The Last Archon

by Richard Watts

  “You can’t win!” Wolfe shouted. “You and Tarran murdered me and everyone on Atlantis! I won’t let you do it again! They’ll live! I’ll make Atlantis live!”

  “Yeah, not a graceful concession speech.”

  Hayden called up a dome of Axiom and braced for Wolfe’s strike. A column of gray-green fire sliced through the air to crash against the shield, blotting the gate from sight as the wave washed up and over him. For several heartbeats, Hayden struggled to meet the strength of Wolfe’s sorcery. When the tide ebbed, he leaned against the dome, sweat dripping from his brow and palms. He couldn’t survive another hit like that.

  He glanced around him. Oozing puddles of animate sludge squelched toward him. To his left, new shapes writhed free of the remains of Wolfe’s arm, mouths moaning and gnashing against a backdrop of baleful lightning. To his right, Atlanta lay in black velvet and jeweled lights forty stories below him. Wolfe marched closer, madness plain in his eyes. Power swirled into his palms for another attack. His skin wrinkled and bulged as all manner of crawling things shifted underneath it. A black, leech-like tail broke through his cheek, wiggling wetly.

  Hayden gathered every bit of Axiom he could hold until his hands glowed and pressure built against the dam of his will. He met Wolfe’s eyes and let his dome fall. The green fire roared forth, a striking serpent. Hayden held out his left hand and unleashed three spears of light, brighter than dawn, carving the whole side of the roof in a scythe of energy.

  Three of the remaining columns fell inward as the roofline behind Hayden collapsed and dropped out of sight. Cracks raced over the concrete and wires and molten metal shown through the gaps. Lightning ripped free of its eldritch cage, arcing wildly. Wolfe screamed in incoherent rage, and his fire hit Hayden in the side, lifting the boy from his feet. The shards of his armor evaporated into motes of light. Sorcerous flame scoured the golden bands from his skin and skin from flesh. The world spun twice and Hayden joined the rune carved debris that plummeted toward the city below.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Wind whipped past Hayden’s face, unheard over the ringing in his ears. Lights rolled past him, a winking man-made sky. When he touched it, he would die. In opposite orbit around his axis, the wild lightning of the gate shot madly in every direction, unfocused. As he watched, the energy flared, and clouds twirled into a funnel that dipped toward the building.

  Hayden flung a desperate spike of energy at the side of the high rise as it flipped into view. It zipped into the stonework with a crack, unspooling a line of Axiom that lead back to Hayden’s hand. The rope pulled taut, jerking Hayden into a pendulum swing toward the building, spinning him in a dizzying pirouette.

  He smashed into a marble railing at nearly twenty miles an hour, whiplashing his neck and head. The impact drove the meager breath from his lungs and ripped the construct from sweat-slick fingers. Something snapped in his chest. Hayden left a bloody smear as his ribs scraped the edge of the balcony and he renewed his fall.

  The Axiom hovered a thought away, but Hayden struggled to focus. Faces tumbled with the lights. Deckard, frowning, disappointed. Vivian, pleading, teary-eyed. Wolfe, frothing and animalistic. Blood and bitterness filled Hayden’s mouth. His own face smirked at him.

  Be a good time to learn to fly, wouldn’t it?

  Can’t you be more helpful?

  Helpful? Okay. Hate to tell you, buddy, but something’s coming your way.

  The ground?

  Worse.

  Hayden blinked through watering eyes at the comet streaking between the buildings toward him. He’d fallen twelve feet before his conscious mind registered the figure inside the golden flames. Deckard swooped in like a striking hawk and snatched Hayden from the air. Iron strength halted his tumbling fall and carried him safely to the ground.

  Hayden came to being propped gently against a car, cold seeping into his legs and exposed torso. Deckard knelt next to him, Archon armor blazing with sorcerous might.

  “Hell of a time to get out of bed,” Hayden managed to whisper. Deckard didn’t react.

  “Rest. You did well.” Deckard’s voice echoed oddly, possibly the result of the masking enchantment distorting his face into a heat haze.

  “I held it, Deckard. It doesn’t burn!” Hayden raised a hand, eager to show his teacher. Deckard grabbed his wrist and lowered his arm.

