Wrath of Aten

by S. A. Ashdown

  Nikolaj grabbed me from behind and yanked me above the line of arrows that whizzed, like a cloud of mosquitoes, ready to suck the life out of the brightly lit warriors. They felled men in their hundreds. A white wisp zipped away from one group of skewered victims and hunted out Lorenzo, who had followed the honour guard as they tried to keep pace with Akhen. Freyr! There’s a good little Elder.

  I sank down fast, on course to meet the wisp with amethyst eyes, seizing him out of the air. ‘Theo?’

  I relayed my plan and he zipped away from us. Lorenzo’s expression was decidedly murderous. Ahead, the coven spotted me and retreated from Akhen’s guards, bounding over as if gravity really was weaker here. ‘There’s still twelve of the buggers left,’ I said, counting.

  ‘’Ere, you think Akhen might’ve picked them for a reason? You know how many powers they have stuffed up their sleeves?’

  I patted him on the back. Akhen was leaping across countries, Brann held high. Then Freyr lit him and his guards up like fireflies.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep them busy, Theo. Are you ready to take out the Midgard Serpent?’

  ‘Just a sec,’ I said, giving Ullr his cue. ‘Everyone join me beneath my umbrella.’

  Ullr angled his enormous shield over us as we crouched down in time for the next thunderstorm of Elvish arrows, many lodging in the shield. Lorenzo winced at each thud thud.

  When the hail ended, Ullr withdrew his tortoise-shell. ‘I think that made a dent in numbers,’ I said. ‘Only six now.’

  Akhenaten had fallen, every inch of flesh pricked with arrows. ‘Is he dead?’ Lori asked.

  ‘Nope. No way. He’s the toughest git in the Nine Realms.’

  ‘Apart from you,’ Nikolaj added helpfully.

  The coven returned with Lorenzo to engage the six guards, who were a little cumbersome with arrows poking out of various limbs.

  I teleported to Akhen’s side and rammed Istapp towards his throat.

  He vanished and reappeared behind me.

  Ullr smashed him in the face with his shield. Nikolaj laughed.

  Akhen flipped round, cartwheeling without needing his arms to vault, and planted his feet once again on the glassy veil. I stared into his eyes, once black as flint, now blood red. He held his breath and hunched his shoulders, his skin glowing orange. The arrows popped out of his skin, flopping like swatted flies.

  Nikolaj unleashed an arrow that lodged right between Akhen’s eyebrows. I expected a spurt of blood but blue liquid trickled out of the wound. Akhen roared, although why this arrow grieved him most, I couldn’t fathom. He yanked this one out, the wound healing behind it.

  I lobbed Mjölnir and he caught it with his free hand, although the momentum behind the throw sent him spinning. Nevertheless, he slowed it down and used his own weight to swing it round and toss it back at me. It came so quick and I was so surprised that it crunched against the last part of my body to dematerialise – my sword-hand.

  I hate him, I seethed, realising that by vanishing I’d left Ullr open to Mjölnir. Thor’s hammer almost cracked his shield in half. When I reappeared, Ullr glowered at me as I yanked the hammerhead out of the metal.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Do you know how many dwarves it takes to make a shield like this?’

  ‘As many as it takes to change a lightbulb?’

  ‘Not now, Ullr,’ Uncle snapped. ‘Theo, kill the bloody snake already!’

  Perhaps I was hesitating. Perhaps I’d yet to figure out how I was actually going to strangle this world-eating serpent. What were his weaknesses?

  The next few heartbeats seemed an eternity. In my mind, I was still under the old tree in Oakley Park, swearing to Ava in the rain that she meant more to me than the Nine Realms, a choice that almost meant my actual death inside Utgard’s Maze of Memory as its magic fed upon my brain to keep me away from Freyr’s sword. My body, however, was flying straight for Akhen, through the cleft of men created by my talented coven, trying to find some way for Istapp to cut off his head.

  At last, our blades crossed. Fire against ice. The clash rang across the battlefield. The fighting below paused, a stutter in the reel of action, and Brann’s heat burnt my light beard and eyebrows. I jumped back, unable to stand the intensity. Ullr’s shield kept the heat away while we regrouped. ‘He’s focusing it all on me,’ I thought aloud. ‘It’s like he’s channeling the sun itself.’

