War God's Will

by Matthew P Gilbert

  Amrath stood, fists clenched before him, eyes blazing sapphire rage and frustration, looking about for something, anything he could use as a bludgeon. At last, he settled on one of several buildings made of huge blocks of normal stone. Tasinal wondered idly why they weren’t also composed of the same odd, airy substance the walls and pyramids used and what purpose they served, but it hardly mattered. They had a new purpose now.

  The building came apart under Amrath’s will. The great stones, any of which would have made fine monoliths, each weighed tons, but they rose into the air and began circling overhead like dust motes under Amrath's control, until, one by one, they fell toward the enchanted wall.

  Noril followed suit. Another of the buildings began to disassemble itself and fling its bones at the Torian sanctum. Tasinal rose and walked to Amrath, placing a hand on his shoulder and joining his own impatience and frustration to his mentor’s. One by one, the rest of the Council joined them, lending their will and emotion to Amrath and Noril, until the Council of Twelve's full power coursed through their chosen two.

  The blocks fell from the sky like meteors, accelerating far beyond the force of mere gravity. The earth shook from their blows, and many of the rocks shattered against the wall, sending deadly shrapnel into the ranks of the Meites, who simply refused to accept it as lethal. It tore the land, the trees, even the stones around the sorcerers, but it did not touch them at all.

  The wall wavered and wailed under the assault. Cracks began to spread on its surface, bleeding brilliant pink light like wounds in flesh. It's dying. Hopefully we don't run out of boulders before it keels over.

  Amrath and Noril held up their barrage until all of their missiles had shattered, then paused to observe their work. Amrath's eyes sparkled with glee as he dipped a finger into the cracks on the sagging wall. “I'll let you do the honors,” he told Noril with a bow.

  Noril flashed a vicious grin at Yorn, his eyes lit with madness. “You said to use my head, weakling. Watch how I do it!” He reared back, thrust his upper body forward like a battering ram, and hammered his forehead through the shattered wall to thunderous applause.

  It will go badly for the Torians, no matter how strong their magic. If they are smart, they will flee us.

  It never occurred to Tasinal that flight might simply not be an option for anyone.

  Naritas howled in rage and fear as one of his assistants exploded into a pool of gore beneath another falling block of stone. Al Asad still hesitated!

  “We will all die here!” Naritas shrieked, unable to maintain his charade any longer. “Your sacrifice will be for nothing! You must finish the task!”

  Yet al Asad did not move. He still stared at the dagger point, contemplating eternity while the plan fell to ruin. So much dust stirred around him, it almost appeared as if he were on fire, or steaming. He wore a dark grin, somehow amused by all of this. He's gone mad. I will have to act for him.

  It was not, strictly speaking, the correct way, but Naritas felt the odds were with him. The pool itself should have been abomination enough to draw the attention of the god of vengeance. Convincing al Asad to mutilate himself had always been more of an insurance policy than an actual necessity, but what could not be dispensed with was his remaining eye! Naritas needed the blood of true believers, and the eyes of a man with vision to complete the trap, and he could wait no longer.

  With a cry of abandon, the mage charged al Asad, intending to ram the blade in himself, but al Asad raised his free hand with blinding speed, seized Naritas by the throat, and lifted him into the air.

  Naritas felt as if he had been beheaded, so strong was al Asad's strike. Breathing was impossible. He could only claw in vain at the iron grip that held him aloft, kicking his legs, unable to understand how this was happening.

  Al Asad leered, slowly turning his head to face Naritas with a wicked grin. The gaping, bloody socket was still dripping blood, but it was not the only source. Blood ran freely from al Asad's nose and ears as well, and from the one remaining eye.

  That eye, completely black, rolled in its socket like a window into oblivion as it regarded Naritas. With a cruel laugh, al Asad dropped the knife to the floor.

  “I will show you will, mortal,” he said, his voice an unearthly hiss, fingernails on slate for every sense Naritas possessed. The Master of Torium writhed in his captor’s grasp as al Asad raised his free hand to his remaining eye. Naritas watched in suffocating horror as al Asad dug his fingers into the socket and tore the orb from his own head, still cackling. Steam and blood gouted from the wound and spattered over Naritas's face as the grinning madman snapped his own eye loose from the trailing nerves with a jerk of his hand.

