Realm Wraith

by T. R. Briar

  There were no words from the demon god of flame as Rayne’s power spread through his domain, turning fire to water, but his shrieking roar burned with the energy of an unforgiving sun, making his fury clear. The water around them both hissed and boiled, dissolving into effervescent vapor that floated upwards and dissipated into nothing with a simple breath of air from the demon god’s mouths, and magma once more entrenched itself around Rayne’s body, threatening to melt his icy refuge. In desperation he tried to hold his position and keep the ice solid, and a back and forth tug of war began between the two beings struggling for control in this realm.

  Rayne’s memories became easier to grasp as his power continued to flow through him. He began to understand the futility of these battles, mere repetitions of many previous clashes in the past, never a clear victor between two equally powerful deities. And right now he struggled to survive against the oppressive force of a monster who grasped its identify far better than he his own.

  “You sense it too,” Azaznir said, as his efforts to rain molten flame upon his enemy’s head were blocked by a wall of cold water that spread up through the blazing fall, converting it into a pillar of ice that burned away in the white fire around it. “It’s the same back and forth we always do. Endlessly, since the dawn of time, when I decided I didn’t like your smart little mouths and their constant mockery.”

  “It’s not my fault you feel I’m some sort of threat!” Rayne sneered.

  “That! That is exactly what I’m talking about! You are weaker than me, yet you talk as if you’re my better! When I bury you away this time, I will ensure that no one ever finds you, not until the universe breathes its last!”

  A thundering tempest whirled around them, dark clouds swirling in a vortex with thunder and wind, and ever pervasive rain.

  “I won’t let you imprison me, not ever again!” Rayne howled, his voice a very part of the crashing thunder.

  “Did you forget already that I have the advantage now? Did you forget why it is you fell the last time we fought?”

  The skies above cracked open, and a whirling tornado of black dust poured into the realm of flames, shrieking and howling with reckless madness. Within the dust storm were many limbs, lined by blades, all moving as one mass that descended down upon them. Reapers, millions of them. The dark army of collectors who served Azaznir’s whim, weak as one, powerful as many. Rayne remembered their forces now, what they were capable of when combined with the might of a great demon god. Azaznir’s fire spread among their billowing forms, and the shrieking hordes charged at Rayne with many blades. He could not fight them, not while holding back the encroaching fires as well.

  With a thud, a black form fell before Rayne on the ground. At the base of his coils it twitched, a smoky mass of dust surrounding a pile of bones with taut flesh cut and pulled away. It looked up at Rayne with pitiful white eyes and a dancing leer upon its lips, a false mask of reassurance against overwhelming odds and impending doom, rather than any genuine expression.

  “Forgive me, my lord,” Darrigan creaked. “I was able to hold them back so they could not attack you in the material realm, but it was only for so long. There is little that I can do. I am only one. They are many. Too many—” The light in his eyes faded, the glowing mouth opening in the strangled chokes of one dying.

  “Darrigan, no!” Rayne reached down towards the fallen one, the heads upon his back howling in mourning.

  “You really pity that weaker being?” Azaznir mocked. “Was it because he served you? Or has being away from the Abyss so long caused you to grow a heart?”

  “I take care of those who serve me,” Rayne replied. “Loyalty should be rewarded, after all. What good is a ruler who commands through fear? The moment they sense the slightest weakness, a tyrant faces his downfall before disgruntled subjects.”

  “Is that something you learned walking among the mortals?”

  “No.” Rayne’s memory stretched farther back than his experiences on Earth. “It is something I’ve held to, long before you set your hatred upon me. When I command dominion, I seek utter obedience, but it is something that must be given through free will. Why do you think I chose that boy to serve me as my catalyst? I saw into his soul, a lost innocent who sought his place in the universe, seeking a higher power to lead him down his path. I became that higher power.”

  “Your forked tongue bends the truth as always. You call it free will, I call it trickery. They only think they want to serve you.”

