Fogle Eric - Forge of the Gods 01 - The Last Knight (V1.0)

by 5kops

  Closing his eyes, he brushed aside his dark thoughts and focused inward, concentrating on the faint buzzing sound in his mind. He let the idea of multiple realities wash over him, a concept that allowed him to bend reality between the different levels of existence. After a long pause, the immortal drew his body into a godlike position and pictured reality how he wanted it to be. He then began to weave his own divine flows—an ability that had once been his race's greatest gift from the gods—his ability to walk through the various planes of existence by opening portals to any world imaginable.

  Those days were long gone. Now, Thurm used his gift for a single pur­pose: to keep moving. The fact that he was cursed and dying meant that he could never get too close to anything. By staying uncommitted, he consid­ered himself still truly immortal in one sense; he was powerful enough not to have a need for lesser beings. By remaining unattached and constantly moving, one of the last of the Olthari felt alive.

  Not that it matters anymore, Thurm thought, considering the foolishness of his pursuit. The notion of an emotional attachment fluttered through his mind and offered his soul a quick reprieve. Maybe it was a good idea to meet members of other races. It was possible he could even make an at­tempt at friendship, a bond far more important than the olthari would ever admit. The idea of friendship allowed his mind to focus on the divine weave, intensifying his power.

  With his will now wholly focused on a single thought, actuality faltered just before it tore wide open. Where there had been nothingness, a gaping ten-foot rip in the fabric of reality opened and shimmering, luminescent blue light poured forth. Thurm frowned and peered through. The light was all wrong.

  This was not the world he had summoned.

  Nor was it a world he recognized; a faint aura of evil permeated the air. In the distance, he saw a dull, lifeless sky, red as the planet on which he cur­rently stood. However, unlike the burned-out nature of this planet (one of his favorites), a blurred swath of desolate wasteland greeted him. It looked like true chaos ate away at life.

  Thurm contemplated the landscape with a grimace. This was not his portal . . . yet he was certain this was where Elissandera and her captor waited. Squinting into the gloomy distance, he decided to venture where his heart guided him. He assured himself that this was his only choice. If this was to be his last moment of life then it would be on his terms, searching for the one he loved.

  With long even strides, he unhooked the great hammer strapped to his back by a giant harness, a massive weapon which stood two hands below his nine foot frame, and stepped through the portal.

  Cosmic power swirled around the olthari as he moved through a pocket of nonexistence, the space in which inter-planar travel was possible. In a fraction of a second he stepped through a thin film of divinity and into the new world. The sickening feeling of winking out of existence then back wracked his body. He tried to look around but was blinded by white tracers that blurred his vision.

  When his vision finally cleared, he was greeted with a horrific sight: this place was not a mortal probability. In a dark recess of his mind, Thurm real­ized that this world must be directly connected to the Divine Plane. He felt godly power exuding from everything. Though he tried to rationalize it, nothing could ever describe such an abomination of life; dark swirls of chaos tore at a shattered sky, giving off a deep purplish hue. His immortal eyes viewed a world devoid of any ordered thing; misshapen trees dotted the desolate landscape, doing their best to eke out an existence. Aside from this mockery, the scorched land was free of anything that even roughly re­sembled life.

  The sight of true chaos made his skin crawl. Here the equation of the universe did not apply, time did not flow in mortal years, and balance was not achieved. By looking at the mottled husks of the trees, he knew that the equation was trying to right itself; however, only a travesty of creation pre­vailed.

  A distant sound caught his attention.

  Thurm gripped the shaft of his giant hammer as the wind blew the faint scream past him. The full power of the place came rushing upon him, in­tensifying his soul-bond with Elissandera. He was sure that she was located less than five miles to the east. It might be too late to save this world, but he knew she still lived ... at least for the moment.

  He cleared his mind and set out with resolve, shaking off his uneasiness. He told himself that he needed to be steady. His goal was in sight; he was here to find Elissandera and save her if he could or release her into eternity if he couldn't. He had decided long ago that if she needed to die, then he did, too—that if this was his fate, he would face the thing that had eluded him for so long. His resolve demanded that he die trying; for her he could not turn back.

