“Leave now,” Uldyssian suggested sharply. “Leave now or finish it here.”
Lucion ceased laughing.
The ground erupted anew, this time the force of it all centering around Uldyssian. Hot ash rose up, covering him. Scalding earth bathed his body. As the ground crumbled, he started to sink beneath it.
Uldyssian took one stubborn step toward his adversary. When that succeeded, he took another. He paid no mind to the ash, to the fire-hot ground…and because of that, they did not harm him.
In the back of his thoughts, Uldyssian sensed those who had survived the demon’s assaults gaining their own strength from his renewed confidence. There were more alive and well than he could have hoped. That, in turn, gave Uldyssian the impetus he needed to take another step, then another.
And when he had crossed half the distance, it was to note with amusement of his own Lucion taking an unconscious step back.
“Will you not give me your blessing after all, Primus? A blessing such as your servant Malic gave the good Master Ethon, his son, and others?” The amusement vanished, replaced by disgust. “You seem to favor it…”
“I will give you my blessing,” the demon croaked, his voice no longer at all cultured or even, for that matter, sounding human. “And then…I will dine on your entrails and drink your blood from a cup fashioned from your fragile skull…”
And as he spoke, the facade of humanity fell away. Lucion’s aspect grew terrible to behold, even more so to Uldyssian because there was resemblance to Lilith after all. Lucion stood half again taller than the demoness and much broader, but he, too, had the thorns that acted as mane all the way down his scaled back. Yet, where she had only had one tail, her cursed brother had three, all spiked from top to tip with daggerlike projects longer than Uldyssian’s hand.
Lucion took a step toward him again and, in doing so, revealed that he also had the hooved legs his sister did. His hands were different, though, for the fingers on each numbered more than five and the claws were like those of a badger, but dripping with what surely had to be poison.
And of the face, only the eyes were identical. Lucion, who played at being the handsome, schooled cleric, was a beast whose head more resembled a toad. His mouth was wider than the top of his skull, and row upon row of teeth greeted Uldyssian. The brother of Lilith had no nose, not even nostrils, and his chin was hooked so sharply in the middle that Uldyssian could almost imagine it being used as a weapon.
“Well?” rasped the demon, his grin literally growing from ear to ear…the latter long and wide, as if for a creature even larger than he. “Come, Uldyssian ul-Diomed…I’ll give you a blessing, definitely…”
Yet, although Lucion was daunting, he no longer instilled fear in the man before him. Only loathing touched Uldyssian, loathing that any such abomination could be allowed to exist in his world long enough to taint it. Surely, it was wrong that such as Lucion walked Sanctuary’s—yes, that was the name of the world—lands…
“Then give it to me,” he demanded of the demon. “Give it to me.”
Almost immediately, Uldyssian felt a churning in his stomach, as if the organ itself sought to escape. That sensation was joined by a similar one in his lungs, then his heart. He had no doubt that if he let it happen, then all of them would rip free.
He wondered if Lucion understood what the spell felt like. Would the demon suffer so?
As if his thoughts were action, he saw Lucion suddenly clutch his chest. The demon looked perplexed. Pain was recognizable in his unsettling eyes.
He stared at the human. The turbulence in Uldyssian’s own system ceased. Lucion recovered simultaneously.
The demon hissed. “Little tricks for little creatures…”
Seeing no reason to reply, Uldyssian strode closer yet. He did not know what he intended to do, just that it had to be done and done quickly.
Curiously, the less distance between them, the less Lucion struck him as even a threat. Uldyssian felt a surge of strength adding to his own and knew it to originate from the Parthans and Serenthia. They not only had continued to believe in him throughout all of this, but more than ever were certain that he was what they had thought him.
Understanding and appreciating that, Uldyssian lunged for his horrific foe. What he did now he no longer did for himself in the least; all he cared about were those who followed him.
