’s leader despite her attempting to kill us.
“I take it we’ve met before?” Ethinu asked, not showing the least bit of reaction. “I don’t recall. “Were you someone unimportant then? Yes, undoubtedly you were. I remember interesting people and the vast majority of them spend their lives very uninterestingly.”
“You were Fredericka Fireblossom then,” I said, recalling my many visits to the Eternal Isles during the war. It had been an earthly paradise of endless gardens, parties, music, and art with a populace utterly devoid of joy. “The chief counselor and closest friend to High Queen Fand. You were the one to convince her not to send magicians to back us up during the siege of Hammerhold and caused an additional ten thousand deaths both in and outside of the city.”
“Ah, yes,” Ethinu said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I do recall that period of my life. Fand was a deeply stupid girl, but useful for the few centuries she ruled until I had her strangled in her birthing bed so I could raise her daughter.”
Serah’s eyes widened at that.
I just kept my eyes level with her. “Charming.”
Ethinu showed no sign of shame. “You’d have preferred to let her husband rule? It was the perfect excuse for having him eliminated, as everyone assumed he’d had his wife
murdered. The man spent centuries buggering human boys and having them killed when they reached adulthood.”
The sad fact was that I didn’t doubt her statement in the slightest. Madness was a common affliction of the elven nobility. The only reason their peasants didn’t revolt was because they had so few remnants of their glory days left. “Which you, notably, did nothing about until a new heir was born. When I oversaw the Shadowguard, I had child rapists buried alive.”
“Which somehow gives you the moral high ground,” Ethinu said, tapping her left palm lightly with her right hand three times. “You must be so pleased with yourself.”
“I sense this conversation will be a duel of barely concealed sarcasm,” Serah said.
“You’re wrong,” Ethinu said. “I have no intention of concealing mine.”
Point to her. “We need to speak regarding the Black Sun prophecy.”
Ethinu looked down with disgust at Serah, which increased my dislike of the archmage. “I see your bride has been free with the Oghma’s secrets.”
“Far less so than I would have liked,” I replied dryly. “She is also, of the two of us, the only one who has slightest respect for you or your position. I thought I was going to be a wise and ancient magician, but now the plot thins. Jassamine spoke often of Fredericka Fireblossom and her spider-like ways, manipulating the war to drag on in places where she could derive the most political gain. If she is typical of your unseen hand, it is infinitely less subtle than I expected.”
Serah looked like she was going to die of embarrassment and horror both. Putting her hand on her face, she whispered, “Jacob—”
“Jassamine studied under me to learn how to lie, cheat, and control the minds of men as well as women. She was Emperor Edorta’s mistress, you know, before becoming his son’s. Often she would talk of how slavishly devoted you were, turning down hordes of willing maids and their mothers out of sincere devotion to a woman who would use any weapon in her arsenal to further her agenda. Men gave their lives and lands for her favor, even knowing they were nothing but a means to an end—including you.”
I crossed my arms. I knew how this game was played and was not so easily rattled as she might think. “You think I did not know this? I, who murdered men for her and did his own unpleasant things to rise to the status of Knight Paramount? I knew what kind of person she was. I just assumed I held a place in her heart regardless.”
Ethinu narrowed her eyes. “Which made you a fool.”
“Says the woman who fucked the Lawgiver.”
Ethinu smiled. “I like him, Serah. Perhaps this one might actually have some merit.”
Serah sighed and felt her head as if possessing now a monstrous headache. “If I believed in the gods, I would be praying to them to kill me now.”
“We enjoy your suffering too much.” I said.
“I have long suspected that,” Serah said.
Ethinu raised her arms and slowly levitated over the balcony bannister before moving down beside us. Ethinu used no staff, unlike most magicians, but I saw her hands were covered in almost invisible white rings made of moonlight. I suspected she had many other enhancers hidden on her persona, rendering the lack of a staff moot. Besides, she had the most powerful aura of any wizard I’d ever encountered.
If her aura is real, the Trickster said. Do not confuse chicanery with power. All too many high lords are frauds. After all, they are like kings and what makes a monarch is tinsel and lies.
You forgot swords, I said.
My, you are witty today.
“I have ever felt that those individuals who wither amongst the slightest bit of scrutiny are the least important to the grand scheme of things. Peace-makers, conciliators, and diplomats do not make the world go round. They merely provide administration for those who carve it up between them.”
“You and the Lawgiver must have gotten along famously.”
“We did, for a time. Then his arrogance and desire to control everything drove me away,” Ethinu said. “Do you possess a similar urge? Is that why you parade around as a god? You are not the new King Below. You’ve seized his power but divided it with your concubines like strong wine mixed with water.”
“Concubines? You shallow, glamour-covered, tart-dressed shitstain,” Serah growled, shocking me. “As if you have done anything but the most basic witchery in a centuries! Where were you at Accadia? Where were you at Whitehall? What battles did you fight against the old King Below or against the Nine Usurpers? How dare you mock Regina and Jacob’s accomplishments.”