  Another faint scream swept across the desolate wasteland.

  Thurm's hair rose. He felt Elissandera's soul-bond call out to him; this place seemed to magnify the essence of his people. For a moment he thought that he wasn't alone, an oddly satisfying feeling. An impossible thought tore through his defenses—could this be a parallel plane of exis­tence to that of the divine?

  A pocket plane for one of the gods, he thought sourly. If that was true then he had been summoned here for a reason, and whatever resided in this place would be unassailable by his powers. He could not win.

  It is a fitting punishment that the same gods who created my race will also be the ones to end our existence, he thought sadly. It was likely that if this was a divine pocket, then there was a god toying with him, which was why his quest had lingered on so long. I shall die proud, he thought, standing straight and tall. If one of the gods has summoned me here to end my life, then I will fight to the end.

  Thurm shook his head and banished such thoughts; he was thinking too far ahead. Whatever he faced was beyond his limited comprehension. His mind had been used against him, reminding him of old times and things long forgotten. He rubbed his perfect features and again set off toward the sound.

  As Thurm prepared to take a step, his vision blurred and his skin started to crawl. The feeling was followed by a distortion of his physical features, which made him stumble forward in disorientation. He was about to suc­cumb and fall to the ground when something called out and beckoned him, blinking him out of existence and back.

  The summons nearly made him retch as he came crashing through the portal and staggered to the ground.

  "So the destroyer has finally come!" boomed a sinister voice, its mocking tone filled with unpredictability and evil.

  The olthari shook away the sparkling lights of his instantaneous trans­portation from his vision and looked around. It took him a moment to get his bearings, but he was sure that he was standing in front of a circular structure with random spires of ebony jutting up into the sky. Furthermore, he was greeted by an angel leaning against one of the columns, its features twisted into a perfect mask of chaos.

  It took Thurm only a moment to realize his mistake. It had been so long . . . such a distant memory of what had been . . . that he could not have fathomed what stood before him.

  The olthari stepped back and dropped to his knees in reverence and fear, recognizing not an angel but Illenthuul, the Dark God, and God of Chaos. What the greater god wanted with him was unimaginable. Thurm knew this god could do many things worse than kill him.

  "I have come in search of my mate," Thurm said cautiously.

  "So you have. " Illenthuul warped behind him. "However, the female is beyond your assistance, I'm afraid."

  "What have you done to her . . .?" Thurm screamed. With swift deter­mination he leapt into the air and raised his great hammer, ready to strike down the god. He knew this would be his only chance.

  With blinding speed Illenthuul nonchalandy reached out and grasped the olthari's wrist, stopping the immortal in place before shattering every bone.

  The Dark God waited until Thurm was on the verge of unconsciousness before he let go.

  "Do not test my patience, little one," said Illenthuul, warping back to stand in front of a great dais that appeared. Th
e god yawned and sat down, stretch­ing out his legs.

  "What ... do you . . . want, my lord?" gasped Thurm, clutching his ru­ined arm.

  "That is better," Illenthuul said. 'What I want, is you, little one." Illenthuul grinned slyly, his eyes glowing crimson. "My want is so great that I have hunted down your race, waging divine genocide on your entire species, until only you and your female remain."

  "But. . . why?" Thurm croaked, crumpling to the ground.

  "I highly doubt you wish to hear all the nasty details." Illenthuul looked to the sky. "The short version is that I had planned to use you as the great destroyer of Heaven."

  "Never!" sobbed the miserable creature. "I will . . . never . . .!"

  'You already have," said Illenthuul. ' You have served me in the past and you will serve me now. In fact, your service is responsible for your race's extinction . . . and that I am here now and not in Heaven. But that is another story for another time. As I was saying I require your presence in a very personal matter. I have a task, for you."

  "I will never serve you!" Thurm pushed himself up defiandy.

