War God's Will

by Matthew P Gilbert

  The Master’s cackling ceased as the thing sucked in a gasp of shock and fear, but it could only watch as the liquid crept up its arm. Wherever the blood touched, the thing’s flesh smoked and peeled, burning. The Master whimpered, then moaned, then let loose an unearthly scream of horror and despair as withering, ashen flame coursed and coruscated over its body. The scream rose in pitch until it was nothing but a shrill keening, a horrific sound that pierced Aiul’s ears like spikes.

  It went on for far too long, then stopped like the snap of a noose. Aiul smiled as the Master of Torium, seeming confused as to how things had come to this, collapsed to the floor, a heap of smoldering, charred, dead meat.

  Outside, Aiul could hear the other Torians gathering, roaring in frustration and rage. A series of blows rang against the doors, and Aiul knew it would not take the creatures long to get through.

  I don’t really know the limits of this thing, but I am about to find out. The symbol flashed again in his vision. Aiul laughed, as he was struck with a clarity he had not known since the day Lara had died.

  “‘In such a moment, one might find true freedom, had he the will’” he whispered, and leapt into the pool.

  He rose from the black waters, the liquid clinging to him now like a garment, and raised his hands above his head, his own vicious laughter drowning out the battering against the doors. The half-glimpsed symbol in his mind danced in his vision, fully realized. He understood it, at last, and it was beautiful.

  This is why he sent us. It’s not merely possible: it was Elgar’s plan from the start!

  “Rise!” he cried, his voice his own, but possessed of the same multi-sensory nature as Elgar’s. He shouted loud enough to shake the very foundations of the mighty fortress, “Rise and remember!”

  Aiul saw Logrus haul himself up on the edge of the black pool. The hunter gaped in shock at the audacity of Aiul’s decision for a moment, then smiled and nodded in approval, as if he understood that the fight was over and they had won, even before the final battle began.

  The full wrath of Elgar be upon all of you, vermin.

  The first scream was a woman’s. The battering against the door stopped, and the rumbles of Torian voices filled the air. Another scream came, a man’s, then another, and yet another, dozens becoming hundreds and then thousands, echoing throughout Torium and merging into the chilling wail of a legion, wretched, vengeful cries.

  Aiul and Logrus watched as the surface of the black pool filled with light and images. Somehow, it was showing them what was going on outside the doors. They stared in amazement as vengeance of the ages was served cold, the wrath of Elgar poured in full measure on the heads of the wicked.

  The battered and broken corpses came from every corner, limping, crawling, and clawing their way forward, an army of undead the like of which the world had never seen. The Torians raised their claws in a vain attempt to fend off their former victims, but it was useless. They slashed about them, sending the nearest corpses flying, shredded, but the dead would not rest. Severed limbs groped their way forward, still full of hate, and tore at their tormentors as ever more of the dead came to have their vengeance. The Torians were quickly overwhelmed, rent, ripped, and smashed in an orgy of destruction and rage.

  When it was done, the dead stood or lay as their frames permitted, some clutching at ruined family members, others sobbing quietly. There was no true joy to be seen, only grim satisfaction and weariness of soul. The image in the pool faded, and the face rose to the surface again to speak: “Open to them. I will give them what they need.”

  Aiul gave Logrus an uncertain look, and Logrus answered with a confident nod. Without a word, Aiul crossed to the door lever and hauled on it. It squealed in mild protest, but the doors opened to reveal the dead, just as they were in the images the pool had shown, still waiting for the peace that had eluded them for centuries.

  “Rest, now,” the face said. Without a sound, the face melted away, and the black liquid in the pool began to rise even as it retreated from Aiul, leaving him untouched once again. The pool overflowed and spilled onto the floor, the liquid seeming more alive than ever as it flowed toward the waiting figures.

  Those of the dead who were capable of showing emotion smiled at the sight. Slowly, any that were standing sank to the floor and lay quietly, awaiting the black tide as it rolled in. They did not resist as it reached for them, grasped them, and pulled them down to become one with it.

