It happened so fast that the others had time to register it. They just took a stunned step backwards and stared.
Deena held back the tears and tried to remain calm, but they all panicked inside.
It felt like forever before Alfred spoke.
"Alright. Alright what are we doing wrong? We did everything right to get here, we have the blessing inside us so Angall singled us out for this task. What are we doing wrong?"
Deena rubbed a hand across her cheeks and shook her head.
"We're not doing anything wrong. It's just time for judgement. Invar told us from the start that we don't choose our angel. Our angel chooses us. It will search our souls to decide if we are a worthy vessel to sacrifice itself to. If we have the right character to sustain the communion."
Manzak looked to the pile of smoldering ash on the floor. He stood there with his jaw open for some time before speaking.
"Well I guess that Sebastian got the answer to that question. But I should say, I'm no paragon of virtue. Done bad things in my life. Stolen and conned. Been drunk and cheated at cards. I've lied. So I can see myself as a pile of ash on the floor."
Alfred nodded and stared at the ash that was Sebastian.
"Run from responsibility all my life. Been a coward and vain and selfish. I avoided every fight I've ever come close to because I was afraid I would enjoy it. That I would enjoy the fire of it. And I'm a terrible priest."
Deena stepped forward.
"Been petulant and disobedient to people just trying to help me. Held hate in my heart for monsters that were not monsters. Lashed out with hurtful words and deeds at those who deserved it. All because I thought hitting before getting hit would keep me safe."
Alfred reached out and the three of them held hand in a small circle. They looked to each other, hearts beating.
Alfred nodded to the other two.
"I guess this is us having a little faith, then?"
Manzak gave his confident smile and winked, although Alfred could see the fear in him.
Deena just closed her eyes and nodded as if about to pray.
"Then this is as good a time as any to die. Better to be burned by Angall's Light than eaten alive by those things outside. Are we ready?"
The other two nodded and raised their heads to the ceiling.
As one they opened their mouths and their blessings released and drifted up towards the high dome.
The motes of Holy Light twirled and interlinked, dancing across the dome in an erratic but graceful pattern.
Each mote drifted past one of the entities, inducing a low thrum as it did. The three aspirants gazed up in terror and awe as their tiny blessing of magic settled onto the skin of one of the Messengers. Alfred watched his grow brighter and then sink into the metal skin as if it was a shooting star burning through armour. The entity's wings unveiled and revealed the Light beneath. Alfred was forced to shield his eyes. It was brighter than the summer sun. Then as expected, the ball of flame rolled down towards him. It took all Alfred's faith to stand still as the flame enveloped his hand, his arm and then his entire body. It felt refreshing and cool, not like fire at all.
But he knew he was being judged.
He glanced across and saw Deena and Manzak covered from head to toe in the same cold exploring fire. He was more scared for Deena than for himself, but he knew she was beyond any held he had to offer. They all were.
It felt like forever that the cool flame washed over them. Alfred waited for the sudden heat to ignite and for his bones to turn to dust before him.
But it never came.
Instead, the flickering fire retreated from his body and re-joined its master on the ceiling. The three aspirants left there, shivering and humbled.
Alfred looked across at Deena.
"What happens now?"
The words were out his mouth when a great roar of grating metal reverberated around the chamber. Three of the entities had opened their wings and each aspirant was lit in a golden spotlight on the floor.
Alfred looked up in terror as he gazed upon the true nature of the being within. His mind began to fall apart, unable to cope with witnessing something so far beyond his ability to comprehend. It was alive but unlike any life he knew.
Somewhere in the periphery of his mind he heard another crash from elsewhere in the chamber. Alfred glanced across and saw that the stone door had caved in a little. A hole of rubble had been smashed and the hungry dead crawling through like insects. The thick tendril of the behemoth was lashing about through the gap, its stinger scraping off the walls and floor. Deena shouted across to him.
"Alfred, the door! They are coming!"
