I smile and dive down to rescue Lev from his free fall. I need to catch him, but I also need Marchosias to follow me down. I sheathe The Destroying Angel, and catch Lev with both arms. The left side of my body screams, and I struggle to stay afloat. Lev’s head lolls over to the side, his arms dangling. Marchosias lashes her whip at me. I can see it coming and move out of the way. All I can do is hope Tamon has had enough time.
Then I see what I want to see. Tamon is booking it down The Irispire with a half-naked Astraea slung over his shoulder, and hundreds of grunds — squat creatures with scarred, gray flesh, and sharp claws — chasing after him.
Lev is unconscious in my arms, and I fly up, headed for Tamon. Marchosias turns around. She sees now what's happening. She screams, the vibration nearly knocking me off my line of flight. I hear the whip crack again, and I swerve to avoid it.
Tamon is as fast and graceful climbing down, as he was climbing up. I get close to the Irispire with Marchosias on my tail. Another whip crack comes from behind me. I roll to the left. The whip sails past me and cracks against the Irispire, sending more boulders falling.
"You better have the sword, lad!" yells Tamon.
"Take it!"
As Tamon and I close in on each other, Tamon tumbles off of The Irispire, does a somersault in midair, with an unconscious Astraea on his shoulders, and unsheathes The Destroying Angel from my hip.
"No!" Marchosias roars, with her red eyes ablaze, and the flames of her head pushed back against the rushing wind. Tamon's got Astraea. And now Tamon's got The Destroying Angel. Her attention turns from us, and she dives down to chase Tamon.
Lev wakes up. "What...where?"
"Okay, that's enough," I say. "You're heavy."
I toss him in the air. "Don't think about falling!" I say to him.
Lev realizes where he is, commands his flying crystal, and stops falling.
"Dive!" I yell at him.
We angle our bodies down and chase after Marchosias. Lev readies his rifle and fires.
"Give me the bag," I say to him.
He tosses the duffel bag to me. I take out two grenades, pull the pins, and throw. I lob one down to the horde of grunds chasing Tamon, and the other at Marchosias below us. Both grenades explode. Ten grunds are sent flying by the blast. The other explodes on the small of Marchosias' back, singeing a bit of her wing.
Come on, Astraea.
Marchosias breathes in and exhales another gout of flame towards Tamon. She misses and hits the crawling grunds on The Irispire's slope, killing them. Their spirits, however, absorbs into Marchosias, healing whatever damage Lev and I inflicted. Lev continues to fire. I lob two more grenades at Marchosias. Our efforts are effective, but not debilitating.
Then Marchosias lets out a wail. I don't exactly know why, until I see Lara tumble in the air and drag her shortsword across Marchosias' back, cutting at the base of Marchosias' left wing.
Marchosias rears her beautiful face and takes a quick swing at Lara with her sword. Lara is quick enough to evade and strikes again with another swipe at Marchosias' wing.
I fly down to Lara. "Got a blade for me?"
"My lance," she says.
I unlatch her lance from her back, then we both fly right at Marchosias. It's moments like these where size isn't your friend. Marchosias is huge, and Lara and I are like two wasps stinging her with our silvered blades. If we get caught, we'd be done for, so we’d have to rely on our speed and evasion tactics.
Marchosias inhales again and spews flame at us. Lara dives, and I climb, avoiding the fire. Marchosias' sword turns into a whip and cracks out at me. It catches me around my ankle and burns through my elven leather boots. I yell and smell my cooking flesh. She uses the whip to throw me against the Irispire.
My back crashes, and my lower back cracks sending shooting pain up my spine. But it wasn't my lower back at all; it was the crystal Lara had attached there. I can no longer fly. I've landed on a five foot wide ledge at the side of The Irispire. I try to stand up, but I can't feel the left side of my body. Marchosias flies up and looks down at me. Then she raises her sword with pure fury in her eyes. She wants to end me.
