In answer, Birch looked around and grabbed a spring lying abandoned on a nearby table. What its purpose was, Danner could only guess, though it had been buried amidst a pile of assorted metal rubbish. He assumed it had been sitting out as scrap.
“This is a trifle crude, but I hope it will do,” Birch said in apology. He held up the spring. “Imagine this center section is the mortal world, where all humans, demi-humans, and beasts live their lives. This lower section, which doesn’t touch the middle part, is Hell, and this upper part, likewise unconnected, is Heaven.” Birch illustrated his words by pointing at each section in turn.
“That’s as it was before the Merging. Long ago, before mortal man yet existed, Heaven and Hell were once one piece, here at the top. Then came the Great Schism, which resulted in Mephistopheles and his followers being forcibly expelled from Heaven. Hell then ended up here at the bottom. From the tremendous forces released during the expulsion, the mortal world was created, and life began. Our texts teach us that God created life to inhabit the world, and thus that we are all part of His divine plan. So the mortal world now sits here, where I first showed you, not touching either Heaven or Hell.
“With the advent of the Devil’s Horns, though, Hell slid up the spring until a piece of it actually touched the mortal portion, here,” he said, pointing. “It is only our guess that Mephistopheles was actually trying to bring Hell fully into alignment with our world, but that his power fell short and placed him instead just short of the mortal realm,” Birch said. “If he’d been able to come a bit further, we’d see more than just one strip of land connecting the two planes. Hell would completely overlap with our world,” Birch said, noting Danner’s questioning glance, “and they would quite literally impose a state of Hell on earth.”
Danner slowly absorbed this information, blinking slowly.
“I’m glad that didn’t happen,” he said absently, then instantly cursed himself for sounding like a fool. Of course he’d be glad, as would any idiot!
Danner was grateful when his uncle only nodded silently in agreement to his inane statement.
“But what about…” Danner began.
“That’s enough, boy,” Hoil said, thumping his fist lightly on the table. “Don’t you have some of that damnable work to go do? Earning money by making other people richer,” Danner’s father said, throwing up his hands in a theatrical display of anguish.
“Easy, dad,” Danner said, pushing his now empty plate away. “It’s been a slow week, but I do need to go in for a while anyway.” He directed his attention to his uncle. “I hope you’re not away too soon, uncle. I’d like the chance to get to know you better.”
“And I you, nephew,” Birch answered politely. Danner had the sudden impression that his uncle would have answered just as calmly had Danner announced he was really the son of Satan come to terrorize the mortals of the world. There seemed a sort of imperturbable calm that hung about his uncle, such that the man would take virtually anything in stride that came his way. The way he presented himself was almost unnatural; a man far more in control of himself than human nature normally allowed.
Danner realized he’d been staring at his uncle and abruptly shook his head. He had a moment of fear as Birch’s gaze slid toward him, but his uncle did not make eye contact.
“I’ll be back later today,” Danner promised, then he left.
Chapter 5
Do you wrestle with demons?
Do you soar with the angels?
Do you walk the dirt of the earth?
Which of these makes you a man?
Which would you truly enjoy?
- Lassiter Quinn,
“The Measure of a Man” (985 AM)
- 1 -
High in the Delnar Mountains, a chill breeze slipped between two rocks, screaming as though it were being crushed between them. It twisted and howled for a moment longer, fighting to pass through the narrow gap. Freed at last, it soared over a stony ridge and plummeted toward a village below.
Dwarven beards stirred and twisted aside as the wind passed, often accompanied by a guttural curse from the stocky humanoids. The wind dodged through a crowded, perfectly straight street, slipping past the denizens of the mining town without them giving it a second thought. Such winds were common.
A thick, stone wall barred the wind’s passage, but its momentum carried it up and over the roof of the squat dwarven hut. Stone shingles passed beneath it, and with a howl of freedom, the wind left behind the dwarven town and its perfectly ordered streets.