  Al Asad continued to regard him with bleeding, empty sockets, as if his vision were fully functional. “Your death will be legendary, cockroach.”

  Naritas felt his soul twist in terror as the words tore at his nerves and his mind, burning holes into his deepest being, driving the truth home as painfully as possible:

  Elgar had arrived early.

  Noril made certain to be the first through the breach, but Tasinal came quickly behind him, eager for the fight. I may not be able to hurl mountains as well as the two of you, but I can damned well pound skulls with the best.

  They entered a massive chamber, then followed a tunnel a brief distance to the ritual room proper. At first, it was nearly impossible to see anything but billowing dust and darkness. Stepping from broad daylight into the pit was like crossing from noon to midnight. Tasinal quickly realized he could see well enough despite the light change, and the details of the inner sanctum resolved themselves into stark, lurid detail.

  He has no eyes! That fact leapt out at Tasinal before anything else, even before the bloody corpse the stranger held by its throat, or the fact that the stranger was a Southlander. The eyeless man, if 'man' were the right word, was in poor shape all around. Blood ran from his nose, mouth, and ears, and Tasinal was fairly certain gouts of steam were jetting from the gaping eye sockets. He looked for all the world as if he were being cooked from the inside out. His dreadlocks trailed smoke, as if about to burst into flame.

  “Yes,” the figure said, the voice an unearthly imposition of order on sounds not meant for the role. “It is the nature of things. Your flesh was not meant to contain such energies.”

  “Who are you?” Noril demanded.

  Amrath entered behind them, blinking in the darkness, and gasped. “Mei! What have they done?”

  The figure before them whipped its head around at Amrath, fixing him with its empty stare. “Ah, I see now. You are my brother's children. Leave. Now. This is not your concern.”

  Noril shouted at the top of his lungs, “Who are you?”

  The Southlander looked about as if he were confused. “I am...” he began, then trailed off. “Avenger?”

  Strall, the Council’s resident expert on gods and other such matters, forced his way forward, and called in a high-pitched voice, nearly a squeal, “Tread carefully, fool! Do you even understand the enormity of what you’re dealing with?”

  Noril sneered at Strall a moment, as Amrath said softly, “A fundamental force of the universe. Implacable. Amazing.”

  “It can swat us like bugs!” Strall warned.

  “I am Destroyer?”

  Yorn heaved a great sigh. “We are all well aware of this, Strall, or did you forget why we came here to begin with?”

  Strall glared back and forth at them and pointed his finger at one then the other, waving it about as it were simultaneously a weapon and a shield. “I'm just making certain you fools don't set it off!”

  “Leave,” the Southlander ordered. “This is not your concern.”

  “I'm afraid it is,” Tasinal said. “We're here to put an end to these madmen.”

  “No. That will not be necessary. They will suffer first.”

  Idlic, whose chief contribution to the Council was a poison pen and razor-edged tongue, grunted and gestured to the empty chamber. “'They' w
ould seem to be absent from the situation. I see only their greatest fool. Where are his little toads?”

  “Cowering within. I will see to them soon enough. I would entertain myself more with this one for a while. His agony has just begun.”

  Tasinal looked closer at what he had thought to be a corpse. The man's face was black from lack of oxygen. Clearly, the life had been choked from him, and yet he still lived. Bleeding, mad eyes rolled in their sockets, begging, pleading for something. Not from us, black magus. We'd have been quicker about what he's doing, but it would have wound up the same. I'm certainly not feeling bad enough about your suffering to intervene and piss this fellow off. He looked at Amrath and asked, “What now?”

  Amrath shot Tasinal an annoyed glance, but before he could speak, the figure before them staggered, one knee buckling, and he dropped his grisly toy to clamp his hands to his head as if trying to hold it together. Tasinal stepped back in alarm as fresh blood burst from the Southlander's nose and eye sockets, dark and steaming.

