Blades of the Demigod King

by James Derry

  “Jamal,” she rasped. She had let her head fall against the base of the trough, and she could feel liquid oozing through her hair. “Jamal… I’m here. I raise your name…” She knew that was a Gjuiran thing, and part of her cringed to say it. But she knew it would give Jamal comfort. If he could hear her. If his ears hadn’t already melted away.

  Nyfinein was still staring down at her. Her face was pallid; then she walked away. She didn’t stay to see the end.

  A minute passed, mostly in silence.

  The strangest sensation was when the back of Sygne’s skull collapsed. There was a painless lurch, and Sygne’s vision dropped a few inches. If the liquid had swept in through the soft cracks in the back of her skull—if it was now swirling around her brain—it didn’t seem to affect her consciousness in any discernible way. It seeped into her ears, and she tried to crane her neck to keep her sense of hearing. But her neck was very weak. She breathed shallowly; she could feel bubbles moving up her throat. The Un-God’s saliva was in her lungs.

  Bits of her robe began to sink as her body melted underneath it. Other parts of the fabric were floating. Her trough was now half-full with a nearly opaque liquid that matched the color of her skin. That was her; she was dissolving into the puddle. And always, her consciousness was right there, observing it all.

  After a long while, the last drop fell from the spout. Sygne realized that she could not move her head at all, and yet she could still see. Her vision bobbed and swirled—peering into several directions at once, but never really focusing on one thing. The shaft above her, the sides of her tub. The manacles were still closed, but they no longer impeded her. She could slosh around in the fluid, but never truly escape. That was because she was part of the fluid now. An element in a solution.

  She sloshed against the ‘head’ of the basin, which she hadn’t been able to see until now. It was made of a bronze sliding door—some sort of channel lock holding her solution in the basin. The gate creaked and rose. There was a suction and a roll of currents as Sygne began to sluice through the widening gap.

  She was drawn down a narrow, dark gutter. Barreling along—her vision blurred.

  What would she find at the end of the channel? Did it matter what she found?

  A harsh realization pressed down upon her, as all-encompassing as the solvent that had broken down her physical form. The individual that had been Sygne Eugenia—born in the Hinterlands and raised in Albatherra—no longer existed.

  She had been merged into a new form, going along with the flow, moving toward some unknown fate that was not solely her own.

  What would happen to this new thing she had become…

  ….at the end of this channel…

  ….what was waiting…

  …at…

  …the end…

  16 – The Alpha Protagonist and the Omega

  “Whether you like it or not, this is my story now.”

  King Pawn leaned onto the briefing table in the central chamber of his forward headquarters. The resplendent room was empty except for one other man. Pawn kept his voice low. His attendants in the other sections of the tent thought he was alone. And so he didn’t want them to overhear.

  It wouldn’t do to have them thinking that he was having an argument with himself.

  The other man well understood the need for discretion. He wore an outrider’s cloak, even though they were alone and indoors. From under the dusty and ragged lip of his hood, the man growled. “No need to get confrontational. At least not with me. It’s one sword. You have more.”

  “I don’t look at it as one sword.” Pawn gripped the pommel of Endbringer, and its iridescent jewel gleamed. “I look at it as a loss. And each one of those—no matter how small, even against opponents I like—is like a stinging wound to me. It should sting you as well.”

  “It does sting, ‘My Majesty.’”

  Pawn could see the hooded man’s mouth curve into a smile, as if in direct contradiction to what he had just said. The hooded man noted, “I think Jamal was pretty close to figuring it out. The part about the swords, I mean.”

  “He was sharp,” Pawn said. “Too bad he’s a Gjuiran. All that ‘alpha-protagonist’ nonsense.”

  The hooded man laughed. “He was right, in a way, wasn’t he? Companions fall away from the great Demigod King. In every story, every adventure. It’s as if the sovereign is cursed. Again and again, ‘My Majesty’ ends up alone, saving the day by himself. Basking in the glory, all by his lonesome.”

  “You know, better than most, that I’m never alone.”

  “The royal ‘we,’ and all that?”