Weightless and unfettered, the wind gathered strength as it tore past the tops of mighty pine trees and bounded over the rocky slopes of mountains. As it blew, the wind continued steadily down toward the plains below. Neither tree nor stone could stand before it, and all were left behind as the wind ripped onto the grassy lowlands.
As it soared lower, the wind grew warmer and lost only a little of its power.
The mountain wind reached a denarae settlement – little more than a few mud huts and hide tents scattered about at random – and ripped chunks of earth from the crude sod dwellings. Within one home, a baby cried out in terror as the wind rattled the fragile wooden door, and a grimy-faced mother reached over to soothe the distressed child. With a final brush against the door, the wind left the family behind and moved on to another home.
A thick, hide teepee stood before the wind, with a hand-carved weather vane atop it. The wind parted easily around the narrow peak of the tent, tugging the vane so that it pointed toward the swiftly retreating wind. The wooden horse stared vacantly at the carved “E”.
While blowing over the heads of a herd of horses, another gust of wind buffeted into the first with enough force to shift its direction. The mountain wind absorbed the lowlands breeze and added its force to its own, accepting the new heading. The wind soared over a sizeable forest, and ahead of it loomed an enormous city, beyond which lay a wide, short plain. The wind passed effortlessly through the city and onto the plain, bearing a swirl of stray leaves on its back high into the sky.
Suddenly the leaves ceased their forward movement and fell listlessly toward the ground. The wind continued its journey, unknowing and uncaring of the burden that had mysteriously vanished into another realm of existence.
Bereft of their guiding force, the leaves drifted listlessly toward plains that were completely barren of life. The ground below was parched and cracked, often giving the appearance of having been torn open by a gargantuan beast that had left its claw marks behind in the naked landscape of tortured desolation. No wind stirred the dust and lifeless dirt. Though it continued to blow across the plains of the mortal world, here it held no dominion or strength.
Gently, the leaves fell toward what had once been pillars around a building. Now nothing more than shattered stumps of stone remained surrounding an empty square of rock. On the base of each pillar could be seen the remnants of a carved image of a single vertical line with two horizontal lines trisecting it.
Each symbol had been slashed and chipped by unknown hands, or claws, and most were all but destroyed.
As the leaves settled at the base of the pillars, on the ground around them appeared three humanoid creatures.
- 2 -
Sal watched the settling leaves with cruel satisfaction, delighting in the knowledge that the Merging had weakened so much. Even a short year ago, only living creatures had been able to cross from the mortal plane, and then only if they were touching the ground. Birds and other airborne creatures had been, until recently, safe from crossing into Hell. But now with every passing moment, the Merging grew weaker and weaker, thanks to Mephistopheles’s influence.
With the King of Hell’s will directed against the Merging, Sal and his brothers would soon be able to make their crossing.
Beside him, Min and Ran stood eagerly waiting. While separate, their thoughts were as one with Sal, as his thoughts were with each of them. The Unholy Trinity, they were often called. To most though, they were simply Th
e Three.
Sal and his brothers were identical in every respect, and while looking at one of them he may as well have been looking at himself. All three were short, at just over three feet tall, and completely hairless. Their flesh gave every appearance of being made of the rough bark from a mortal-world oak tree, but was really perfectly smooth and cold to the touch.
Three-inch, pointed ears stood out from their heads, and each of their noses was little more than a snub of flesh, slightly upturned. Within their tiny mouths, needle-sharp teeth glittered when one of them smiled in malicious anticipation. Their hands and feet were all slightly webbed and tipped with wicked claws. Their limbs were lithe, muscular, and inhumanly swift.