Then I hear Lara screaming out her battle cry. She flies up at Marchosias, and swipes at Marchosias’ leg with her shortsword. Marchosias, annoyed, takes a swing at Lara, but Lara ducks under the horizontal blow and nicks Marchosias in the midsection with her silvered blade. Marchosias roars and catches Lara in her grasp.
"Now, you die!" says Marchosias.
"No!!" I scream.
Marchosias cocks her giant arm back and is about to slam Lara into The Irispire when a white streak comes up from below and cuts off Marchosias' arm. Marchosias' giant severed limb dissolves into a yellowy brown ooze, releasing Lara.
Lara flies down to the ledge I am on. "Nyyx, are you okay?" she asks.
She puts my arm over her shoulder and helps me up. She touches her forehead with mine.
"You did it," she says.
"Did what?" I ask.
"Sister!" Marchosias' celestial voice rings out through the cavern.
"You are no sister of mine," Astraea answers back.
"What the hell is happening?" I ask.
"It's her," Lara answers. "The new Bearer."
Lara and I both look up. Astraea is a beacon of white light. She is dressed in all black armor, which glistens and shifts over her body as if it were alive. On her back are wings made of pure radiance. The Destroying Angel in her hands glows a chromatic silver. I am witnessing the Bearer's true potential.
"It is time for you to go, Marchosias!" Astraea says.
Marchosias swings her sword at Astraea. Astraea waits for the blow. At the last second Astraea holds out the Destroying Angel to block, and Marchosias' sword breaks, the top half falling and turning to rock.
Astraea recites an incantation in her celestial tongue. "Athsanthianas lorkanthanis mista hanathe uth mathrathos..."
"What is she saying?" I ask Lara. "It sounds Elven."
"I cannot understand," answers Lara. "It's a variation of our language, but much older."
As soon as Astraea finishes speaking, the portal above closes. It is snuffed out as quickly as one blows out a candle. Then Astraea holds The Destroying Angel above her head. The sword glows bright, firing a beam of light at the cavern ceiling. A portal opens above us, luminous and expansive. From the portal streams, beings of pure light. As the spirits pass through The Field Eternal, they are given the physical form of angels.
The fighting stops. There is a stillness in the entire cavern.
"It's..."
"Beautiful," says Lara.
Beautiful, yes, but also haunting, for the angels have ghostly faces which look like screaming skulls. Thousands upon thousands sweep down the Irispire, devouring the grund horde crawling down. Then the angels weave through the streets of Laksona, like a mist, banishing every demon they touch. Astraea is now The Angel of Death, commander of an army of angels to carry out God's will. The angels sweep through the northern walls of Laksona and wrap themselves around Marchosias' legions. The cavern is filled with their demonic roars as they are banished from our plane of existence. The Thadamar stand dumbfounded as the demons they are fighting melt away.
"Marchosias," says Astraea. "Your time upon this plane has ended!"
Marchosias shouts in defiance. Hundreds of angels wrap around her, cocooning her in angelic fire. Her body contorts and shifts, looking as if parts of her are trying to phase out of the angelic army's grasp, but there is no hope for her. The light is too much for both Lara and myself to bear. We shield our eyes. A chorus of wails and screams, ring out above us. The heat intensifies along with the brightness. Then it's gone. There is silence once again. The only point of light above us is coming from Astraea's wings and The Destroying Angel in her hand.
It's over. We won.
Fifty
Lara's floating us gently down the Irispire. She's got my left arm over her shoulders, and her hand is on my chest. Yell
owy brown ooze covers Laksona's streets. The red magma flows to the south bathe the city and the entire cavern in an eerie red glow. The sounds of the magma river bubbling and rumbling can still be heard over the roar of cheers coming from beyond the city's northern walls.
I turn to Lara.
"We did it," I say with a smile.
She smiles back at me. There is a glint in her violet eyes. Something that I've never seen in them before, a softness she often hides behind an emotionless exterior.
"You did it," Lara says. "I'm sorry if I ever doubted you at any point."
"Well, you were right to doubt me," I say. "Most of the time, I have no idea what I'm doing."
"I am honored to have fought with you, Nyyx Mara," she says. "Despite your failings..."
"Here we go," I say.