Alfred tried to ignore the advancing army of warped dead. He put the screams of Dunc, Farah and Peyter into a small locked room in his brain. Instead he looked up again at the golden light shining down on him. The wings had opened further, like a terrifying flower. Within was brilliance so bright it blinded Alfred. He heard a voice in his head so loud he thought his skull would crack.
Alfred Sorrowhammer.
It was a name he had heard before, what others would know him as for the rest of his life. The voice knew this. But Alfred knew that despite the terrible feeling of invasion in his mind, this entity could not commune with him unless Alfred willed it. Or rather, until he invited it.
Alfred looking sidelong at the shambling horrors that crawling over each other to get through the gap in the door. Once men and women whose souls Alfred had seen trapped within the brecanstanes of the Bleaks. Now they mutated, their bodies just playthings for the infection of the Sorrow. The shambled towards him, drawn to the light of his soul.
There was nowhere to run and too many to fight. So Alfred looked up and invited the ancient archangel into his soul.
As soon as he had the thought, a waterfall of white Light spilled own on him from the entity above. In his peripheral vision he could see the same thing was happening to Deena and Manzak. Alfred could not tell if it was boiling or freezing, but the feeling of the Light hitting his skin was the most intense sensation he could imagine. For a moment he lost all sense of himself and wondered if in fact he had been vaporized like Sebastian.
He opened his mouth to scream and felt the light pouring down his throat like ice water. It both filled him and consumed him. He felt the light saturating into every tiny particle of his being. It invaded him and violated his soul. It felt like each particle and fiber that made up Alfred was being wrenched apart, examined and put back together. It was the most exquisite agony in the universe.
Alfred was suddenly freed from his body and his pain. He floated in a pale netherworld, weightless and timeless.
After all the screaming and violence, the Sorrowful dead and the warped monsters, it was silent. In front of him was shape that seemed to be made of glass. It was multi-faceted and reflected his face back to him at a thousand different angles. A high pitched sound emanated from this structure that wavered and ululated, almost like singing. Alfred sometimes heard the high whine form into awkward words but he could not make them out. The glass structure turned on its axis, glittering in the pale nothingness.
Alfred spoke and his voice sounded loud in his head.
"Hello? Hello is anybody there? I'm Alfred. Can someone please reassure me that I'm not dead? Or even that if I am there's more to it than this?"
The glass structure stopped spinning. The high pitched whine crackled and became discordant for moment. Then Alfred heard a voice. A voice as clear and sharp as cut diamond.
Alfred Sorrowhammer.
Alfred stopped short and swallowed. He was certain that the voice came from the structure in front of him.
"Yes. That's me. Well, the Alfred part is me."
The structure became discordant again and turned a little, reflecting a million stars into Alfred's eyes.
Alfred Sorrowhammer. Will you finish what you start?
Alfred did not know if this was what the archangel looked like, or if it had assumed some form his
mind could cope better with. But in that moment he felt something he could not recall ever feeling in his short life.
Certainty.
Alfred knew that the only way forward was to commune with this being and become something more than he had always been. He knew that the Sorrow would never stop until it had swarmed over the world and consumed everything in its path. Alfred had a reason to fight for the world. But he also had a personal reason to fight. He could protect Deena with the strength in his heart but not the strength of his arm.
For that he needed the help of the gods. He peered at the strange crystalline structure and spoke.
"Come this far, haven't I? I didn't want this to be me. But I know now that I never had a choice. Been running from this my whole life. Running from a fight. But I want to fight. It's my responsibility.”
The entity adjusted its structure again, turning and morphing into another geometric shape.
I will sacrifice myself to you.
"But you are...you are blessed of Angall. Made by his hand. You are older than mountains. You cannot sacrifice your life for me."
The entity turned a few degrees.
Not for you. To you.
It was peaceful and silent in this netherworld but Alfred was aware that a horde of Sorrow was pouring into the chamber where he, Deena and Manzak stood. He felt far away from his body but for all he knew he was being eaten alive at that moment and all this was folly. He had to act now.