  "I had supposed not," said Illenthuul. 'The choice is yours; however, your female is now trapped between an eternity in my presence or a freedom that only I can offer."

  Thurm's resolve faltered. "What do you mean? What freedom you could possibly offer her besides a quick death?"

  The Dark God laughed. "I have found a way to reopen the gates of Heaven, little one. And more important, I can restore the balance that has been missing for fifteen eter­nities. "

  "You are a liar!" Thurm erupted. How could he fall for such sinister trickery? "Your claim is impossible! You are the betrayer!"

  "Like I said, young one, I want only to restore Heaven to its full glory" Illenthuul responded. "Ifyou do this for me, I will save your entire species."

  "You ... do not have . . . the power." Thurm was too aghast to even consider this possibility.

  "Let me worry about my power;" Illenthuul said. "Here is your choice: You will serve me until the end of time, searching for the source of order that will allow me to con­quer Heaven, or your race will face annihilation."

  Illenthuul paused so his words sunk in. "I will even offer you a chance to save whole mortal worlds—allowingyou one year on every planet you visit to find the source. If you cannot find what I am looking for; Thurm, you will open portals into each world so that my armies can invade."

  "And if your armies invade a world?"

  "Then I will scour the world clean of any life." Illenthuul smiled.

  "What am I looking for?" the olthari asked in resignation.

  "Not a single god knows. "Illenthuul started to dissolve. Just before he dis­solved, he added one more thing. "But should you find it, little one, jour job will be to protect it all costs. "

  ****

  Moonlight streamed through the rusted bars of Lawlian Fortress's lowest dungeon cell. The stench of unwashed bodies, urine, and feces mixed with the moans of several inmates to give the dungeon a menacing presence. The high lord commanding the building had made sure that the populace could hear the cries of the criminals—a warning to all that law and justice would be served.

  The strategy had been an effective one, for the Bre'Dmorian High Lord had been able to curb crime in the city of Brenly for over twenty years. That was, until a new sort of criminal had surfaced: a traitorous noble who slaughtered innocents in the name of Balzabuth, whom the Bre'Dmorians called the Angel of Murder.

  Lord Edelin Hanson waved his hands into the dim moonlight and tried to figure out how he'd fallen so far. He knew that if the High Lightbringer had not forbidden capital punishment in Aresleighan courts, the High Lord would have killed him on principle. It all started with the fact that he had been beaten senseless several times in the last few nights. Though he had only been in the dungeon twelve days, his once fine clothes were torn, hanging in shreds from his fit body. The murderer looked wistfully to the ceiling of his cell and tried to picture the moon. He wondered what he would be doing now ... if he was still free. He imagined that he would be dressed in the rich colors of Tares silk—the finest cloth in the world, which he had imported from the Far East—and once again relishing the screams of his victims.

  It is a travesty that I will no longer be able to act upon God's will, Edelin thought sadly, hearing the soft creak of the nearby gallows. Death by hanging was a pittance compared to the utter chaos he had caused. He realized that this was the price he willingly paid to torture, mutilate, and finally murder such succulent specimens.

  A smile crept across his tanned face. Not for the first time in his life, Edelin savored what a great time it had all been. In his twenty-three seasons of life, he had accumulated over one hundred murders, a small amount of death in comparison to what other servants of God had accumulated in the past decade, but not bad for a human. He could still see all the shallow graves that posterity would one would one day credit to him. A shiver of delight coursed through his body.

  A whimper brought Edelin out of his reverie, and he looked around with disdain. He knew he was better than this. He wondered why those wretched heretics in the service of the Angel of Order, Starsgalt, stuffed him into this reeking hole. It was dark, and the stench was overpowering.

  I deserve more than this for being such a devout follower of the One God, Balzabuth, Edelin thought, calculating a response to such moronic whining.

