by C. M. Carney
The small, wiry man’s spastic motions defied logic and strained the eyes. The scar in reality disappeared and the man’s jittery movements calmed. His suit was a mishmash of fabrics and styles that looked as if the tailor had tossed it together while hopped up on hallucinogens. He made eye contact with the other two and a mad grin twisted his face.
The hare sped away, froth building at its nostrils and its heart beat near to bursting. Just as a glimmer of hope began to creep into its small mind, a beam of golden light shot from the clouds and punched into the ground accompanied by a short burst of musical sound. The light faded leaving behind a towering man clad in golden plate mail. The hilt of a massive greatsword crested his shoulders.
The terrified rabbit skidded into the man’s metal-clad shins, stunning itself and drawing the man’s golden-eyed gaze. Golden light flared through the intricate patterns of twining lines and curling script at his feet before fading to nothingness. The large man bent and lifted the small animal by the scruff of its neck. He caressed it with a finger and a rush of gilded light pushed into the rabbit, healing and calming the creature. He opened his palm, and the rabbit flew gently away from him, carried on a beam of light to the far edge of the plains.
“You always were a softy Casserius,” the horned woman said, her lips curling in a sneer.
The golden god stared at the woman, as hard and unmoving as stone. Whatever word described the man, soft was not one of them. “All life has worth, Dymeria. Perhaps you have forgotten that.”
“Do not fret brother,” the wiry god said. “She still believes, she just hates admitting it.”
“Always the sycophant, Obekai. All I meant was that it was a futile gesture,” Dymeria said. “Nothing in this valley will survive what we do today.” A twinge of fear filled her voice.
“You always were a cynic,” the golden god said to the woman. “Have a bit of faith.”
“Forgive me brother if I am the voice of dissent in that arena,” Dymeria said, turning her gaze to the white-clad god. “But faith is not what we need today. What we need is strength and we are one down.”
All eyes turned to the wide gap between the white-robed god and the golden god, where enough room lay for a fifth member of their group.
“Where is he?” the wiry god asked. "We cannot do this without him."
“He has forsaken us,” the golden god said in a low, unsurprised voice. “It will be the ruin of the Realms.”
“The traitor. The coward,” Dymeria spat. She strode to the white-robed god and smacked him across the face. “I told you he would not show, Ossyrion. But you so badly wanted to believe in him you blinded yourself to his true nature.”
Ossyrion said nothing, he simply returned the horned goddesses’ glare with a look of regret and kindness.
“Maybe he had the right idea,” the wiry god said. His fingers fidgeted, gripping and releasing a crooked staff as it changed shape and color. “Perhaps we should run as well. Go back to the Outer Realms, find a small world, hide and raise a family.”
“That is the coward’s way,” Casserius said, drawing his massive two-handed sword.
“And the Dread God would come for us,” the white-robed god said, speaking for the first time. His powerful voice was calm and drew all eyes to him. “You all know what Morrigan wants. He has scoured the souls from seven of our brothers and sisters to achieve his goal. He will stop at nothing until he gets what he wants. There is nowhere safe from him, nowhere we can hide that he will not find us. We stop him today or the Realms end. There is no other way.”
“Tell that to the coward,” the golden god raged. “Where is he, if not hiding?”
“You are right,” the white-clad god said, sighing with heavy resignation. “He was our brother, and he has betrayed us all. But it does not change what we must do. None of us are innocent in this. We brought this fate upon ourselves. We all saw what Morrigan had become, but we did nothing.” He rested a calming hand on Casserius’ broad shoulder. “The others are gone. If we do not stop Morrigan now, all is lost.”
“How do we stop him?” the wiry god begged. “We cannot remove Morrigan’s Godhead without causing cataclysm. Without him we cannot do this.”
“We can,” the white-clad god said. “We just won’t survive.”
“Are you mad?” the golden god said, his eyes wide in suspicion. “Even directed by the force of our wills, releasing that much energy will tear a hole in reality.”
“I’m counting on it,” Ossyrion said. His eyes flared to brightness and the other god’s gasped as new understanding filled them. “Are you with me?”
Time crawled as the moment hung heavy, but then, one by one the other gods nodded. The golden god gripped the hilt of his sword and the blade exploded in a halo of yellow fire. The horned goddess powered up her spear, its tip shimmering with crimson energy. Even the wiry god agreed, pushing orange power into his staff. Though their agreement remained unspoken, it still held all the power of a Binding Vow.
As if recognizing their pact, a crackling boom like the sound of a hundred bolts of lightning tore the air and shook the ground. The four gods turned towards the sound as a wave of wind, sand and rock roared towards them.
The white god raised a hand and a shimmering shield of light expanded before them. The sand storm scoured but could not penetrate the shield. Soon the raging sand passed, revealing a lone figure walking towards them with easy confidence.
“The Dread God has come,” the woman said, failing to bury the fear in her voice. The others readied weapons and spells as Morrigan, clad in shifting black plate mail strode through the dust.
Ossyrion turned, casting a last desperate look back, searching for the missing god, the brother who had forsaken them. He saw nothing but the thick, endless clouds of dust Morrigan’s arrival had generated. Resignation slumped the white-clad god’s shoulders.
“I hope you find peace brother.”
*****
For a period, time lost all meaning and reality became unhinged. The Realms ruptured, bent and folded in upon themselves. Energies locked away in the spaces between universes since before creation poured through the rent. The world fractured, simultaneously expanding and contracting in ways the surface of Korynn could not contain.
Unknowable tons of earth exploded upwards as the rules that governed the Realms fractured. Boulders of a hundred different sizes flew skyward, some as fast as a bullet, some idly spinning almost casually.
Some of this earth fell back down on Korynn in the form of fiery missiles that shredded mountains and scoured cities from the face of the world. Entire civilizations died as the seas raged and the earth trembled. Had the full measure of the ejecta from the ragged wound fallen back to the surface, it would have scoured all life from the surface of Korynn. But, the vast majority of the material coalesced around the largest chunk like iron filings to a magnet. Slowly, yet inexorably this expanding mass floated upwards where it settled into a stable orbit becoming Korynn’s second moon.
Under the watchful eye of this new moon, a thick cloud of dust shrouded the sun for a generation. Plants died and soon, millions of animals and people followed. The few survivors knew little about what had destroyed their world, only that in the war between gods it was the people that suffered.
Ruin had come to this Realm and it would take millennia for Korynn to recover.
*****
Water from the once distant ocean rushed into the rent in the earth, scouring the ground as it found its new equilibrium. A vast new bay was born, lowering the sea level around Korynn by several feet. At the edge of the newly made bay, the rabbit sat, its nose twitching in confusion and fear. Its tiny brain could not understand the unlikeliness of its survival, nor that it had just bore witness to an event both unique and terrible. It would live, it would mate, and unknowable generations of its progeny would be born, live and die, before an event like this would occur again.
Soon it forgot the violence it had survived, and the rabbit chewed idly
on some grass as its sparkling eyes gazed across the newly minted bay, a vast stretch of water that had once been its vast, grass laden home. It turned, hopped into the grass and disappeared.
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Acknowledgments.
I couldn’t have made this book what it is without the help of numerous people.
Thanks to Erica, my first reader, and the love of my life. Thank you for being you.
Thanks to my mother Kathy for always believing in me, and my sister Melissa, for never letting me forget I was a dork.
To my awesome Beta Readers, including, Erica Berry, Kenneth Wayne Darlin, Zach Goza, Keegan Moss, Lance Wheeler, Ian Mitchell and the others who gave me feedback. Without you guys, Scourge of Souls would not be as good. Thank You.
And thanks Lou Harper for the awesome cover.
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