  “Yes” Pawn said. “‘We’ better get to it.”

  Pawn stepped back from the oak table with its map of the Garden Reach. What he was about to do would offer him a much better perspective of the current situation. He drew Endbringer from its scabbard and set its tip against the canvas floor. He knelt and placed his forehead on its jeweled pommel.

  His vision spliced into multiple views. He saw a row of portable barricades stretching out before him. His troops hurried along the blockade, rolling carts filled with weapons, preparing for the final advance on the Urrists.

  From another vantage he saw the Tower of Rotutta itself. The structure was surrounded by a ring of green flame. A tall, eerie inferno.

  Again, Pawn’s vision took wing, and he was set behind a parapet on the tower’s roof. From there he could see the Urrists’ witch-priestess sitting in a lotus position. A spellcasting pose. She was alone, no cultist followers. No Un-God. Pawn’s first thought was, ‘What has she done with them?’ Not ‘Where have they gone?’ It seemed obvious to him that the witch, and the witch alone, was responsible for the green fire that encircled her lair. Her body was surrounded by sweeping currents of mystical energies that obscured her face.

  “Who is this woman?” Pawn muttered.

  The cloaked man offered an answer, but Pawn’s attention was already drawn somewhere else. The high ceilings and tall shelves of the Scribe’s Vault. Mentor Abb Xyn nodded to Pawn and said, “You are right, Your Majesty! We’ve checked the archives and consulted the appropriate scholars. We believe that your hunch is correct. This is the work of the witch from beyond the Slumbering Sea. Nyfinein.”

  Pawn grunted, both in the presence of Abb Xyn—and inside his headquarters tent. He grunted on the top of the Tower of Rotutta—and along the battlements surrounding the witch’s lair. From every angle the realization was sinking in.

  Pawn asked the Mentor, “And what is her weakness again?”

  “As expected, the reference materials offer only riddles. They say that she may be burned by ‘the invisible color of sunlight.’”

  Without another word, Pawn lifted his head from Endbringer. ‘The invisible color of sunlight.’ What did that mean? He broke the news to the cloaked man. “Nyfinein. She has returned to Albatherra.”

  As he often did, The cloaked man finished Pawn’s thought, “She must be responsible fo Sygne’s disappearance.”

  “But there’s no trace of Sygne in the tower. Or beneath it.”

  “Then perhaps we need more eyes in the witch’s lair.”

  “I agree.”

  “Of course you do,” the cloaked man grinned again. If Pawn was feeling an uncharacteristic tinge if doubt, then the hooded man’s smile helped to dash that away.

  “Let me ask you: Abb Xyn said that the witch is only susceptible to the ‘invisible color of sunlight.’ Can you guess what that means?”

  The hooded man shrugged. “If I had my sword, we could put our heads together and try to figure it out.”

  “Oh well. Then we’ll figure it out as we go.”

  “Time for the alpha-protagonist to save the day, as always.”

  “Forget this accursed, quickly dimming day,” Pawn said. “This time, I think we may be fighting to save the world.”

  17 – Interior Monologues

  Where am I?

&n
bsp; Sygne, is that you? I can’t see!

  We are in Urr. Urr is in us.

  Who said that? It’s so… It’s so bright in here.

  Urr is speaking. As are we. And that is the light of everlasting love.

  Sygne? What is this? I can’t feel my body. I can’t see.

  Jamal! I’m so glad you’re here!

  Acceptance. Forgiveness. Our inner light. We are Urr. All of us.

  Jamal, I think we are inside Urr-Ogshoth.

  Oh no. The last thing we remember, we were being melted.

  So that you might transcend the bonds of self and commune with Urr.

  We didn’t want to transcend our selfish bonds!

  Yeah! We were melted against our wills.

  But we see it is good to be here. We love. We accept. We…

  I don’t want to be accepted!

  But it is so bright here. So warm.

  Urr, listen to me. Please. Things are happening to the outside world…

  The outside world is full of cruelty and doubt and intolerance.

  We want to do something about that.

  We are doing something about that. We love. We accept—

  We need to do something more substantial. The world is about to die!

