Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse)

by James Maxey

  “Then move the book!” Slate said, sounding completely exasperated.

  “The book is too holy for human hands to ever touch,” said Utmost. “Until the Omega Reader opens its pages, men’s souls are too sullied by sin to survive a brush with the divine power the book contains. They would burn like a leaf placed upon a red-hot forge.”

  “But—”

  Before Slate could argue further, Sorrow finally regained some control of her limbs. She rolled to her side, then sat up.

  “You will lie down,” said Utmost.

  She did, cursing beneath her breath.

  “Any advice?” Sorrow shouted.

  “What advice do you seek?” asked Slate.

  “Avaris can’t hear you here,” said Utmost. “She’s dwelled in the Black Bog so long, her dark soul withers when exposed to the radiance of the glorystones.”

  “You know about Avaris?”

  “And of her plot to reclaim Rott’s power.”

  “You may have some mistaken information,” she whispered as she strained to lift herself from the floor.

  “You’re the one who’s been deceived. Avaris once before attempted to steal Rott’s power. Of course, Rott’s intelligence was far more active then. He resisted her control, and began to control her. She cut herself free from his power before her personality was completely devoured. Now she’s watching you to see if Rott’s will has decayed sufficiently that her mind could dominate.”

  “The flaw in that theory is that I’ll be one controlling Rott’s power.”

  “Avaris could crush your spirit with no more effort than it would take me to crush a snail. You’re no obstacle to her plans, girl, only a stepping stone. At least, you were going to be, before you embarked on your pathetic plan to barge onto this sacred ground and attempt to destroy the One True Book. It’s a pity your intelligence doesn’t match your audacity.”

  Sorrow had tucked the lighting rod into a cotton sash around her waist. She felt it beneath her hip. If she could move only a few inches, she could aim it toward Utmost and release its power.

  “I can almost hear the gears whirring in your head, witch,” said Utmost. “Instead of thinking of desperate schemes of escape, might I suggest this would be a good time to contemplate repentance?”

  “It’s not escape, I’m scheming,” she said through clenched teeth as her talons strained to touch the rod.

  “You will go limp,” said Utmost, shaking his head.

  Every muscle in Sorrow’s body fell slack.

  Utmost sighed. “You can’t say I didn’t give you the opportunity to confess your sins and plead for the Divine Author’s mercy.” Utmost turned toward Slate. “Draw your sword.”

  The now familiar howls swirled through the air as the blade left its scabbard.

  “You imagine yourself to be a continuation of the famed Witchbreaker?” Utmost asked. He didn’t wait for Slate to answer. “For one brief moment, allow me to indulge your fantasy.” He pointed toward Sorrow.

  “There’s a witch. Break her.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  RUMBLE

  SORROW HELD HER breath as Slate turned toward her. She managed to lift her head half an inch from the floor before Utmost cried, “You will remain still, witch!”

  Sorrow’s head banged onto the stone floor. She couldn’t even move her jaw to speak. If she opened the dark portal within her to channel flies, would she be able to release them safely, or would they simply tear through her face? She had to try. But despite the full force of her will calling it, the black portal failed to open. The wards that protected this place were too strong for Rott to overcome.

  Slate’s boots drew closer. From her vantage point, her cheek pressed to the floor, she could only see the two men’s feet. Then, unexpectedly, Slate’s boots turned from her.

  “Don’t turn back,” Utmost said. “Kill her!”

  Slate walked toward the Voice of the Book. The Witchbreaker fell silent as Slate slid it into its scabbard.

  Utmost stammered, “Wh-what are you—”

  He was silenced by a sudden WHACK. Sorrow couldn’t see the source of the noise, but a moment later Utmost crumpled to the floor with blood streaming from his mouth. Sorrow jerked her face off the floor as her body returned to her control.

  “You’ve no authority over me,” Slate said, standing over the old man with his fists clenched. “You’ve no authority over anything!”

  “How can you defy me? I’m the highest of the truthspeakers!” Utmost shouted, blood spraying from his torn lips.

