“Ha ha ha! Mage! Did you really believe you would find no opposition like mine? I am a vorwraith! I am one of Mórgomiel’s chieftains! I am helping the All-Powerful to conquer little worlds like this one! You can do nothing against me, you mere mage. You will see that you are consumed by the Black Arts.”
The possessed Iptaan launched two spells that killed two of the five Catalgar, melting them in a pool of skin and flesh.
Elgahar put his hands on the ground and released an expansive wave of blue energy. The world seemed to shake and several trees fell, disemboweling some fifteen Huargs in the process. But although the wave shook the demon and a thick trunk bruised its flesh, it remained upright, attacking ferociously.
Things were not going well. Elgahar was desperate and had already used a lot of his energy. Elgahar drank from the potions he carried but he was running out of his supply and out of energy. He had not come prepared for an attack like this, and he would have liked to have brought food and drink to be able to recover a little. This demon was too strong and if he did not do something quickly, he would lose the battle. If he lost the battle, they would all die.
He only had one option left. The dark mage seemed to be able to wield enough power to counter every one of his spells. He closed his eyes and withdrew inside his mind. The Committee took this as a bad sign as the mage appeared to be asleep. He had gone so pale that it even looked as though he had died.
“Wake the mage!” Khad’Un cried.
“No! Let him be!” Chirllrp said. “Didn’t you see him when he defeated the dragon at the gate of Árath? He did the same thing. Let him concentrate!”
Elgahar knew that if Mórgomiel had fused a demon with the soul of a human, he must have used a strong spell. If he could understand how the spell kept the evil spirit and the human’s essence together, thus allowing the spirit to manifest itself outside the Interim, he could unmake the spell and separate the demon from the human.
He watched with the fingers of his mind, entering the demon to study it. The body of the human was still inside it, although largely dissolved as if the presence of the demon had eaten away its flesh.
When the mage opened his eyes, he was being dragged away from the demon. He stood up and stretched his hands, beginning a powerful spell.
“Elgahar! We’ve got to retreat! They’re making mincemeat of us!”
“Mage!” the demon shouted. With impossible agility, the possessed Iptaan reached the mage and stabbed him in the leg with his sword just as he released the spell of dissolution. Elgahar’s hands shone sky-blue and two seconds later, the Iptaan’s dead body froze immobile by his side, and then fell to the ground.
Smoke began to pour from it and a cry of pain followed. The spirit was being sucked back to the Interim, having been separated from the essence of the human it had been fused with. “You will pay, mage! You will pay for this!”
A portion of the smoke that billowed from the body of the Iptaan condensed on the ground and over a pool of black liquid, there appeared the bruised body of what had once been a human. It was still breathing with audible shrieks and it was clear that it was suffering. It tried to say something but before it could utter anything comprehensible, the body melted and it died.
Elgahar cried out in pain, for the boiling sword had burnt his flesh and wounded him seriously. Over and above the physical harm, he had been contaminated by the poison of the spirit’s essence.
Merkas ran to the mage to help him. “Elgahar! He’s wounded!” Khad’Un and Ushka helped the mage to his feet.
“Turi!” Funia cried. “It can’t be! It can’t be.” The thief searched among the dead bodies, finding pieces of he-goat and Huarg, but not of a human. Could he have been devoured? Destroyed and made into dinner?
“Have you seen Turi? Anybody?” Nobody replied and instead lowered their gaze to the ground as if admitting he must be dead.
Ekimidos was the only centurion left alive. The Yundal who were still breathing were quickly dispatched by the Committee. The goats who were suffering and for whom there was no hope, they were given a swift death. Those who had died with their eyes open had their lids closed and were wished a happy journey to the next life.
“Go and fly to Last Faroos where I pray you will meet ArD’Buror,” Ekimidos murmured as he took his leave of each of the he-goats before stabbing them in the heart to speed their death. Unfortunately, none of them could be saved, not even with the best medicine.
“Were you looking for this?” someone said. In his hands, he was holding a flask with a cork stopper containing a potion. This potion was blue and seemed to be boiling.