Short, leathery wings flapped in agitation from behind their shoulders, and a stubby, spiked tail protruded from just above their buttocks. The tail was only a hand-span in length, and more than a few of the higher demons, deeming themselves immune to The Three’s power, had remarked that it resembled the stinger of a mortal-realm insect. Nearly all now served as dishnara,[18] laboring under the converted generals of Hell’s armies. A very few of Hell’s inhabitants, those more powerful than The Three, had suggested similarly and remained unfettered. In the mind of The Three, it was only a matter of time before these, too, joined their brethren in servitude, victims of underestimating the Unholy Trinity.
The strength of The Three lay in their unique consciousness. In the days before time began, when Heaven and Hell were as one, the demon king’s war against God had failed because his will had overpowered the wills and identities of all but the most powerful of his minions. The forces of Heaven, however, had each possessed an individual consciousness that allowed them to act independently and unpredictably.
When God exiled Hell and its denizens and hurled them to a lower plane of existence, Mephistopheles removed his will from his followers and allowed more of them to achieve individuality. The more powerful inevitably dominated their weaker cousins, and the resulting hierarchy had lasted almost unchanged throughout countless ages.
Sal and his brothers were something of a hybrid between collective consciousness and individual will. Each of them possessed a mind and body of their own and could act independently without the others. At the same time, however, their minds were melded to form an inexplicable oneness that often baffled their enemies. They were three, yet they were one. Even they could not fully explain this ability. It just was, and they used it to their advantage.
A sudden shift in the air, something felt on a spiritual level rather than a physical one, caused all three of them to look toward the Merging. Though speech was unnecessary between them, Min broke the lifeless silence that surrounded them.
“It is time, brothers,” he said. “Let the mortal world cower in fear from the silent terror that will walk amongst them.”
At a thought, three more shapes joined them near the toppled pillars. Three humans – bruised, but still very alive – were bound helplessly, their eyes wild in terror as they caught sight of The Three standing before them. The demons grinned maliciously, and each leaned over one of the bound mortals as though savoring their terror. Without any sign, all three simultaneously forced open the mouth of their chosen mortals and reached into their throat as though to rip out their tongue. The three men screamed, but the agony they felt was nothing compared to the true horror they endured as each felt his consciousness pushed aside. The Three seemed to waver, then they flowed into their chosen hosts to utterly possess their bodies and minds.
To overcome the protective force known as the Barrier, it was necessary they remain in some way connected with a presence from the mortal realm, and the humans had been brought through the Merging to Hell with great difficulty and the utmost secrecy only a few days before. Now, they would return to their world under the control of The Three, bearers of the most powerful forces of evil the mortal world had seen in centuries.
Min looked out from behind mortal eyes and saw a mortal’s face where Ran’s should have been, but the demon’s presence glinted maliciously behind the human’s eyes. Min glanced down and sneered at the leather chords binding his limbs. The Three snapped their bonds contemptuously and stared at each other in disgust. Demonic possession was difficult to achieve, and only a handful of demons could do it well. Most had never had the chance to practice, of course, since the only living mortals most demons had ever seen were either long since dead during the Merging War a millennia before, or else White paladins who had crossed the Merging and been captured. Of the few demons who had actually possessed a mortal, many had been so disgusted by the sensation of inhabiting a mortal body that they’d willingly sworn off future attempts.
“Quickly, my brothers,” Ran muttered, hating the sound of his host’s voice. “This body repulses me.” The others nodded, and they quickly stepped across the barrier of the Merging.
Sal and his brothers felt a shock of spiritual pain that rocked them to the very core of their combined being, nearly shattering their existence. For one terrible instant, they wondered if Mephistopheles had somehow betrayed them, or if even his power had proven insufficient to properly weaken the Merging. Then the pain ceased abruptly, as though someone had thrown a torch in the ocean. With a savage gleam of satisfaction, Sal felt the difference in the very air that surrounded him.
“We have arrived,” he said needlessly. Triumph surged through them. The nature of the Merging – and the Barrier that held it at bay – was such that the stronger the entity attempting to cross, the stronger the reaction repulsing the demon. Mephistopheles himself was sufficiently powerful that had he attempted to cross himself, the Merging would likely rebuff him with enough strength to obliterate the demon king. Even the accumulated strength of multiple lesser demons attempting to cross had the same result, and several attempts over the centuries to trickle demons through had met with disaster in the form of an army of waiting paladins.
