torg 02 - The Dark Realm

Torg

The Possibility Wars

They have come from other cosms, other realities, raiders joined together to

accomplish one goal — to steal the awesome energy of Earth's possibilities!

This spectacular epic of adventure, magic, and high-technology is set on a reality-torn Earth — an Earth warped into
someplace else.
Don't miss any of the volumes in the Possibility Wars saga!

Book One

Storm Knights

by Bill Slavicsek and C.J. Tramontana

Book Two

The Dark Realm

by Douglas Kaufman

Book Three

The Nightmare Dream

by jonatha Ariadne Caspian

The Possibility Wars™

created by Greg Gorden and Bill Slavicsek

Book Two

The Dark Realm

by Douglas Kaufman

Cover Art by Daniel Home Interior Art by Bob Dvorak, Francis Mao, Jeff Menges, Alan Jude Summa and Valerie Valusek Graphic Design by Bernadette G. Cahill and Stephen Crane

Series Edited by Bill Slavicsek Additional Editing by Jennifer A. Williams

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Prologue: The Battle for the Heart

My dreams are made of this; swirling mists of blue sky and splashes of crimson blood. And then there is the darkness, waiting to reclaim me as its own. My dreams leave me sorely afraid.

— Tolwyn of House Tancred

The dream took hold of Tolwyn's sleeping mind. Again.

The demon dragon called Carredon pushed its way into the small chamber, scraping its crowded scales across the stone walls. It was a fragment of Tolwyn's memories come to life.

It was the creature that had killed her.

And now it was here to kill her again.

Behind her, the small blue and red stone sang its fear and terror into her mind, pleading for her to help it. But Tolwyn could not even help herself. She saw the beast's huge dagger-like claws, and she remembered the pain those claws had brought her a lifetime ago. She saw its armored hide and recalled how blade and spear and arrow had bounced away without harming the creature.

And for the first time in her memory, Tolwyn was afraid.

"Remember me, Tolwyn of House Tancred?" the dragon asked. Its voice was hollow, like a bottomless pit. "I killed you once. I have come to kill you again."

Tolwyn shrank back at these words, curling up against the far wall. She did not want to die again. She did not want to return to the dark place.

She was barely aware of Rick Alder, she barely heard the explosion of his pistol as he directed three shots at the Carredon. One shot hit its mark, and dark fluid ran from the dragon's left eye.

"The stormer draws blood!" the dragon bellowed. "Now the Carredon has a turn!"

She watched without response, curled up in her own fear, as the dragon's taloned paw flashed opened and three clawed nails pierced Alder's body and lifted him from the floor.

His pain must have been excruciating, but Alder forced his body to turn in her direction. "It can be hurt, Tolwyn," he gasped, forcing his vocal chords to work. "It can be hurt."

The Carredon flexed his claws, and Alder slid off them, landing in a puddle of his own fluids. Before the dragon could do anything else, Kurst exploded into the chamber. But the hunter stopped, unsure of what action to take against the killing machine.

"You, the one called Decker," the dragon intoned, ignoring Kurst's intrusion. The Carredon waved the claws still covered with Alder's blood as it spoke. "No unnecessary deaths need occur. My master is impressed with you, stormer. I bring you an offer from the Gaunt Man, High Lord of Orrorsh and Torg of the cosmverse."

Decker stepped forward, but stayed beyond the Carredon's reach. "What is this offer?"

The dragon seemed to smile. "The Gaunt Man has the power to grant your greatest wish."

"And how does this High Lord know what I wish for?"

"Because he has looked into your heart."

Taken aback, Decker was still able to respond. "What did he see, dragon?"

"He saw your love for this country, and he saw your sorrow at its wounds from Baruk Kaah's invaders. He has authorized me to offer you this."

The Carredon clacked its claws together and an image appeared within the chamber for all to see. It was the image of a black stone, as dark as night and shapeless. It radiated power, not unlike the blue stone the group had come to find.