  Slowly, it moved across the huge room, expanding until it covered the floor as far as Aiul could see, drawing them in, melting them into itself. Aiul could not count them all, but he knew there were thousands, each part of a depraved magnum opus. The Torians had spent an eon in singular pursuit of their twisted ‘art’. All that suffering. And to think, I didn’t believe there was a god to set such things right.

  At last, it was done, leaving the floor littered only with the shattered remains of the Torians, and Aiul had no problem leaving their corpses to rot. The blood began a slow retreat back to the pool, a tide of black tar rolling out. As it drew itself back into the font, Aiul called to Logrus, “We’re done here. Let’s quit this tomb.”

  Hearing no answer, he turned to see Logrus lying insensate on the floor by the pool, dead or alive, he had no idea. Aiul started for the man he had come to think of as a friend, knowing Logrus needed aid, but found he had problems of his own.

  The weariness swept over him as it had each time he had exerted himself like this. Aiul swooned, knowing Logrus might well bleed out, and yet he had nothing left to work with, no energy to even move. He’s always certain he won’t die. Hopefully, he’s right.

  Aiul sank to his knees, then to the floor, vision darkening, and wondered idly if this were the end for both of them. As he settled on the stones, he found he could not bring himself to care it if were. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and smiled that he smelled only decay. The oppressive, palpable evil and terror of Torium had been burned away by Elgar’s power, and thousands had been avenged.

  If it cost us our lives, so be it. It was worth the price.

  There, in the depths of Torium, for the first time since the Southlanders had come to Nihlos, Aiul found a small moment of peace.

  Chapter 14

  Some Assembly Required

  Maranath staggered as the magical shockwave tore through Torium. “Mei!” He cast about, trying to gain some sense of what had happened, but all he knew for the moment was that it had been intense.

  Maklin, too, had felt it. “That was as powerful as the one in Nihlos!”

  Maranath shook his head. “They’re up to something, certainly. But what...” He trailed off as his attention was diverted. “Mei! He moved!”

  Maklin gave him a cautious look. “Who moved?”

  “Lothrian! His hand twitched!”

  Maklin scoffed and waved a hand. “Impossible. He’s dead.” He paused and rubbed his chin, considering. “Maybe a reaction to that wave that tore through here.”

  “More than a reaction!” Maranath shouted, as one of the hideous creatures lumbered to its feet and rushed the glass display case. Shards exploded in every direction as its ponderous bulk crashed into the glass and kept coming.

  Maklin gave a sharp shriek and staggered backwards, arms pinwheeling to stay balanced and upright as the putrid mass of flesh lurched toward him, mouths gibbering, tentacles whipping back and forth.

  Maranath felt a brief moment of panic at the sight of more creatures stirring to life, and an even greater sense that what sanity he actually had was slipping away through the cracks in the floor. These abominations shouldn’t even exist! Yet they did, and more so, they had come back to life after being dead!

  Three more of them were on their feet now, slowly finding their balance. One howled and lumbered in his direction, its putrid bulk towering over him like an angry god.

  It can’t be. This is some sort of trap. They are mortal, and we can kill them. He held firm to that notion as he gathered his wits and prep
ared to fight, but was interrupted as his assailant’s ‘head’ imploded in a spray of gore and bone.

  Again, Maranath reeled, trying to conform his mind to the reality before him. Lothrian, eyes blazing, stood behind the creature, fist clenched as if he had physically crushed the creature’s head with his own hand, beaming a vicious grin of triumph.

  Maklin seemed to suddenly remember he could fly and danced upward, barely avoiding the swipe of a meaty claw.

  Maranath, recovered from his brief confusion, felt real anger rising within him, boiling to the surface. In a blaze of fury, he swept his hand through the air, sending a pair of the fiends flying to splatter into paste against the far wall.

  “Bravo!” shouted Lothrian. He swept a hand through the air in a vicious slash and cleft another of the monsters in two.

  By now, all of them were up and about. The one with a spear lunged at Lothrian, but at the last moment, Lothrian sensed him and spun. The spear caught Lothrian’s robe and tore it open. In return, Lothrian backhanded him against the wall with another splatter of blood.

