by M. K. Gibson
“I can see in your eye, you are resigned to your fate,” Mastema said. “Good. That is wise. But I am still going to hurt you. Greatly.”
Vali tried to spit blood in Mastema’s face, but the shredded flesh of his face and the lack of whole lips prevented him. Instead, only bloody drool oozed from his face.
“Ahh, the famed Armor of the Green Knight. I remember this. I greatly enjoyed reaping his smug life,” Mastema said as his spider-like claws began to tear and shear away the green steel.
Vali’s head lolled, his strength gone. He could see the small collection of weapons and equipment piling up below him. It was sad, really. The sum of his life’s work was nothing more than a famous murder, a few refugees, and a pile of stolen trinkets. What would live beyond him when Mastema killed him?
Stripped of his protective armor, the culmination of all the trauma he’d received hit Vali at once. His face contorted into a mask of agony. A breathless scream tried to escape, but found no voice. There, at the end of his life, Vali found he had a choice: He could simply accept death and give over, or he could fight.
Vali fought.
Giving into the pain, Vali dug deep, to his Viking heart and the core of his being. Summoning everything, every last scrap of power he had, Vali healed himself as best as he could and willed himself to fight.
“Ahhhh!” Vali screamed.
Gripping the spider-like claws in his hands, Vali brought both of his feet up and kicked Mastema in the mandibles. The warden’s head snapped back. Vali used the force to flip his legs up and over backwards, breaking free and landing on his feet. His broken knee buckled, but he remained standing.
Quickly, Vali snatched up Mmaaghn Kamalu in his broken hands, forcing it to obey his final acts. Pushing through the pain, he threw the sheath away. Spinning, Vali swiped the glowing red weapon into a deadly strike.
But Mastema’s spider legs moved with blinding speed, dodging the attack. The warden smiled, excited by the combat.
“The weapon of Kamalu? What did he do to earn your wrath?”
Vali moved with deadly accuracy and precision. But with each attack, the larger being parried or dodged. “What all the fallen gods did,” Vali said. “They sought to rule rather than live. Dominance and reverence rather than unity.”
“Your naivete borders on stupidity,” Mastema said, slashing outwards with a spider leg.
The blow struck Vali across the left side of his face. Were his missing eye still there, Vali may have dodged it. For all his years of combat, Vali knew he was woefully outclassed. Even if he was at full strength and fully sighted, he would not stand a chance against this Mastema. Yet the god remained focused. Because he knew one simple truth.
He wasn’t trying to win.
Through his combat tactics, Vali managed to position himself so that his back was to the same razor-wire fence that Mastema had used as a weapon against him. Suddenly, Vali turned and slashed three times, opening a triangular-shaped hole in the fence. Diving through, Vali hobbled into the open courtyard of Flotsam.
“Run little god, run!” Mastema called out. “I do so love the chase.”
Ignoring the warden, Vali ran as hard and as fast as his crippled legs could carry him. His breath came in labored gasps. The only thing holding him together was his will and anger. But before he died, he had one last thing he must accomplish.
Everywhere he looked, Vali saw demon, human, hellion, and cyborg prisoners. With them were armed guards and more of the monstrous draugr keeping order. From their perspective, it must have been comical as a bloodied and broken man ran waving a naked blade across the courtyard.
Looking toward the sky and then across the island, Vali ran to what he estimated was the center of the island. Once there, he stopped, dropped to one knee, and tried to regain his breath. Over his shoulder, he saw Mastema slowly coming towards him. The warden advanced like a predator.
With his sight open, Vali saw everyone who gathered around him. Each of them, guard and prisoner, was a murderer, or rapist, or thief, or child abuser. He could see their sins as clearly as the best way to kill them separately. But Vali still had one way to kill them all together.
Vali came to Flotsam to hurt them. To leave his mark and let Hell know that Löngutangar was not weak. With his power leaving him by the second, Vali decided that if this was his end, then it must be a spectacular end.
