The Black Rose

by James Bartholomeusz

  Ruth scrambled to her feet, the barrier fading. She felt suddenly energized. Not only had the strain of maintaining alchemy been lifted, but the air seemed cleaner, as if purged of an infective spore. A groan from somewhere to her left alerted her. She turned to see a man in the corner of his cell doubled over, clasping his stomach.

  Ruth knelt, placed a palm on the glass, and whispered to him, “Are you okay?”

  The man raised his head slowly. He was a local with a coloring similar to hers. He was the thinnest person she had ever seen. Beneath the shreds of his clothes, his ribs arched out of his torso like the poles of a tent. As he shifted in the light, she saw that he was missing an eye. With the one remaining, he looked upon her face with an expression she couldn’t immediately place—it took her a moment to realize that it was mingled shock, terror, and a hint of hope.

  “Are you one of them?” he managed eventually, his voice hoarse.

  “No,” Ruth replied. A lump of emotion collected in her throat, and she tried to swallow it away. “No, I’m here to get you out. Get back.”

  She stood and shifted her hand higher on the glass. Alchemy flowed much more easily now, and she sent a shock wave through the pane. With a soft boom, a web of cracks spiralled outwards from the point of impact and the glass shattered. She hurried inside and, throwing one of the man’s arms around her shoulder, supported him as he limped out of the cell into the main aisle.

  His breath was ragged with the exertion of moving just a few feet, so she helped him down to a seated position. She crouched over him, ready to ask where he was in pain.

  He feebly waved her away. “We have to get the others out. All of them.”

  Ruth scanned the aisles of cells. There was indeed a person in every one: some were moving slightly, others weren’t at all. The number must have extended into the hundreds, if not thousands. Her brief sense of elation was evaporating into despair. “Who are all these people?”

  “Prisoners,” was the croaking reply. “Enemies of the state, enemies of the Cult, heretics, would-be dissidents.”

  “So they don’t kill you?” Ruth asked distractedly, still gazing down the aisle. “They just keep you here?”

  The man spluttered, “Why would they kill us? That would be a relief from… from…” He looked up and shuddered.

  Ruth took stock of the situation. The demons had gone, at least for now. Something had drawn them away. Now that the Darkness wasn’t immediately present and she was able to think rationally again, she felt a stab of guilt for leaving her friends behind. They had almost certainly been captured by now, and she had a horrible suspicion that the demons drawn away from her were drawing closer to them. It had been a mistake to come to Nexus, she now realized. They had all walked unwittingly into a trap.

  But then she looked again at the man, who was now coughing up blood. She and the Apollonians could still undo some of the evil of the Cult. If she could free these prisoners and get them safely away from here, then their trip would not have been entirely in vain.

  She fumbled inside her cloak and produced her metallic egg. In the flurry of the chase and her remembrance of her last time on Nexus, she had almost forgotten that there were other Apollonians waiting as backup. She intoned a few syllables, and the machinery beneath the casing flared up. She twisted it, and with a slurping sound a bubble of turquoise broke loose, expanding upwards to the size of a dinner platter.

  “Command deck.”

  The bubble fizzed lightly, and as the surface cleared again she found herself looking into the command deck of The Golden Turtle from the angle of one of the computer monitors. Quentin, Gaby, Malik, and a pair of other Apollonians stood around the map table.

  “Ruth, what happened? You look terrible!” Gaby exclaimed.

  “There’s a lot to explain and not much time. The others walked into a trap, and they’ve probably been captured. I managed to get out.”

  “Where are you now?” Malik urged her. “Have you been detected?”

  “I think I’m underground. I’m fairly sure I’m in the Precinct, but on the lowest level. Something weird just happened. There were demons swarming everywhere, but then they all retreated. I think something big is going on upstairs.”

  “You’re quite right there,” Quentin replied, his face ashen. “You haven’t seen the sky, then?”

