by Phil Tucker
“I don’t serve you,” Ilina said, her voice an amused rasp. “I have found my true Empress.”
“Yes, so it would seem,” said Iskra. “You poor, mad fool.”
Ilina gave a serpentine hiss, but a glance from Kyrra caused her to subside.
“Silence,” said the Ascendant. Though his voice shook, he retained much of his native authority. “I must focus.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
Iskra watched him worriedly. She’d never seen him so on edge. Clearly, the strain was getting to him. Gone was his otherworldly calm, his serene detachment. Not that she blamed him. If anything, it was incredible that it had taken him so long to feel the pressure of their situation.
Nobody spoke as Kyrra moved with her forces to face the open door. The shamans began their own muttering, weaving their voices together as they gestured in unison.
Iskra watched the shattered doors. She wanted to chastise the medusa for destroying them, but in truth they would have done little to keep the demons out. Still, as a symbol, they had been potent. Being forced to stare at their broken remains was deeply disturbing.
The minutes crawled by. Everyone, she was certain, had to be filled with thoughts of death. It was torture to simply stand here, waiting, but there was nothing else she could do.
Then she heard footsteps. A large group was coming their way.
The Ascendant opened his eyes, and his shoulders sagged. Even before Kethe appeared in the doorway, Iskra knew from the Ascendant’s expression exactly what her daughter was about to say.
They had lost.
“Your Holiness,” gasped Kethe. Her hair was matted with sweat, her face mottled from exertion. She staggered forward a few steps and fell to her knees. Others came in behind her: the Virtues, a number of Consecrated.
“They have gained the forbidden room,” the Ascendant said woodenly.
“Yes,” Kethe said, fighting to control her breath. “Your Holiness, I’m sorry. The demon teleported past us. We were unable to catch up with it.” Her eyes glimmered with tears. Her frustration was palpable. “I’m so sorry. We tried.”
Akinetos strode heavily into the room, blowing hard. He sank to his knees with a clang, his massive armor rising and falling with each breath. “Your commands, Your Holiness? The demon – it’s freed. The others are below by now.”
The Ascendant was staring at his Virtues. The band of muscle over the joint of his jaw flared into view before disappearing, over and over again.
“Your Holiness?” Akinetos looked up. “What should we do?”
Tiron staggered in with Asho. The Bythian youth was barely able to walk; his arm was slung over the knight’s shoulders. Others followed, a mess of beggars and emaciated strangers.
Iskra exhaled sharply and ran forward, appearances be damned. Past the Virtues, through the Consecrated, to Tiron, whom she kissed, then helped him lower Asho to the floor.
“It’s looking bad,” Tiron said softly. “We had to fight our way here through numerous breaches. Aletheia’s going to fall, and soon.”
Asho was so pale that Iskra could see the tracery of veins beneath his skin. Kethe joined them and raised Asho’s head so that it rested on her thigh.
“The medusa said the path to the Solar Gates is blocked,” said Iskra. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” Kethe said numbly. “We were barely able to fight our way up. To go back down? Impossible.”
“What of the palace platform?” asked Iskra. “The way we descended last time to the seventh circum?”
“Perhaps,” said Tiron. “But your Ascendant isn’t looking too good.”
Iskra twisted around and saw that Akinetos was speaking quietly with the youth, who was staring blankly out at nothing.
“He’s in shock,” said Tiron. “I’ve seen it dozens of times. Inexperienced and poor commanders get that look every time they’re given bad news. The mind seizes up. They can’t understand the new reality they’re facing.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Iskra. “He’s supposed to be the living embodiment of the Empire. An Empire that’s about to fall.”
“What are we going to do, Mother?” There was in Kethe’s words a pleading, a yearning for guidance, that tore at Iskra’s heart. “There’s got to be something.”
“I don’t know.” Iskra pressed her palm to her temple. Tried to think, to devise some means of escaping this situation. “We must leave Aletheia. But that would mean abandoning our armies. That would mean abandoning the White Gate.”