Vali watched Mastema, who drew closer and closer. The warden’s spider legs carried him aloft so that he looked like an angel of death approaching. Vali held his resolve, waiting for the right moment.
Suddenly, Mastema melted away in the darkness. Bracing himself, Vali waited. From behind him, the god felt Mastema’s arm wrap around his throat as the creature reappeared.
Right where Vali wanted him.
Mastema pulled Vali inward, so close that the warden’s voice was a warm, wet whisper on the god’s ear.
“You’re good,” Mastema said, as he turned Vali’s head slightly back towards the garden.
Admiring the gruesome scene of Maz’ael and Gerhardt, he said, “I liked watching you work. Not just today, but over the years. From one who delivers death to another, my respect for your mind and skill is given. But you came into my domain and hurt my child. That I cannot forgive. With your armor gone, I can feel the battle within you. Your power ebbs away inch by inch.”
Instead of answering him, Vali ran Mmaaghn Kamalu across his palm, letting the sword drink deeply of his remaining blood. Vali turned the weapon and slammed it, point first, into the hard-packed ground of the island.
“Go . . . back . . . to hell.”
“Wrong direction, little cousin,” Mastema smirked, confused as to why the Aesir rid himself of his weapon. “As an assassin, you take life. As a killer, I’ve exterminated it. With all your godly power, compared to me, you’re nothing. Send an assassin after a killer and watch the killer win.”
“Just . . . kill me. I-I’d rather be dead . . . than listen to any more of this . . . bullshit.”
“Kill you? No. My child was correct. You will live. And you, and the hell bitch, will be indoctrinated into this place.”
There in the place known as Flotsam Prison, a sound was heard which was not native to the island.
Laughter.
Vali, for all the pain he felt, started laughing so hard his remaining eye watered and shut.
“What?!” Mastema demanded, spinning the god around and striking him in the mouth. Through losing teeth and spitting more blood, Vali continued to laugh.
“What is so funny?!” Mastema roared, striking the god again, again, and again.
On the ground, Vali raised the hand he used to cut himself. With his life’s blood flowing freely, the Odinson gave Mastema, warden of Flotsam, the finger.
At first, nothing happened. Then, ever so slightly, a rumble could be felt from all over the island. The rumbling continued, growing stronger with each concurrent seismic tremor.
“Mmaaghn Kamalu has one additional gift along with detecting evil,” Vali coughed through the blood in his throat. “The Igbo war god imbued his weapon to emit tremors so strong it could shake the ground, and if left unchecked, massive earthquakes. Your island, your domain, will sink.”
Mastema looked to the weapon, then back at Vali. The warden slammed one more large fist into the fallen god’s face, then went to retrieve the sword. Gripping the handle, Mastema pulled and pulled, yet the blade refused to budge from the packed earth.
“Blood bound,” Mastema softly laughed. “Well played, little god. But you will release your hold on the weapon. If you do not I will personally slaughter every breathing being in your fucking town and laugh while I do it.”
“You might live if you leave now, “Vali groaned, as he tried picking himself up. “Not to mention your son.”
“Stupid, puny, bastard offspring of a pure wellspring!” Mastema roared as he picked Vali up off the ground. The warden began once again striking the dying deity. “All I have to do is kill you a
nd the blood bond will break.”
“Then all I have to do . . . is hang on . . . until this place sinks,” Vali said.
Mastema tore into Vali’s already mutilated body. He tore Vali’s flesh. His entrails were spilled out. His chest cavity was torn open. Only the faith of over two thousand souls from Midheim and Löngutangar kept him from dying.
With his eye still closed, Vali did the one thing he could, the one thing that a dear friend had suggested to make the world a better place.
He prayed.
Not to the divine, but just a prayer. One that conveyed his hope that Longutangar survived. Hope that his brother would one day find love. Hope that Salem and TJ would survive and save his people. Hell, he even prayed that Yeela woke up and fled with her sister in the hopes that, one day, they were a family again.