  Someone evidently had pressed a few keys, because the bubble fizzed again. Ruth was now looking out the top of the ship. The storm had intensified since they had last been outside, the rain cutting almost horizontally across the air. Lightning flashed more frequently than ever and closer too; it looked like it might actually be striking the fringes of the city. The glare illuminated the mass of the Cathedral, and out of its core a pillar of indigo energy pierced the clouds. Darkness—not just the shadows of the night, but solid, impenetrable obsidian—was collecting around it, swirling downwards like the base of a tornado, as if magnetically conducted.

  The view returned to the command deck. Ruth now understood the others’ expressions.

  “We think that’s the Aterosa being activated,” Gaby explained. “And if it’s their Shards being used to do it, then they’re probably in the Cathedral.”

  “We need a plan,” Malik added, quite unnecessarily. No one seemed to be suggesting that they just did nothing.

  Ruth closed her eyes for a moment, thinking, trying to block out the other noises from outside. None of the others spoke. Her eyelids flashed open again, and she was ready. “If all the demons are collecting at the Cathedral, then we’ve got a window of opportunity. I’m not sure what that thing will do, but we know it’s a superweapon, so it wouldn’t be good to stick around too long. We need to get these prisoners out, and I’ll need a hand. Can you lock onto my coordinates?”

  One of the crew typed something in. “Done.”

  “Right, I need you to get over here as quickly as possible—and bring the dimension ship too. There are a lot of them. Then we need to get to the Cathedral.”

  “I thought you were going to say that,” Malik commented darkly.

  “We need to get the others out of there and, preferably, as many non-Cultists as we can take. Even if it’s too late to stop the superweapon, at least we can try and get out of here relatively unscathed.”

  She surveyed the faces before her. She knew them well enough to see when they were hiding utter terror with steadfast bravery.

  As she’d expected, only Quentin’s sardonic wit interrupted the silent resolution: “You do know, Captain, that this is a suicide mission?”

  For the first time in a long while, Ruth found herself smirking. “Yep. But right now it’s a choice between suicide letting the Cult get away with it, or suicide trying to stop them. I know which one I’d rather.”

  The bubble retracted into the egg, and the light faded.

  The ex-prisoner squinted up at her with his single eye, his mouth spread in incredulity. “Who are you people?” Ruth smiled. “We’re the Apollonians.”

  Jack watched with bated breath. Even in their current situation, he had to admit to himself there was something fitting in this. The decades-long conflict between the Apollonians and the Cult of Dionysus had reached its climax in single combat between the two leaders.

  He had seen Sardâr fight before—when the elf had taken on and, but for his opponent fleeing, defeated Iago on a floating battlefield above Thorin Salr. He had no doubt about his friend’s skill; however, Sardâr was still recovering from the injuries sustained in Albion even before they had been overcome by demons in the Precinct. He must have been weaker than at almost any point in the past.

  Moreover, Jack was under no illusions about how formidable an alchemist the Emperor was—the head of the Cult must have honed his powers for years in readiness for such a confrontation. The odds did not weigh in Sardâr’s favor.

  The orb of indigo around the Emperor’s fist suddenly contracted and blasted towards Sardâr. The elf clamped his wrists together and caught it between his knuckl
es. Rotating it, arms shuddering as if resisting electrocution, he let it fly back at his opponent.

  “Good, elf, but not good enough.” The Emperor seized the orb in his palm and plunged it to the ground. With an immense crackling, the marble fractured as a shock wave surged across the floor.

  Sardâr was hurled into the air. Straining against the alchemical bindings, Jack watched helpless as the elf hit the ground and collapsed.

  Sardâr staggered to his feet, crimson streaming from his forehead. He punched the air with both fists, and a barrage of ivory diamonds launched across the chamber.

  The Emperor didn’t move. He waited until the foremost diamond was inches from his nose, then pursed his lips and blew. A plume of dark flame emanated from his mouth and expanded to absorb the oncoming fragments.

  Two horns of fire arched round symmetrically and surged towards the elf on either side. He threw up a barrier, but it was too late. The flames engulfed him, hiding him from Jack’s vision.