  ‘Or Aten,’ Nikolaj said. ‘But you are the true child of the Orlog and the Lífkelda, Theo. Don’t forget that.’ He clapped me on the back. I nodded and wiped the sweat from my brow.

  Then I pushed Ullr’s shield aside. I can’t avoid this; it has to end now.

  Gatekeeper. Ancestors. Rise. I generated a shield of my own, covering every inch of my body, an aura that acted as a sunshade. And then I teleported back to Akhen, slamming Freyr’s blade against his again.

  Akhen laughed. ‘So confident, Clemensen. Nothing puts a dent in your ego.’

  I ignored him, pushing the Gatekeeper energy through my arm, fully healing my Mjölnir-injured wrist – and leaning into Surt’s blade. I’d almost shoved it aside when Akhen stopped resisting. ‘And yet you have already lost. Your fiancée made an excellent vessel for my wife.’

  What?

  He had her? Why had no one told me? Where was she? ‘You’re lying,’ I hissed.

  He shrugged as if my belief was irrelevant. To him it probably was. ‘She put up a good fight,’ he said, ‘but in the end…she was only mortal.’

  I must summon her. Now.

  His strength returned to his grip.

  A Craven tore through space and heralded its arrival above the battle with a scream that sent every vampire to their knees – including Lorenzo and my entire Lamia coven.

  ’Ah, see the proof of what I say! My wife could never resist a good war!’

  I glanced up at the figure straddling the Craven. A girl. A woman. A vision. An Egyptian Queen in Ava’s body. No, I thought. No, it can’t be.

  Akhen took advantage and bashed my sword aside, ramming his shoulder just below mine, the power behind the blow launching me into the air and flipping me onto my back. My skin tingled with the venom of his touch.

  Ava.

  The Craven shadowed the currents of Earth’s seas. Akhen whooped, celebrating the arrival of his Queen. If he was lying, he put on a good show. His guards and a nearby group of Golden Knives had the coven pinned down, except Lorenzo. His eyes met mine. He held up Ormdreper and thrust it in front of him. The light split out of it and cut through the hearts of anyone not lying flat on the ground. I felt the magic leave my body as Ormdreper drew it away.

  Nikolaj appeared at my side. ‘Ava,’ I pointed weakly. ‘Nefertiti.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t know that. Don’t fall for another set of mind games.’ He helped me up.

  I returned to my feet a smidgen before Akhen made contact again. I twisted away and sliced Istapp through his knees, smiling as I waited for his legs to fall apart. They didn’t. Freyr’s sword didn’t work like that – Akhen’s legs became encased in solid ice. He yelled as the Lamia approached him, having dispatched his honour guard.

  He held out his hand, palm down. Then he flipped it up, and his guards were yanked to their feet like stringed puppets, expressions slack. ‘Don’t look so surprised, Syphon,’ Akhen said with a smirk. ‘I promised them they would rise again.’ He touched Brann to his legs and the ice thawed.

  He crashed the Lamia back into the arms of his guards. This time, as I released Mjölnir, I aimed at Akhen’s back and arrived in time to catch it bouncing off his spine.

  He fell to his knees. I swept my sword towards his neck. He twisted and grabbed the blade in his hands, groaning as the ice shot towards his chest. He tried to fizzle away but his form stuttered and returned. He can’t teleport while he’s iced.

  Finally, a weakness.

  He dropped his grip, ducked, lifted Surt’s blade, and arched it over his head into my abdomen, shredding through Fat
her’s chainmail. Inside, the Gatekeeper screamed. It had been struck. The flesh of my belly melted away.

  Nikolaj’s arms were around me, and when I blinked, we had returned to the cold surface of the moon. I was barely conscious, writhing and crying out as he uncorked the bottle of Thor’s ambrosia and tipped it down my throat, closing his hand around my mouth to stop me from coughing it up. ‘I need more,’ I groaned, as the ambrosia and the Gatekeeper worked to stitch my flesh back together.

