The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (53 page)

Nestled in the shallow bowl of a valley half
ringed by The Ancients was a trio of triangular columns. The
obelisks were gray, wide as a small building at the base and
towering taller than the tallest tree. They tapered gradually along
their lengths, then suddenly near the top, such that the massive
towers were topped with small pyramids. Each tower stood many
hundreds of paces from the other, evenly spaced as the points of a
sprawling triangle, so large it took up most of the northern half
of the valley. A small city could have comfortably fit between the
towers.

Myn circled closer. The towering columns were
perfectly smooth, seeming almost polished. Neither a line of mortar
nor a single brick marred the surface, as though each tower had
been carved from a single massive stone. The only interruption to
the glassy sheen was on the inward facing side, where massive runes
were embossed into the surface. They covered the entire inner face,
and led to a point of intense blue light that floated in mid air
just in front of the final rune. Each tower had such a point, and
from each point emerged a single shaft of tangible mystic energy,
bright as a bolt of lightning. The shaft buzzed and crackled,
lancing down through the icy air to a point midway between the two
towers opposite it. It came to a stop at a point above the ground
precisely half the height of the tower. The point where the shafts
crossed was brighter than the brightest sun on the clearest day.
Directly below it, paper thin and defined by the points where the
shafts ended, was a triangle of pure black. The whole of the
structure had a terrible, geometric precision. The thought that
something so enormous could be so exact was chilling.

“What is it?” Ivy asked in awe.

“It can only be the portal . . . “ Myranda
answered.

Ether, without a word, hurled her windy form
to the ground. Myn followed, wheeling gradually toward the only
other thing whole of the valley. It was a lone figure, a man,
casting a long, black, twisted shadow. Ether took on her stone
form, but held firm a few paces away from him. When Myn touched
down and the heroes spilled from her back, it was clear why she
hesitated. He was standing just within the area traced by the
towers, and the power that poured out of the border felt as though
crossing the line that separated them would tear flesh from
bone.

“Astounding, isn't it?” shouted the man over
the diabolical mix of sounds the portal produced.

His back was to the Chosen as he admired the
monstrous configuration. He continued.

“The end result of centuries of constant
work. Two
hundred
fifty-five years, eight months, eleven
days, fifteen hours. In your time at least. Every moment of it
filled with conjuring, sapping, chanting, and focusing. First
ourselves, then a few of your own wizards, and finally a veritable
army of Demont's nearmen made especially for the purpose. Even so,
we'd estimated over three hundred years to get the gateway in
place. That is, of course, until we captured you,” he said.

The figure turned. It was Myranda's father,
but his face made it clear that such was the case only on the
surface. Epidime looked out from within.

“Ivy and Ether were the most help, but you
all made a contribution. Those crystals. You filled
hundreds
of them. Each one took months off of the process. In just a few
days we made great bounds toward completion. If only you'd been a
few minutes sooner, you might have seen it all come together. It is
a sight to behold. The towers aren't built, you know. They are
summoned. They are utterly impenetrable, every aspect of them
carefully shaped in the mind. One moment a shifting mass of focused
magic, the next three perfect towers coaxed instantly into
existence. They draw the power to hold the portal open from your
very world. A marvel. Every detail a marvel. You made it
interesting, I can tell you. I had actually begun to believe we
wouldn't get the gateway open. Now we have, and only three worlds
in all of our experience have ever closed one. None of those worlds
exist any longer.”

“Where are the others!?” demanded Ether. “The
time has come. You shall meet your fate, and your creation will die
with you!”

“Bagu went through. He took Demont with him.
They are gathering the army,” Epidime said.

“Your army is destroyed,” Myranda called
out.

“No.
Your
army is destroyed. Those
were Demont's toys. Made in your world, of your resources. The
D'karon was a force of four. Three, now that Teht is dead. Ah . . .
but then you never did understand that part, did you? I suppose now
is as good a time as any. You thought the name for our race, for
our
kind
, was D'karon. You were wrong. D'karon is a military
term. It means ‘first wave.’ You thought you'd been facing an
invasion. The invasion hadn't even begun,” he explained with a grin
that cut to the soul.

