Cloak Games: Truth Chain

by Jonathan Moeller

  Today, I realized, I knew exactly what I needed to do to destroy it.

  I closed my eyes and imagined Arvalaeon screaming as I had screamed, and shivered with pleasure at the thought.

  No. I didn’t dare get ahead of myself. There wasn’t anything left in my heart but rage and pain and a desire to torment Arvalaeon as he had tormented me, but my brain still worked, and my brain had to run the show.

  And my brain told me I had work to do.

  The first thing was to take one of the cars. I backed down the main street, spun the car around, and drove to the agricultural supply store. There were a lot of useful things in that store, and I had used some of them at various times over the last thirty years. Right now, I needed three things in particular.

  Specifically, I needed handheld radios, blasting caps, and a bunch of electrical wire. Electronics didn’t work here, but I had discovered that radio waves did.

  I drove up the main street, and then back down it, taking the radios and the wires and the blasting caps and making modifications to the parked cars and trucks. It had taken me a few months to learn how to do this without blowing myself up, but I had it down to a science by now. That took about two hours, and once I was done, I went into the buildings, breaking HVAC systems and letting natural gas leak out. After that act of sabotage, I drove to the gas station. In the shed behind the gas station were about twenty red plastic gas containers, and I loaded them up, drove to the pump, and filled them to the top. Once that was done, I drove to the semi parked by the grain silos, and one by one I climbed to the top of the trailer and poured the gas cans into the grain. After I had emptied out the last gas can, I wired up my final blasting cap and radio to the interior of the trailer.

  Grain like that is extremely dry, and it sucked up the gas like a sponge drinking water.

  Once that was done, I was ready.

  I had helped myself to a satchel from the general store, and I filled it with my remaining radios and walked back up the main street. I reached the residential street leading to the cathedral, sat down on the end of the curb, and busied myself for a few moments by organizing the radios.

  Then there was nothing left to do but wait. I had gotten really, really good at waiting.

  A few hours later I saw the gray forms of anthrophages running down the street towards me, accompanied by the rippling currents of mist that would become wraithwolves. There was a flicker of motion from the cathedral, and a few of the cytospawn took to the air, soaring across the burning sky like giant hideous jellyfish.

  I grinned and bounded to my feet, the radios rattling in my bag.

  “Hey, guys!” I said. “Right here! Come and get me!”

  The anthrophages charged, and the wraithwolves took solid form, their claws rasping against the asphalt as they ran forward. They were fast, terrifyingly fast, but magic was faster, and I cast a spell. A sphere of flames spun into existence above my right hand, and at a flick of my will it hurtled forward and drilled through the skull of the first anthrophage. The anthrophage’s head exploded into embers and soot, and the sphere leaped from target to target, taking down a half-dozen anthrophages before the spell ran out of power. I cast another spell, and three globes of lightning sparked into existence, whipping in a blue-white circle around me. I thrust my hand, and the spheres shot forward with unerring accuracy to throw three wraithwolves to the ground, the strokes of lightning powerful enough to stop their hearts and fry their brains inside their skulls.

  Of course, there were dozens more anthrophages and wraithwolves to take their place.

  I gave them a cheery wave and cast the Cloak spell, vanishing from sight, and sprinted down the main street. The anthrophages started to search for me, spreading out and running back and forth. They might have their memories erased after every day, but they were smart enough to know about Cloak spells, and they knew I was still here. The wraithwolves were not that smart, but they had keen noses, and they prowled after me, following my scent trail.

  I ran maybe a third of the way down the main street towards the gas station. Then I stopped, faced the oncoming wraithwolves, and fished some radios out of my satchel. I couldn’t cast any other spells while Cloaked.

  But hitting buttons while I was Cloaked was easy.

  I waited until the anthrophages and wraithwolves moved into the trap, and I hit the button on my first radio.