Ethinu blinked, taken aback by Serah’s sudden outburst. “And you, Jacob Riverson? How do you defend yourself?”
“I wasn’t aware I had to defend myself,” I said, shrugging. “I am aware I nearly died facing the Seraph back there and am far weaker than the Lawgiver and Trickster. A god is not measured by his power alone.”
Ethinu gave me a quizzical look, genuinely intrigued. “Oh? Then what is a god measured by?”
“The love of his worshipers and how much he can help them.”
Ethinu looked torn between laughing in my face and becoming ill. “I take back any praise I have given you. Clearly you have only gotten as far as you have because of Serah.”
“I never denied it.”
“I do,” Serah said, her fury radiating outward. I half expected her to start slinging spells. “Ethinu is afraid and seeks to demoralize us with words. I am not twelve, however, and do not fear the nattering of a pointy-eared hag. Show us the damn prophecy.”
Ethinu smiled and waved her right hand, conjuring a black leatherbound book with a golden seal upon it. In the center of the book was the Black Sun symbol I’d created for my standard. I had dreamed of it during my recovery from battling Jassamine and chosen it as a more suitable icon than the old King Below’s skull and sword. Reluctantly, I took the book and began looking through it. Serah read over my shoulder and the two of us were silent for the next hour. Ethinu, mercifully, kept her commentary to a minimum and allowed us the peace of study.
I wish she hadn’t.
The Prophecy of the Black Sun by Morrigan the Lesser was shockingly free of vagueness, symbolism, or metaphor. I had always thought a proper prophecy should work as poetry as well as foretelling but this one was more like a report. The details were not always precise, but they depicted a shockingly accurate record of the past few centuries.
There were the names, dates, and parties involved in a hundred or more notable events. I read of dynasties falling, kingdoms splitting, natural disasters, and a number of peculiar events that did not seem of much note like births or marriages. These latter additions became noteworthy when I realized they were a genealogy for tracking the birth of the Nine Heroes, Jassamine, myself, Serah, Regina, and several people I hadn’t met yet.
The book, perversely, had several letters shoved inside it, along with scribbled-in annotations as if it weren’t an immensely important relic but a wizard’s cookbook. The Oghma had sought to change the prophecy at numerous points. However, history had a strange way of rebounding itself despite numerous examples of destiny being thwarted in the past.
Specific kings might die or children be smothered in their cradles only for someone nearly identical to assume their place. Many times, the self-fulfilling prophecy was in effect and it was believed Morrigan was deliberately manipulating her peers to bring about the destiny foretold. One note in the margins indicated the Oghma subjected her to torture and psychic probes to determine if this were true. In the margins, it said she’d taken her life after one particularly invasive session had removed her sanity permanently.
Charming.
In the end, the Lawgiver was presented with the prophecy during my era and had decided to weather it rather than thwart it. The King Above took the sole surviving arch-messenger, G’zaralle, and placed her spirit within a little girl as to birth her as a weapon. Such had been born Jassamine according to the prophecy. He’d then attempted to kill his own brother, the King Below, and enlist t
he Nine Heroes who were fated to destroy him. I was but a footnote in history as the prophecy ended peculiarly.
The Black Sun will be crowned in Everfrost and will raise vast armies in the aftermath of the Fifth Great Shadow War. They will conquer their foes and lay waste to the Nine Heroes. The world will suffer the Lawgiver will lead his armies to silence the Triumvirate before their power eclipses his own.
The Terrible Weapons will shatter the crust, creating vast volcanic eruptions of the like not seen since Valance the Red’s revenge, and fill the sky with ash. An ice age will exterminate all but a handful of Shadowkind and Lightborn races.
The Lawgiver and Triumvirate will fall.
I stared at the document’s end then shook my head. “You mean the past two thousand years of history has been the result of this rubbish?”
“I am a trifle more credulous,” Serah said. “Have you not seen…things…in the future?”
I had seen the end. Yes. I, however, did not believe the book’s prophecies were anything more than the manipulations of a particularly gifted oracle and the machinations of a cabal with far too much time on their hands as well as far too much power.
There were many places where it seemed they’d interpreted events to fit the idea they couldn’t thwart the prophecy. Places where things could have gone differently but they’d chosen to continue propping it up like some sort of master plan rather than the ramblings of a mad oracle.
I shook my head. “I am not going to live my life dancing on the strings of a long-dead sorceress.”
“Then I suggest you do as the Lawgiver should have done,” Ethinu said. “Avert the prophecy. The destruction of everything suits neither of us. He has decided to ride it out. Jassamine will take its place with his most fanatical followers preserved in great temples under the ground through the worst of the disaster.”
That made a disturbing amount of sense of the Nine Usurper’s recent actions. “And how do you think I should avert this? I am less than impressed with your efforts so far. I think I would do better to try and avert it my own way and pay less attention to your mad oracle.”
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