  Maklin hacked and spat a glob of phlegm at one of the creatures. It landed in the middle of the thing’s forehead and dripped down as the beast roared in fury. Maklin cackled and hovered just out of reach, taunting the thing. True to his nature, he did little else as Maranath and Lothrian shredded the remaining creatures.

  When it was done, Lothrian clapped softly and laughed out loud. “Oh, well done!”

  Maranath started to speak, and realized he had no idea what to say. Here stood before him his old friend, dead a hundred years, and now alive again, and not a day older than Maranath remembered him. He looks younger than Prandil!

  As Maranath struggled to find words, his eyes picked out a few details that he had initially missed. Lothrian was deathly pale, and his rent robe showed a very obviously fatal wound beneath. So not resurrected. Undead. Not that that’s really any less strange, but at least we’ve seen this recently.

  After a moment of hesitation, he turned to Maklin and said, “I’ll let you explain this.”

  Maklin lowered himself to the ground, scowling. “Me? Why me?”

  “You’re the one who understands how things work.”

  “Mechanical things, not the walking dead!”

  Maranath held up both hands and made shushing noises.

  Lothrian chuckled. “You two remind me of some friends of mine. I’m afraid you’re mistaken, though.” He gestured at the monstrous corpses. “They were very much alive, with emphasis on the past tense.”

  Maranath shot Maklin a glare and Maklin rolled his eyes, prompting another laugh from Lothrian.

  Maklin’s shoulders slumped. He hocked phlegm and spat on the ground. “Well, Lothrian, you see—”

  Lothrian’s reaction was immediate. He went from relaxed to a combat stance in an instant. “How do you know my name, old man? What trickery is this?”

  Maklin sighed as if he simply could not be any more bored or put upon, and pointed a gnarled finger at the plaque, which was now on the floor, but face up and still legible.

  Maranath said cautiously, “We did just save your life.”

  Maklin grunted. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

  “I think you overstate that a bit, Grandfather. I had things under control.” Lothrian looked back and forth at them and the plaque, his eyes trying to point in three directions at once. “You’re clearly Meites, and that disturbs me, because I should know you, and I don’t. Back up. Both of you.”

  Maranath stepped back and frowned. “Getting colder now.”

  Maklin began coughing again, and managed to gasp out, “Just read the damned thing, idiot.” Maranath shot him another glare, but realized it was pointless. Maklin was basically immune to shame or any matter of civility. He would just have to play this as best he could.

  Lothrian, too, stepped back, trying to read the plaque while keeping both of them in his line of sight. Maklin began to rub at his chest, as if he were trying to communicate to Lothrian that he’d spilled food on his shirt.

  Maranath, struggling against the urgent need to throttle Maklin, tried another tack. “It’s a bit complicated. Perhaps you should sit down for a moment, eh?”

  Lothrian turned back to them as the whole of Torium filled with wails and screams, his face now so pale that Maranath couldn’t believe he had been fooled into thinking he was a living man. Lothrian looked at them, eyes wide with horror, and pointed at Maranath. “What is your name?”

  Maranath tried to give his old friend as kind and understanding a smile as possible, to cushion the blow. “Maranath. And this is Maklin.”

  Lothrian staggered briefly, swooning and blinking rapidly as he absorbed his new reality. After a moment, he sat on one of the small ziggurat steps and cradled his head in his hands, covering his face. “Mei. How long?”

  Maranath grunted. “A hundred years, give or take. Ariano hasn’t been too forthcoming about what happened here, to be honest.”

  Lothrian looked up at them suddenly. “Ariano? She lives?”

  “Prepare yourself, Lothrian. She’s not the same.”

  Lothrian’s eyes narrowed. “Was she injured? Maimed?”

  Maklin shook his head, exasperated. “No, you idiot, she’s old and wrinkled like the rest of us. Well, except for you.”

  Despite everything, Lothrian cast Maklin a glare and muttered, “The years certainly haven’t improved you.”