  The swarming black smoke bore down upon Rayne, and he felt the stinging of millions of blades tearing at his flesh, blood pouring from wounds torn through his form, a strange black colored blood that flowed like sludge. He forced his assaulters back with a chorus of shrieking waves.

  “And they only serve you because you force them to!” Rayne retorted.

  As he spoke, he saw a black tear in the fiery air behind Azaznir, one that widened like a yawning mouth. A black shadowy mass edged with purple appeared behind the flame god’s body, reaching out with many tendrils as the shape of the portal grew larger, a great flaming eye wreathed in darkness centered within, consumed by anger and hatred. Tomordred, come to serve his master in an hour of need, to atone for his failure of the past, now seizing his chance as his appendages restrained Azaznir’s body. A frozen wind blew past them both, and the hell beast shrieked all his fury as he wrestled a monster far more powerful than himself.

  Azaznir, caught off-guard, forgot Rayne as he turned on this new threat, his shrieking laughter a mockery of Tomordred’s efforts.

  “Is this the best you can do? Your weak little pet? Then you can watch as I destroy him!”

  Azaznir grabbed one of Tomordred’s tendrils in a bony hand and ripped it away, searing the wound with his molten fire. Tomordred cried out in pain, but he refused to let go. Determination burned in his eyes, and he wrapped three tendrils around that arm, and cracked the bone with frozen crystal. The entire world around them roared as Azaznir grabbed his broken limb in pain.

  The reapers suddenly went still, hovering above the lake of fire as a black cloud. Azaznir recovered himself and waved his other hand towards the swarm.

  “Don’t just stand there, you worthless smoke! Destroy him!”

  A strange thought occurred to Rayne as he sensed the reapers’ hesitation. One that he would have considered mad any other day, but today it felt like business as usual. He looked to Tomordred and nodded, and his loyal subordinate went for Azaznir’s bony neck in a full out assault. The reapers, meanwhile, didn’t know what to do, looking between the half-snake man lying helpless on the ground, and the hell beast assaulting their overlord.

  “I said destroy him!” Azaznir shrieked, his roars filling the air with burst of magma.

  “You force your power out to bend anything that opposes you in scorching fire,” Rayne said. “How long before your loyal reapers turn against you, sensing weakness?”

  “There is no weakness to sense,” Azaznir sneered. “Their combined might pales next to the power of a single Abyss Lord.”

  “Then what if they were to serve another god?”

  “Why would they? They have no reason to. They serve me because I allow them to live. In exchange they are my army. There is no better bargain for them.”

  “Allow them to live? You almost burned them just now!”

  “So they know their place!”

  Rayne turned to the reapers. “I know you only serve him out of fear. But what if I made you a better offer?”

  The cloud of black smoke hovered there, waiting for him to continue.

  “Don’t listen to him! Slice him!” Azaznir commanded.

  “Go ahead, side with him,” Rayne said. “And burn for it. Or you can help me overthrow this tyrant, and I will see to it no demon god ever rules over you again.”

  Rayne’s connection to his former self had become far deeper, conversing with this other god. Time seemed lethargic now. He looked down at himself, at what he had become. He saw black fl
uid that wasn’t truly blood pouring from his veins, and grasped the scope of his existence. In this blood, he saw the remnants of faces, millions of them, pale shades and fragmented existences. This was what remained of the souls he had fed upon as Nen’kai, there for all eternity as part of him, forever drifting through his soul. He closed his eyes and felt their presence, including one very familiar one, a lost soul he had fulfilled a final promise to. This feeling of power that surged within him grew stronger, fueled by the intense hatred that consumed him in the grip of his enemy. Deep inside, he sensed the demonic spirit that dwelt there, felt it beckoning to him, and his mind underwent a change as a strange understanding began to stir. For the first time, he embraced the instinct inside, not surrendering to it, but commanding it, as it was his very nature that slept within him.

  “Your master is strong, but so am I,” he said, opening his eyes once more to gaze up at the smoke filled amalgamation.