His audacious attack left the demon stunned, but only for a second. As the two collided, Lucion’s tails flung forward like that of a scorpion’s. They struck Uldyssian across the back—especially the spine—again and again, sinking all the way inside. Yet, each time, they were immediately repelled and the wounds would heal in scarcely a heartbeat. Uldyssian felt a slight discomfort, nothing more.
He managed to seize one tail and, despite the spikes thrust through his palm, tore it off. The demon let out a howl of both pain and outrage. Uldyssian contemptuously threw aside the appendage, then sought another. However, Lucion withdrew them, no doubt to use when it was less likely to lose one or both in the process.
“How was she, my sister?” the master demon murmured as the two of them locked together again. “Was she all that you ever dreamed? All you ever lusted for? Lilith is every creature’s desire, you know. She had so many lovers besides you, but only one did she love…oh, but not you.”
Uldyssian let Lucion talk. The pain of Lilith’s false love still stung deep, but not enough to sway him from what he needed to do. He cared only about stopping his horrific foe.
“She loved only one, yes…and his name is Inarius! You recall it? Did she mutter it in bed when you were with her? Best to bend down before me, human, than before him! He would not be so gracious! No, not at all…you would be as nothing to him, nothing at all!”
Nothing. There it was again. Ever Uldyssian was nothing to such beings, just as all humans were nothing to them.
No more, he suddenly thought. I…we…will no longer be nothing to such as this!
“I—will—bend to no one!” Uldyssian finally retorted. He gripped the demon by the throat. Whatever he hoped to do, he had to do it now. The longer they struggled, the more likely that Lucion would find some weakness to exploit. “Least of all one who is nothing to me!” Lilith’s words came back in a rush, only now he saw them as reversed. He was not the nothing; she and those like her brother were. “You are nothing, Lucion, and that is all you deserve to be!”
The demon started to laugh again, but the laughter turned into a hideous choking. Lucion clutched at the hand holding his throat, but not because Uldyssian squeezed tight. In fact, the human only gripped it enough to keep his monstrous adversary at bay. An overriding desire filled Uldyssian, a desire to see his words become fact.
“Nothing, Lucion…nothing!”
Uldyssian blinked. A pale cast swept over the demon. The harsh colors of his body grew faded, as if somehow bleached. Lucion’s tails abruptly renewed their frenzied assault, but now they did not even pierce the human’s skin. In fact, for all their effort, the tails felt like light touches of wind…and, gradually, not even that.
And then Uldyssian noticed that he could see part of the dark jungle through the demon. That encouraged him to press further. He utterly ignored Lucion’s desperately scratching claws, which were no more than the least pinpricks now.
At last, the demon cried, “Beware, Uldyssian ul-Diomed! She is not through with you! My sister never lets go of a toy until it’s chewed ragged! But I know her ways! I can help you! I can act as your guide! I will bow to you, call you ‘master’! Just listen—”
“I hear nothing but the calls of the jungle creatures,” Uldyssian replied with a shake of his head. “And the whisper of wind, now already dying down. Nothing more.”
Lucion’s mouth moved, but now no sound came from it. Under Uldyssian’s fingers, scale gave way to empty air. The demon was now transparent. His face wore a contorted look of fear, for he did and did not understand what was happening. What Uldyssian was doing was impossible for any hum
an…but not for a nephalem.
And, at last, the demon became as Uldyssian had said…nothing.
The son of Diomedes stood there, his fingers still bent as if holding a throat. Slowly, Uldyssian straightened them, then studied the palms as if seeking some great truth there.
He belatedly sensed a figure cautiously approaching him from behind. Already aware just who it would be, Uldyssian slowly turned. Even then, Romus let out a squeak and stepped back several paces.
“Forgive me, Master Uldyssian! I meant no treachery, coming up on you that way! It’s just…aye, it’s just that you were standing so still there…”
“It’s all right, Romus. It’s all right.”
“Is it over?” asked the Parthan “Is the demon dead?”
“No…he just isn’t, at all.”
Romus only looked more confused.