She chuckles. She has a beautiful laugh.
"I am serious," says Lara. "Your bravery is unparalleled. Sometimes stupid, but your heart is in the right place. The kind of caring and love you have for your friends, my brother, and even a near-complete stranger like Levinson, is admirable. If we all treated each other with that amount of caring, this world would be a better place."
"Thank you, Larastrumbala."
"Here," she says. "A gift."
She gathers Field energy, and a spinning yellow crystal floats above her palm. A yellow mist eddies around it before she takes her palm, and touches it to my chest. Magic flows through me from her hand and the crystal. My injuries heal within seconds — everything from head to foot. The burnt sores around my neck close up, my bones crack back into place and sets, my muscles relax, and I feel refreshed.
"I thought that was illegal," I say.
"I won't tell," she says. "Also I believe you're right. The Omega Treaties are null and void. How can you break a law that doesn't exist?"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you the whole time!"
As we lower down to the Laksona rooftops, Lara angles us to one rooftop in particular. On this rooftop are Lev, Tamon, and a weak but conscious Kyle. They smile up at us as we descend, and I smile back.
As soon as we land, I give Kyle a big hug. He doesn't look good. His skin is pale, and the hair on his head has gone completely white. He winces in pain and I back off, my hands up in surrender.
"Sorry," I say. "Are you okay?"
"I am fine, friend," says Kyle.
He claps his hands on my shoulder, and then his green eyes look up to the single point of white light above us. Astraea has The Destroying Angel held up to the top of the cavern, a beam of light from the sword is holding the portal open. She calls to her army and bids them go back to their plane. And, like I was watching the spread of the angelic mist in reverse, her army slides through the city, up the Irispire and back through the portal.
Kyle smiles up at her. A soft and kind smile, with lips closed and the corners of the mouth going downward instead of angling up. I was looking up at Astraea in admiration. He was looking up at her with love, for to him she is not the Bearer. She isn't Astraea. She's Roxxanda Snow, the love of his life.
I walk over to Lev. Lev is lying down on the rooftop, exhausted. His shock of orange curly hair is matted and stuck together with sweat. His plump torso is rising and falling with each heavy breath. He's wearing his brown leather elven armor. When he sees me, he starts laughing.
I offer a hand to help him up. He takes it, stands up, and we embrace each other like good friends. Hard to believe I only met him a week ago at a maintenance barn for farm machinery.
"Sorry to have dragged you into this," I say to him.
"I'm not," Lev says. He looks around with a satisfied smile and then looks back to me. "You've shown me things I could never have imagined."
"Lev," I clap my hands on his shoulders. "I'm proud of you. You are, without a doubt, one of the bravest and most capable people I've ever met. And I'm honored to call you, friend."
"Thanks," he says back with a nod.
Then I move over to Tamon. Tamon is wiping the yellowy brown demonic ooze from the blades of his battleaxe.
"Oh no," he says. "Don't be coming over here talking that after the battle nonsense with me."
I run up to him and give him a big hug. I cling to him for a solid thirty seconds, not saying anything. Then I feel his giant hand patting me on the back.
"All right, all right," Tamon says. "That's enough now. You're going to make an old man blush."
"How old are you, by the way?" asks Lev.
"Too old to be climbing up mile-high stalagmites that's for sure," I say.
"Careful lad," Tamon says, "I can still wipe the floor with you if I need to."
"I don't doubt it," I smile back.
We talk a bit more. Lev, Lara, Tamon, and myself. Tamon is impressed with Lev as we all are, and offers him some fight training as well as more training in how to handle a firearm. Lara is jovial and joins in on the after battle banter. Emotions were pretty high while we were in it, and now that it's over — at least for the moment — we can enjoy each other's company when sharing a victory. But Kyle stands away from us, his eyes fixed upward on Astraea.
We all walk to Kyle. I put a hand on his right shoulder, and Lara puts one on his left.
"Are you all right, brother?" Lara asks.
Kyle looks at Lara. "A part of me wants to believe that Roxxanda is in there somewhere, but now seeing what that person is capable of, I am beginning to doubt there is any of her left."