“Turi!” Funia cried, her voice full of maternal concern. “What the hell have you been doing? Where the hell were you?”
“The Fire of Yoshto!” Ekimidos cried. There were tears in his eyes. “Iptaan, by the grace of ArD’Buror, we found it! Your sacrifice was not in vain.”
Beside Turi, Tenchi came flying, and behind them came a figure that could not have been more than half a stride tall. Its pale, wrinkled skin left no doubt that the figure had lived for a long time. This little person was floating in the air thanks to four small golden wings and was dressed in green with a pointed hat of the same color.
“I am Amana,” she said. “The last fairy of Ewald who has not been tempted by evil.” She indicated towards Elgahar. “Help that one.”
Nobody had noticed that the mage had fainted into the arms of Ushka and Khad’Un. The mage was very pale and was breathing with difficulty.
“Come.” The fairy pointed the way, flying a stride above the ground. “The pegasus will be waiting for us at the edge of the forest. We must not delay.”
“Amana! At last! I can’t believe it,” Ekimidos stammered, losing control of his emotions. “Wait! We must bury the Iptaan’s body!”
“Come, my dear Centurion. There is no time to bury anybody. You know full well there are more Huargs around. The bodies fallen on the battlefield must stay there or else you condemn their souls forever. You know the rules. Do not change them simply because of the death of your leader.
“Orx has been beaten! At last, his reign of terror has ended. I doubt the Yundal will take it just like that without seeking revenge. You know they will attack as soon as they have chosen a new leader. Those creatures have sworn their union to Chaos. They are Mórgomiel’s servants, eternally faithful to him, and without doubt, a new vorwraith will be sent to lead the mission of extermination they have been ordered to carry out. We must act swiftly.”
“A vorwraith?” Amon Ras repeated.
Amana looked Amon Ras up and down. “Human, I see,” she said. Then she turned her gaze to Merkas, Khad’Un, Unna, and Funia. “A group led by humans. Very interesting. And you. A Naevas Aedán… even more interesting.” She gave a grimace that frightened Tenchi. “A vorwraith, my friends, is one of Mórgomiel’s most dreaded assassins,” she explained as she studied each member of the group.
“What the hell have you done, Turi?” Funia demanded of her nephew. She nodded in the direction of Amana, who was leading the group back to the forest’s edge.
“The fairy was waiting for me,” the young man said. He was walking with the potion in his hands. “She knew we were coming to look for this: the Fire of Yoshto.”
Chapter XXXVII — Stern
Mégalath closed his eyes and raised his head and claws to the sky as if worshiping someone or something. His body began to shine with a powerful blue radiance. Small lights, thousands of them, appeared around his body like sparks although instead of vanishing, they gyrated around the beast at an ever-increasing speed.
The dragon’s body began to sizzle, then fade in and out of dimensions, as indicated by the way parts of his body appeared or disappeared. The energy gyrating around his body accelerated and the noise this produced became deafening. Mérdmerén was reminded of the sound of an angry swarm of bees. Suddenly the dragon’s whole body began to turn pale until it had been completely replaced by blue dust. His silhouet
te was still clear, although it had lost much of its detail.
“I’m free…” were the dragon’s last words as his essence began to transform and shrink, concentrating into a small sphere.
Nordost took the sphere, Mégalath’s essence, and produced a powerful spell. Blue and red energy emanated from his hands and in this, he enveloped the sphere. The metallic dragon pulled out ten of his metal scales to include them as ingredients for generating the spell. The scales, once detached by his powerful claws, flew to that mixture of energy, where they melted with a strong metallic shriek like the sound a sword makes when it slides into its scabbard.
Mérdmerén nearly fainted, having stopped breathing from the shock. Before him, a knight’s armor was being forged with magic and mixed with the essence of a dragon, releasing potent blue sparks that danced dizzyingly. The pieces took on a shape. The scales flattened in obedience to some invisible song, the dragon’s guiding of the spell.