  ‘That’s the last of it. Why you wasted so much on a Dark Elf…’ He grinned at me. I smiled weakly. ‘You almost had him, Theo. But you need to think bigger.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, refusing to look at the Craven and risk breaking my last hope. I rose into space and embraced my connection to the thunder god. Lightning shot out from my solar plexus, smashing an enormous chunk of rock from the moon. Electricity built around it as I rode the rock to Akhen.

  He tried to run but he couldn’t – he was still melting the ice away with Surt’s sword. I dived off as it collided. My eyes widened; his icy limbs thawed just in time, and Akhen transformed into the Serpent, a beast that wrapped itself around the moon-rock, clenching his tail in his own mouth. I looked on in awe and horror as the legendary symbol of the ouroboros spun across the planet. The world-encircling serpent had truly arrived.

  And I made it happen.

  Prophecies are like weeds; they’ll wriggle their way through the smallest crack.

  The serpent grew, then it let go of the rock and crashed – deliberately – into my parents’ army, flicking his tail this way and that, levelling swathes of warriors.

  But where was Brann?

  Not far from my feet – and under a cloud of moon-dust – the ground burned.

  Akhen’s elongated serpent’s face glared right at me as he snaked through his Golden Knives. I should grab the sword, but what if it burns my soul away? Aurelia had warned us that only the dead or those endowed by the fire-gods could hold it.

  You are the true child of the Orlog. Nikolaj was right. Maybe it was time to test the theory and take Surt’s blade out of play.

  And maybe it would turn me to ash.

  Akhen reverted into the pharaoh once more, melting into space, ready to retake his prize. I flung Brann into the sky with another lightning bolt.

  A second Craven flew over the battlefield, travelling so fast that I struggled to make out the figure on its back. Only when the Craven swooped down, and I saw the long scar across the man’s throat, did I realise it was Menelaus. He leant out as far as he dared and scrubbed Surt’s sword from the equation.

  Akhen yelled, his whole body lighting up from the inside.

  Menelaus twisted round in his seat of feathers and gave a new meaning to flipping someone the bird. I couldn’t help but grin as my cousin retrieved the weapon Akhen must have stolen from him.

  Then I remembered Ava and my joy turned to hatred.

  I waved Istapp at Akhen. ‘Come and get it!’ I shouted.

  ‘I don’t need a little stick,’ Akhen called back, narrowing the distance between us. ‘I am the weapon.’

  ‘We have so much in common!’

  ‘Including our lovers!’

  I wanted to rip his eyes out.

  Instead, he burned mine away.

  Akhen, Akhen understood me. When I teleported to him, ready to slice off his head for implying he and Ava or Nefertiti in Ava’s body had lain together, he was prepared too. A second sun disc rose over the horizon, not Earth’s life-giving star but the god of fire himself – Aten.

  I beheld his full glory.

  Aten’s many hands shattered his smooth edge, sun-rays blasting through their palms, trailing into my eyes.

  Blinding me completely.

  I did not recognise the sounds forming in my throat.

  I heard Ullr and Nikolaj yelling somewhere in the background and the distant clash of thousands of weapons. Blood-curling cries, some of them my own. Then swords crossing, just above my head. Even blackness was invisible to me. There was nothing. Nothing to see with.

  Come on, Gatekeeper, heal me.

  But Aten had sealed the Gatekeeper away in a box of flame. I could not tap into it, could not feel it.

  ‘Theo, I’ve got you.’ Lorenzo.

  ‘Where’s Akhen?’ My voice tore in my chest.

  ‘I scared him off for the moment. Or Ormdreper did. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m blind.’

  ‘For how long?’ I tried to lock down Lorenzo’s location in my mind by sound alone.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where’s the ambrosia?’

  ‘I drank it all.’

  ‘Shit. I have more bad news,’ Lorenzo said, ‘Strix is wounded. He’s flown away. I don’t know if he’ll make it.’ I felt the blow. ‘And whatever the heck just took out your sight is burning up your parents’ army. You gotta heal, Theo. You’ve got to find a way to end this now.’ He hooked my arm and forced me up. ‘You’ve got other senses left. You’re the Gatekeeper and a warlock. Unlock the magic in your DNA and find another way.’

  ‘Ava,’ I said weakly. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s why Freyja wouldn’t tell me where she is. Because she’s with her, waiting on the other side of oblivion.’

  ‘You’re not making sense, Theo.’