"I'm sorry, Kyle," I say. "Like I said before we left, maybe there's a way we can get Astraea out of there, and get Roxx back."
"If this is her destiny, then so be it," Kyle says. "The world will need her more than I ever could."
Astraea sheathes The Destroying Angel and descends slowly toward us. She doesn't look anything like she did when I'd known her. For as long as we've known each other, she's been appearing to me as my old love Emily Johns. Now she looks like a stranger, with her raven black hair, bobbed on the right side, and the left hanging down to the base of her neck. Her powder blue eyes shine, and her slender frame is encased in celestial black armor that shifts and moves to protect her where she needs.
As she lands on the rooftop we're on, her wings made of pure light disappear, and the cavern becomes a little darker — her smile beams in our direction. Kyle looks hopeful for a moment, but Astraea runs to me and wraps her arms around my neck.
"I knew you would come for me, Nyyx," Astraea says.
Kyle's expression changes. His eyes find the floor and then looks up with a blank look, both embarrassed and disappointed. I awkwardly pat Astraea on the back.
I look into her eyes. "Are you okay?"
Astraea nods, tears streaming down her face. "It was..." Then she shakes her head tersely. "What she did...What they..."
I bring her in for another embrace, a more comforting one this time. I can't even imagine what she's been through. Although The Destroying Angel healed all her injuries as soon as she touched the hilt, the memories of the torture she suffered must still linger.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," I tell her. "It's all over now."
"I've always wanted to be like you," she says. "I wanted to feel the things that you feel. But whatever that was...whatever she did to me..."
"It's okay," I say.
Lara comes up to us and says, "I'd hate to interrupt, but Bearer..."
Astraea looks up at me with tears streaming down her face.
"Bearer..." repeats Lara.
"She means you," I say to Astraea
Astraea sniffs, gives her eyes a quick swipe, and composes herself. "Yes."
"My home," says Lara. "My people are under attack, and we need your help."
"Y...yes," says Kyle.
Kyle walks up to Astraea, and Astraea catches her breath at the sight of Kyle. I can see in her face that she remembers now. She remembers watching that footage in the barn. The love between Kyle and the woman whose body she's occupies. She is a human now and is subject to the entire spectrum of human
emotion, even embarrassment, and awkwardness.
"I'm afraid my sister is right," Kyle says. "Thaddeus' army may have already broken down Silanthanos' barrier and invaded. If we leave now, we may yet be able to help in the fight."
Astraea gulps down her nervousness, stands up straight, and puts on a professional face. "Worry not, Kylanthansa Uthmandir."
Astraea puts a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle looks to her hand on his body. Astraea immediately withdraws her hand and steps back.
"It is a long way back to Silanthanos,” Astraea says. “I shall take care of it."
"Astraea what are you..." I begin to say.
"Don't worry Nyyx," she says. "You've served as Bearer for nearly five hundred years. Your job is now done. Your mother would have been proud."
She draws her sword, and the swirling patterns on the Damascus steel blade glows with a chromatic brilliance. Once again, she begins chanting those ancient words. Wings of pure light sprout from her back. She holds her sword up to the sky, and a beam of divine energy streaks up toward the cavern ceiling. A small portal opens up.
"I shall meet you all there," Astraea says. Then she launches herself into the air, and disappears into the portal, closing the rift in the Field Eternal behind her.
Fifty-One
We finally get back to Superior six hours later. The forest in Superior's mountain valley is charred and burning. Heavy smoke rises from the devastation. Elves fly all over the valley, using whatever water spells they have to put out the fires. The large obsidian mass which guarded the southern pass now lies in a heap on the valley floor. We fly north toward the city proper, and as we do, elves bow to us with respect.
The sun is near its zenith, and the light reflecting off the lake looks like a million gold coins. Word of our arrival has spread throughout the city, and many meet us at the Palace of Souls. The landing pad we touchdown on is full of people cheering our arrival. The cheers get louder as we debark from the vessel. Captain Haloran greets us.
The Irispire Portal Page 30