  “I defy you because you’re the lowest of liars,” Slate said. “You’ve confessed as much with your own lips. The true Voice of the Book would defend his faith with all his body and soul. You’ve thrown away your authority through compromise and bargains with false gods.”

  “For the greater good, you fool!” Utmost cried. “Our bargain with Tempest is ultimately a trap for him! When his usefulness to us exhausted, he, too, shall die!”

  “So you deceive him?” said Slate. “You befriend him with the intention of stabbing him in the back? These are not the actions of an honest man.”

  “Who are you to judge me?” Utmost spat out bright red spittle. He wiped his lips and said, “You’re nothing but a motherless abomination.”

  “Whatever my origins,” Slate said, “I strive to be an honest man. As Poppy’s book teaches, a single honest man outnumbers a legion of liars.”

  “We’ll find out!” Utmost said, before screaming, “Help! Help!”

  Slate grabbed Utmost by the back of his robes and pulled him to his feet. “Silence! I’ll let you live if you open the door to the One True Book.”

  “I’ll do no such thing!”

  “I saw you place the key within your robes. We may both preserve a bit of dignity if I’m not forced to strip you bare to find it.”

  “What are you doing, Slate?” Sorrow asked as she limped toward him, still pulling shards of glorystone from her skin.

  “I’m setting things right,” he said. He glanced at her. “Perhaps there was truth to your words. The church has become corrupt, willing to accept evil in the name of maintaining the status quo. But you’re wrong to think that the church deserves to be destroyed. It needs instead to be cleansed. We must drive the false prophets from the temple and return the One True Book to the hands of righteous men.”

  By now, Utmost had his key ring in his hand. “You simple-minded fool. The One True Book must remain in this temple.”

  Slate pushed him forward.

  Utmost continued, “No man may touch the book without destroying his soul. We know the truths within only through prayer and meditation. No man has prayed longer and more intently than I have!”

  “Just open the door,” Slate said, pushing the aged cleric up to the heavy iron portal.

  Utmost toyed with the lone key on the ring. It was a small key for such an imposing door, no longer than a man’s thumb. The head of the key was remarkably simple, merely three stubs sticking out from the shaft.

  “Stop playing with your key and open the door,” said Slate.

  Without warning, the key ring fell from Utmost’s grasp and clattered on the floor. Sorrow glanced at the iron ring and realized it was empty. Before she could act, Utmost tilted his head backwards as he shoved the key into his mouth.

  He fell, choking, both hands upon his throat.

  Slate shook his head as he reached for the hilt of the Witchbreaker. “I’d hoped this could be done without any further decapitations.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Sorrow said, placing her hand on the iron door. She willed it to crumble to rust, and was thrown back as a jolt of energy crackled through her, landing hard on the floor, cutting her lip open.

  Utmost laughed wetly as he finished swallowing the key. His eyes were filled with something like delight as he watched her writhe in pain. He said, with a raspy voice, “These doors are forged from the same hell steel as the Witchbreaker. That iron nail in your head is use
less against its abstract nature.”

  Sorrow crawled back toward the door. Tears ran down her cheeks. Each inch she moved was agonizing, but Utmost’s sadistic laughter spurred her on. When he died, it wouldn’t be with a smile on his face.

  Her hands fell upon the iron key ring. She rose on rubbery legs as she crushed the ring between her palms and rolled it into a shaft. Despite the claw-like nature of her hands, she still retained her gift for sculpting. It took only seconds to pinch and pull and snip the metal into a duplicate of the key she’d seen.

  She slid the key into the lock and turned it. There was a soft, but satisfying, click.

  Utmost fell silent as his face turned ashen gray.

  “You don’t look like you’re feeling well,” she said, as she pushed the door open. “Was it something you ate?”

  Utmost didn’t answer. Sorrow grew quiet herself as she turned her eyes to the chamber beyond, a simple oval of rough cut white quartz with a low ceiling. The floor was smooth and polished from centuries of use. A a circular groove, ten feet around the central pedestal, had been worn into the stone by innumerable truthspeakers, who had over the years knelt there and pressed their heads against the floor in prayer.