  The front members of the congregation—Cult and others alike—had ceased to pray and were backing away in apprehension. The flames had not quelled with the end of the attack but rose ever higher, growing to consume more of the chamber. Jack could make out the Emperor, striding out of the fire towards the fallen elf.

  Jack turned to look at Adâ. She was paler than ever, and a thin stream of tears down her cheek reflected the light of the fire. His horror was heightened by seeing her face. If Sardâr died now, the Emperor wouldn’t have to kill Adâ: she would really be dead already.

  The Emperor’s gloating could be heard above the crackling fire and rumbling storm. “This is over even earlier than I thought it would be. Is this really my opposite, the mighty leader of the Apollonians? I must say, I expected more. This is almost anticlimactic.” He extended his hand as if to help Sardâr up, but instead a sabre of Dark energy extended within a hair’s breadth of the elf’s throat. “Time to talk. Who’s the Übermensch?”

  Sardâr’s words were uttered in a single, ragged breath. “I am.”

  The Emperor paused in confusion.

  That was all the time Sardâr needed. Two blades of white light blasted from his body. One sliced towards the Emperor, who, recovered from his lapse, dissolved it between his fingers.

  “Only one on target, I’m afraid.” The Emperor grinned. “Pretty poor…”

  But Sardâr wasn’t looking at him. The elf, along with the rest of the Apollonians, followed the trajectory of the second blade.

  The Emperor turned too late, just in time to see it strike directly into the heart of the Aterosa.

  Chapter VIII

  the end of a world

  The bindings around him released. Jack dropped but was almost instantly hurled backwards by the blast from the hovering rose. The substance of the Aterosa had changed. It was no longer floating lazily, its tentacles lacing through the air—it was now twitching violently, as if unable to shake loose the light at its core. The stems flailed as gigantic whips, hammering through stone and stained glass like demolition juggernauts.

  Jack hauled himself to his feet and glanced around frantically for the others. He found Dannie some way off to his right, battered against the altar, her skin now the texture of crumbling rock. He stumbled over the growing wreckage and helped her up, sparking an alchemical barrier around the two of them.

  “Well, that was close,” she breathed. For once, her tone wasn’t jovial.

  They caught sight of Hakim and Lucy by the dragon statue and, farther away, Adâ and Vince. All of them looked fairly unscathed and had erected similar barriers. Ducking behind the altar to dodge the debris from a tentacle, the two of them darted over to Hakim and Lucy, merging their barriers into one.

  The fire had dispersed a little now. Through the gap, they could make out the congregation—or, rather, where the congregation had been. The Cultists were swiftly fleeing via smoke, leaving the nonsorcerous majority to fight their way out. Some kind of riot seemed to be occurring beyond the spasming superweapon: the crowd had rushed to escape via the rear doors. People were screaming, and some were trampled in the surge.

  With an immense cracking, the gothic arches were blasted apart. Chunks of stone were carried into the air, exposing a column of energy rising from the Aterosa into the clouds. It was conducting lightning, which now crackled down to claw at the rose itself.

  Lucy pointed upwards. Something metallic had flashed by, and a moment later, mechanical flippers descended through a hole in the ceiling. The dome of The Golden Turtle came to rest at the side of the chamber, alchemically anchored. The hatch slid open, and Ruth and Malik clambered out. Jack had never been so happy to see them.

  Adâ and Vince had joined them now. “Where’s Sardâr?”

  Jack looked again through the dying flames and saw them. Sardâr and the Emperor were the only ones standing entirely still. They faced each other before the Aterosa. A barrier of energy stood between them: the meeting point of two forces the exact mirrored equal of one another.

  “So this is the way it ends, then?”

  “If it ends for me today,” the Emperor spat, “it ends for you too. If I am going to oblivion, you are as well.”

  Sardâr’s expression hardened. “If I’m the price to pay for the end of the Cult, so be it.”

  “Evidently I was wrong. You do know the meaning of self-sacrifice.”

  The Apollonians all acted at the same moment. Eight jets of energy descended upon the Emperor in a furious blaze, Adâ, Hakim, Vince, Ruth, Jack, Lucy, Dannie, and Malik steering them towards their target. They hit him from every angle, and for a millisecond, the light cast him entirely in bright monochrome. Then his body collapsed to the floor.

