“What do you intend to do?”
“This ship can defeat a dark god, so if I take it to the mid realm and instruct them to hunt the dra’voren there, it might save me a few battles.”
“Good idea.”
Bane whipped around as a bang, followed by a muted hissing roar, came from behind them. A shiny metal cylinder shot towards them, a fierce tongue of fire sprouting from its tail. In reflex, he flung a bolt of dark power at it, and the cylinder exploded. The concussion lifted him off his feet and hurled him into the clouds, where he landed with a grunt, agony lancing from his chest. He lay winded, and moments later Kayos arrived beside him and knelt. Bane struggled to suck in air, grimacing.
“How badly are you hurt?” Kayos demanded.
Bane shook his head and raised a hand to clasp his chest. Another bang and hissing roar came from the same direction as the first, and Kayos looked around. A second cylinder flew at them, and the Grey God raised his hand in a sweeping gesture. A shield of white fire shot up from the ground, curving over them as he crouched over Bane. The explosion’s thunderous boom hammered at Bane’s ears, and the shield flared as it absorbed the concussion.
Bane drew in a breath and struggled to sit up. “We must Move.”
“We are safe -”
“The trap.”
The shield sank back into the earth, and Kayos hauled Bane to his feet, supporting him when he staggered.
Bane pointed. “Over there.”
Kayos nodded and released him. Bane Moved to the place he had indicated, and Kayos appeared a few feet away, striding over to him. “Are you all right?”
Bane nodded. “Just winded and bruised. I should have used a shield.”
“You did not know it would explode.”
“Sometimes attack is not the best form of defence.”
“Occasionally. Where is the ship now?”
Bane glanced up. “Above us, moving away again.”
“Time to put an end to this. Are you recovered?”
“Well enough. We will be safe inside, at least. Will you make us invisible?”
“Certainly.”
Bane spoke the harsh word that allowed him to pass through solid matter and rose on a column of black fire, Kayos following. The ship’s hull slowed the Demon Lord, then he shot up through several decks, hoping this ship’s layout was the same as Retribution’s. Keeping track of the number of decks and the types of rooms he passed through, Bane found his way to the bridge, but there was no one there wearing a commander’s gold-trimmed uniform. He glanced at Kayos, who shrugged, then followed when Bane sank back through the floor, descending several decks to the observation room, where a lanky, hatchet-faced man in a cobalt uniform with gold braid on the collar and cuffs bent over a minion. The commander studied one of the glowing squares with bloodshot brown eyes, lines of weariness and worry scoring his brow.
“He’s not reappearing, Commander,” the crewman muttered.
“We injured him with that missile. He was on the ground.”
Bane strolled closer, Kayos behind him.
The crewman shook his head. “Well he’s not there anymore.”
“Then where the hell is he?”
Bane nodded to Kayos, who released him from the light shield, remaining cloaked.
“Right behind you,” Bane said.
The commander spun around, his mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged as they swept over Bane. He made a grab for the black weapon in a holster on his belt, and Bane gestured. It vanished, and the commander stumbled back. The Demon Lord frowned at the other three men, who sat frozen, gaping at him.
“Your weapons cannot harm me, but they will annoy me, so do not try to use them.” Bane approached the commander, whose retreat was foiled by one of the many consoles that filled the dim room. “Have you a name?”
“S-Sarjan.”
“Well, Commander Sarjan, your little jaunt is at an end. Your weapon did indeed knock the wind out of me.” Bane rubbed his chest. “An interesting experience, but one I do not care to repeat. I am Bane, the Demon Lord.”
“You’re a dra’voren,” Sarjan said in a choked voice.
Bane closed the gap between them in a swift stride and loomed over Sarjan, who leant away, going grey with shock. Bane murmured, “No, I am not. If I was, you would all be dead now.” He cocked his head. “You like defeating dra’voren, do you not, Sarjan?” The commander nodded, and Bane turned away. “You will obey me.”