  “I’m consistent,” Maklin answered. “I never much liked you, either, being honest.”

  Lothrian offered him a sour look. “You say that as if it’s some great revelation. I was well aware of that when you were young.”

  Maranath chuckled. “He never much liked anyone, and he was never young, he was just less old.”

  Lothrian voiced a soft, wry chuckle. “Well, one thing is certain. You two are indeed who you claim to be. So how came you to Torium? Please tell me there was a reason beyond mocking what obviously turned out to be my tremendous failure?” He prodded at the hole in his chest gingerly, as if expecting it to be painful, then actually spread the wound open and raised an eyebrow. “I think this goes all the way through. I can literally see light.”

  Maklin hacked and spat again. “You know you’re a zombie now, right?”

  Maranath again suppressed the urge to choke his old friend into silence. “Listen, there’s a lot to talk about.”

  “I am not a damned zombie!” Lothrian shouted at Maklin.

  Maranath plunged onward. “We think it’s the time of the prophecy.”

  Maklin waved a hand. “You just said it yourself! You have a hole all the way through, man! What would you call it?”

  Lothrian opened his mouth to shout, then closed it again and fell silent, staring at the floor for long moments. “I don’t even understand what is happening.”

  Maranath rapped his staff against the floor with a loud crack. “That’s what I am trying to explain, if the two of you would shut up long enough to let me!”

  The sudden silence that ensued as Lothrian and Maklin lowered their gazes to the ground was enough to remind them of the wailing and screeching coming from somewhere nearby.

  Maranath gave them both a hard look. “Yes. Listen! This is not a game! I don’t know what that screaming represents, but it’s significant, and we need to put our heads together or this may well be our last squabble!”

  With both of them chagrined and quiet, Maranath was at last able to relate the events of late to Lothrian: the coming of the Southlanders, Aiul’s rebellion and subsequent departure from Nihlos, their desperate battle against Elgar’s minions, and their tenuous alliance with the Southlanders. “Their leader is a seer, and he’s convinced it ends here, for good or ill,” he finished.

  Lothrian did not look up when he spoke, his voice flat and emotionless. “And Aiul?”

  “He’s here,” Maklin said, his face and voice grave and unflinching. “We haven’t seen him, but we’ve seen his work. It matches what he did
in Nihlos. So do you.”

  “And the piece of the eye from Nihlos is here with him?”

  Maranath nodded. “We think so. Not much point in taking it otherwise.”

  Maklin pointed a finger at Lothrian. “Which brings us to the next point: where is the piece you took from the dragon?”

  Lothrian reached absently into his torn robe. “Gone. Not surprising, really. Surely they knew what they had.”

  Maranath waited a moment, expecting Lothrian to continue, but his old friend remained silent, still staring at the floor. “Lothrian, we hardly expected to find you here, but now that we have, it means something. Have you nothing to add?”

  “What would you have of me?”

  “You’ve studied the prophecy more than anyone! Surely you must have some insight?”

  Lothrian looked up at him, his eyes clouded and distant, full of mistrust. “First, tell me what you came here to do.”

  Maklin stamped a foot. “To put a stop to this damned prophecy if we can! What do you think we had in mind? A picnic?”

  Lothrian ignored Maklin and continued looking at Maranath. “What do you intend for Aiul?”

  Maranath rubbed at his temple, a pained expression on his face. “I’ve promised Ariano she’ll be the one to make that decision. But believe me, Lothrian, I would never harm the boy if there is any other way. He’s like a son to me.”

  Lothrian sneered. “Is he, now? And what is Ariano ‘like’ to you, hmm? Did you leave me anything?”

  Maklin scoffed. “I told you, she’s wrinkled and old. Trust me, it’s no loss.”

  Lothrian turned on him in fury. “It’s my whole life, you ass!”

  Maklin’s jaw clenched a moment, and he shot back, “No! Your life ended here, by your own doing! Don’t blame us for carrying on.”

  Lothrian accepted the rebuke, grimacing as he struggled to master himself. “I understand. No one expected this, least of all me. It will take some time to adjust.”