With a sigh, the son of Diomedes said, “The demon is gone forever. We’re all right.”
However, even as he said the last, Uldyssian knew that it was otherwise. Around him, still illuminated by the blazing cracks in the ground, lay the wreckage of the jungle and, worse, the bodies of too many who had followed him here. Some he could see were beyond help, but there were others still clinging to life…
Without thinking, he walked past Romus and went to the first of the injured. The man’s face was vaguely familiar to Uldyssian, but otherwise he only knew him as a Parthan. Still, that was enough, and just the thought of what this one soul had suffered was enough to make an already drained Uldyssian shed tears again.
He reached down to try to better position the injured man…and a soft glow formed under his palms.
The Parthan gasped, his chest swelling to full capacity. Uldyssian nearly pulled his hands away, but then he noticed the bruises and cuts on the man’s face begin to recede. A shoulder that had been bent as if the arm had become separated seemed to mend.
Uldyssian kept his hands where they were until the last of the wounds had faded and the Parthan breathed normally. As he rose, he suddenly noticed that there stood around him other Parthans, all staring in rapt awe.
Reaching out to one with a bleeding scar across her face, Uldyssian repeated the process. When he took his hand away, she, too, was healed.
And so he went from person to person, from those surrounding him to those lying prone on the ground. Uldyssian tried to find those most in need of his assistance and help them first.
How long he took, he only understood when the first light of day filtered through the thick foliage. Exhaustion filled Uldyssian, but so did excitement. He had managed to help all those who could be helped, despite Lilith’s claims to the contrary. Doing so thrilled him more than even overcoming Lucion.
But that thrill evaporated when he finally confronted Serenthia. She still cradled Achilios’s head in her arms. Uldyssian had almost approached her once during his night’s work, but had felt guilty, knowing that his friend had perished trying to rescue him. Worse, he had known that Achilios was beyond his powers.
There stood another with her, one he had also almost thought dead. Mendeln, as pale as the dead archer, stood somberly over the lovers. He eyed his brother as Uldyssian neared, nodding once.
“You did it. She lied.”
“She lied.” He started to ask Mendeln about his part in the final moments, but Serenthia chose that moment to look up at the older brother.
“Uldyssian…is there nothing…”
In truth, he had tried once this night to do the unthinkable, tried once, and failed. Uldyssian was not so certain that had been a bad thing, even if it meant no hope for his friends. “I’m sorry. Nothing.”
She nodded in understanding, which made his heart ache more for her ordeal.
Mendeln looked past his sibling, to where the Parthans were building a great fire. As was their way, they were preparing to burn the dead. “They should bury them.” His gaze grew intense as he focused on the pair again. “At least, we should bury Achilios, do you not agree?”
Although slightly unsettled by Mendeln’s determined expression, Uldyssian nodded. That was how it was done in Seram, save when disease demanded otherwise.
Still, it was not his decision to make. “The choice is yours, Serry—Serenthia.”
She did not hesitate. “He would prefer to be buried, to be a part of the jungle, if not a forest.”
Mendeln smiled grimly. “I know just the place…”
The brothers carried Achilios themselves, with only Cyrus’s daughter following. When Romus and a few others sought to come, Uldyssian forbade them. This was a personal matter.
He allowed Mendeln to lead. After some trekking through the thick underbrush, Uldyssian’s brother paused at a lush region nearby which could be heard a rushing stream. Tall, thick, and healthy trees surrounded the area. Uldyssian felt a sense of calm pervading the area and immediately approved of it. Serenthia, too, acknowledged Mendeln’s choice as the correct one.
With tools borrowed from the Parthans, the pair dug the grave. Uldyssian considered seeing what he could do with his abilities rather than his hands, then thought how Achilios deserved more effort than that. The ground was soft and surprisingly easy to remove. They soon had a hole deep enough to make certain that no scavengers would dig the body out.
After gently depositing the hunter within and filling up the site, the sons of Diomedes and Serenthia stood in silence. No words were said, for words were inadequate for moments such as this, at least to them. Their souls spoke to the lost one, each bidding him farewell in their own way.