  But I wasn’t listening. Hope had wilted in line with my vision. Not being able to see, I turned inward and transported myself back to the desert island with Freyja, listening to the lap of the waves against the shore. Water – tears? – crashed over my skin. Who was I kidding? This wasn’t the Maze of Memory, the Maze of Wishful Thinking. This was real life, and in real life everyone I loved died.

  Except Lorenzo, except Nikolaj, my reason protested. It’s only a matter of time. We’ll all be dead soon. I didn’t want to fight, I didn’t want to win, and I didn’t want the world to go on without Ava. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to. Perhaps that’s what Freyja had meant when she’d said that to break our bond was to choose death.

  I squeezed my eyelids shut. ‘Theo? Hey, Theo? Snap out of it!’

  The waves kept coming, drowning out the death around me.

  And then I realised the waves were words. The waves were a song.

  Ava’s song. And she was calling me from the other shore:

  When I close my eyes, I see clearly,

  When I close my mind, I think freely,

  The truth evades a reaching grasp,

  When I turn inside, it’s there at last.

  Theo, pick up your sword. He’s coming for you. Defend the Nine Realms. Defend Lorenzo.

  I could never refuse you, Ava. I felt Istapp’s cold strength in my hand and visualised my position, falling back on my training with Father and Nikolaj in the temple. The bastard wanted a fight, he was going to get one. But I’m at a disadvantage.

  No, you’re not, Theo. Akhen is blind too. He gave up his sight to Aten millennia ago.

  What? But how—

  It doesn’t matter. Akhen may have had thousands of years to develop his second sight but you have the world’s magic, and most importantly, you have me. I won’t let him hurt you. I won’t let him drive out your Essence too. Do you trust me? Theo, reach out with your magic and let me in.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He hasn’t moved for two straight minutes.’ Lorenzo.

  ‘Nephew, Akhen is—’

  ‘The last person to underestimate me,’ I said, and I ran over the earth so fast I felt it turn in time with my stride.

  53

  Let’s See

  Ava swept the Craven around the sunlit half of Earth. So far, no one had challenged her – not an Elvish arrow nor a bolt from Espen and Isobel’s army, and Akhen’s men were unwilling to risk the pharaoh’s wrath. No one knew what to believe, even Menelaus, when he’d flown right past her with Surt’s thrice-stolen sword in his hand.

  That, and no one wanted to piss off the Craven.

  Right now, that ambiguity suited her. As long a
s she was careful, she could oversee the battle as she pleased.

  Ava kept her hum low, stifling the scream that erupted within her as Aten rose from a realm within realms and incinerated Theo’s sight. This had to happen. That part was already written. Fate could only be changed at the level of subtext, if one ignored the sentences completely. Frigg’s visions proved that much.

  Ava was the subtext. She existed inside the machine, changing the outside from within. Time to change her song, to fuse her inner sight with Theo’s pure magic. That’s what Espen hadn’t understood when he’d split them apart all those years ago; she and Theo were each one half of life’s helix.

  When I close my eyes, I see clearly,

  When I close my mind, I think freely,

  The truth evades a reaching grasp,

  When I turn inside, it’s there at last.

  Let me in.

  Theo held his head up as if he could really see her on top of the Craven, and then he bolted across the planet, covering impossible distance, his ripple through the battle slowing everyone down around him, time and space – the veil – warping to his weight.

  Ava witnessed the electricity building in his aura, flaking upwards, hunting her. She flew the Craven through the crackling field of energy and shadowed Theo from above. Her physical vision split within her third eye, aware of her position on the Craven and also inside of Theo’s mind, using one to feed the other.

  Akhen is right in front of us, Theo. He can’t disappear quickly enough; you’re slowing him down.

  Aten tossed a protective ring of fire around his pharaoh.

  Theo ran faster, too quick for the flames to bite him. Akhen’s disintegrating form seemed to fizzle away a single atom at a time. But how was Theo powering his space-contorting movement when Ava had felt Aten’s assault shutting the Gatekeeper down? Ava glanced around the battlefield.

  If the Gatekeeper was in a box then the Pneuma were the key. The Golden Knives may have been powered by millennia of stolen magic but the Pneuma Essence in their veins came from the Gatekeeper.