  Naritas landed with a thud, sucked in air in a long, wheezing squeal, and immediately began a slow-motion struggle to scramble away on shattered limbs. Tasinal delivered a kick to his ribs, to no effect. Of course not. I doubt there is anything I could do to him now that he would feel. Crawl away, roach. We'll crush you underfoot soon enough, when this situation is resolved.

  Noril, seeing his chance, again demanded, “Who are you?”

  For long moments, the Southlander stood, hands to his head, trembling as if holding his entire body together only by some tremendous effort. The Meites watched the spectacle in stunned silence. For once, a group of Meites have stopped bickering for more than a few moments. It really is a day of miracles.

  At last, the Southlander spoke. “I have many names. Destroyer. Violator. Monster. Hater. Elgar.”

  Strall's eyes grew wide as he heard this. “No! That is not true!”

  “What do you know of truth?”

  Strall actually had the temerity to put his hands on his narrow hips and lean forward in a lecturing pose. Mei! And after berating the others for being incautious! He’s glorious!

  “I know enough to know contradiction when I hear it.” Strall said. “Elgar is the avenger. He destroys the things of which you speak!”

  If Elgar took offense to Strall’s tone, he showed no sign of it, simply stared a moment as if in deep thought, then answered, “What you say is true. What I say is true.”

  “But it can't be!” Strall insisted, waving his hands about, clearly irked now. Ever the pedant, eh? Mei forbid anyone be under the delusion that there was some fact on which you were in error.

  “It's like peaceful war!” Strall shouted. “You are anathema to your own self! How can such contradictions coexist in a mind? It would drive one...” Strall trailed off mid-sentence, his face growing deathly pale.

  Elgar grinned, blood dripping from his lips, and completed Strall's words. “Mad. Yes. Completely.”

  Tasinal was just beginning to consider the implications when he spied movement from the corner of his eye. Naritas had made his way across the room, hauled his shattered body onto the ledge of a font there, and was reaching slowly for a golden lion that stood within. What are you up to, wretch?

  A part of Tasinal knew it was already too late, though he had no idea why. He watched Naritas grasp at the lion’s face, not understanding the significance, but feeling the magic of the act, its significance mysterious, but its moment unquestionable. Tasinal slashed a hand at the mage, sending a fallen block of stone hurtling at him, and commanded, “Stop!”

  Naritas pushed something into the golden lion’s eye just as the stone smashed him to paste against the statue with a resounding, wet thud, as if a block of lead had been pushed from a tower and landed on someone below. The stone's impact sent gore and the contents of the font flying against the walls, and cracked the statue’s head loose from the body along a seam.

  Green, malevolent light spilled from the lion’s eyes, filling the room as the head lolled to one side. Naritas’s minions, now illuminated, cowered behind a fallen section of ceiling. They regarded Tasinal in a mixture of triumph and horror as the lion’s head tilted, then slid with gathering speed from the shattered statue into the font water, the eerie glow barely dulled even when covered with—

  Tasinal shuddered as the liquid splashed against his lips, the salty, copper taste unmistakable. Blood. Mei, it's not water, it's blood! He staggered backward, reeling in horror, as Elgar began to scream.

  “Amrath!” Tasinal cried out, feeling his pulse pounding in his temples as he began to understand what sort of abominable work the Torians had been doing. “We must escape at once!”

  Amrath gave no indication he heard as Elgar’s cry rose in power like the shriek of a tornado, filling the room, battering at their ears like sledge hammers.

  Even Noril leapt back from the shattered god as the body Elgar wore began to glow, rents in the flesh appearing as if the pressure within were too great to be contained any longer. The scream went on and on, ever rising, as brilliant, orange light burst from straining flesh like lava forcing its way to the surface, guttering like flame over him, brighter than the sun.

  Tasinal, his eyes already adjusted to the green brilliance, watched in horror and fascination as the orange light poured from Elgar and flowed, as if caught in a current, into the Black Pool. The dark blood, lit from below, seemed to suck hungrily at the energy, drawing it down into its center in a vortex, until at last, the scream stopped, and the light faded to dark.

