The Demon City

by Evan Currie

  “My city!” Ser’Goth screamed above them all, staring out the windows at the city that lay open below her.

  The sea was claiming the city now, street by street. Entire sections were underwater, and she could see the stormy seas beyond eagerly washing up over the roofs of lower-slung buildings and roaring down the thoroughfares of the city.

  Elan ignored her for the moment, focusing on another attacking guard. She spun, deflecting the polearm aside and into the ground with her staff, then reversed to strike across the demon’s head, while Sindri used the opening to split the demon near in twain with his axe.

  It went down, leaving two more trying to get to them, but the ground felt less steady by the second as they fought, and staying afoot was becoming a difficult proposition on the smooth marble floor.

  “Get to Jol!” Elan ordered, pointing. “I’ll hold them back. We need to get off this building!”

  *****

  “Easier said than done,” Sindri muttered as the girl screamed her order at him, but he scrambled across the floor on all fours as much as on his feet.

  Jolinr was in bad shape but still breathing and mostly conscious when he got to the boy. Sindri half picked him up, getting the boy to a sitting position partially.

  “Come on, Jol.” He started dragging him along the floor. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Leave me,” Jolinr said groggily. “Can’t run. Slow you down.”

  “Boy, you’ve been slowing us down since we picked you up.” Sindri laughed. “What else is new? No reason to give up on you now.”

  Jolinr tried to bat his arms away, but the young man was far too weak to pull that off, so Sindri kept dragging him back across the floor as he cast around for the best way out.

  Elevator? No, that’s suicide. Stairs? From here? Not much better.

  He looked out the windows, trying to judge if there was any chance at all of jumping to another rooftop.

  Not in this lifetime. Not for Jol and the girl, at least.

  Sindri knew he could survive it, might even live through a plunge to the surface level . . . though that was a bit more questionable. The water itself likely wouldn’t kill him, but any number of things in the water might. He was an immortal being, but in all honesty, Sindri was giving himself not much better than fifty-fifty odds of getting out of this alive himself.

  Jol and the girl?

  Not a chance.

  Making the best of an impossible situation, Sindri redirected and started dragging Jol toward the stairs.

  *****

  Ser’Goth stood in utter stunned shock.

  Her city . . . her city was sinking.

  Of all the things she had ever experienced, ever expected . . . this was perhaps the most unreal moment of her very long existence.

  Already prone to anger, the demoness felt a purely apoplectic rage building as she watched the white water wash over the lower buildings out on the docking arms of the city and felt the floor buck underfoot as it tilted even more.

  An inarticulate scream tore itself from her throat, and she spun about, raging with every breath she drew.

  “What did you do to my city?” she snarled, fixating on the slip of a blonde girl. “My city!”

  The girl was struggling to keep her footing and not paying nearly as much attention to her as she felt she deserved. Ser’Goth locked her talons into the floor, puncturing the marble with ease to hold herself in place. Step-by-step she stalked across the floor, eyes locked on the girl.

  “You are going to pay for this,” she snarled.

  The blonde looked up at her. “You mean worse than falling to my death or, you know, drowning if I survive the fall?”

  Ser’Goth snarled, flinging herself at the girl in a rage, taloned hands outstretched.

  *****

  Elan had to throw herself back to evade the talons of the demoness, planting her staff into Ser’Goth’s torso as she rolled and redirecting the attack over her body.

  The results were a heavy smack and cracked marble as the demoness slammed into the far wall, upside-down no less, but also Elan was left skidding along the floor toward the window as she tried to gain some kind of control over her slide.

  A few feet from the window, she slowed herself enough to come to a stop and roll over to her front so she could climb to her feet. Elan risked a look over her shoulder as she did and was instantly dizzy as she looked more down on the city than she had expected and it all seemed too very far . . . yet too close by far.

  Taking a breath, she tore her gaze away from that and focused back on the demoness, who was picking herself up off the floor above her.

  “I am going to watch you die,” the demoness promised as she slowly stalked down the incline toward Elan.

  Elan snorted. “All you have to do for that is wait a few minutes.”

  “Too long!” The demoness jumped again. This time her wings fanned out, and she descended in a more guided fashion, though still frighteningly fast.

  Elan braced herself, waiting for the last moment, then threw herself aside to dodge the attack. The demoness merely shifted her wings, altered trajectory, and intercepted Elan in midair. She felt a burning sensation along her arm and chest as talons tore at her skin, and then the world went upside down as she was thrown across the room.