"If I say yes, can we defeat the Sorrow? I have had enough of death and loss."
The entity shimmered and adjusted its mathematical body.
I will forge your hammer and guide true. You will be Alfred Sorrowhammer.
Alfred swallowed. This being's mind was not like his. It existed only in absolutes, in simple terms of pure and impure. Alfred sensed that such absolutism could be dangerous. But he had come too far now to change his mind.
"Then yes. If you will have me, I will have you. And I will do my best to live up to my name."
As soon as the words left his mouth the entity began to disassemble. It separated into a billion diamonds and scattered like the stars in the void before him. The shining particles dissipated in a shower of beauty. For a moment Alfred felt the sudden absence of the being. He was alone in a grey universe.
Then he felt the Magus Heart inside him begin to glow. He was aware that the being was no more, and yet it had dissolved into countless pieces and now lived inside him, forever asleep and dreaming.
Alfred floated there for a few moments, unsure what was to happen next.
Then he was hauled back to his body in the chamber.
His eyes snapped open and he sat up with a start.
There was no time to think or hesitate. He glanced across and saw Deena and Manzak had also awoken. They sat up with the same urgency of purpose. All around them, the decayed and the warped circled. More than he could count, crawling and shambling on the very fringes of the pool of golden light where they stood.
A pool of light that was shrinking by the minute.
Alfred heard a crash at the far end of the chamber and saw to his horror that the behemoth had forced itself through the shattered doorway and was dragging its bulbous body towards them.
The three stood up and looked at each other. They looked different to one another now, something had changed. But talk could come later. Alfred looked up and saw the three eldritch constructs that had housed the Archangels now empty and devoid of light. But they were not still.
In fact, the three shells descended towards them in the circle. Within moments the strange metal exoskeleton had landed on the floor in front of him. Then in a terrifying series of twists and folds it reformed itself. The metal was like nothing Alfred had ever seen. It looked as solid as steel but somehow it flowed and rippled from one shape to another.
Within moments, Alfred stood looking at a man-shaped statue. It was bigger than him by far. At its feet something else was re-forging itself from the alien metal of the construct. Something Alfred began to recognize. It was a hammer.
A hammer of silver and blue twisting metal. The hammerhead was like a shard of glass. It was taller than he was and looked far heavier. Then the statue opened and he realized that it was not a statue at all. It was armour. But like no armour he had ever seen or imagined.
Glancing to his side he saw that two more huge suits of metal had forged themselves into existence from the eldritch metal. Deena and Manzak stood by them, wide eyed and immobile.
Then the time for thinking was over. The rotting corpses that stretched out for them could almost reach. Random tendrils writhed from their fingertips, like blind worms sensing nearby food. Three more of the mutated behemoths had hauled their grotesque forms into the chamber and inched closer on deformed limbs. Multiple mouths yawned to display row upon row of teeth.
It was as if the Sorrow could sense that these little pink creatures must be stopped at all costs. That the ancient power they had discovered was a threat to it.
Alfred was forced to duck as a series of slimy tendrils whipped through the air towards his face, missing by inches. The creatures around them numbered in the hundreds now. The stench of rotting meat in the chamber was overwhelming.
Alfred could see the teeth and claws snapping and slashing at him at the edge of the ever decreasing circle of light. He shouted over to Deena.
"There's nothing else to do!"
Then Alfred held his breath and stepped inside the open suit of armour. It snapped shut behind him and began to shift around his contours. At first it was uncomfortable and claustrophobic. It felt as if the metal was fusing to his skin and crushing his ribcage. Then it seemed to find a shape it liked and slowed down. He felt something sharp piercing the back of his neck and he began to panic. Alfred could hear a whirring noise and the fear rose in him. Something was drilling into him, into his bone!
Alfred started to struggle but there was no room to move. In his panic he saw through the visor at the warped dead all around him now. The clambered onto the armour, shoving and biting. Tentacles and slithering tongues wrapped themselves around his limbs and dragged him over.