  We... we...

  Sygne? We… I mean I don’t feel so good.

  No. This is good. You are feeling like us. You are being welcomed.

  Sygne? I think we are beginning to forget who I was…

  No, Jamal! Fight it. We have to fight!

  This new part of us, it sounds like our new priestess. She keeps urging us to go against our nature and fight.

  She is trying to manipulate you. She only has her own ambitions at heart.

  We think that might be true. And yet…

  Can’t you feel it? Coursing through every part of you… us… The priestess is using your… our… faith and love as an engine. She’s draining you to power her spell.

  We do feel that.

  And still you… we… won’t fight.

  We love. We forgive—

  If you… we… won’t fight, will you… we… at least let us go? Can we do that?

  We accept. We do not reject. That is as unnatural to us as fighting.

  Essoth’s eyeful. We’re going to die here. Even worse, we’re going to exist here forever.

  Yes. This is a good thing. Love. Forgiveness. Forever

  No.

  If Nyfinein’s spell works then probably the whole world dies. That means no life. No love.

  Everyone will die?

  To let that happen…

  It would not be very loving. This new part of us is right. We must fight. But fighting is unnatural to us.

  You… we… are a hundred foot long coil of melted human bodies. If anyone gets to redefine the word ‘unnatural,’ it’s us.

  We are right. We have to stop this from happening.

  We have to save the world.

  18 – Independent Streaks

  King Pawn and the hooded man burst out from their tent into a frenzy of light and shadow. Albatherran soldiers ran back and forth before the camp’s many bonfires. Some soldiers carried torches aloft, and the firelight streaked like comets over the heads of the crowd.

  Pawn started, “The army’s in a panic…

  The hooded man finished, “…but why?”

  Pawn’s soldiers scrambled in every direction, so that Pawn couldn’t determine any specific spot that they were running from or toward. Then he saw the singular, circular coil of Urr-Ogshoth rising up over the spears of the crowd.

  “The Un-God!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s on our side of the siege line,” the hooded man said in an awed voice.

  Once again, the Un-God had formed itself into a circle, the proverbial serpent eating its tail. Except Urr-Ogshoth looked more like a gigantic caterpillar.

  No. More like a wheel. Urr-Ogshoth had balanced itself on its back, its circular form arcing tall into the air. And it was rolling like a wheel, rampaging through the war camp. Pawn was a good distance away, and from that distance it was hard to judge the scale of the beast, except that here and there, Pawn thought that he could pick out arms and legs bristling on the beast’s hide. Urr-Ogshoth wasn’t really a beast at all, but an accumulation of melted and commingled humans. Just human flesh all mashed and streaked together.

  The hooded man grabbed the arm of a soldier as he hurried past. “Where did that thing come from?”

  With his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape, the soldier scanned the face of the hooded man. “Your Majesty!” The light was splintered with fire and shadow, and the soldier was obviously panicked.

  “No,” the hooded man said. “That’s the Demigod King. Now tell us what happened.”

  The soldier quickly explained, “It burrowed up from the ground like some kind of giant grub. Right under our defenses… It… It…”

  The hooded man let go of the soldier’s arm, and he scurried away without asking for Pawn’s leave.

  Pawn ignored him. He asked, “Is it just me, or is the Un-God even bigger today?”

  The hooded man said, “I think we might know what happened to the rest of the cultists.”

  Pawn gritted his teeth. “I’m trying to unite all Albatherrans in a haven of enlightenment and diversity…”

  “…but that damn witch is throwing our citizens into a melting pot.”

  “We can’t stand for that.”

  The fleeing crowd had parted to make a path for Urr-Ogshoth, and now it barreled straight for Pawn. One soldier had the quick idea to push a heavy weapons cart in the thing’s way. If Pawn had been closer, he could have told the man that he’d already tried that and it hadn’t worked. Urr-Ogshoth struck the wagon hard—splintered it and smashed it into itself. As the Un-God rolled, the cart stayed attached to its back, like a clump of mud stuck on a wheel.