Sarjan straightened. “I can’t do that.”
“If you refuse, I shall just make you do as I wish. You have no choice. You and your crew are at my mercy now.”
“We’d rather die than serve a dra’voren.”
“Heroic sentiments, and laudable, if I was a one; but I do not have the patience to try to convince you that I am not. You will not find the task I set you too distasteful.”
Sarjan glowered at him. “What do you want?”
“There are three dark gods, and possibly a beast god, in your world.”
“Impossible.”
“Not at all. They amuse themselves amongst your people, disguised as powerful individuals such as kings, nobles or priests. Their idea of fun includes torture, the black arts and barbaric rituals involving human sacrifices and orgies. They murder and rape, pillage and destroy. Do you know of anyone who does such things?”
Sarjan’s eyes narrowed. “The president of Vockroy; he’s been invading small countries for years.”
“And before that, I will wager there was another country that did the same.”
Sarjan nodded. “Armalon, but it was defeated by the Coalition of the Federated Union, of which Vockroy was a member. Then Parsimon was elected, and they started doing it themselves.”
“So, Parsimon is one. I will wager a man’s weight in gold on it. I was awaiting news of who they are, so I could cast them down and trap them below with wards, when you so rudely attacked us.” Bane glanced around at the observation crew, whose members tensed as his gaze swept over them. “All these dictators are the same man, or dra’voren, adopting new disguises to find his amusement amongst your people. Next time, he could choose your country. Wars are most satisfying, especially when much blood is shed.”
“You’re lying.”
“I could be, but do your instruments?”
“No.”
“And I will wager you have no ships like this one in your world,” Bane said.
“Why would we? The dra’voren are out in the Wastes.”
“The three who dwell in your world are not. It is their playground. They have chosen sport instead of destruction, as many do. It is still a lot of fun, with the added boon of offering a constant source of amusement, instead of having to find new domains to destroy. Entering a domain is hard, unless the realm gate is open, as yours has been for centuries.” Bane’s eyes flicked over him. “I was not going to bother to save your people from them, but your newly born goddess is my adopted sister, and I cannot allow dark gods to enslave her.”
“So you want us to destroy your competition, then you can rule our world yourself.”
“I have no interest in ruling idiots like you, or anyone else for that matter. When this world is safe, and the gate closed, I shall leave.”
Sarjan eyed him, and Bane wondered if he would show such bravery if he had the option of fleeing. “There are no such things as gods. They’re just a myth.”
Bane shrugged. “I do not care what you think, but you will defeat the dra’voren in your world, voluntarily, or not.”
“We can’t go to Bayona in this ship.”
“Yes, we can. Tell your steersman to fly to the world gate.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Sarjan demanded.
“When you find that your powerful dictators are actually dra’voren, you will know.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Then my theory is wrong, but soon I shall have the identity of all of them.”
“We have no objectio
n to destroying dra’voren, if there are any, but if Parsimon isn’t one, we’re not going to kill him.”
“Of course not.” Bane tilted his head. “Are we at the world gate yet?”
Sarjan touched a device on the console beside him and instructed the man who appeared in the glowing box to fly to the Golden Gates. Bane had learnt that the thin square devices were called screens, or monitors. The scenery on the main screen, mounted on the bulkhead at the front of the room, moved past.
Bane nodded. “Good.”
Sarjan licked his lips, his eyes roaming over Bane, filled with well-disguised fear. “Where’s Commander Nikira?”
“Safe, with some other people I rescued. She was not guilty of the crime.”
“Hundreds of people died in the Dorilan Dome, and many were injured when they were evicted from Cloud World.”
Bane sat on a console and flicked his cloak over his shoulders, revealing the blood-red lining. “Yes, that was regrettable. But no one was killed when they were cast from the light realm, where they had no right to be, and your leader was warned that the realm gate would be closed, but he chose to ignore it. Therefore, the blame for those people’s deaths lies with him.”