  For a moment, none of them moved or spoke. The Emperor remained motionless. Jack stared at the corpse of their great enemy, not with hatred or even satisfaction but with numb disbelief.

  The screams shook them back to reality. The Aterosa had not halted in its self-destruction. Its tendrils still thrashed. Darkness boiled and seeped over the floor like molten tar. The broken bodies of the more unlucky fleers from the congregation were in its path.

  “Quick, we have to get them out,” Ruth cried, leaping over the side of the ship to haul them up. Jack, Dannie, Lucy, and Vince ran to assist her. Hakim and Adâ made for Sardâr and helped him limp towards The Golden Turtle.

  Amongst the churning emotions and thoughts, Jack felt slightly doubtful why they were helping the congregation members, who had been praying for their deaths only minutes before. But those thoughts evaporated in guilt when he saw the first contorted face. A woman, whose leg was twisted under her, looked in terror at the oncoming Darkness. He hoisted her alchemically and jogged to the ship, depositing her in the arms of Quentin, who lifted her aboard.

  After they had rescued a dozen this way, Quentin called to Ruth, “That’s enough. We need to go!”

  “Okay, everyone aboard! Let’s get out of here.”

  The elements of the chamber were distorting now, almost like a surrealist painting. The marble floor contorted into waves that lapped at their feet and threatened to pull them towards the rose. The columns supporting the partially remaining ceiling dissolved into granules, shearing across their path in windblown cones. The curtain that had hidden them before the ritual ascended and fell like a raging bull. The dragon statue behind the altar momentarily came to life, writhing and beating its wings, before it ruptured into pieces and hurtled into the heart of the implosion.

  The Apollonians climbed the side of the dome in single file and dropped belowdecks. Jack was at the back of the line, and just before he pulled himself up, he turned round for a final look. The Cathedral was utterly devastated, and plenty more bodies were scattered around. Demons were beginning to rise out of the inky blackness and feast on the cadavers. Everything without a shield was pulled towards the writhing rose, except the Emperor’s body, which remained unmoved.

  Something was changing, subtle amongst the chaos but perceptible nevertheles
s. Grey smoke was trailing out the corpse, weaving upwards to form a tall, slate-colored figure with the same blazing golden eyes. The figure and Jack looked at each other for a moment. Something glinted. An object from the ground flitted into the figure’s outstretched hand—a metallic egg from The Golden Turtle. Then it was gone, along with the figure, vanishing into nothingness. The Emperor’s lifeless body began to scrape along the marble, before being flung upwards and absorbed into the core of Darkness.

  “What are you doing, Jack? Come on!”

  Jack shook his head and followed Lucy, closing the hatch behind him.

  He got a shock when he reached the bottom of the ladder. The corridors were crammed full of the people of Nexus, either crouched or leaning against the walls. He followed Lucy edging down the hallway. The command deck was full too: for once, Quentin hadn’t been exaggerating.

  They took off and soared through the now nonexistent roof. Nexus sprawled below them. The carnage created by the collapse of the Aterosa had extended well beyond the Cathedral. Houses, lamps, chapels, towers, and all the other infrastructures of the city were being sucked towards the growing core of Darkness. They rose higher, lurching to avoid debris flying in the opposite direction. Several flailing bodies hurtled by, and a large chunk of rock smashed against the transparent dome.

  “So what happened to the Aterosa?” Malik asked.

  “We managed to sabotage it as it was still forming,” Sardâr replied, still leaning on Adâ for support. “I have to say, though, I wasn’t expecting it to be this—”

  They were all thrown sideways as an airborne house snagged the side of the ship.

  “We’re not out of this yet,” Vince yelled. He had taken up one of the flight monitors; Quentin was in charge of another.

  “Were you really going to sacrifice yourself to save everyone?” Jack roared.

  Sardâr grimaced and replied at equal volume. “I was… but I’m still happy you all stepped in there.”