  Upon the pedestal of quartz was the One True Book.

  The tome failed to impress her. She’d heard the book was as tall as a man, but this was only the size of an atlas: large for a book, but small for a legend. Rather than being bound in the pure white skin of an angel, the book was bound in aged leather that perhaps had once been white, but had long since turned a dull yellow. The pages, rumored to be trimmed with gold, were merely parchment, brown with age. The cover and spine were wordless.

  “This is it?” she said, placing her hand upon the wall to steady herself. “This is what caused all the suffering for so many centuries?”

  “This hasn’t caused suffering,” said Utmost. “Suffering is the natural state of mankind. This book is the source of hope. It’s the promise that all our earthly travails have meaning, that everything that happens unfolds for a reason.”

  Sorrow took a stumbling step toward it.

  “Go no further,” said Slate.

  She glanced at him.

  “You came here to destroy the book. I will not allow it.”

  “I don’t need your permission,” she said. “You should want this as much as I do! Can’t you see the mere existence of this book is partially to blame for Utmost making deals with dragons? He loves this pile of parchment so much he cherishes its survival more than he values the lives of pilgrims. Ridding mankind of this vile tome is the only hope of creating a just world.”

  “You cannot speak to me about making deals with evil,” said Slate. “Just what happened when you chased Avaris into the farther room? How many of your nonsensical mutterings have been private conversations with the Queen of Witches?”

  “What do you think happened? I made a deal with her. She would teach me to use Rott’s powers safely and instruct me in bone-weaving.”

  “What did you give her in exchange?”

  “Nothing. Yet. Just a promise.”

  “Was destroying the One True Book the promise made?”

  “No.”

  “She couldn’t destroy it if she tried,” said Utmost. “The second she touches it, her soul with perish!”

  Slate tossed Utmost to the floor and walked toward the pedestal.

  “What are your plans, Slate?” she asked. “You seem to have gotten a bit side-tracked from your plan to lay Stark Tower to rest.”

  “Small injustices must be ignored in the face of larger ones. I’m going to do what should have been done centuries ago. I’m going to carry this sacred book from this land of dangers and deliver it to the Cathedral of the Book in the Silver City. There it may be defended by men of greater character than those who dwell here.”

  Slate held his hands over the book.

  “D-don’t,” whispered Utmost. “The divine power within will surely destroy you.”

  “I’m an abomination not born of woman,” said Slate. “I’ve no soul to risk.”

  He placed his hands upon the book. Sorrow’s heart skipped a beat as he lifted it. Despite her hatred of the book, she half expected Slate to fall over dead. Instead, it was Utmost who clenched his chest with both hands, his face twisting in pain as Slate lifted the tome from its pedestal. The old man’s eyes rolled back in his head as his body went limp.

  Slate turned toward the door and said, “I’ll send anyone who attempts to stop me straight to hell.”

  Sorrow sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I won’t try to stop you. You asked what price I promised Avaris. I promised her I would kill one person she asked me to kill. But I won’t harm you. You may be a motherless abomination, but you’re also the first honest man I’ve ever met. I won’t have your blood on my hands.”

  Slate nodded toward the door. “I was talking to them.”

  Sorrow turned and found the chamber beyond filled with knights. Slate walked toward them, despite being outnumbered at least fifty-to-one. Sorrow tried to summon flies to help clear his path, but still felt no connection to the dark energy.

  As Slate approached the knights, one by one they lowered themselves to their knees and took off their helmets, staring at Slate with an expression best described as awe.

  The nearest Knight said, “It’s said we live in the final pages of the Book. Some believed a child named Numinous was the one who would open the sacred tome, but it’s rumored that he failed the tests. Are you the final prophet? Are you the Omega Reader?”

  “No,” said Slate.

  “But you disobeyed the truths spoken by the Voice of the Book. You could not do so unless your truths were greater than his.”

