The Lord of Always

by David Brian

  From where we stood it was impossible to determine the purpose of the altar, though without doubt it was of a size capable of supporting a body. The air in this place was rancid, worse even than that seeping through the walls of the passageways. In here, the stench of excrement and decay had been overtaken by the vile aroma of ill intent. The odor of fear and rotted flesh overhung this great hall, leaving an aura of despair.

  I was overcome by the urge to vomit, and it was only fear of what may be lurking here which stopped me losing my load. Shandra wasn’t so lucky. Her gag reflex failing her as the stench assaulted her lungs, straining a system which seemed to have gone a lengthy period without food. She dropped to her knees and retched, loosing a stream of watery mucus.

  I allowed Shandra a minute to finish coughing out the last vestiges of bile, and then placed a hurrying hand on her shoulder. It was at this moment I almost lost my footing, my balance failing as the sense of impending disaster struck. Shandra turned to meet my gaze, and I realized she too had experienced this same dire instinct. It was plain to see that whatever image those impressions presented, they had stripped away the armor of her bravado.

  “I don’t like this,” I said.

  She didn’t answer, although this was likely an attempt to avoid breathing the foul air. Instead, she climbed from her knees and pointed, directing my attention toward the far end of the arena. An arched doorway set beyond and to the right of the altar.

  “It may be an option,” my voice had dropped to barely a whisper. The putrid atmosphere scratched at my vocal chords with every word I attempted.

  After a few more moments spent scanning our surroundings, our nerves began steadying with the realization we were alone. Slowly we began moving down the aisle.

  It was only as we walked the line between the pews, we realized the reality of what was occurring… and yet, once again, it made no sense. The black seats on the pews began bubbling, spasmodically like waters in a hot spring. A heaving rapidity of shifting currents disturbed the cushioned surfaces, moving like excited rats scurrying through the tattered cushions of a sofa. Shandra aimed a bottle in the direction of the benches, but I placed a restraining hand on her forearm. She cast me a quizzical glance, but a solitary shake of the head told her that taking first-strike action could prove a bad idea. Her grim features confirmed she understood, and we continued nervously on.

  As we closed toward the altar, a horrific truth was revealed. This was indeed a place of sacrifice. Blood stained not only the block itself, but also the surrounding floors and walls, revealing an orgy – or maybe orgies – of savagery having taken place here. Never had I seen so much blood; everything crimson. The first seven rows were pebble-dashed with spatter, the same smattering patterns spreading upwards beyond the altar, like bloody trees climbing ancient walls. An ornate goblet had been placed centrally on the slaughter-slab. Several more cups lay discarded about the floor, dark dregs staining each of them, exposing their purpose. Is this it, have we uncovered the truth? The archons, they are no different than vampires gaining sustenance from the drinking of their victims.

  It was a thought which lasted barely an instant.

  From behind us there came a solitary shout, though delivered with a pitch that wouldn’t have sounded amiss from a surprised banshee. A crescendo of calls followed, unfurling into a panicked multitude of terrified screams as a series of pops, fizzes and bangs revealed that the archons had discovered those concealed in the safety of the hallway. For a moment I froze, but was stirred to thawing once I realized Shandra was a woman whose fight-or-flight reflex held only one setting. The shaven headed girl was sprinting in the direction of the corridor, and this ignited my own return to the group, and the ensuing pandemonium.

  Even before we reached the rear row of pews, a panicked mass of heaving bodies began spilling into the arena, their combined weight forcing wide the doors. The flashes and screams to their rear left no doubt as to what was occurring. My eyes searching for Roz, my heart skipped a beat as I saw her being lifted to her feet. Joseph’s arm was around my wife’s waist, helping her recover from a heavy tumble. The two of them turned their eyes upwards, toward the ceiling of the arena. Although I couldn’t make out any words, I understood that Joseph was yelling for Cathy and Peter to hurry in joining them. Anxiety tugged my chest as I spotted Cathy’s mop of dirty-blonde hair pushing through the heaving throng, and I watched with relief as the woman emerged from the crowd and hurried toward Joseph and Roz. My heart thumped triumphantly with the realization she held Peter in her arms.

  Joseph and my wife were still staring upwards, and at first I assumed they were simply held in awe by this cavernous arena. Then, as I realized the magnitude of the horror etched across their faces, I followed their upward gaze.

  Above our heads, masses of stone gargoyles had begun leaving their perches, launching themselves in freefall, toward the heaving, frightened masses below. I watched stunned as the plummeting gargoyles transformed, first into indeterminable fiends, and then into fizzing, whining balls of energy, striking and consuming freely the poor wretches beneath.

  Fear drove the group into this grim temple, but as mass panic descended into absolute chaos, I realized a dreadful truth. We had been allowed this far for a single, bloody purpose. We were simply fodder; hopelessly outmatched gladiators set to fall in this final battle. In this most unholy of amphitheatres; a blood sacrifice to a higher darkness we could never hope to comprehend.