“Yield! Release the hold on the weapon! I am your god now!” Mastema roared as he tore more and more of Vali’s flesh away.
“Tsk tsk,” a soft, but powerful disembodied voice chided. “You know how He felt about false idols.”
For a moment, Vali felt the hair on his bloodied arms stand on end. An omen of something coming. An arrival.
A crack of thunder, so loud it was like a mountain breaking, split the night with deafening, concussive force. Mastema stopped his ravaging and looked about.
A bolt of red and white lightning, so bright that the night sky over Flotsam was turned to day, struck directly between Vali and Mastema. The sheer power of the lightning strike’s impact separated Vali and Mastema, flinging them apart.
Vali landed in a mangled heap. His remaining eye was closed, but the image of the lightning strike was burned into his retina. And in that image, Vali could see a giant white and red figure with four feathered wings and four arms.
Groaning, broken, bleeding, and dying, Vali rolled to his side and forced his eye open. Before him, standing in the middle of the scorched, blackened ground . . .
. . . was Taylor?
“Heya, boss. Toldja praying helps.”
Chapter Forty-One
Are You Worthy
Now, in The Temple of Solomon
For a moment there was no me.
There was only Light.
The Light was painful. The Light was beautiful. The Light surrounded me. Penetrated me. Filled me to the brim with pure ecstasy, and without the Light, I knew I would be . . . less. Dim. Absent.
In the bathing glow of The Light, I felt all the pain I ever inflicted on others. Their suffering was my suffering. I felt guilt. I felt loathing. I felt the desire to redeem myself in the presence of The Light. I felt hope. I felt courage.
All at once, in the blink of an eye, The Light vanished. Or was it I who no longer could be in the light? I didn’t know
I was lying on a floor.
The crystalline stone beneath me glowed white. Looking up, I saw it wasn’t just the floor that glowed. It was the walls, the ceiling, the columns. Pure warm light flowed from the very rock. Pulsing radiance moved everywhere.
Yet at the very edge of the light was a darkness. A corruption. Staining the outer edges of everything. This place—whatever it was, wherever it was—reflected the same battle outside. The Light held back the dark corruption of the void.
I turned, looking around. I didn’t see the door I came through. Just a wall. I was alone. The room had a hallway leading away, and that was it.
Where was TJ? Where was Chael?
“TJ? TJ! Where are you?!” I yelled, my voice echoing. “Jesus, where the hell am I?”
“Somewhere you are not supposed to be,” said a deep, strong, yet definitely feminine voice. “Somewhere you were never meant to reach.”
“Yet, here you are,” said a second female voice.
“Your young ward is outside these walls,” a third voice which was both masculine and feminine said. “And do not blaspheme in our presence, mortal.”
“Oh. Shit. Oh, damn . . . sorry. Hi,” I said, unsure of what to do. Looking around, and seeing no one, I spoke aloud. “My name is—”
“Isaac McMillan,” the first female voice said.
“The Lightrunner known as Salem. Previously known as Winston, Reynolds, and RJ Doral,” the second female voice said.
“We know who you are and why you are here,” the mixed third voice said. “Come, and let us see if you are worthy.”
Oh shit. “If you know who I am, and why I’m here, then you know what I’ve come for. You know what I have to do.”
“We are the Guardians of the Tears of God. We do not own them. If you can remove them, then that is where they are meant to be,” the first female voice said.
“Come to us, if you wish,” the second voice said.
“The choice is yours,” said the third voice.
I had no idea what was going on. But if this was where The Tears were, then I had to press on. No matter how freaking scary the disembodied voices were.
As I followed the hallway, the pulsing light in the strange construction seemed to flow in a way that guided me. As I stepped, ripples of warmth spread outward, pointing me down the hallway.
The strobe-like effect was dizzying, and I rested my hand on the hallway walls to steady myself. I felt carved pictograms in the crystal stone. Looking at them, I had flashes in my head. Flashes of wars. I saw battles over Heaven. I saw the fall of the unfaithful. I saw a single, beautiful angel look back over his shoulder as his army fell. With a nod and a reluctant smile, the angel leaped from Heaven, cast out with the flock of usurpers.