  “Rest, boy.”

  An EMT arrived, along with a pair of APD officers. Hayden nearly stabbed the man shining a penlight in his aching eyes, but Deckard squeezed his shoulder, and blessed shade returned, though everyone was talking too loudly. A constant rumbling thundered above him. Clarity sparked in his thoughts.

  “The gate!” Hayden turned to Deckard, wincing as the EMT probed the wound in his side. “I partially destroyed the gate, but it was still pulling power. We have to shut it down.”

  Deckard nodded at him and stood. “I will.”

  Hayden pushed himself up, but Deckard held out a hand, palm out, and a wave of invisible force shoved him back to the sidewalk.

  “But…” Hayden began.

  “I’m proud of you,” Deckard said quietly. Hayden swallowed against a swell of emotion, completely taken aback. Before he could respond, Deckard swung his face to the storm of lightning still shining off the clouds and flew out of reach.

  Stunned, Hayden watched him sail upward, a man-shaped torch of light dwindling as it rose. The EMT set about patching his wounded side, slathering the burned tissue with freezing cold disinfectant gel. Hayden hissed in air.

  “What happened up there?” asked the medic. Hayden stared toward the roofline.

  “I think I got a promotion.”

  The EMT smiled slightly. “They may want more than that.” He nodded to Hayden’s left. Hayden twisted to look that direction and saw a news crew headed toward the police line with cameras in tow.

  “Oh,” he said flatly. “Worse.”

  Deckard rose silently above the ragged, broken edge of the penthouse pool deck. Wind clawed at his stole and hood and shoved violently against his metal body. Lightning crackled in great fingers of energy digging crooked talons into the marble and glass of the apartment, tearing chunks free. The debris spun in a cyclone whirling above the gate, a blizzard of glass shards, daggers of tile, and anvils of concrete. The waters below churned and lurched. The portal itself warped and flexed, the blind eye of an enraged beast.

  Sennek stood within the scything wind, arms reaching for the portal, palms upturned in supplication. Pieces of debris struck him, slicing gouges in his body from which poured blood and dozens of insectile parasites. Lightning struck the air inches from his torn flesh and splashed into spiderwebs of energy that sluiced harmlessly to the ground. The mad sorcerer didn’t seem to notice. Grey-green flame danced in his eyes, which locked unblinkingly on the black plane of the gate.

  Deckard looked from Sennek to the gate. The fool was trying to hold the rift together with nothing but his own will. However strong he thought he’d become over the centuries, no one could keep that up for long.

  “Stop, Sennek!” Deckard shouted. The storm ripped his booming voice from the air. Sennek didn’t react.

  He only saw one chance. If he could wrest control of the portal spell from Sennek, he could close the rift safely and let the energies dissipate. If not, the explosion unleashed when the gate collapsed would destroy this building and scatter their ashes over most of the city.

  Deckard floated forward into the bladed wings of the tempest. Small particles of glass and beads of concrete hailed against his armored flesh. He had to immediately tack against the wind that tried to fling him to the horizon. He lifted his right hand and caught a single bolt of lightning, using it to connect him to the portal. The weave of the portal continued unraveling.

  Sennek noticed him at last. His worm-infested face curled into a feral snarl. Sennek’s will pressed against Deckard’s, a mystical pressure added to the gale-force wind. Though his muscles would never tire in his armored form, Deckard’s
progress slowed.

  “You can’t stop me, Tarran.” Sennek’s voice sounded through the ether, thoughts ferried past Charybdis, riding the tide of sorcery. “Help me open the gate. I can bring back everything we lost!”

  “Atlantis is gone, Sennek. It’s been dust for thousands of years.” A second bolt latched onto Deckard’s hand, and a third. An intact marble tile slammed into him, lurching him sideways as it shattered. Deckard gestured with his left hand and raised a curved oval shield to protect himself. A fourth current of power joined the others in his hand. The metal where they met glowed with white-orange heat.

  “Because you killed it! You ripped my home away! You destroyed my life!” The pressure of Sennek’s will continued, pushing here and giving way there, throwing Deckard off balance.

  “I stopped you from sacrificing the world to appease your own pride.” Five feet separated him from the gate.