  For a time it was all I could do to stand and watch, frozen with terror by the sight of bodies throwing themselves over and under pews in a vain effort to escape agonizing death; and then, just as rapidly attempting to flee those same holy benches. As black seats twisted and groaned, becoming things alive, contorting like liquid tar, swirling and curling to entrap arms and legs which punched and kicked in failed resistance. The unfortunates held in that treacle grip were quickly engulfed, their bodies ripped and torn open by some obscene power I didn’t understand, a force which pulled at their limbs, dismembering and absorbing them amid a crescendo of agonized death. Others of our group sought refuge in the dark recesses of the hall, desperate as they were to find solace amid the shadows – they too fell to their doom.

  I felt a blow across the back of my head. It was Shandra who struck me. She was screaming, pleading at me to ‘man up’ and ‘recover your senses’. It took the harshness of her blow to refocus my thoughts, but thankfully she had spurred me into action.

  The arena was a scene of carnage. These people I had unwittingly delivered to this catastrophe, perhaps half are already dead; those remaining seem beyond aid or redemption. I grabbed Shandra’s arm, directing her toward one of the thick support columns where Roz stood alongside Joseph and his family, plus a handful of others, all readying themselves to make a final stand. I estimated the group had less than a half-dozen bottles between them. They were continuing to fire at will whenever one of the fiends fizzed into range, but they were dreadfully short on options. The woman whose crown was a plume of feathers, she appeared almost supernaturally strong, and agile beyond reason – I watched with amazement as, clutching a five-foot silver candleholder in talon fingers, she leapt maybe fifteen-feet in the air, striking viciously at the encroaching archon. The silvers connection with the fiend’s plasma shell ignited a reaction within its nucleus, the sphere hissing like a leaking balloon as it snaked violently across the arena, finally imploding against the farthest wall.

  I realized the avian woman’s fury had been spiked by the demise of her partner – having observed his brutal destruction only moments after his arrival in the hall. He had been one of the first to fall, engulfed within the confines of a heaving ball of energy, and then exploded into a mess of blood and bone and feathers. Even given the formidable prowess of his partner, I knew she was as doomed as the rest of us. I said a silent prayer to unknown ancestors, begging they aid me in reaching the side of my wife. If we were to fail, I intended that we fall together.

  Chapter 35r />
  Hacking my way across the room, striking out at any orb or tentacle within range of my blade, it was pleasing to find that the weapon offered great success against these wretches – a blow from my iron inducing the same spasmodic, bubbling destruction I witnessed silver inflict upon them.

  My initial satisfaction quickly fades. Not all the ruptured orbs fully imploded. The ones that splattered against walls and onto pews dripped their caustic innards toward the floor, leaking like filled balloons. Pools form on the ground, shimmering into storms of motion which gave birth to a dreadful arrival; the return of the hoggish. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach as the creatures strived to be free of the turbulent waves, their muscular arms quickly pulling them clear of the liquid.

  These beasts seemed even larger than previously. I could swear that one of them was the size of a cow. The creatures seemed a further nail in our coffin. But I couldn’t waste time dwelling on failure…and so I was on my toes.

  I reached Roz just in time to see a lad – a boy only a few years younger than me, his hair greasy and styled long as a girl’s – being consumed in a glowing mass of extinction. His entrails sliding to the floor like carmine pulp as the creature blinked out of view.

  All across the room small pockets of terrified escapees were being picked off, engulfed by gleaming orbs which broil them into cartilage and sanguine mess. Others are gored or torn by the dozen or more hoggish fiends who joining affray. The piggish monsters seem to wreak havoc with an intent that surmounts even the savagery of the archons.

  It seemed as though the howls of the innocent were being drowned by the buzzing of a million angry hornets. I snatched up a silver candlestick from one of the decorative stands at the rear of the pews, forcing it into Roz’s hand. Screaming instructions, I urged Joseph and Cathy to – if at all possible – select a weapon of silver, and then to retreat until we have our backs against the support column. Cathy’s features reflected the fear of her screaming son, but she swiped the back of a hand across her mouth and nodded understanding. It takes a moment to persuade her, but Joseph finally relieves his daughter of the boy. And this, in turn, allows Cathy to hoist one of the weighty silver shafts. Joseph was a big man, and he had no problem wielding one of the candlesticks while balancing Peter on his other arm. I figured arming ourselves with more silver may at least make it difficult for the archons. Though as sure as night is day, they will consume us.

  I fired off the final dregs from my bottle just before reaching the cylindrical pillar at our backs. And as my shoulders came to rest against the stone support, I had only my pitted blade, and a sixteen-inch candlestick – which I snatched up from where it had been discarded on the stone floor – with which to fend off impending doom.

  Roz was still clinging to a bottle, though it too was empty. Fear has prevented her discarding it. With a series of jerky movements, she continued pointing toward each and every sparkling ball of death that blinked about the room. The plastic bottle was useless, though thankfully she still held the candlestick. Watching her wield the solid bar of silver, it occurred to me how very strange it was that these beings had placements of silver throughout the hall, and yet it was an element which obviously threatened them. Roz was swinging her candlestick like a Samurai gone berserker crazy. It pained me to see her so distressed.

