by Lakshman, V.
There was a brief moment, Niall’s fingers grasping for his own, but Bernal felt himself yanked away into the darkness by the open abyss below and the rush of rock, stone, and earth from above. The last thing he saw was a brief glimmer of light, the lightning flash of his blade somewhere above, revealing his son’s grief-stricken face.
Bernal screamed, “Galadine!” Then everything went black as the never-ending silence of oblivion reigned.
Baalor’s Dawnlight
A good cause can become bad with ignoble acts.
A bad cause can become good with self-sacrifice.
In the end your cause will be measured,
By how you fought as much as by why.
- Galadine House of Arms, Battle’s Focus
Mithras has succeeded. Proceed with your mission.
The message came from Lilyth, letting him know he was clear to move. He was resting in the rock of the mountain, watching with his stonesight as dwarven builders went about their duties using tunnels, but more often phasing through the rock itself to achieve chambers hidden within. Unlike the rings above, there were no tunnels at this depth, and why would they need one? The easiest way to shield things of worth would be to place it where no one but a builder could reach.
Sovereign had made a critical error in sending his assassins into Bara’cor. Now Baalor had the means to remove Dawnlight’s phasing and fix it to one place. But that would take careful and methodical searching for something he’d never seen before, Dawnlight’s homestone.
My lady, thank you for this chance, he replied.
You are my most dear. I will miss you.
Baalor did not have to reply, he knew the stakes. While Lilyth had worked on the plan for Avalyon, he had been surveilling the mountain itself. As he’d seen earlier, the builders had created a network of intersecting tunnels and chambers. They were methodically laid out in concentric rings with spokes, almost like wheels within wheels. The central shaft had more rings attached vertically, each laid out the same way but going deeper into the mountain.
In between each were chambers, some accessible by tunnels and some not. Baalor had ignored those that were joined because of simple logic. It was doubtful one would put something as important as a homestone in an open chamber accessible by those that could not phase.
Though he was hidden within rock, he was not safe. Soldiers regularly patrolled the dense mountain, both in the open corridors and inside the stone. He was confident of his ability to defeat them, but raising an alarm would pit him against thousands.
What an epic story would be told then of Baalor, the Lord of Storms, if he were to succeed! And, he reminded himself with a sigh, what ignobility would rest at his feet if these mortals defeated him. Truly the outcome would change the fundamental belief of his veneration forever. As the Lady had often cautioned him, hubris led to nothing. Beneficence or pain and loss, these were the only things people worshipped or feared. It was the only thing that would bring him back once his deed were done. He marveled again at her wisdom.
He thought about these guards. Had he mistfrights, he could possess them. However, only he was here and possession was an option only if he died. If he were seen, he would have to kill those he met and their absence would be noted. It would not do to have the mountain come alive around him. Dawnlight itself would help the dwarves if they considered him an enemy. So he’d been careful and methodical as he continued his search.
So far it had not turned up a place worthy of his attention. He had surmised what he wanted was deep in the mountain and so he’d descended through the rock, but as he went down, the patrols increased. This made it difficult to progress as guards patrolled the area like swimmers in a port of war, but shortly after entering the mountain he’d had an idea.
He waited until he saw a guard standing by himself. The man was at his post, a corridor that ended in one of the lower spokes. He knew these dwarves could hear things passing through the stone just like most other people could with things in the air. Therefore he was careful, approaching slowly and when it seemed the man was lightly dozing.
Baalor’s hands reached through the rock and grasped the man’s throat. He whirled, pulling the Stormlord right out of the rock to fall tumbling! Baalor took the fall, rolling easily but sprawling out to look inept. He got up and rushed the guard, who by now had drawn a weapon.
The storm god felt the pommel of the weapon hit the back of his head. Not enough, he thought. He reached up and punched the man in the face, then drew his own sword, needing to escalate things.
The man’s eyes widened, a sudden realization that a brawl had turned into a fight for his life. Baalor smiled, then swung a slow and lazy strike at the man’s head. The man ducked and countered, then stabbed with his eyes closed.
Baalor sighed, then stepped into the blade. It sank through his throat and emerged from the back of this neck. Blood spurted and the last thing Baalor heard through his corporeal ears was the shameful sound of his opponent’s sudden sob.
The body, clad in the clothes of one of Sovereign’s assassins, fell forward with hands still around throat, blade still through neck. Then the pommel hit the ground and the body fell to the side, dead. The guard looked at his handiwork and started to get up when an almost invisible mist erupted from where they still touched, surrounding and entering him quickly. In moments his eyes glowed blue then returned to normal.
“Better,” Baalor said, drinking in this man’s knowledge as he sat up in his new body and brushed himself off. Were it not for the Lady, he’d never have known the capabilities of a builder’s body. They were the first children of Edyn and as such had wondrous powers, much of which had been lost to time. It was no surprise so little was remembered. No matter, for Baalor knew what he could do with a body that commanded the very elements surrounding it.
Two sentries came around the corner at a run, sliding to a stop at the sight of the dead man and their guard, still sitting in front of the body.