  Sparks flared under a red pickup truck as the blasting cap went off, and then the truck’s gas tank exploded. The blast caught three anthrophages and a pair of wraithwolves, and the creatures froze in shock, heads snapping around as they looked for the source of the attack. I smiled and hit the buttons on two more radios, turning a car and another truck into fireballs. A mob of anthrophages rushed down the sidewalk, trying to avoid the flames.

  I dropped the Cloak spell, refocused my will, and cast another spell. The globe of fire soared from my fingers as the anthrophages charged towards me. The sphere missed them entirely but struck the window of the title office, shattering the window and exploding inside the front room.

  By that time, the title office had filled up with natural gas.

  It resulted in an excellent explosion. The blast ripped off the door with enough force that it drove an anthrophage to the ground, and the windows blew out, spraying fire and shards of broken glass. The roof even blew open, shooting flames into the sky. I killed three more wraithwolves with another volley of lightning globes, and then Cloaked and ran further down the street. The mob of anthrophages and wraithwolves pursued me, while a cytospawn descended from the sky, tentacles dragging along the ground.

  I waited until the cytospawn was over one of my trapped cars, and then I hit the radio. The car exploded in a spray of glass and flame, and the fire was hot enough to burst the bladder of flammable gas on the underside of the flying creature. The cytospawn blew up, spraying chunks of smoking meat in all directions, and I triggered three more of my trapped cars, setting fireballs to blossom alongside the road like hellish flowers. That threw the creatures back, and I sprinted to the end of the main street, whirled, and dropped my Cloaking spell.

  “I’m right here!” I shouted. “Come and get me! What are you waiting for?”

  They charged down the street. I let them get a block, and then I detonated all my remaining traps. That slowed the charge long enough for me to throw fire spheres through the windows of the gas-filled buildings, making them explode one by one. I had transformed the entire main street into a river of flame, trapping dozens of anthrophages and wraithwolves, and I heard them roar and howl as they burned. I didn’t get all of them, of course, and some broke free and tried to run me down.

  I Cloaked again and sprinted for the grain silo, my final radio bouncing in my satchel, and reached the semi. I scrambled into the driver’s side of the cab and started the engine, putting the vehicle into gear. A few decades of practice had made me a much better semi driver, and I pulled onto the county highway with ease, accelerating as I went around the corner and up the street towards the cathedral.

  The semi roared as I pushed the pedal to the floor, and the cab jumped up the shallow steps and smashed into the cathedral, turning the doors and a large portion of the surrounding wall to rubble. The seat belt sawed into my chest and hips as the truck turned a dozen anthrophages to a pulp, ripped through the narthex wall, and skidded into the nave proper, the rose window blazing before me like a fiery eye. The truck groaned to a halt about halfway down the nave, and I ripped my seat belt free, kicked open the door, and jumped out. I saw a big cloud of dust rising from the trailer. All the grain in the trailer had been jarred, throwing up a large cloud of fine dust.

  That was excellent.

  I ran to the doors leading to the tunnel system. Already I heard the anthrophages in the tunnels rushing to the stairs, drawn by the sound of the crash. I cast the ice wall spell and sealed off the stairs with a foot of ice as hard as granite, and then turned back towards the damaged narthex. Dozens of anthrophages rushed past the wre
cked truck and headed towards me.

  I ducked behind a pillar and cast the ice wall spell three more times in rapid succession, building an icy barrier from the pillar to the wall, between two of the pillars, and then from the second pillar to the wall. The ceiling was low enough beneath the balcony that I now stood sealed within a box of ice and stone.

  The walls of ice began to shudder as the anthrophages hammered at them.

  “Hi, guys!” I shouted. “Welcome to the party! Are you ready to rumble?”

  I reached into my satchel and hit the button on my last radio.

  Nothing happened at first, but I did hear a faint thumping noise as the blasting cap went off.

  Then I saw a flare of orange light that shone through the ice, and I ducked against the stone pillar, figuring it would provide better cover. I also cast the spell to defend against elemental forces around myself, shielding myself against fire.