  I grabbed hold of my wife, prying her fingers open and replacing the useless plastic bottle with a second stick of silver. Joseph and Cathy had long since emptied their vessels. And thus, with no more liquids to act as a deterrent against the assault, we were forced to watch helplessly as Shandra’s brave efforts finally reached their conclusion. The fearless girl continued screaming a belligerent torrent of defiance as one of the orbs appeared before her. She launched a venomous strike at the fiend, the silver in her hand succeeding in sending the archon to screeching oblivion. The girl watched as it wound and twisted its way upwards, finally imploding midair. Her attention was diverted for barely an instant, but still time enough for another of the archons to appear directly above her, and for glowing squid-like tentacles to descend from its orb. The obscenities she cursed as the monster drew her higher, they were a mark of that woman’s raw courage; moments later she was a bloodied slurry discarded to the floor.

  I knew this girl for barely any time at all, and though her ending was mercifully instantaneous, watching her demise tore a wound in my soul.

  So, finally, there we stood; a diminished group of survivors facing our Dunkirk; Roz, Joseph, Cathy, Peter, Karl, the feathered woman, and I, plus another man and woman. It shames me to say it, but for the majority of those who fell, I would never have a name, nor would I likely recognize them again if such a reunion was even possible. Nine souls remaining from an initial group of hundreds; I still wielded my blade, but only half of the others were suitably armed. Several dozen of the grotesques now popped and crackled in the air about us, multi-colored, pulsing, repeatedly phasing in and out of existence, though making no attempt to finalize our slaughter.

  Even the hoggish were holding their ground, apparently restrained from making a final move on us. Angrily pacing the line of some invisible border, the disgruntled savagery of their grunts confirming it was under orders that they desisted from slaying us.

  It was clear they were waiting on something…perhaps reserving us to be soft fleshed fodder for something vile, and as yet unrevealed.

  I squeezed Roz’s hand, shamed by the tears clouding my eyes. But I was beyond fear. I glared at the carnage visited upon so many innocents. People I had sworn to protect. My heart bled for those doomed souls, and pounding with the rage of my desire to inflict hurt on these monsters surrounding us. Whatever would come next, I had not done with slaying demons.

  Chapter 36

  It appeared first as a pulsing egg of white-orange plasma; a ball of volatile energy, emitting a tone which inflicted waves of nauseating dizziness among our party. Its glow was blinding, and as one, we were forced to shield our eyes. The object fizzed, wheezing as its shell appeared to breathe with all the ease of a cancerous lung. The orb hovered just inches off the ground, offering a threatening presence barely a dozen feet in front of us. There was a sudden and loud sucking of energy, and then the thing stepped forward from the light. The orb at its back shimmering violently, a hiss of static discharge accompanying the evaporating lightshow as the object absorbed the wave of expanded energy back into its core.

  A stunned silence ran through the group, but I recognized this fiend from the village. Its androgynous features lacked the distortedly long faces of the other creatures, and remained as oddly appealing as I remembered. But this was a thing of pure evil.

  Anat stretched forth her thin, milk-white arms, palms upward as though appealing to some higher power. Her jaw slackened impossibly, and then, through a snakelike mouth, she began her song. The sounds were not dissimilar to those made by the creatures we encountered in the cellar. At this vocal command her followers immediately fell to silence. Their colors stabilizing, turning a dull mustard-yellow, the intermittent pulses of energy slowing to little more than a low hum of static discharge. A gentle waspish hum overtook the hall as the archons lulled under Anat’s command.

  Roz raked fingers into my flesh, the pressure of her nails on my arm increasing as the thing before us turned its attention to our group, and to me in particular.

  “Well, look who we have here.”

  “Why would you do this? What is it you want from us?”

  “What is it that I want? You are pieces in a game, the rules of which you could never comprehend. All that you need to know, I intend removing each of you from the board.”

  “But, why?” I pleaded, sweeping a gesture toward the carnage. “What were any of these people guilty of?”

  Her smile remained as rancid as her breath. “He has told you what we are, yes? So then, has he not explained that you are simply playthings, the sport which provides us pleasure? I know the names of each who has fallen, here. I know how they lived, and how
they could have died. You ought to bend the knee, and beg that I grant you so swift an end.”

  “George was right. You are a monster!”

  “Tell me, where is he? Where is the Old One? Answer the question, Frank Tanner; or I will broil you where you stand.”

  “Enough of this!” it was a booming and assertive command.

  I recognized the voice – well, I sort of recognized the voice. And such was the wave of relief that swept over me, I nearly peed my pants. It was as one that we turned to face the source of this robust shout, and Roz’s perplexed half-smile revealed she understood – though as yet did not truly understand – my relief.

  With impeccable timing, he entered by the door at the far end of the temple, set off to the right of the altar. George Smoke strode purposely down the center aisle, and in unison the archons ignited with a hum resembling a million angry wasps; a crackling cacophony of sound and color which rose as their adversary approached.

  They fear this man.

  George Smoke closed toward us, and as he did so I recognized a marked change in his manner – indeed, not just his manner, for he no longer carried his tall frame with shoulders rounded; his stride was now strong and purposeful. It struck me immediately that he displayed more vigor, but it was only as he drew nearer that I understood the true nature of such an impossible change.