It was Serenthia who finally broke the spell, the dark-tressed woman suddenly turning to Uldyssian and crying in his arms. He held her much the way he had held his little sister during her last days. Mendeln politely turned his face away, at the same time muttering some final message to Achilios.
And then…it was over.
TWENTY-THREE
It took the Parthans the rest of the day to deal with their own dead. Uldyssian and the others attended, naturally. The deaths all struck him hard, but worst were the ones he knew.
Despite his attempt to save her, Uldyssian found out that Bartha was yet among the victims. Her heart, broken by her son’s death, could not survive the aftermath. They found her unbreathing, the boy cradled in her arms. In death, they had a peace to their expressions that was complemented by a love between them one could still see. The boy and his mother were laid on the pile together and burned as one.
And as they vanished in flame, the sadness in Uldyssian changed to fury again. Fury at Lilith, at Lucion, at those like the Triune and the Cathedral, who cared for nothing but their dominion over all else at such costs.
Try as he might, Uldyssian could not quell that fury. By the time the last body had been properly burned and the day had once more faded, he knew that there was but one course of action, a course that, for the moment, had a particular focus.
“The Triune must be brought down, Mendeln,” he said when they were alone. “I may be mad to think it, but I plan to do what I can to see their temple crumble. They’ve done too much to too many of us.”
He expected his brother to dissuade him, but, instead, Mendeln only said, “If that is what you wish. I will always stand by your side, Uldyssian.”
Uldyssian was grateful, but could not let it just end there. “Mendeln…Mendeln…what’s happening to you?”
For the first time, a troubled expression briefly crossed his brother’s countenance. As Mendeln buried the emotion again, he replied, “I do not know. I can only tell you that I do not fear it anymore…and that, so long as I can, I will do whatever it allows me to help you.”
Staring into his brother’s eyes, Uldyssian saw no guile there, only honesty. He wanted to demand more of Mendeln, but also saw that to do so would tread on ground neither were quite ready for just yet. When he instead patted Mendeln’s shoulder, his sibling looked both relieved and grateful.
“That’s all I can ask,” the older brother said. “That’s all.�
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He expected Serenthia to condemn him for even thinking of such a plan—Achilios having already paid the price—but the hunter’s death had, instead, galvanized the trader’s daughter. When Uldyssian told her what he had decided, she showed no hesitation in agreeing.
“My father’s dead because of them. Achilios, who foolishly loved me and who I loved for too short, is dead because of them. You want to bring down the Triune…and the Cathedral, too…and I’ll be there, Uldyssian! All I ask is that you help me to learn as much as I can, so that I’ll be able to stand up at the front of the struggle and pay them for what they’ve done!”
Her vehement response worried him, for Uldyssian did not want Serenthia throwing herself into danger so that she could rejoin her lost love. He would have said as much, but, Serenthia suddenly turned to the remaining Parthans and shouted, “Uldyssian has spoken! The Triune must pay for all this! We will tear down the temple! Who is with us?”
There was a moment of silence as Romus and the others drank this in…and then determined cheers broke out. “Down with the Temple!” and “Death to the Triune!” filled the jungle.
“Someone must summon the others!” shouted the former cutpurse. “They’ll want to join us!”
And, with that, what had began as but a bitter notion in Uldyssian’s head became the start of an uprising. He stared at what he had wrought, startled to also realize that he did not regret the fervor of those with him. They were not his followers, not in his opinion, but companions, comrades in suffering who had as much right as him to demand justice…even against demons and other forces.
“This world is ours,” he muttered, his words drawing the attention of the shouters. They grew silent, wanting to hear him better. “We are its children! Our existences are intertwined!” He hesitated. “And, most of all, we are our own masters! Our lives are ours to control, no one else’s! That is our birthright as much as the powers growing within us! Our birthright!”
Diablo: The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet Page 31