The vast field of black above him began to
ripple. Whirls of clouds wafted and twisted, revealing whispers and
glimpses of things unspeakable. Epidime's grin grew to a smile.

“Until now,” he added.

On cue, the whole of the triangular void
erupted. Black clouds rushed out with the force of an avalanche,
tearing the heroes from the ground and whipping them through the
air. The howling of the fetid wind was joined by a rumble and
quake. The ground shook as though a landslide were bringing the
very mountains down upon them. The wind slowed, not as though it
was cut off, but as though the pressure behind it was slowly being
equalized. By the time the heroes found themselves on the ground
once more, they were scattered to the far reaches of the valley.
The blackness was still. It hung like a fog in the air, filtering
the light from the obelisks into a pale haze. The stench was a
choking combination of arcane odors. In the shifting smoky fog,
dark forms moved indistinctly at the threshold of vision.

A cold wind began to pour into the valley.
Ether's windy form rose up, the swirling mass trailing behind her,
lifting the black veil that hung over the valley. It revealed a
sight worse than any one of them could have imagined. The ground
was alive with creatures, wretched beasts that had no place in this
world. No two seemed the same, each a mass of spidery legs and
lashing tendrils, snapping mandibles and gyrating wings, chitinous
shells and glistening claws. The horrid creatures ranged from the
size of a large dog to as massive as an elephant, with the
exception of three.

The first was barely a creature at all. In
shape it vaguely resembled a root that one might find in an
apothecary jar. A leathery indigo hide stretched over a body
tapered at either end and massively thick in the middle, studded
over its entire surface with spiky barbs. The barbs along the
bottom sprouted deep violet stalks, shiny with something the
consistency of syrup that dripped from the barbs and tipped with
swollen, spherical orange ends. The stalks hoisted its body, easily
the size of a house, from the ground like legs.

Behind it was a creature almost twice as
tall. Its body seemed to be composed entirely of three thick
appendages joined to a central bulge. The limbs were tubes thick as
a man was tall and ending in a ring of flat, pointed teeth that
spread like toes as it walked. Its skin was hidden beneath a coat
of white fur. On the misshapen bulge where the limbs came together,
hundreds of small black eyes scattered across top and bottom
blinked randomly.

The last was a beast so tall it was not until
it had come out from beneath the black void that it was able to
unfold itself to its full height. The thing was standing on seven
narrow legs, thick as a tree trunk where it left the boulder sized
body and tapering to a point along its segmented length. It
resembled a daddy long legs, the body sagging between the upward
arcing limbs. While only seven touched the ground, the twisted
thing had more legs than could be counted. Most were tiny twitching
things that spiked the body like an urchin. Randomly scattered
among them were larger ones, a trio of which surrounded a clacking,
squid-like beak, the only part of its body not sprouting limbs.

Standing among the hell's menagerie were the
three Generals. Epidime's infuriating look of satisfied superiority
stood in stark contrast to the deep, penetrating look of madness
that twisted the remnants of Bagu's face. His obsidian sword was
joined by a second in his other hand, and his gaze was locked
firmly on Lain. Demont was atop the reared up neck of a beast that
looked to be a horse sized combination of a serpent and a
centipede. He had a distracted look on his face, as though he had
more important things on his mind than battle. With a single
gesture from this third general, the demon horde washed over the
icy ground like a tide.

The Chosen hurled themselves into the fray.
Lain's sword was in constant motion, lightning quick slashes
opening gaping wounds on the larger beasts and dividing the smaller
ones into pieces. Streaks of silver flashed toward the airborne
creatures that strayed to near to him, sending the beasts crashing
to the ground with a dagger buried deep in them. The gems of his
blade quickly took on a brilliant glow. Most of the creatures were
left behind, hopelessly slower than their target. Speed, however,
can only overcome so much, and before long Lain found himself
facing a wall of creatures too large to avoid and too well armored
to strike down. Lashing talons and snapping jaws closed in around
him. The assassin tightened his grip on his weapon and angled the
blade against their attacks.