“We wouldn’t make it,” said Tiron. “Not from what I saw. The demons were pouring in behind us even as we climbed. We’d need Draumronin or the like to fight our way through, and that’s not taking into account that huge bastard of a demon and whatever he’s let loose from below.”
As if that had been its cue, the ground shook. Cries of alarm filled the vast hall, and then Aletheia itself dropped noticeably, a sharp descent and sudden stabilizing that caused a number of people to stumble and several to fall.
“Oh, no,” whispered Iskra. “No.”
“What was that?” someone cried. “What’s happening?”
It was the Ascendant who answered, his voice a monotone. “The same thing that happened to Starkadr. Aletheia is beginning its fall.”
“That can’t be,” said Synesis. “The White Gate is burning right before us. Aletheia can’t fall.”
Kyrra’s laughter was husky and redolent with ancient humor. “Can it not, child? Prepare to have the scales torn from your eyes.”
“Mother,” said Kethe. “Please. What should we do?”
Iskra bit her lower lip and tried to drown out the sounds of panic, to quiet her own terror. Think. She focused on her breath, drew on her Sigean training. Calm yourself and think.
The dragons were gone. Asho had fallen. Audsley had failed to return in time from Haugabrjótr. The demons had gained access to the forbidden chamber and freed their brethren, depriving Aletheia of its power of flight. Their armies were being massacred on all fronts. There were no more resources they could draw on. They couldn’t reach the Portals. They couldn’t escape.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, then reached out and took Kethe’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Kethe. I don’t know.”
Tiron took a deep breath. “We can act like adults, is what we can do.” Knees popping, he rose from his crouch and turned to regard the crowd. “All right, all of you! Enough with your whining and weeping! Virtues, Consecrated, line up before the door!”
Mixis turned to Tiron, his face pale with outrage. “You have no right —”
“Silence!” bellowed Tiron. “Swallow your pride, bury your dreams, and do as you’re fucking told! Any moment now, demons are going to come pouring in through that door, and you’re going to be in place, swords drawn, chins the fuck up, and ready to fight. Move!”
Mixis swallowed his retort, gave Tiron a tight nod, and with Synesis and Akinetos moved to stand before the door.
“Get up, Kethe,” Tiron barked. “Into position, now.”
Kethe nodded, moved Asho’s head gently to the floor, then rose smoothly to her feet. She hugged Iskra suddenly and whispered, “I love you, Mother. I love you so much.”
Then she was gone, hurrying to join the other Virtues, wiping at her face once more.
Iskra stood frozen, her arms still extended. She wanted to go after her daughter, but Tiron turned her about gently and gave her a push. “Go stand with the Ascendant, Iskra. Take your place.”
“My place?”
“Aye. Go on, now.” Tiron turned to the others. “Captain Patash! Finally, a man I can count on. Line your soldiers up behind the Consecrated. Hurry.”
Captain Patash gave Tiron a tight grin and barked his own commands to his soldiers in Agerastian. They hurried to get into place.
“Tóki: you and your Hrethings are to encircle the Ascendant and Iskra. Let nothing through. Palace guards!” Tiron’s calls to action continued to drown out the murmurs as they sprang up. “To
the back! These damned demons can teleport where they will. Cover the rear. Go!”
The thirty or so Ennoian elites who’d been chosen to protect the Ascendant nodded and hurried to the rear of the group.
“Now,” Tiron said, eying the medusa. “You.”
Kyrra’s mouth widened into a smile. “Oh, you are delicious. Or you would be. What would you have me do, most presumptive of men?”
“Center. Right there before the Ascendant,” Tiron said, and Iskra thrilled at the power in his words. “You take down any demon that flies over the ranks. Your shamans and Vothaks – they’re to stand on the Ascendant’s far side and kill any demons that teleport into the back of the room. Clear?”
“Very well,” said Kyrra. “There is wisdom in what you say.”
Iskra marched to stand beside the Ascendant. The young man was staring fixedly at the wrecked doors.
“Are you all right?” she asked, then demurred. “Never mind. A foolish question.”