I pulled my hand back and shook my head. Wiping at my nose, I felt blood trickle out. I wiped the blood on my clothes, not wanting to stain such a beautiful place with my mortal filth.
The hallway stretched for an eternity. With each step I felt sluggish. It was as if the air itself resisted me, holding me back from reaching my destination. I took a step and thoughts of Gh’aliss flashed in my mind. Thoughts of how easily I cast her away decades before. With the next step, I could only dwell on how she returned to my life. And because of my very nature, independent of any identity I wore, she died because of me.
My head swayed and I reached my hand out to steady myself, only to snatch it back before I touched the wall, not wanting to relive a war in Heaven. Once I had my thoughts under control, I took my next step.
An image of Jensen, my possible son, shot through my mind. The image changed from the grown man I knew to a boy. A boy without a father living on the streets. I saw the boy forced to do . . . unspeakable things to survive. I heard him. Calling out the name “Winston” over and over.
Winston, the only name he was ever given as to who his father was. A name and nothing more. No flesh to give form. Only an empty name and an empty hope of a father’s arms to protect a child from a hellish world.
I fell to my knees. Tears streamed down my face. I wept how only a broken man could. Without dignity. Without restraint. My stomach wretched as my whole body vomited up centuries of remorse.
“I . . . I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I moaned.
I crawled forward on my hands and knees. Each step was another vision of suffering. Another life cut down too soon because of my action or inaction.
My dead lover and her children. My son. The people I betrayed when I sold humanity out. Those who died in The Catoctin Massacre because of me. The countless souls of the dead whose lives I ended haunted me.
They condemned me.
I crawled three more steps until my body gave out. My heart, heavy with the burden of so many, finally gave out, and I fell face first to the ground.
“I’m . . . so . . . fucking . . . sorry!” I yelled into the stone, slamming my fist against the luminescent floor.
Then, something changed. A pressure lifted, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked and there was no one there. Then I felt another, and another. Against the physical impossibility, I felt thousands of hands upon me.
The hands guided me gently along the floor. The hands lifted me. Not only my body, but my sp
irit. I heard the thousands of voices speak at once, whispers magnified by the sheer volume of them.
“We do not condemn you,” the voices said. “You set us free.” Once more I was lifted, rising to my knees.
I saw a flash in my mind. A memory. But not mine. I saw me, standing in the Tower of Abraxas. I stood beside the control system of the machines that were harvesting the very souls of people to give demons power. I heard myself apologizing to the hundred thousand people I doomed to death.
“I promise I will try and make it a better world. I-I’m sorry,” I heard myself say as I pressed the button that shut down the machine and ended their lives.
The voices’ whispering roar boomed in my head. “We are free.”
Suddenly, the voices were gone, and I was once again alone in the hallway. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to take a single step forward.
Nothing happened. My knees damn near gave out with a sense of relief.
I mentally pushed all the thoughts of Gh’aliss and Jensen, the pain I caused as Reynolds, and every other person I hurt, deep, deep down inside me. I knew there would be a day when I’d explode from an ulcer. Hell, I had enough repressed emotional trauma to resurrect Sigmund Freud and kill him all over again. But that was future Salem’s problem.
I still had a mission.
Continuing down the hall, I followed until the hall made a single left turn that opened into a vast, magnificent, circular shrine with a beautiful domed ceiling. Everything was made of the purest white alabaster and crystal. The room glittered in a rainbow of multi-colored reflected lights. I stood inside a dream.
Seven colossal thrones sat empty at seven cardinal points around the shrine. The thrones were not identical. Each was decorated differently, depicting a specific aspect of whoever was deemed worthy to sit upon them.
But it wasn’t the thrones that mesmerized me. It was pedestal in the center of the room. A single crystal pedestal. Floating there, suspended in midair by nothing I could see, were two golden, teardrop-shaped objects.