  “It’s foretold that the Omega Reader will be a flawless man, devoid of sin. I’m not that man. These sacred words must wait for their final reader. I’m taking the book to the Silver City. With the book safe, Tempest will no longer be able to corrupt the church.”

  “You’ll not travel alone,” said the knight. “My name is Steadfast Plowman, a knight of the book. I didn’t take up arms for my faith with the intention of living like a coward. For years, my brother knights and I have seethed in silent anger as our superiors commanded us to ignore the wickedness of the Storm Guard. We’re men of true hearts willing to give our lives for your cause.”

  “Then rise and take arms. The road before us is long and steep. I do not expect our journey to the sea to go unopposed.”

  “We need not take the road,” said Steadfast. “Follow us.”

  “Give me one more minute to catch my breath,” said Sorrow.

  Slate shook his head.

  “I fought beside you believing you were my friend, when all along you plotted with Avaris behind my back. I... do not hate you. I believe that, like Utmost, you possessed good intentions. In the name of a greater good, you’ve allowed yourself to embrace evil. I won’t kill you. You still have hope of redemption. Perhaps one day you can turn from the dark path you’ve chosen. For now, we must part ways.”

  Sorrow slid down the wall to rest upon the floor as Slate left the chamber. She didn’t have the strength to chase him, and definitely lacked the will to argue with him. She’d spared his life because of his honesty. And because of that honesty, his words had been hammers driving nails of truth into her aching skull. As she sat with her wings pinned beneath her, staring at her clawed hands, she understood that it wasn’t her body that had become a monster. She was just as corrupt and compromised as Utmost. She thought her eyes had been forever tuned to see the evil that others were blind to.

  In the end, she was the one who’d been most blind. Like her father, she held her principles so dearly, so tightly, that she’d smothered them.

  She still had the key she’d used to open the door. She pressed it between her fingers until it became a razor sharp scalpel. She brought the knife toward the left side of her face, until she could no longer see it. In this temple of truth, her left eye was
already blind.

  In this temple of truth, there was more than one way to undo a bad bargain.

  SHE USED THE silver threads from the fallen chandelier to stitch her wounds shut. The wound inflicted by the blood blade continued to ooze despite her efforts, painting her arms in red tendrils. She used the lightning rod as a cane as she hobbled toward the large window they’d flown through.

  She steadied herself with a hand on the wall as she looked down. The cliff face below her was sheer. She jerked her head up as battle cries broke out above her. Horses erupted from an unseen window, leaping out into open space and landing on columns of light that shot from their glowing horseshoes. The horses continued to jump until there were more than she could count, each bearing a knight upon its back. She called out “Slate!” as she spotted him in the middle of the pack astride a magnificent black stallion. Whether he heard her or not, he didn’t look back.

  She looked at the ground once more. With only one eye, her depth perception was too poor for her judge the distance, but in the end, what would it matter? She would either leap and find the strength to fly, or fail and plummet to her death. Whether the distance was fifty feet or five hundred didn’t truly matter.

  She tucked the lightning rod back into the cotton sash she’d tied around her waist, then held her arms clasped together before her, preparing to dive. She spread her wings and fell forward. The second her toes left the white quartz floor, she felt a surge of strength flow through her. Her connection with Rott had returned! Draconic power pulsed through her veins, feeding her wings. They caught the rushing wind and threw her across the sky, in hot pursuit of the galloping horses.

  What foolish thing have you done, girl?

  “Avaris?” she cried in shock and dismay.

  Did you think that eyes alone sealed our contract? You may pluck out an eye, but you cannot pluck out a soul. I’m part of you until you’ve fulfilled your vow!

  “Fine,” said Sorrow. “For the time being, all I want you to do is shut up. I’ve got my hands full at the moment.” Which was true enough, as she reached behind her and grabbed the lightning rod. She paused for a heartbeat as she found a patch of rough scales along her hip. The return of Rott’s power had brought further changes to her body, it seemed. She had no time to inspect herself, however. The knights were galloping directly toward the bank of clouds beneath them. Flickers of lightning lit the churning gray mass. She dissolved the iron rings around the rod to protect her from any stray bolts.