  Elgar fell to his knees and whispered, “Come to me, my children. Aid me. Use their flesh as your own.”

  As the surface of the Black Pool begin to stretch and warp, Tasinal decided he had seen enough. He charged back to the others and grabbed Amrath by the shoulders. “We need to get out of here! Now!”

  “No,” said Elgar. From the tunnel came a grinding and crashing, the sound of tons of stone collapsing. “You will stay and witness.” Dust from the collapse billowed into the ritual chamber. Strall coughed while Idlic sneered and brushed dust from his shoulder.

  The Council’s spymaster, Prosin, moved toward the Black Pool for a better look, then stepped back again quickly, his keen, glittering eyes watching intently as the blood within the font continued to rise, then overflow. It scored the stone where it touched, smoking and popping along the edges of the expanding flow. “We'll want to stand clear of that, I should think,” Prosin announced to no one in particular.

  Tasinal snorted. “You think, weasel?” He has the soul of a rodent, and the look of one, too.

  Prosin gave Tasinal a nasty smile, then followed with a tiny bow and flourish. “I volunteer you to test it, Tasinal. Go on, glorious leader, take one for the team. For science.”

  Amrath cast a cool glare across the room, to Naritas's students, who were still in a state of shock. “I have a better idea.”

  Aswan slapped Noril on the back and answered with a dark chuckle, “Oh, I like it.”

  Noril wasted no time with discussion, simply pursed his lips and began to blow at the rapidly spreading vitriol. Sensible. Practical. Smashes stones with his head to prove points. Blows toxic sludge away like he's the damned Big Bad Wolf. Why can't I do things that way?

  Of course, Tasinal could, once he let himself get caught up in Noril's showmanship. It was ridiculous, and yet once he saw it, he felt it, and once he felt how obvious it was, how simple, he could do it as well. Tasinal had always needed something else, some sense of purpose, of moment. Noril simply needed to be a ham. It was almost as if the more ridiculous and outrageous the proposition, the more power he could draw from it.

  Soon they were all doing it. The force of their breath became a small gale, pushing the caustic liquid away from them, and toward Naritas's adepts. The students began to whimper, then wail in terror, cringing against the wall, some hammering their fists against it in vain, others simply turning their heads and accepting their fates. The Torians could be quite pow
erful and dangerous, given time to prepare, but they did not respond well to exigent situations, most especially since all their preparation had been for something entirely different. I doubt any of them came down here thinking they would be dissolved by their own mad handiwork. So lovely!

  Elgar remained on his knees, empty sockets turned up to regard the carved stonework on the ceiling, his face blank, devoid of emotion. The Black Pool continued to overflow, and the Meites forced it away. The creeping doom slowly engulfed the adepts, one by one. Their screams of terror and agony seemed to please Elgar. A broad smile crept across his otherwise serene face as the fluid literally melted the flesh from the bones of the Torians, then took the bones as well, drawing everything down into the viscous flow. Even their clothing and personal effects were consumed, leaving no trace of them at all.

  Elgar sat in silence a moment, then called out, “Now, rise, my children.”

  The Black Pool sank back to its previous level, leaving the rest of the blood still undulating on the floor. It split, then, into a dozen or so parts, each separating and slowly taking on human form. Within moments, each was a heavily armed Southlander, but pale, deathly so, lying in repose on the floor. In unison they rose and stood in silence, watching with eyes black as coal.

  Elgar grinned at the Meites. “Behold the Fallen. They are here to bear witness.”

  “What will they be witnessing, I wonder,” Amrath said.

  Elgar spoke without hesitation. “You will see.” He rose slowly, his shattered body barely able to stand, and shambled to the black pool. He plunged his hand beneath the surface and rooted about, then withdrew it, empty handed. Where the blood had touched his arm, the flesh was whole and new, but pale like the Fallen, the flesh of a corpse. Not a drop clung to it, now. Elgar grunted and then leapt into the Black Pool, dipping completely beneath the liquid within. A moment later, the base of the lion statue, minus its head, came hurtling from beneath the surface with enough force to embed itself firmly in the ceiling of the ritual chamber.