  About a half-second later the truck blew up.

  Ever read about silo explosions? Grain is flammable, and grain dust is even more flammable. Even in an empty silo, there is a lot of grain dust in the air, and if something happens to light a spark inside the silo and the dust catches fire, it can set off an explosion powerful enough to rip apart the silo. Gasoline, like grain dust, is also flammable, and I had dumped a lot of it into the trailer. The impact of the crash had thrown a lot of grain dust into the air, and when the fire of the blasting cap met the gas, the grain dust, and the gasoline-soaked grain…

  Okay. Even by the standards of the last century and a half, it was an impressive explosion.

  The entire cathedral shook like a bell, and the sheets of ice I had conjured glowed bright yellow-orange. A web of cracks spread across the ice, and I heard the anthrophages’ shrieks of agony as the flames took them, along with several loud thumps as the explosion threw them into the walls and pillars.

  I waited for a minute. The temperature must have risen forty degrees inside my little ice shelter, and the walls of ice started to sweat. I heard nothing but the roar of the flames, the glow through the ice getting brighter and brighter. Holding my spell against the elements in place, I kicked the ice wall between the pillars until it shattered and I stepped into the cathedral’s nave.

  I had transformed the cathedral into an inferno.

  What was left of the trailer reminded me of a giant bratwurst that had split open from heat. A carpet of fire blazed on the floor and the pillars. I suppose I should have asphyxiated, but the explosion had ripped out a dozen of those stupid stained glass windows with scenes from my life, and the smoke was escaping that way.

  The fire blocked the ruined narthex and the shattered doors.

  The way to the rose window was clear.

  I ran to the dais and dropped my spell for elemental protection. It was excruciatingly hot in here, and my hair whipped about my head in the wind rushing from the fire, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. I cast the spell of levitation and floated to the rose window, bracing myself in the curved stone frame.

  How many times had I stood here? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

  I didn’t care.

  I hit the pane of ice with a blast of fire, my spell sinking a good three feet into the ice. I followed it with a burst of telekinetic force, attacking the weakened ice, and then another globe of fire. I alternated my attacks, and the weakened ice started to splinter and fracture, breaking under the stress.

  I heard someone screaming and realized that it was me.

  On the seventh sphere of fire, the window exploded.

  It shattered into a thousand glittering shards of ice and stone. I flinched, but none of the shards hit me, instead hurtling across the nave to blast holes in the walls of the cathedral and rip through the ceiling. In fact, the ceiling shattered as well, the fragments of stone hurtling into the sky, the walls of the cathedral collapsing into avalanches of rubble. I glimpsed the town and saw it burning and falling apart, the hills turning into landslides.

  I whirled and looked at the broken rose window.

  Fiery light blazed in front of me, and beyond the glow I saw the rippling mist of a rift way.

  The way was clear.

  My hands flexed, eagerness flooding through me.

  At last. At last, after so many years, I would have the chance to find Arvalaeon. It didn’t matter how long it took me to find him in the scorched ruins of Earth. It didn’t matter if he had fled back to the Elven homeworld of Kalvarion or some other world on the other side of the Shadowlands.

  I was going to find him and repay him for what he had done to me.

  I was going to repay him for Russell’s life and the Marneys and all the others who had died.

  I strode into the mist.

  Chapter 10: Vengeance

  I felt the moment of whirling disorientation from a rift way, and then the mist and the fiery light ended.

  I was…

  I blinked.

  I was in a restaurant or a coffee shop or something.

  The floor tiles were of fake green marble, and there were tables of dark wood, faux-expensive pictures of landscapes hanging on the walls between wide glass windows with a view of a parking lot. Sensations flooded over me. I had forgotten what real coffee smelled like. There was another smell, and it tickled a different memory. Scones, that was it, fresh scones. I had bought scones for Riordan and Hakon Valborg and Robert Ross when we had been planning our raid on Venomhold. I had forgotten about that.