  “I would have saved them from useless, pointless death. Atlantis fed their best souls into the Knights and lost them all. For what? Petty tyrants, endlessly mewling over the scraps of land. The Axiom was ours, Tarran. The universe was ours.”

  The energy flowing from the gate continued to build. Seven tethers of lightning ended at Deckard’s rune inscribed palm, searingly bright and bucking like frightened stallions. A melon-sized chunk of concrete hurtled into the shield, causing it to flare with golden energy. Four feet. He pressed on.

  “The Axiom isn’t ours, Sennek. We belong to it. If it fails, we cease to be.”

  “Why didn’t you cease to be, Tarran? Why are you still alive?”

  Sadness filled Deckard, the weight of fate. “I didn’t want to be the last, Sennek. It wasn’t my choice. We cast lots. It fell to me to stop you, stop the Worm.”

  Three feet. The debris hammered his shield constantly. It took most of his concentration to keep it up, and the gate threatened to slip from his grasp. Deckard let the shield fall and caught another rope of lightning in his left hand. Stone and glass battered him, but he knew no pain. All his might bent to gather more and more energy as it tore free of the portal.

  “No! Why won’t you die!?” Sennek screamed in his mind.

  “I did,” Deckard replied. Two feet. A brick dented his helmet. Chips of glass slashed his stole and hood to tatters. He floated over the angry, churning water of the pool, leaning into the wind and the coils of power.

  Sennek growled and launched a gout of grey-green fire into the storm. It slid and slithered through the swirling cloud of dust and stone. One foot. The blast of vile sorcery cut through every defense of the armor, clinging and gnawing at it. Pieces of Deckard’s metal body sloughed away in melted droplets.

  Deckard stretched out his arms, clutching ten tethers of power, reaching for the gate. The holes in his chestplate met and chunks of metal blew away. The whirlwind sucked at his soul. He’d run out of time. He built the spell he needed, carving it in his mind. Sennek readied a second blast. Deckard touched the edge of the portal. Sennek launched his maddened attack, a blast of inky power pulled directly from the Worm. Deckard released his spell.

  A wall of Axiom two stories high sprang up in a circle around Deckard and Sennek, and a plane of light cut between the pool and the gate. Deckard loosed the lightning he held in a spear aimed at Sennek’s heart. Oily blackness reached Deckard at the same moment, shattering the armor and scattering pieces across the deck.

  Deckard’s consciousness remained in the helmet, which tumbled and skittered against his wall. He caught one last glimpse of Sennek, the madman twitching and smoking as lightning impaled him. The gate collapsed to a pinpoint of darkness, which exploded with light. Bits of Deckard’s armor splashed out of existence. He funneled all the will he had into the Axiom shield, directing the energy up and away. The air burned white and the wind howled in fury. The helmet began to dissolve and Bel-Tarran, last Knight of Atlantis, surrendered his soul to the dawn.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Once Emergency Services had treated his wounds, the police moved in with their questions. Hayden ignored them, staring up at the crumbled, smoking roof of the apartment through the purple after-image burned into his eyes. A brilliant blue-white beam of light had seared its way through the clouds.

  Hayden watched and waited with growing anxiousness for a speck of gold light to drift down from the wreckage, but it never came. Deckard was gone. The thought brought a chill numbness with it. His gaze fell to the rubble strewn ground, the growing crowd of gawkers, and the flashing lights of first responders.

  Reporters pressed at the yellow tape cordon, some videoing the aftermath, some interviewing other Primes as they arrived, too late to help. Piranhas, foaming the waters at the appearance of fresh meat.

  “You okay, son? Does EMS need to take another look at you?”

  Hayden turned his attention back to the elder officer with sergeant’s stripes on his uniform. Deckard was gone, but the job wasn’t finished.

  He stood up to his full, if unimpressive, height. Every movement hurt and exhaustion threatened to topple him, but he managed to let none of it show. The sergeant stepped back a half step and casually rested a hand on the butt of his pistol.

  “You got a pen?” Hayden asked hoarsely.

  “Pen? Uh, sure,” responded the sergeant. He reached into a pocket and came out with a small notebook. A simple grey pen stuck out of the spiral binding. The policeman handed the notebook over with a curious look on his face.