“I heard about that. Was he supposed to believe the ravings of a deranged woman?”
“Yes. When an emissary brings you the words of a god, you believe them. Ah, but you do not believe in gods.” Bane smiled. “That is as foolish as my saying that I do not believe in humans, when here you are, right in front of me. But that is your choice. Attacking a realm gate, however, was idiotic.”
“Why?”
“Because your warships triggered this domain’s defences. As you can imagine, nothing is as devastating as weapons designed to protect an entire world. Even I would hesitate to activate them, yet your people, in their arrogance, did just that.”
Sarjan gripped the console behind him. “You’re lying.”
“Please yourself. You will find out in good time.”
“Our ships?”
“Gone, I suspect, as are large chunks of your city outside. That too, you can only blame on your leaders. What possessed them to try to destroy the one thing that keeps your world safe from the terrors of the God Realm?”
“It blocked us from our world,” Sarjan said.
“You were not supposed to be outside, and rest assured, it still does.”
“It wasn’t destroyed?”
Bane shook his head. “No. It would take a great deal more than your puny weapons to destroy a realm gate. It is a challenge I may tackle one day, if I must, but for now even I would not try it.”
A tinny voice spoke from the console behind Sarjan. “Commander, we’re at the Golden Gates.”
Bane glanced up at the big screen, which showed a pair of glinting, dappled gold gates. They stood open, and white power poured through them like mist, but they were undamaged. That, he supposed, was because Torvaran had entered through the realm gate and opened them from the inside. A soft swish made him swing around as the door at the back of the observation room opened.
A dozen uniformed men dashed in, pointing black tubes at him. He raised a hand, and a shield formed in it as the men fired their weapons with a rattling roar. The projectiles ricocheted off the shield and whined around the room, striking the walls with tinny bangs. Sarjan and his crew dived behind the consoles, and sparks flew from some of the instruments as projectiles hit them. Bane gestured, and the soldiers yelled and dropped their weapons, wringing singed hands. They shot him terrified looks and sprinted out of the door, which closed behind them. Bane glared at the commander, who cowered on the floor, his hands over his head. A heavy, pregnant silence fell, then Sarjan risked a glance up at him.
“Get up,” Bane ordered. “You try my patience. The door will not open again, so do not bother calling any more of your men.”
Sarjan rose to his feet, clearly shaken and somewhat cowed.
The Demon Lord looked up at the screen again and gestured to it. “Take the ship through the gate.”
“That will kill us all. It’s a thirteen thousand-league drop to Bayona.”
“Do as I say.”
“Is this how you plan to kill us?”
Bane snorted. “Just do it.”
Sarjan turned and tapped a key on the console behind him, causing the monitor atop it to fill with an image of a man’s visage. He addressed it. “Pilot, take us through the Golden Gates.”
“Commander, you know we can’t do that.”
“Explain why not.”
“The automatic pilot will kick in and stop us.”
Sarjan faced Bane again. “You see? It can’t be done.”
“It can, just not by you, it seems.” Bane sighed and spread his hands towards the floor. Shadows flowed from his palms to form twin conduits that licked over the carpet before sinking into it. Sarjan paled and clamped a hand over his mouth as the dark power chilled the room. Bane sent the shadows throughout the ship, took control of it and strengthened it.
“I have not tried this before, so you should probably hold onto something,” he said.
The ship surged forward, and alarms buzzed and whooped. The officers stared at the main screen, their faces rigid with astonishment and fear. The gates loomed ahead, and Bane turned the ship to avoid the nearer one, which seemed in danger of scraping the hull. The vessel passed through the portal and hung poised over the abyss, then fell. Men clung to their consoles as they floated into the air. The engines’ throbbing hum rose to a tortured scream, and the pilot on the screen dragged himself to his console to throttle them back.
“Reaching terminal velocity,” the pilot stated in a strangled voice.