  Elan hit the ground rolling and skidding, sliding down into the floor-to-ceiling window as she came to a stop. She lay stunned for a few seconds, but enough sense came back to her to throw herself aside again when a flutter of sound reached her ear from far too close.

  The demoness screamed in frustration when her taloned feet dug into marble instead of flesh, and Elan rolled to her feet.

  She braced herself, leveling the staff ahead of her as the demoness glared across the space between them.

  There were no words this time when the demoness charged, and Elan silently met her at the midway point. Talons flashed, drawing sparks and light off the metal of the staff as Elan blocked and twisted to bat away the potentially lethal attacks. She spun and flipped the staff about, crooking it in her left arm as she drew back her right and thrust it out in a palm strike to the demoness’s chest.

  A word she did not know exploded from Elan’s throat and mouth, driving a surge of power down through her shoulder and out into the strike with a flash of light and an explosive sound. The demoness was lifted off her feet and blown back across the room from the force of the blow. She hit the angled floor and skidded across marble and glass, rolling end over end before sliding to a stop.

  Finally, Ser’Goth climbed painfully to her feet and glared back at Elan.

  “How do you keep doing that?” she roared. “It is not possible! A human cannot be using words of power! You cannot!”

  Elan felt a trickle of warmth against her lip and brushed at it with the back of her right hand. She saw the smear of blood there. She flicked it off and forced herself straight.

  “Apparently I can,” she sneered, wishing she had the slightest clue what the demoness was talking about.

  Ser’Goth snarled, tensing. “That will not save you, child. This is your end!”

  The demoness started to stalk forward just as the building shook violently, and suddenly everything tilted even worse, sending both Elan and Ser’Goth into the windows. The glass held, but they found themselves staring down at the abyss thousands of feet below them as the building finally began to give faster than the city.

  Ser’Goth glared between Elan and the abyss. “You may have stopped the summoning here, child, but there were others. All you have done is prolong the miserable existence of humans on this planet. The inevitable end is still coming for all your kind.”

  With that parting shot, the demoness slammed her foot into the glass and shattered the pane beneath her. As she dropped through, she extended her wings and swooped out from under the building, vanishing from sight.

  Elan let out a breath, looking around desperately as she tried to find a way out.

  “Sindri?” she ca
lled, spotting the small man, with Jol, barely hanging on to the doorframe above. “Are you okay?”

  “We’re about to die in a toppling skyscraper that’s falling into the sea!” Sindri snapped. “No, I am not okay!”

  Panes of glass began shattering as the building twisted, and Elan desperately looked around for purchase as more and more of them began to go. She hammered her staff into the floor just as the glass gave out under her and hung on to it as it penetrated the marble.

  “I maybe could have thought this through a little better,” she admitted, feeling oddly calm about the whole thing.

  Sindri laughed sharply. “Planning isn’t your strong suit, is it, lass?”

  “Well, I haven’t had any problems before,” she said, hugging the staff tightly, her feet hanging out over the open air.

  She wondered, idly, if this was what Kaern had felt just before the great wave struck him. This sense of calm that filled her, it felt like something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Peace.

  She glanced up. “Thank you for your help, Sindri . . . Jol.”

  Jol just waved weakly, mumbling something she couldn’t quite make out, but Sindri seemed suddenly far more amused than he should.

  “Might not be our time just yet, girl. Look!”

  She turned to look down and found herself blinking as she saw what looked like a metal bird rising slowly toward her.

  “Am I already dead?” she blurted, confused.

  “Jump, lass!” Sindri said. “I’ll send Jol after you, so be ready to catch!”

  “What?” Elan looked up.

  “Jump! Before the building falls!”

  Elan swallowed, trying to ignore the immense distance to the ground below and tensed as the metal bird slid under her. She wanted desperately to close her eyes but didn’t because that seemed like a truly bad idea, and then she braced enough to yank the staff out of the marble and dropped through the shattered window, only to thump onto the back of the great metal bird.

  Stunned for a moment, Elan didn’t know what to do until Sindri screamed at her, and she looked up as he let Jol slide in her direction. Elan held her place as the larger man dropped through the window and hit the metal surface with a cracking sound that made her wince, but Elan lunged over and grabbed him to anchor him in place.

  Sindri dropped easily beside her a moment later and grabbed on to Jol as well.