  “And what of yourself?” From within the smoke filled vapors, a multitude of voices spoke to him. “Fire or water, no matter what lord we serve, we are still slaves.”

  “I do not want your servitude. I only want to restore the fragile balance we once had here.”

  “I am the only thing protecting you!” Azaznir roared, still caught in Tomordred’s tendrils. “If you turn on me, I’ll wipe all of you from existence!”

  To demonstrate his point, he summoned a wave of pure flame with one hand and lobbed it right for the indecisive cloud. As one, they cried out, and scattered in chaotic fear. But it never hit them. A wall of frozen water shoved itself between the fire god and the reapers, shattering when the flames hit it, but saving the reapers from agonizing death. Rayne lowered his hand with a small smirk on his face.

  “So do we have a deal?” he asked.

  The violent eddies of smoke swirled, turning its forces towards Azaznir.

  “You think you can turn on your master? You cowardly traitors! I will destroy each and every one of you!” The demon’s roars shattered the smoke, which reformed again, as the reapers assaulted him. Tomordred continued his own battle, keeping the fire god restrained, though his strength was slipping, unable to match the will of a deity.

  The combined might of the hell beast and the reapers was not enough, and Azaznir began to drive them back, tearing through the tentacles that tried to restrain him, burning the swarm of black smoked beings with his unholy fire. Rayne understood he was needed to complete their trifecta, or it was all in vain.

  A frightening sensation spread through his body now. He felt the immense power rushing back to him, and his own spiritual form began to change, stretching longer and longer as it increased in mass. His fingers spread apart, extending outwards, his hands and arms becoming part of the fingers as they continued to pull away from each other. A thin layer of webbing appeared between each of them as they both transformed into small fins. His mouth opened wide, splitting all the way to his jaw line, down his neck, and out to his shoulders, before it stretched upwards, jutting row after row of long jagged teeth. Soon, Rayne’s entire upper body had transformed into a monstrous snake head that reared up on a lengthening neck. His six other heads grew as well, a thousand times their original size, until he had seven identical serpent heads extending from his body. His tail swelled too, matching the proportions of the rest of his form. He cried out, not in pain, but just from the sheer thrill of what he felt in that singular moment, as he regained his rightful place within the universe.

  Fully transfigured now, Nen’kai stretched many leagues in length, covered in hard indigo scales, with seven gnashing, gaping maws, fourteen great rifts that burned with purple fire, and fins growing from his body. Each head screamed with the fury of a forgotten god restored, and he turned the full force of that wrath upon Azaznir. Each mouth seized him, each coil constrained the now disadvantaged lord of flames, as he could not hold back the combined power of both the angered Abyss Lord, and the army that now turned on him. Ice and water poured in an eternal whirling tempest, quenching the flames of Azaznir’s sanctum, and the ice spread up his flaming form as he screamed in panic, understanding fear for the first time in his existence. His bones shattered in Nen’kai’s coils, his flames faded into dying light. Within the center of his soul more ice began to spread, carved with strange symbols not of any mortal tongue, one name among seven his enemy now remembered, entrapping bones and weakened fire within a prism. As the fire extinguished, the last thing Azaznir saw was the seven leering draconic faces of an inhuman being, devoid of mercy as it laughed at his fate.

  “It seems this realm no longer has a master,” Nen’kai cackled, the swirling waters flowing around him becoming a boiling sea, turning all lava to solid rock that trapped the souls within. “I guess I’ll have to look after it in his absence.”

  The cloud of reapers gathered around him, still speaking in multitudes.

  “We have done as you asked,” they whispered.

  The great serpent god turned to them, each of his heads weaving in the chilling air. “Then do as you please. I no longer have use for you.”

  The black swarm ascended into the heavens as one, disappearing into the darkness, and the black portal closed in on itself, leaving a glowing purple tear in space that faded into nothing.

  One single head bent down to a floating block of ice within the turbulent sea that stood unaffected by its boiling heat.

  “Get up,” it spoke to the fallen black form still stretched out on the ice.