“Yes,” he replied. For a moment, a smile flickered across his face, but then it was gone. “A foolish question, but I appreciate your concern. I’m having difficulty understanding what is taking place.” His smile returned, but this time it was forced. “Is that a fair way to put it? My understanding of the world, my place in it, is being challenged in a manner that is making it hard for me to — to continue rationalizing these unfolding events.”
Iskra wanted nothing more than to reach out and squeeze his hand to reassure him. To let him know that, on some level, she sympathized, that she admired him for trying to be strong even when all was lost. But she couldn’t. She could never act in so familiar a manner with the Ascendant, even if he’d appreciate it.
“I understand,” she said. “Yet all is not lost. There’s still time for a miracle, is there not?”
Aletheia answered by dropping precipitously. Iskra’s stomach lurched up, she bottled a scream in her throat, and for a sickening few seconds she simply fell, surrounded on all sides by curses, oaths, and shrieks. Then the ground solidified beneath them and she crashed to her knees along with almost everyone else.
The Ascendant laughed. It was a horrifying sound, almost a giggle, and then he clamped his mouth shut. His jaw trembled as if more laughter was fighting to emerge. People looked at him and then immediately looked away, as if suddenly he was a sight so undignified that it was impious even to acknowledge him in this moment of weakness.
“Here, Your Holiness,” Iskra said as she helped him to his feet. His thick sleeves draped to the floor, and because he was wearing a full complement of seven luxurious robes, he was rendered almost immobile by them.
“I’m sorry, Iskra.” He passed his hand over his brow. “Perhaps being the Ascendant is more a state of mind than a biological fact. Perhaps — perhaps I have never truly been tested before. Am I failing, I wonder? Is it possible for me to fail? And if I fail, then who am I, if not the deity I am supposed to be?”
He was unspooling before her eyes, cast adrift in the currents of uncertainty. This more than anything else could spell danger for their small group’s resistance. The Virtues were eyeing them, along with the palace guards and the nobility. Only the medusa and her medusa-Kissed henchmen seemed unaffected by the Ascendant’s behavior. If anything, they seemed amused.
“Your Holiness, if I may,” she said, leaning in very close so she could whisper for his benefit alone. “Collect yourself, now.” She squeezed his arm as hard as she could and smiled when he gave her a startled look. “Right now, in this moment, it doesn’t matter what you believe. It matters what you do, and if you lose your self-control, you will doom us all. So, swallow your doubts. Stop thinking and pretend, if nothing else, to be the leader these people need. Do you understand?”
“I — yes,” he whispered.
Had she just imperiled her soul by speaking to him in such a manner? She had no idea, and in truth, she didn’t care. But when he and straightened his spine, she relaxed her grip on his arm and stepped back to her place.
The Ascendant made the sign of the triangle with his hands. “Life obeys no dictum,” he said loudly, and other conversation ceased. “Life defies. It spites. It glorifies and rewards. It is our privilege to live, and we can expect no more. Of all the dross matter in the world, we are gifted with life, and for that we must be eternally grateful, even as we are crushed, as we are broken, as we are maimed and crippled and felled by old age.”
There was an aching pause, and for a moment Iskra thought no one would speak the response.
“Yet we Ascend,” said Tiron, and many others echoed his response.
“It is folly to strive, to seek dominion over ourselves and the world, yet life compels us to do so even as it mocks our efforts. It is madness to expect justice in a world this cruel, yet always we seek balance —”
A bat-winged demon flew in through the doorway, its appearance sudden and without warning. With a delighted cry, it flew over the Virtues only for Akinetos to leap up and bring his hammer smashing down on its skull. The demon screamed and crumpled, disappearing as it fell.
Iskra clutched her robes to her chest and looked around wildly. It hadn’t teleported anywhere else in the room.
Nobody spoke. It seemed as if everyone was holding their breath. Someone had begun to sob quietly.
“At best, we may hope for love,” the Ascendant said tremulously. “Yet, too often we pass it by, distracted as we are by the vagaries of life.”