  I supposed they had all been dead for a long, long time.

  I took another step, and I saw Arvalaeon.

  He stood by one of the tables, looking at his aetherometer with an irritated expression. He looked…impatient, if anything.

  My hands curled into fists.

  He snapped the aetherometer closed and looked up, his green eyes meeting mine.

  He had been waiting for me.

  I would make him regret that.

  “Excellent,” he said. “That took…”

  I screamed and hit him with every bit of magic I could summon.

  There wasn’t a plan. I had made all these plans, and I was so angry I couldn’t think of any of them. The cold glacier of my hatred had turned molten, and I wanted nothing more than to inflict as much pain on him as I could manage.

  I couldn’t have stopped myself.

  The first spell I cast was the one of telekinetic force, and I struck with all my strength. It would have been enough to shatter every bone in his body and turn his organs to a bloody pulp. The spell struck some kind of defensive ward, and it dispersed the power of my attack in random directions. Several of the windows exploded, glass shards spraying into the parking lot. The door ripped off its hinges and tumbled into a parked SUV, shattering the windshield. Arvalaeon rocked back a step, his black coat billowing around him, and raised his hand in defense.

  “That is enough,” he said.

  “I’ve been waiting for this, you wretched murdering bastard,” I said, stalking towards him. “I’m going to rip you apart the way you did to me, I’m going to…”

  “Enough,” said Arvalaeon. “We are quite pressed for time…”

  I punched him.

  I don’t think he was expecting that.

  I hit him hard, and his head snapped to the side, blood flying from his mouth. He staggered back another step, and the sight of his blood made something explode in my head. I screamed and reached for his throat, intending to choke him to death, or to drive him to the floor and beat his skull against it over and over and over until it split open like a melon.

  He was faster, and he flicked a finger as he caught his balance. Invisible force seized me and held me in place, and I could not take another step. Arvalaeon let out a ragged, tired breath and wiped the blood from his mouth.

  “You killed them,” I spat. “You killed them all.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone yet today,” started Arvalaeon, but I was in no mood to listen.

  “You killed them all,” I said. “You’re a mor
on. You’re the great Lord Inquisitor, and the best stupid plan you could come up with was to have anthrophages rip me apart for a hundred and fifty years. No wonder you got thrown off your homeworld if you couldn’t think of anything better than that. That was the best you could do, and you failed. You got forty million people killed with your stupidity. You got my brother killed, and it’s your fault! It’s your fault!” I heaved against the spell, but his magic was too strong. “I’m going to…”

  “While you believe what you are saying,” said Arvalaeon, calm as ever, “it is, in fact, incorrect. You…”

  A column of mist rippled behind him, and Arvalaeon turned. I heaved against the spell, hoping the mist had distracted him, but his will did not waver.

  The mist rippled, thinned…and the giant bronze clock appeared, so tall that it scraped the ceiling.

  It looked just as it had in the hellish town, and the row of numbers beneath the dial still read Day 57,819.

  “Ah,” said Arvalaeon. “That is why it took so long. I was beginning to wonder.”

  “What?” I said, confusion pushing through my anger.

  The clock shivered, and the row of numbers reset itself to Day 0. Then the clock began to…collapse, somehow, folding into itself almost like a collapsible suitcase. The side panels folded into themselves, the dials on its face spinning. As it did, the clock shrank, somehow, and became smaller and smaller.

  When it was finished, the giant clock had shrunk to a flat plate of bronze about the size of a paperback book. Arvalaeon stooped with a grunt of pain, picked it up, and tucked it into an interior pocket of his coat.

  “What was that?” I said. The sheer confusion had cut through my overpowering anger, enough that my brain was starting to work again.

  My brain was noticing things.

  I had been gone for a hundred and fifty-eight years, but Milwaukee had not changed all that much.