“Only when you don the armor will you summon all the powers and the essence of the Metallic Knight. In your body, two souls will occupy space: your own and that of the Metallic Knight. They will both be dominant so that neither will prevail over the other. You will retain control and will learn to temper the energy and spells of the Metallic Knight. We need you to start practicing, Mérdmerén of the Kings.”
The king swallowed hard. Seeing that armor floating before him, incredible pieces of metal burnished and forged with magic, disconcerted him.
“And whenever I take it off, I’ll be myself—just plain human?”
“Yes,” the dragon explained. “But it’s impossible to foresee how you will change with exposure to the powers of the Metallic Knight or how much you might yearn for those powers when you are not wearing the armor.
“There aren’t many options, my dear human. Either you claim the Knight’s powers and ride on my back or you go back empty-handed, allowing the Meridian and your loved ones to fall into the hands of evil. Balthazar is lost, I know, but Mórgomiel in turn has also lost two of his pieces in the process. The great Wild Man sacrificed himself and with his sacrifice, he has weakened our enemy. Between you and me, it’s only if you take on the powers of the Metallic Knight that we’ll be able to counter the powers of Mórgomiel and Górgometh. If we don’t unite, failure is assured.”
Mérdmerén approached the armor. He touched it, impressed by how perfect it was and by the amount of energy that emitted from it as if it were alive. What impressed him most was the helmet which left the face and eyes exposed since it had neither grid nor slits, but its shape was a formidable one—the symbol of a pair of dragon wings at the top. The breastplate was burnished dark metal and in its blazon was the unmistakable figure of Nordost. The armor was complete.
“And the weapon?”
“You’ll see,” the dragon said. You could not tell that it was missing eleven scales in all. One had been used to create the Dagger of Stern and ten for the armor. It may not have been visible to the naked eye, but it might be a weak spot, something beings like Górgometh could take advantage of.
Doubt was eating at Mérdmerén. He did not know how to act, but he was sure of one thing: nothing would stop Mórgomiel and there were very few forces capable of countering his advances. With the loss of Balthazar, someone had to step forward and take his place as protector of the universe.
What the heck, he said to himself. If I don’t act, we’ll die anyway and that’s that. With this thought, he came to a decision.
The man with salt-and-pepper hair, jet-black eyes, and the nose of a thinker took a step forward, spreading his arms and legs to allow the individual pieces of armor to enfold him. At once, as if they had a life of their own, they began to settle in place, one by one, sounding like glass striking against glass as each piece fell into place. Piece by piece, the man was being clad until, at last, the helmet came down on his head.
Mérdmerén’s vision changed, his perceptions of his surroundings multiplied. A dull pain began to grow in his head as though someone was banging a fist on each temple until the pain became unbearable and he felt blindness coming down like a guillotine. From one moment to the next, he felt himself to be waking from an eternal sleep as if his whole life had been something ephemeral and simple, and finally, his true self, his true purpose, was awakening to open his eyes for the first time.
He knew that in some distant part of his mind, there was someone called Mérdmerén of the Kings and that his life had culminated as the Dragonrider King. But now, he was someone and something far more powerful, a legendary and mythical figure drawn from the depths of the ether.
His gaze was different, something which only the dragon noticed. Those eyes pierced matter, looked through dimensions, and he was able to see the past, think of the probabilities of the future, and, most of all, feel linked as a blood brother to the dragon in front of him.
“Brother, dear Nordost,” the Metallic Knight said. “It’s been far too long since we saw one another. Come.”
The dragon lowered its gigantic head, and dragon and Knight touched foreheads in a gesture of brotherhood.
“It will be my last mission, that of once again defeating Mórgomiel.”
“There is a price to be paid,” Nordost said, knowing that he could not have said this to the human given that his impetuous mind would have acted differently. Because of this, he had kept it to himself.
“There is always a price to be paid, my dear brother,” Nordost said. “I paid it when Mórgomiel was stopped in the past. Now the price is different and it must be paid. After your death and the defeat of Mórgomiel, this sanctuary, Tempus Frontus, was created as a last resort that could be used as a refuge when the Gods were on the point of being murdered. Alac Arc Ángelo was here when Legionaer defeated him.”