“What happened?” the first demanded, a sergeant from his markings. He had his blade half drawn as he came into sight, but upon seeing the scene he drew it fully but aimed it in the direction of the dead assassin’s body, not at Baalor.
Baalor looked up with the eyes of his new body and said in the dwarven tongue, “Intruder, someone may be trying to infiltrate us.”
“He’s dressed like Sovereign’s forces,” said the other guard.
The sergeant moved up and grasped the blade in the fallen intruder’s neck and pulled. It came out in a smooth motion, leaving a line of blood on the ground. He then looked at the two of them and said, “Take your blade.”
Then he turned to the other guard and said, “The two of you take this body for identification. If he’s Sovereign’s, he’s likely got family here. Find out who he is.”
The sergeant looked around at the scene and then caught one of the sentries’ attention saying, “Any time else, I’d tell you to take Fenris to the Talkers. They love ruining a first kill—” the man paused to spit—“but stay together until we know there aren’t more of them. If they’re attacking here that means it’s likely a distraction to something else.”
Mason nodded and saluted. “Yes, Sergeant.” He didn’t say much else but to come over and offer Baalor a hand.
Baalor nodded, then got up and took the offered blade but still said nothing. He would normally not stoop so low as to be ordered by these men, but understood the importance of his mission. Switching bodies was the best way to gain knowledge, but it required his current host to die. Luckily, opportunities here were plentiful.
Mason said, “Come on, grab the arms.”
Baalor sheathed the blade, then picked up the dead man by his arms. He took a step forward but the sergeant grabbed his shoulder and stopped him.
“Good job, taking him out,” the man said, nodding once. Baalor nodded back, then when the sergeant let him go, he took the body down the tunnel.
Once they were out of earshot Mason said, “I can’t believe it!”
Baalor did not reply, but raised an eyebrow.
Mason took it as a question and said, “This is the first incursion since that skirmish with the winged ones.” The man turned to look behind him then gestured with his chin and phased into the rock. He headed downward, pulling the body behind him with Baalor taking up the rear.
Baalor knew dwarves could phase things touching their hands, like he had with the guards in Bara’cor, so this was nothing new. They descended past patrols, past other chambers, and to one that was larger and by itself. Without Mason and this body, it was doubtful Baalor would have gotten this deep without raising alarms. When they emerged, it was into a room where dozens of stone tables sat arranged in rows.
Mason said, “Over here,” and walked over to one, lugging the dead man’s feet onto the stone table top. Baalor did the same with the head, then stepped back, surveying the area.
The man must’ve caught his look. “This is just for identification. Not a surprise you’ve not been here before. There’s really no reason to come unless you’re missing someone, which seems more and more these days.” Mason looked around. “I’m surprised how empty it is.” He moved purposefully to the side where Baalor stood, still looking up.
Then he pointed down below and said, “All the interesting stuff happens down there.”
Baalor looked down with his stonesight. He could see a number of tunnels and chambers below. He had the option to stay in mist form, but to get there he would need the dwarven body he now wore.
He searched Fenris’s memories. All were stupid and inconsequential dreams mortals held up as “life,” but never truly sought to live. He’d spent most of his time living at home with his birthers or wasting his evenings at leisure activities. Of the homestone, the man knew nothing. It sickened Baalor to see such a waste. When the Aeris came, he knew these bodies would find spirits worthy of their flesh.
He realized Mason was looking at him strangely. The man was backing up, a hand slowly going to his blade. “Your eyes, they changed.”
Baalor sighed, knowing he’d made a mistake using the stonesight, for though it was a common dwarven power, it still revealed his true nature. He thought about the ineptitude of Fenris trying to kill him and decided there was an easier course. He drew his dagger and plunged it into his own throat.
Mason rushed forward, shouting, “What are you doing?”
Baalor left Fenris’s body as it died, flooding Mason’s own through his touch. The process was over in a few seconds, a measure of time he found these dwarves used frequently. Then he put Fenris’s body on a table and began absorbing Mason’s memories. The man was slightly more competent, likely being groomed for some kind of command position. He’d witnessed much in his time here, including… there!
Baalor smiled. Mason had once been at a ceremony for the homestone! In fact, it was clear that many of the citizens of Dawnlight saw the same ceremony, which only cemented for the demon these creatures had no true morals. They celebrated their freedom but then fought others who were just trying to survive Sovereign’s Fall. It was intolerable.
Without wasting a moment, he sank into the floor and looked around. The homestone sat in a chamber much farther down than this, near the base of the mountain. Without Mason’s memory, it would have been indistinguishable from the thousands of other caverns within the deep bedrock. It took Baalor some time to navigate there, avoiding the increased activity he could see spreading from the place where Fenris had died, leading to the identification room. No doubt they’d found two bodies and now looked for the man they once knew as Mason.
No matter. The time for secrecy was almost at an end. He relished the chance the Lady had given him and knew it would mean freedom for their people. Baalor did not hesitate when he dived through the wall and into a corridor, turning and blasting one guard with a lightning stroke, cooking flesh on bone, then slicing through the other foolhardy enough to rush in without thinking.