Since the forging of the Barrier, no damned soul nor demon of any real power had been able to cross into the mortal realm. But now The Three had crossed, and they each had duties to fulfill.
Quickly releasing their hosts, The Three flowed back into their corporeal bodies with a sense of relief. Before the humans could regain their senses, their throats were quickly ripped open and they were drained of their life – The Three eagerly leeched strength from the dying mortals, replenishing strength lost during the crossing. Disposing of the bodies in the nearby sea, The Three immediately altered form and dove into the water, what the mortals called the EarthForge. Sal felt Min assume the shape of a shark, while Ran transformed into a barracuda. Sal willed himself into the shape of a termeron,[19] alternating his travel through sea and sky. The ability to race through pure water exhilarated him even as it made him feel sick.
The mortal realm is too… mortal! he thought to himself. Or perhaps Ran or Min said it in their thoughts. It made little difference.
The change in their environment was palpable, and it pressed against Sal’s flesh like a second skin. He nearly squirmed beneath its presence.
In far less time than it would have taken the creatures whose forms they had assumed, The Three reached the land on the far side of the EarthForge. Ran and Min both transformed into land-bound creatures, but Sal had further to go for his journey and opted for a red dakkan. He glanced at the black-haired horse and the yellow-striped faerer[20] that stood waiting expectantly before him. The hunting cat’s three yellow stripes seemed to glow in the mortal sun, a sharp contrast to the rest of its dark fur. The faerer growled, and Sal read the anticipation in his brother’s snarl.
With a mental nod of affirmation, Sal leapt into the sky as his brothers departed on their own journeys.
- 3 -
Rathamik sat up with a gasp, clutching his sheets to his chest. After a panicked moment of unreasoning terror, the aging paladin realized there was no immediate threat before him. No thief or assassin stalked his room, no messenger presented himself with dire news, and no creature stirred amidst th
e half-shadows of the morning light. There was nothing to alarm him.
Why then had he awakened?
He had the unshakable feeling that something profoundly terrible had just happened; something more than just the lingering touch of a nightmare. With a shuddering breath, Rathamik set about extricating himself from his tangled, sweat-soaked sheets.
The silence around him was thick enough that he felt strangled by its presence, and for a moment Rathamik struggled merely to breathe. He knew then what most men his age would feel, their aging bodies weakening and beginning to fail. Do they all feel this? he wondered. Do they all struggle to breathe? Am I now no better than they?
Then the feeling passed, and his breath returned to him. Shuddering at the passing of such weakness, Rathamik successfully freed himself from his sheets, dumping most of the linen on the floor.
As he stood, a pigeon landed on his window ledge and pecked at the glass.
Rathamik’s heart leaped into his chest at the sudden tapping noise, and he laid a steadying hand on the post of his bed to calm himself.
“It’s a bird,” he said scornfully to himself. “A bird frightens the mighty paladin. Perhaps they’re right. I am getting old.”
Rathamik knew this last thought to be a lie, however. He could still best many paladins who were much younger than he, and there weren’t many who were older. Paladins who survived to their middle years too often felt the Calling and soon crossed the Barrier and disappeared forever in the depths of Hell. Rathamik had never been struck with the consuming madness that came over such paladins, and his age and experience had served the Prism well.
His momentary weakness of only a few moments ago was already forgotten.
Sighing to himself, Rathamik reached over and unlatched his window, allowing the pigeon access to the small tray of seed he kept inside his room. The pudgy bird cooed softly as it stepped into the room, its head bobbing forward as it eagerly sought the tray. A chill breeze – strange for the middle of summer – followed the bird into the room, causing Rathamik to shiver as it touched his damp shirt.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 6