  Hayden flipped to a blank page, pulled out the pen, and jotted down two addresses. “Get teams to each of these locations. When you do, call Detective Anthony Pagliano in. He’ll get in touch with me.”

  He handed the notebook back to the bemused sergeant, who’s brows knitted together. “Thanks for the info, but neither of us is moving anywhere until I get some questions answered, starting with your name.”

  Hayden pointed to the gurney where Chains lay, still unmoving, as EMS loaded him with a police escort. “Ask him.”

  “Son, I’m asking you who you are.”

  Anger flashed through Hayden. On impulse, he called for the Axiom. The warm rush of power flooded in, once more without the pain he always expected. Renewed strength seeped into his limbs and his flesh prickled as it knitted together. It seemed too simple, almost cheating, without the flames to struggle with.

  A wicked thought occurred to him. Hayden stared the sergeant down as a second set of armor built itself around him, composed entirely of glowing, golden energy. With a thought, he chiseled glyphs into the construct. More Axiom poured into them and sorcery written in light lifted Hayden from the ground.

  “Guess,” he said, and sailed up, up, and away.

  They buried Deckard in a plain wooden box on a clear, cool Sunday afternoon. His gravestone of white marble held only his name, no date of birth or death. Only a handful of people stood at the graveside: Hayden, his mother, Detective Pagliano, and Vivian.

  Hayden fumbled for some words to say, but nothing seemed right. Instead he stood there, staring at blank stone between Deckard’s name and the fresh dirt hiding his resting place. Vivian held Hayden’s hand in both of hers and rested her head on his shoulder. Quiet tears dripped down her face. In the end it was Pagliano who broke the silence.

  “I’m a former soldier and a police detective. I don’t claim to know a lot, but I know it takes character and honor and purpose to place yourself in harm’s way for your fellow soldiers, or your partner, or a total stranger.

  “‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’ Deckard Riss was a good man, who put others before himself. It’s an example we should all follow.”

  The rest of them trickled away. Vivian gave Hayden a kiss on the cheek and walked off a ways with his mother. Pagliano shook Hayden’s hand firmly and left. Hayden stood at the graveside, alone and adrift.

  “You were a right bastard, sometimes, you know that? Keeping secrets. Always lecturing. You kept pushing me, all the time.” Hayden’s voice broke a
nd tears spilled down his face. He scrubbed them away with a hand.

  “I never would have learned if you hadn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t see that at the time. But now you’re gone and I don’t know if I can be the person that you...I can’t be you, Deckard.”

  Hayden heard it, clear as a bell and dripping with an “I know more than you can possibly imagine” smile. Be better.

  Hayden smiled, new tears welling up. “Just have to have the last word, even dead, don’t you?” He paused and his smile faded, but the weight had shifted inside. It was just an inch, but Hayden could breathe again. “I’ll make you proud, old man. I promise.”

  “Did you hear what they’re calling it?” Hayden asked as he walked past with another burnt beam over one shoulder. Vivian dropped her wheelbarrow full of rubble and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She wore jeans and work boots, her hair pulled back in a simple tail. Her grey tank top stuck to her figure under a tan men’s shirt that was tied at the bottom instead of buttoned up.

  “Oh, I saw that,” she groaned. “ ‘Light-Night’.”

  “Right? We save a city and they make it sound like a kids’ toy or a prize fight.” He tossed the broken lumber onto a pile of similar pieces.

  Vivian sighed. “I’m not sure which is worse. Speaking of, you’re sure we got every circle?”

  “Every one we could find. I’ll be busy for several days erasing the big one around the city, but it’s not functional, so we’ll have plenty of time to work on this.” Hayden gestured past her.

  Vivian turned around and took in the wreckage of Mr. Deckard’s house. The walls had been destroyed, almost completely gone in front and back. The left side tilted outward, cracked and charred. The right side stood tall, anchored by one of the two chimneys. The other chimney had collapsed with the top floor.

  Hayden wrapped his arms around her from the back. He smelled of charcoal and sweat, but his warmth covered her from the breeze and she leaned into the strength in his arms. The sun hung bright and the multicolored trees lay quiet in the still air.