Sarjan, whose feet remained on the floor thanks to his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the console behind him, stared at Bane with pleading eyes. “You can stop us, right?”
“And if I do not? What do you believe happens to the dead?”
“They rot in their graves.”
“How sad for you to think such depressing thoughts and have such fear of death when in fact it is a merely transition to a different state of being.”
“You can stop us, can’t you?” Sarjan’s eyes bulged as the ship plummeted through a layer of cloud.
“You would be of no use to me flattened in a metal pancake.”
The pilot yelled, “Commander, we’re going to hit in thirty seconds!”
“Do something!” Sarjan shouted.
Bane shot him a hard look, raised his head and clenched his hands. Sarjan and his officers hit the floor with thuds and grunts, flattened upon it as gravity returned tenfold. The crushing force lasted for several seconds, then eased, and Bane opened his hands.
Sarjan climbed to his feet and frowned at the screen that showed the pilot tapping keys on his console, and the engines’ hum returned. Bane released the ship, which drifted down to settle upon its repelling field. The scene on the main screen was a muddy meadow populated by a herd of somewhat bedraggled brown cattle, which ignored the craft, so it was evidently still invisible.
“We’re in Bayona,” Sarjan said in patent amazement.
“Naturally.” Bane waved his hands, dispersing the columns of shadow. “Fly to this dictator’s location and see him with your instruments.”
Sarjan gave the order to the console beside him, which replied in a tinny, choked voice.
As the scenery on the screen moved past, Bane asked, “Why is it that your other ships can fly to and from the light realm, but this one cannot?”
The commander hesitated, perhaps reluctant to divulge technical information to the enemy, then said, “This ship is equipped with four blue light generators that power the mirror shields, which make it invisible by bending light. The generators also power the translocation unit and shredder room, but they make the ship too heavy for the ion stream engine to do anything more than push it along on its antigravity field. The weight to power ratio is way off, and, no matter how big we make the ion stream engine, its weight in ad
dition to the blue light generators is too much. The mirror shield generators provide the power for the ion streamer and anti-gravity, so if we’re invisible it slows us down even more.”
“I see.” Bane settled upon the console once more. “How long will it take to get to this... Vockroy?”
“A few hours. Four, I think.”
“So it is not far from your land.”
“We share a border.”
“Does this Parsimon try to invade your country as well?”
Sarjan nodded, leaning on the console behind him. “He’s been trying to for years, but we hold him at the border.”
Bane gazed at the big screen, where cultivated fields, muddy meadows, hedges and winding roads passed beneath the ship. Only a few birds and domestic animals populated the countryside, and brown streams flowed into bubbling, stagnant lakes. Wandering patches of sunlight probed through the brownish-grey cloud cover. The vessel headed straight across the drab terrain, picking up speed until it moved at a fair pace. Within half an hour, they left the rural setting and entered a more built up area, flying over dwellings and belts of orderly woodland.
A city similar to the one outside the gate came into view in the distance, a conglomeration of shining towers covered with dark or reflective glass. Further away, tall chimneys belched smoke and steam into the smoggy sky. The streams of flying traffic travelled mostly in and around the city, with occasional vehicles crossing to the residential and industrial districts. Bane found the view depressing. Never had he seen a domain so corrupted by its human population, and had not thought people would commit such foolish plunder of the resources they depended upon to survive. For all their cleverness in some ways, in other ways these people were amazingly stupid.
He stood up. “I shall leave you now. Do as I have commanded. I will be watching.”
Sarjan nodded, and Bane headed for the back of the room, where Kayos enveloped him in the light shield once more.
He smiled, his silver eyes twinkling. “This is a good plan. We might be able to defeat all three dark gods with this ship.”
Bane leant against the wall. “Perhaps.” He jerked his chin at the screen. “Look what they have done to Sherinias’ domain.”
Demon Lord VII - Dark Domain Page 4