  The light in Darrigan’s eyes brightened, as the demon god’s power restored his spirit. His form changed, black smoke and dust becoming white mist and frost. He looked up, bewilderment on his normally sneering face.

  “You really freed them,” he said. “But why? They’ve taken advantage of you. Creatures like them do not show loyalty just because somebody granted them a kindness.”

  “I don’t see it that way.” Nen’kai’s overbearing voice filled this place, resounding with equal volume through each of his heads. “I agreed to protect them as long as they serve no god. But at the same time they know if anything were to happen to me, they would lose that protection. In the end, I think that will motivate their actions to my benefit, even if they do not consciously believe that they serve me.”

  “So they traded one fear for another. You really are a tricky one.”

  “Are you comparing me to my brother? I’m not that awful.” The reptilian head grinned, as much as the head of a snake could be imagined to grin. “Water can be merciless; it can bring great destructive force. It can tear you apart, or freeze you, or boil you alive. But water also erodes. It bides its time, seeping into cracks, trickling over dirt, and in the end it leaves a great canyon. That is something Azaznir could never fathom.”

  “It really is you,” the reaper gasped. “You really are Nen’kai. Your presence—it’s almost enough to make one deaf.”

  Nen’kai did not answer, but moved his great body over to where Azaznir stood, frozen in a massive block of ice.

  “Come, Darrigan,” he said. “There is something we must do.”

  * * *

  Within the swirling eternal maelstrom of Nen’kai’s realm, a great form tore apart the never-still clouds as it descended towards the sea, though they formed back together again. A mighty ice block, containing the charred bones of an Abyss Lord whose fire had been extinguished, fell among the lost souls churning beneath the waves. Darrigan appeared as a white mist that spread across the ocean and collected itself as vapor, taking on solid form. He stared at the ice block, as if trying to comprehend the strange symbols carved into the very center.

  “I wouldn’t read that if I were you,” a voice boomed from the heavens, as countless serpent heads burst through the clouds and surrounded the frozen figure. “The only way to keep him bound was to use his true name. That is how he kept me chained when he imprisoned me. You may not be mortal, but it could still be dangerous to try and comprehend such a name.”

  “So, he’s just stuck there
, then?”

  One face drew close to the icy block of bones. “As long as that name surrounds his very core, he cannot call forth his fire, and cannot melt my ice. He will stay trapped here, until someone or something takes pity on him, and tries to set him free.”

  “Who would pity him?”

  “Exactly.”

  The long, indigo coil clutching the ice unwrapped itself, and Azaznir plunged into the water, drawn beneath the waves.

  “My ocean has no bottom,” the serpent hissed. “He will continue to sink for eternity in a frozen hell. The deeper he falls, the harder it’ll be for him to get back out, even if he does escape. He is restrained to one place right now, so he cannot pull himself between worlds. But, really, this is my realm. Nobody here would try to save him.”

  “He could have done the same thing to you,” Darrigan noted. “It’s not so easy to escape being buried in the magma of his realm. Instead, he trapped you on the material plane.”

  “I think he knew better. If he kept me within the Abyss, my servant would stop at nothing to free me. That’s how loyal Tomordred is. Azaznir’s underlings only serve him out of fear. I tried to tell him, but—” Now Nen’kai began to laugh again, a twisted, inhuman laugh that mingled with the howling winds and crashing waves. It was a strange sensation, being here, finally understanding what he was. He embraced those feelings now, yet deep down he still felt the memories, the sentiments of his former human life, not so easily forgotten.

  The top of the iceberg containing Azaznir’s soul dipped below the surface of the water, and it vanished into the darkness of the deep. Nen’kai watched it disappear, not truly pleased at getting his revenge, but he knew it would be a very long time before the fire god’s retribution became a concern. He was finally free, he was finally home. And yet, he didn’t feel content to idle away the years haunting his world, as the other demon gods did.

  You speak as if my existence is boring, a mocking, female voice echoed through his heads. Kaledris, he knew instantly, because who else would it be?