Myn took to the air. The towering spider-like
creature was moving across the valley with staggering speed, and
she knew that it could quite easily be a threat to any of her
friends. Slashing and searing those winged beasts foolish enough to
face her, Myn climbed high into the air. When the chaos was far
below her she turned, tucked her wings, and dove, flames streaming
from her gaping maw and fury burning in her eyes. The ponderous,
many legged creature lumbered blindly, only seeming to become aware
of the dragon's approach a moment before she collided. Tooth and
claw clamped about the thick base of one of its legs with the full
force of momentum behind them. The shell-like surface creaked,
cracked, and split, gushing dark green blood. The beak released an
earsplitting wail and the legs long enough to reach Myn began to
slash and scrape madly at the dragon's scales. Myn ignored them,
working industriously at removing the leg.

Ether's form flickered to flame, anger
burning in her mind like never before. To the others these beasts
were merely a threat. To Ether they were a personal slight, a slap
in the face of all that she embodied. She was nature given form,
but these beasts . . . they were creations of another nature
entirely. She dipped low, charring a path through the smaller
beasts, injuring as many as she could as she made her way to the
indigo skinned beast, a very definite sequence of events forming in
her mind. She swept below the creature, her blazing touch sizzling
against the tendrils that held it aloft. As each one was scalded
and blistered it retreated into its barb. By the time she'd passed
completely beneath the monster too few tendrils remained. It
teetered and finally collapsed to the side, its massive bulk
rolling over a cluster of its fellow invaders, crushing them
utterly. New glistening tentacles were already sprouting out from
beneath it to raise the beast again when Ether landed atop it. No
sooner had she done so than she leapt back into the air, searing
pain stabbing at her everywhere she'd touched the beast. Her flames
flared brighter as she dove for another attack. Again she was
repelled. The creature's hide glowed lightly where she'd touched
it. The glow then spread and faded. It couldn't be . . . this beast
fed
off of her energy.

Myranda thrust her staff into the earth and
cast a tremor forward. The ice and stone rolled forward like a
cresting wave, hurling beasts aside. She sprinted through the wake
behind it. The scrabbling of beasts trying to right themselves
after being whipped aside and the screech of beasts trampling them
to get to her stabbed at Myranda's ears. None of it mattered. Her
eyes were focused on a form wading unmolested through the sea of
demons, grin on his face. Epidime stood stone still as the wave of
earth approached. A flex of Myranda's mind split the rippling earth
around him, throwing aside the beasts that stood guard around him.
A moment later Myranda stepped into the clearing. A wave of one
hand coaxed a ring of stone spires from the ground, walling off the
creatures. A whispered phrase supplemented it with a glimmering
shield that curved up over them. The pair stood in a personal
arena, for the moment sealed away from the rest of the
conflict.

“Just the two of us, once again. So this is
it. This is all it takes to break you. I spent hours trying to find
my way to that last corner of your mind. Weeks trying to weaken you
enough to loosen your grip on it, and all of this time I needed but
to find your father. One glimpse of him and you abandon everything
you believe in,” Epidime remarked.

“Release him!” Myranda hissed, her staff
raised and swirling with a spell ready to be cast.

Epidime waved a hand dismissively and the
churning magic slipped away.

“For the sake of privacy I will allow the
shield and the stone, for now. This is far too delicious a torment
to share with the others,” Epidime said, his sinister tone turning
Myranda's stomach. “You've more power now than you've ever had
before, and what can you do with it?”

He thrust his hand forward. A wave of energy
smashed Myranda against the wall.

“Nothing,” he said.

Ivy tried to gather herself. She was afraid.
Maddeningly so. The light of it burned in her mind, but she simply
didn't have the strength to slip over the edge. Perhaps it was
something to be grateful for. Perhaps another time she would have
been. It wasn't the towering behemoths that concerned her. It
wasn't the rush of unidentifiable forms before her. Monsters and
beasts were things she had faced so often in her short time with
the others that they were almost comforting. What filled her with
fear was the sight of Demont, though even the threat of the
horrible things he had done to her and the horrible things he might
to do her friends was not what frightened her most. What frightened
her most was what thinking of those things stirred up in her.
Behind the fear, and growing stronger with every moment, was the
hate. A hate that might be strong enough to do what the fear was
failing to. A hate that might make her into what she'd been before.
A hate that might not let go. The frightened creature backed slowly
away as Demont drew nearer. She raised her weapons.