“And now he is here again,” the Metallic Knight said.
“Yes, he is there. I have looked after him since Mother sent him to me after his defeat in front of Mortis Depthos when Róganok was brutally murdered. Here I have tended to him, sheltered him, waiting for the chosen one to come to his rescue. But I cannot wait any longer. I must leave Tempus Frontus and when I leave this place, it will be left unprotected and the forces of evil will do everything possible to make their way in and hunt down the God of Light.”
“That is true,” the Metallic Knight said. “It is the price we must pay, the risk we must run. We have to trust that the one chosen to save Alac’s life will arrive in time and prevent evil from finding him. We can do nothing more. We cannot awaken him.”
“I knew you would understand the dreadful sorrow that has been with me ever since the day Ÿ sent him to me,” Nordost said sadly. “I have protected him willingly. They need us. We must leave this place and in so doing, I will be abandoning my post as Guardian of Tempus Frontus.”
“Let us leave, before it is too late,” the Knight said. “If they hunt down Alac, at least they will have us as a last resort.”
“Without Alac there is no hope. He must awaken. He is the only one who can eliminate Mórgomiel. We will be another obstacle for the God of Chaos, but nothing more. But we will delay his advances so that the chosen one has time to arrive.”
“True,” the Knight said. “But I need to see him and pay him my respects.”
The Metallic Knight walked to the altar where Alac Arc Ángelo’s body lay in deep slumber. There he was. He looked so comfortable and at peace.
“He was reincarnated in a human,” Nordost said. “He is a demigod.”
“That explains a great deal. He looks like a boy. So young…”
The Knight considered the boy and his courage, wondering. Although he had the face of a boy on the verge of manhood, the strength of his soul could be felt emanating like a sun. He was unmistakable. It was Alac Arc Ángelo.
“Brother, I am so sorry that your dragon was slain. If you could see me, you would recognize me at once. I still remember when we joined forces when the Summoning awoke and united for the defense of the universe, and you
came to me with your humans to ask for help to defeat Mórgomiel. Those were turbulent times, but at the same time, they were joyous ones as we united under the same sign. Do not worry. Your dragon will be avenged and when you wake, you will be able to vent your fury against the wretch who murdered and overbore the Summoning. Sweet dreams, brother. And I hope evil does not find you before time.”
“It is time,” Nordost said. “We must leave this place. Say your farewells. May Ÿ protect him in our absence. The spells and the protective cloak will last an eternity. Those same spells which protect him can be unraveled by beings like Mórgomiel.”
“Our hopes will be answered,” the Knight replied. “You will see.”
The legendary god, with his armor forged from the scales of his dragon, leaped onto the dragon’s back and gripped his seat tightly. The Knight put a hand to his chest and with nothing more than a wish, the Dagger of Stern appeared in his right hand.
“It is the Dagger of Stern, the one I lost when I was beaten so long ago.”
The dagger became a long sword, sheath and all. “It is the Sword of Stern, the very one the powerful Stern offered me during the exchange of powers in Tempus Frontus, when Stern named us the protectors of the Border of Time. Now I remember it all.”
The Knight unsheathed his sword, admiring its long blade, sharp and magical. He slid it back into its metal-colored sheath and put it to his waist, where the sheath itself instantly unfolded into a chain that clasped itself to his waist.
“I knew you would remember,” Nordost said before he spread his wings and took flight.
Part III
Chapter XXXVIII — The Regent
It had taken Leandro several weeks to recuperate. What he found most disconcerting was the presence of spies in the Imperial Palace. It had not been in the least difficult to infiltrate it, given the limited security he had set up. The king, currently absent, might have had his garrison, but the rest of the Imperial Army that guarded the city perimeters was made up of a bunch of peasants and other citizens who had applied for the post in exchange for very meager pay.
Necromancer’s Sorrow: (Series Finale) Page 30