From the Lady’s research, the idea of an assault on the homestone was as foreign to these dwarves as attacking the sun. Even though Mason was missing, it was likely they thought him captured by the enemy, not the enemy. Baalor smiled as he wondered if the sergeant himself would come under scrutiny. After all, he was the last to see everyone alive. Still, he knew, soon it would not matter.
Four more guards rounded the corner. The demon called lightning in a ball and pushed it before him. Two turned their skin into stone, sure proof against his might, but they had not anticipated him using the dwarven power of builders.
He gestured and the floor opened up, swallowing them. Of course they would not be hurt by being submerged in rock, but he suspected they would come back to meet him. In fact, he counted on it.
He strode forward past the point at which they sank, lightning erupting from his fingers and driving the ball of crackling force forward at the remaining two. Arms appeared behind him. Without looking back, Baalor made an explosion of rain appear, engulfing the tunnel corridor from end to end with water. The two before him had just recovered from his initial blast while the two behind were emerging from the ground when Baalor knelt and released his lightning into the water.
The dwarven guards caught in the blast shrieked in agony before slumping over, cooked from the inside out. Their smoking forms, two still stuck in rock and the other two caught in half-curled forms of agony, looked now like caricatures of normal people.
Baalor clenched his fist and the rock mercifully crushed any part of those still imbedded. Moving forward, he looked down each corridor and realized he’d have to be more violent if he expected to achieve his mission against the innumerable soldiers boiling up from passages below, thirsting for his blood. Worse, these people had no idea what their possession would mean.
He smiled and called upon the storms again. Dark clouds formed, heavy with wet mist. They could not be contained within this space and began flowing along the corridors, filtering into every nook and cranny. Soon the underground passageways of this one section was filled, dark and wet. Baalor used the practicality of the dwarves against them, the fact that they kept their vital areas independent of each other. It was a fine tactic against others who could phase through rock. It was poor against any change in the air.
Baalor concentrated, then breathed in. His breath did not stop, breathing in every ounce of air there was. He knew the only escape they’d have was out of this corridor and he relished each moment waiting for it. In phase, they could breathe just as he could. But his purpose was not to choke them, rather to make them flee.
The lack of air in the corridors had its desired outcome. Everyone fled to the rocks around them where they could breathe. Most moved to posts higher up, no doubt to report. Baalor smiled, then looked down at the chamber of the homestone.
It was not far off, sitting within a hexagonal chamber that was fed with dozens of pipes radiating outward to join a network of similar ones woven throughout the mountain like some enormous circulatory system. Baalor descended, entering the room quickly.
There were two guards there, who he blasted with lightning. Their charred forms fell, clearly never expecting an attack here and certainly not by one of their own. In fact, he found it puzzling just how much easier these dwarves were to kill than Sovereign’s black clad assassins. These did not seem well versed in combat at all. Perhaps their choice to isolate themselves within phase had dulled their martial preparedness? In any account, these dwarves were nothing compared to those of the Dawnlight in Edyn.
The Stormlord moved into the chamber proper and spied the homestone, a large vertical piece of metal surrounded by glowing bars that held some sort of liquid. At the bottom lay a panel adorned with a pad of unfamiliar symbols and a few dials. Lilyth had been very specific about how to manipulate this pad, so he set to work.
First he pulled two levers that opened the protective cover of the panel. Then he set the dials to a particular symbol each. Finally, he pressed the pad’s symbols in the order his queen had made him memori
ze. Then he replaced the dials back at their original positions and hit a button to one side that glowed red.
The glowing tubes alternated flashing on and off in a barely discernable pattern. There was a subtle vibration, a feeling of solidity, as if his weight had somehow increased, and then it was gone. All the tubes returned to their normal color and the panel’s button glowed green.
Outside, the mountain of Dawnlight shimmered in phase, then it solidified into the realm of Arcadia, becoming one with their world. The dwarves within the mountain, along with their city in phase, had been transported to and fixed within Arcadia.
Baalor knew what would come next. He held onto the tubes casually, waiting for the inevitable. When it came, it came with a sudden and overwhelming force of dwarves bursting in from every wall of the chamber. They flooded in, weapons ready, their purpose clear. They could not know that Baalor had no intention of fighting them.
Instead, the Stormlord whispered, “My eternal love, Lady,” and then channeled all his power through the tubes and into the homestone itself.
The resulting blast, constricted by this small space and magnified by the surrounding materials, became a seismic detonation that eradicated the chamber and created a spherical hole in the mountain more than a thousand paces across. The blast created cracks racing up and through the bedrock, through chambers above and across fault lines. Nothing could withstand such a massive explosion. The empty space Baalor created collapsed, causing everything above to crumble downward. It was a sinkhole, except in this case it was the mountain itself that disintegrated, taking the dwarven city within it to its ruin.
Of Baalor and any of those who’d entered the homestone chamber to stop him, there was nothing left.
* * * * *
“He did it,” Lilyth said breathlessly, the simple statement belied the immensity of the task the Stormlord had achieved. The realignment of the homestone had corrected the phase shift, putting the phased Dawnlight back into Arcadia. Its subsequent destruction had sealed their fate.…