  In the mangled light of fire and shadow, Pawn saw several potential weak spots on the Un-God’s hide. Hearts and kidneys and other tender organs close to the surface. Occasionally faces would emerge. He couldn’t tell if they were rapturous or terrified. What to attack first? With a tremendous war cry, he rushed toward a breaching rib cage.

  But the Un-God reared up into a cylindrical tower. Pieces of the shattered cart flew away like a loose saddle on a bucking stallion. Timbers and discarded weaponry struck the ground, and Pawn had to bound backward to avoid being crushed.

  He was going to need something bigger to fell this beast.

  “The catapults! Ready the catapults!”

  But it was as if the Un-God had been possessed with the same thought. It arced toward the ground and waddled toward the nearest war machine like a flesh-colored, ambulatory rainbow. Everywhere Urr-Ogshoth placed a “foot” it left a crater. It reached the catapult on the camp’s northern wing before the weapon had been fully retracted.

  The Un-God flowed around the siege engine and rotated the four-ton weapon until it was facing the catapult at the camp’s southern wing. Urr-Ogshoth flexed its body and lapped against the half-retracted arm. An undulation of human limbs grasped a heavy stone and hauled it up into the catapult’s bucket.

  A wave of dreaded realization passed through the camp, emanating from the targeted catapult, as the soldiers realized what the Un-God was thinking—that the grub-like monster could think. Men fled from the central catapult so that it was unmanned when Urr-Ogshoth fired. The stone soared through the night air and landed dead-on with a boom and a downpour of shattered wood.

  “This is carnage!” the hooded man exclaimed.

  “Wait.” Pawn held out his arm. He surveyed the condition of his siege camp. The camp was in severe disarray—a state of chaos that Pawn had never seen among his soldiers—but he couldn’t say what he saw qualified as ‘carnage.’ He saw tents that had been demolished—wagons and racks that had been crushed. Here and there, Albatherrans helped their brothers- and sisters-in-arms pick t
hemselves off of the pulped turf. They checked each other for gushing wounds, for broken bones. There were none. In the rutted tracks of the monstrous, divine wheel—in the mud splatted craters that the Un-God had left behind—Pawn saw plenty of shattered wood and bent bronze. But no broken bodies.

  “No one’s hurt,” he said slowly. His finger traced a line to the southern catapult, which had been fully evacuated before the Un-God fired on it. “It’s like Urr-Ogshoth went out of its way to make sure it did no harm.”

  The hooded man rubbed his whiskered jaw. “And look what it’s doing now.”

  Urr-Ogshoth was turning its commandeered siege engine toward the Tower of Rotutta.

  “Is it going to fire on its own lair?”

  The closest flank of the monster began to flatten and ooze across the dirt, like melted wax from a candle. Hands reached out from the edge of the spreading puddle, extending into a cluster of arms that picked up a wagon wheel that had been broken in half. A new, darker arm produced a line of rope with a broken joint of wood dangling from its end. Working in perfect unity, the arms tied the rope so that it hung perfectly from the center of the semi-circular wheel.

  The hooded man spoke his thoughts aloud. “That looks like a…”

  “….a dioptra.”

  “Is the monster doing….?”

  “…Trigonometry? Looks like it.”

  One of the arms, pale and feminine, had begun to scratch out an equation in the dirt. The straight edge of the broken wagon wheel was pointed toward the top of the Tower of Rotutta, and the weighted rope had settled into a steady angle, perpendicular with the ground.

  “It’s gauging distance,” the hooded man said.

  “That’s not an ‘it,’” Pawn corrected. “I think we’ve found what happened to Sygne and Jamal.”

  Urr-Ogshoth shuddered. It was a gesture that seemed to Pawn like a nod, as if the Un-God had just finished its calculations. The closest portion of it dropped the wagon wheel, and it swelled into a hump that quickly traveled up the monster’s flank. The hump quivered there for a while as the Un-God used other parts of its bulk to bend the catapult arm into a firing position. Pawn noticed that the hump waiting on Urr-Ogshoth’s back was streaked in two distinct, swirling colors—pale and dark skin tones.