  "Shut your damn mouth, filthy peasant!" He spat into the far corner of an adjacent cell that contained a young thief missing his right hand. The fallen noble assumed the young man had been caught filching, had his hand removed in gory fashion, and was then thrown into jail. Smugly, he made a mental note that the thief deserved such a fate, possibly even the gallows.

  Standing up, the murderer moved towards the shadows of his cell. He hoped a guardsman was near. He needed to explain that he was still a noble in the small city of Brenly. Sure, he was awaiting trial and subsequent execu­tion, but he hadn't truly committed a real crime! Each of his so-called transgressions had been in the service of Balzabuth, the One True God. He wanted to explain that he was simply a servant, an innocent.

  Not seeing anyone nearby, the fallen noble kicked against the bars and yelled. However, only incessant whimpering greeted him. He wished that young thief would just shut up. He swore that if he met the young man in the afterlife, he would cut out the wretch's tongue and take the other hand as well. The thought calmed his murderous souL

  How can any mere human understand my artistry? Edelin wondered, falling back against the wall and gazing at the moonlight. Murder was artistry after all, a masterpiece that no one understood. To the ignorant heretic, it was a demented weave of gruesome pain and suffering. He, however, could see more—the depth, life, and cruelty that defined the divine attributes of God.

  His eyelids fluttered as he inhaled the intoxicating power of fear. Why could no one understand his innocence? He deserved respect, something he could not expect from the Bre'Dmorians. One day, Balzabuth would come for their kind, and Edelin wondered how the King of Darkness would judge them. He realized they worshipped one of His servants, the Angel Starsgalt, who also followed the virtues of war. The Bre'Dmorians took life for the cause of justice. Edelin figured they were not so different than he, both honoring the murderous nature of God.

  Edelin chuckled to himself. After a fair trial, a Bre'Dmorian lord would be his executioner. The murderer would be murdered.

  The ironies of life never end. I will be murdered by an unbeliever to satiate God's hunger. The thought brought another wry smile to Edelin's face. It seemed only fitting that Balzabuth would murder him for his servitude. It would be a great honor, a position of elite standing among the One God's believers.

  The sound of chewing—rats gnawing on the rotting corpse of a long­time inmate—interrupted Edelin's thoughts of grandeur. He despised rats.

  In a sudden fit of rage, he picked up a small stone and threw it at the un-moving mass of human
flesh. Though he could not see his target, squeaks and scurries led him to believe he'd found it.

  Trying to calm his mind, Edelin closed his eyes and tried to recall a hap­pier period in his life. The first thought that came to mind was the sheer amount of resources the town had poured into his capture. Brenly was a poor town, modest by all standards, but Count Gustafson had spared no expense tracking him down. Edelin had even been part of the search party, leading Bre'Dmorian Templars in all directions, extending the manhunt for several months. For sure, a pleasurable thought.

  Yet, it lacked a certain . . . something. Another memory surfaced; this one a conquest. He had manipulated the count's wife and daughters, seducing them into the service of the Dark King by poisoning their minds with pain and constant pleasures. He eventually had murdered all three, but not be­fore the once-fervent followers of Starsgalt had committed their souls to Balzabuth. He mused at this happy thought. It had been a shame to kill Count Gustafson's eldest daughter, Mara, for she had almost matched Edelin's own cruelty after her remarkable transformation.

  The slight regret in the conquest memory urged the prisoner's mind on to a more recent endeavor—possibly his favorite—a murder done without the use of his hands. It involved the rotting corpse in the next cell who had been another simple thief, harshly punished for stabbing the local magis­trate. He could tell from their conversations that the man had not deserved to be in the bowels of this hellhole.

  It was unfortunate for the young man that he had been placed next to Edelin, and even worse that Edelin had been so frustrated by his improper confinement. He suppressed a smile at the artistry used to poison the thiefs mind, driving the man to insanity. In truth, it had not taken much, as the fear of death was already strong in the man. Still, Edelin savored the cor­ruption, drinking it like a fine wine, especially when the thief found a stick, ground it against the hard walls to make it sharp, and slit his own throat. It was the perfect murder.