  “Come on!” he yelled over the roar of wind as the metal bird slid out from under the building and began to climb out of the city. “This way!”

  “What is this?” Elan screamed, terrified as she clung to Jol and stayed as low as she could to the metal bird’s back.

  “It’s a skip fighter! Hold on a moment,” Sindri yelled as he worked his way forward, and a section opened up ahead of him.

  Sindri pulled Jol forward and unceremoniously dumped him into the interior, gesturing for Elan to follow and finally dropping in himself.

  “What took you so long?” Sindri demanded as the section closed and they found Brokkr looking at them over his shoulder.

  “Herself didn’t take as good a care of her trophies as you might think,” Brokkr defended. “Had to make some alterations to get this beastie in the air.”

  Elan looked around, wide-eyed. From the outside, she had been certain it was solid metal, but now, on the inside of the beast, she found that she could look out as though it were glass.

  “What is this thing?” she asked again.

  “I told you, it’s a skip fighter,” Sindri said. “One of the old war machines they used back in the day. Her Ladyship liked to keep trophies, as you may have noticed. The city itself was her greatest prize, but even so, it was one of many.”

  “I was wrong,” Elan said as she looked out and watched the slow destruction of the city below. “Killing demons . . . it isn’t enough. I thought that would solve everything, but it isn’t the demons that are the worst of what I’ve seen. It’s what they took from us, what we lost.”

  The buildings below them fractured, spires toppling into the roiling seas beneath.

  “We have to rebuild,” Elan said, swallowing. “We can’t let everything we’ve been fall into the abyss.”

  She felt the tinge of irony as she said that while watching the greatness of the past break apart and fall into an oceanic abyss.

  She looked over at Jol, who was looking at her with intensity she didn’t really understand but knew she was feeling herself.

  “We rebuild,” he said, his tone fervent. “We prove that the demons mean nothing.”

  Elan nodded. “Atlantis first, and then the world.”

  The central tower, the lair of the Lady of the Demon City, splintered almost halfway up the length of the great construction then, and the top broke off. The great spire toppled over as it fell, planting itself deep into the heart of the city as it tore through the streets, through the core of the city’s underworld, and right through the other side. Water roared through the cracks, exploding out and into the streets in the aftermath, sweeping away everything in its path.

  They all continued looking out to where the demon city was sinking slowly beneath the waves, an angry red glow churning the water in the center of it as the sea claimed its own. She sadly thought of everything that would be lost when the city slipped beneath the waves, but the bloodred churning of the water at the center reminded her of what had nearly happened.

  “That . . . will leave a mark,” Brokkr said as he steered the craft slowly around so they could watch. “There’s bad magic at play there.”

  “Aye.” Sindri nodded. “She was a demon city, no doubt, but that . . . that will be a demon sea for some time yet.”

  Epilogue

  The transport cycled steadily, depositing thousands more people onto the island of Atlantis. The small city would have to grow, Merlin knew, and grow quickly to provide for them all. He had already commanded the construction of new buildings by his fabrication machines and would send even more infrastructure devices there.

  The survivors . . . the victors of the attack on the local summoning circle had returned in good spirits, despite losses. Caleb, the hero of the hour, was alive but would take some time to heal, even with Merlin’s best efforts on his behalf. The survivors of the city were in less firm mental condition, unfortunately, but they were alive and free.

  That would be enough for the moment. How it would hold up over time, Merlin did not know. He only knew one thing for certain . . . the war that, by rights, had ended centuries ago was somehow still raging. This night, they’d almost been snuffed out, yet somehow, through the efforts of a few, hope had not died.

  They had cut it close with the stones near the island. Caleb’s determination had decided it in their favor . . . and even closer at Lemuria, where only a terrible sacrifice had stopped the summoning there.

  Merlin had heard the demon’s last words to Elan, however, and wondered just how many other summonings there had been.

  Had they done enough?

  That was not a question he could answer yet.

  The only thing Merlin was certain of was that they had done at least enough that the question was still an open one, and that was far better than the alternative.

  He watched the final view of Lemuria once more through Elan’s eyes as the once great city sank beneath the waves.

  So Lemuria has finally vanished physically as it had in truth a long time ago. The great city of so many has sunk down beneath the waves.

  He turned his focus to those building anew, digging out new trenches to water crops as they greeted so many new faces to the small island.

  So now . . . where Lemuria sinks into the depths, perhaps Atlantis rises.

 

 

 
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