The ground fell out from under them once again, enough for everyone to stumble, and at that moment a dozen demons flooded in through the Gate, Tharok running mere steps ahead of them with Maur in his arms. There was a flurry of wings, a noxious stench rose, and Iskra saw eyes flashing crimson with hatred and hunger.
The Virtues leaped to engage them, but they were still recovering from the fall. Iskra saw Kethe slice open the stomach of one and Mixis cry out as he missed a second, while Akinetos was unable to get his footing. Synesis hewed down a third and a fourth, and then the demons were gone.
This time, they reappeared behind her, five of them popping into existence directly over the clustered crowd of nobles. Iskra raised an arm, expecting the worst, but the demons screamed.
Their movements became agonized, their ebon flesh bleached to gray, and as one they fell, crashing down amongst the nobles and shattering on the floor.
Iskra whipped her gaze to Kyrra, who had raised herself off the ground on her massive serpentine body. Her eyes were returning to normal, but even looking at her now caused Iskra to cry out in pain and cover her face.
“They come!” Tiron roared, then he ran to help Tharok lower Maur to the ground alongside Asho.
Iskra pressed in close to the Ascendant as he once more made the sign of the triangle. As a cavalcade of demons poured in through the door, a golden glow emerged from his hands and spread out in the form of a globe. It didn’t shine nearly as brightly as the first one had, back in Starkadr, and it contracted in fits and starts as if he was having trouble putting it forth, but with his jaw gritted he forced it out till it covered Iskra and the nobility.
The Virtues were hacking with swords of blazing white fire, and where their blades touched, demon flesh was cleaved with the greatest of ease. The Consecrated were fighting with less ability but equal will, while Kyrra and her shamans and Vothaks incinerated and petrified any demons that managed to pass the gauntlet at the door.
Tharok drew the black scimitar from Maur’s side, and immediately it burned brightly with black flame. He launched himself straight at the ruined doorway, leaping up as more demons flooded in, and scythed through them with a roar that drowned out their screams.
“I must move to the fore,” said the Ascendant. His chest was heaving. “I must block the door. Come!”
Holding his arm, Iskra followed him as he pushed through the ranks, his aureate sphere forcing the demons back in turn. The Consecrated turned to stare up at the golden light as it enveloped them, awe writ large on their faces, and then t
he Virtues were enveloped. A moment later, Tharok staggered back into the golden light and it filled the ruined doorway, blocking it altogether.
“The Ascendant be praised!” called one of the Aletheian nobles.
Iskra felt a fluttering of hope in her chest. She could dimly make out the forms of demons assaulting the outside of the sphere, sending concentric ripples of golden light across its surface as they battered it and were burned to cinders.
“How long can you hold up this sphere?” Tiron asked, breathing heavily as he walked up to them.
“Forever, if need be,” the Ascendant replied.
He was being reassured by his own success, Iskra saw, growing calmer by the moment.
The wall a dozen paces away burst inward. Massive blocks of stone flew through the air, hit the ground and rolled with horrendous force. A demon pushed its way through, dust hanging about its frame, wings of crimson fire shrugging their way through the gap. It was human-sized, she saw, and had the appearance of an older man, a scholar perhaps, with glory sitting faded upon its brow. In one hand it wielded a large whip of flame, in the other a burning scimitar.
Akinetos charged him, warhammer held high overhead, his massive feet crashing against the ground as he crossed the distance with surprising speed. The demon reared up into the air, its great wings blasting superheated air at all of them, and then opened its maw and spewed a torrent of flame that surrounded Akinetos completely.
Mixis and Synesis appeared in the air above the demon a second later, and their weapons scored grievous wounds down its back, causing it to disappear in an instant.
The torrent of flame ended. Iskra cut off a gasp of horror by thrusting her knuckles into her mouth. Akinetos’ armor had been reduced to slag. The Virtue himself was slain; he lay crumpled within his glowing armor, a glistening mannequin of blackened flesh.
The demon was not done; it appeared high above them and began winging its way toward the White Gate.