He was falling. And he could not move.
Within moments it was like Alfred was drowning in a sea of rotting, moldy flesh. The animated corpses began to swallow him up with their sheer numbers. Soon he was up to his chest in countless dead bodies. Then he saw the creatures envelop his visor and shut out the last light. Alfred felt that he could not breathe and as he struggled in panic he realized he could not move a muscle. He was trapped there on his back, buried alive in a metal coffin beneath an ever rising tide of living corpses. He was about to begin his final prayer to Angall. Then something connected.
In an extraordinary rush of sensation, Alfred felt that the armour did not cover his skin, it was his skin. It no longer weighed anything at all, and seemed to move as cotton. He could hear the creak of every rotting corpse and see in all directions at once. And he felt strong.
His hand reached out, feeling along the floor amidst the bodies. Then he found what he was looking for. His gauntlet gripped the handle and locked fast.
With a desperate cry Alfred stood up. Corpses dislodged from the armour and scattered in all directions. Alfred stood there, knee deep in a river of the dead. The hammer in his hand shone bright, the head of it as clear as diamond.
He had no time to marvel at these new sensations. It was time to fight. He looked across and saw two hulking armoured beings standing amongst the horde of Sorrow. They looked like living statues. Between each armoured scale a light was burning. As if a great forge was being fired up within. It took him a moment to connect that this was Deena and Manzak. It took him another to realize that this was how he looked to them!
Alfred felt the Magus within him glowing bright, warming his heart. He felt the Light reach out from him in every direction, filling every space in the otherworldly metal of the armour.
He turned and saw a behemoth looming above him. Nine twis
ted limbs propelled it towards Alfred. Pincers and claws and grasping hands attacked him at once. Then the fight began.
Alfred roared and swung the hammer at the beast. Something that passed for a hooked beak shattered beneath the diamond shard, spraying blood and bone across the room. The Behemoth screeched and jerked back, trying to drag itself to safety. But there was no safe place now. Alfred leapt up, grabbing one of its writhing limbs and pulling it screaming towards him. The hammer rose and fell time after time, bludgeoning the aberration to a shivering pulp. Even as he killed it, more of the risen dead leapt onto his back. They clawed at his armour and spat poison on its surface, but nothing could get through. Alfred felt focused now. There was nothing else in the world but the joy of battle. A pleasure he could never have believed.
A joy he had run from all his life.
He took a deep breath, focused his Light and felt his armour begin to grow hot. The plates started to glow red and hiss with steam. The undead latched onto him began to writhe and screech as their mutated flesh sizzled, until they burst into flames.
Alfred looked across and saw Deena and Manzak pressed by their own battle. A multitude of undead had rushed them as a single entity. Deena was disappearing beneath the tidal wave of pale flesh.
Alfred waded through the army of corpses towards his friends. He grabbed a vicious looking corpse by the head with one hand and crushed the skull. Then with a sweep of his arm he swatted five more into the wall.
He reached out a gauntlet for Deena who took it and stood. Alfred felt the warm connection of Light through the armour as their Magus communed. He looked down and saw that she held a broadsword that shone like the moon. Alfred nodded and they both turned to help Manzak.
Manzak was in the midst of hand-to-hand combat with the largest of the Behemoths. Its white belly was bulbous and swollen with infection. It had grown three heads, all sporting variations of a predator's jaws. One snapped like a crocodile, another was a leech, and the third a vulture with teeth.
Somewhere in the fight Manzak had dropped his weapon and was now held aloft in the beast's tendril limbs. It stabbed a metallic stinger into his chest, throwing up sparks each time. Manzak was as strong as the rest. He struck the creature with blow after blow like hurled rocks. Sometimes the behemoth's flesh gave in a sickening pucker and his arm sunk into its body. Slime poured forth over the armour and it hissed onto the floor like boiling oil.
A Prayer of Freaks and Sinners Page 17