"With this object of power, you could become the High Lord of this world and join the Gaunt Man as an equal being. Instead of destroying this world, you could save it. You could impose the laws and doctrines you hold so dear not only in this country, but in every country. You can be president, and then you would have the power to reshape this world into the image that burns so fiercely in your heart. And more, with the power of reality, you could bring back the woman named Vicky."

Decker lowered his head for a moment, then looked into the Carredon's remaining eye. "That's a very tempting offer. But if I were to impose my will onto this country, then it wouldn't be America. It would be something less, no matter how strong it was. It would be a sham."

The Carredon was losing patience. "What is your answer, stormer?"

"My answer? Go to hell!" Decker raised his pistol, a Beretta, and fired at the dragon's other eye.

Tolwyn feared for Decker, but the congressman was not swayed by the offer. Instead he fired shot after shot into the beast until the sound in the enclosed area was deafening. And then his pistol clicked, indicating that it was empty.

Mara took up the battle then, firing blasts of high- intensity light from her laser pistol. These caused burn marks to appear across the dragon's chest, and it roared in anger. It prepared to launch itself at the girl, but she resumed firing.

"She will run out of energy soon," Kurst said. "Pray to your god, Bryce. I do not think we will defeat the Carredon."

"You speak as though you know the creature," Tolwyn heard Father Bryce say.

"I do."

Then Kurst's body began to shift, flowing from flesh to fur. He grew to over six feet tall, and widened as his body grew muscle. His features elongated, stretched, and formed into a muzzle full of sharp teeth. As Tolwyn watched, Kurst had become a man-shaped wolf of gigantic size. The wolf charged toward the Carredon.

With a mighty leap, the wolf was upon the dragon, raking it with his powerful claws. The wolf slashed at the burns Mara's laser made, adding to the beast's injuries. Deep cuts sliced across the dragon's scales, staggering it. But it was stronger than Kurst. The wolf was no match for the terrible engine of destruction. It grasped the giant wolf in one powerful claw and dug its talons into his flesh.

"You should never have challenged me, Kurst," the Carredon boomed. "I am not some stormer for you to dispatch, and my claws can harm you." The Carredon squeezed its talons together to prove its point, and the life began to slip out of Kurst, splattering the ground with bright drops of red.

Decker, his gun reloaded, resumed firing at the monster. He picked up on the wolf's strategy and aimed for the wounds already inflicted upon the creature. The wolf was dropped when the bullets hit, forgotten in the haze of pain that Decker brought to the dragon.

"Never have I been so wounded, stormer!" the Carredon screamed. "But the pain I feel is nothing compared to the pain I will bring you."

The congressman stood his ground, firing bullet after bullet until his clip emptied. And still the Carredon advanced. It raised its talons high into the air, prepared to bring them down on Decker. But Mara leaped between them, releasing her own metallic claws from their recessed housing in her fingers and driving them deep into the dragon's chest. In pain-driven rage, it struck out blindly and caught Mara with the back of its paw. That saved her from being decapitated, but it still sent her flying across the chamber. She landed in a heap and was still.

"Go ahead, monster," Decker declared. "Go ahead and strike me down."

"No, Decker," the Carredon said. "The rage has left me, and I have a more lasting pain to inflict upon you."

The Carredon raised one talon and brought it to rest upon a scale near its shoulder. It carved a symbol into the scale, scratching it through the top layer of its metallic hide.

Tolwyn saw Kurst, again in man form, try to rise. But his wounds were too great and he fell to the chamber floor. But he read the rune that the Carredon carved. "Never life."

Then the beast moved to a second scale. It repeated the carving ritual, forming another rune upon its own body.

"Never death," Kurst read weakly.

The Carredon gripped the scales and tore them from its flesh, ripping away meat with the pieces of armor. It spoke words that Tolwyn did not understand, and it blew upon the twin scales, pointing them toward Decker. With the words of magic completed and the breath to move them, the scales flew from the monster's claws. They spun in the air, forming into pointed staves of metal each about a foot long. The carved runes could be clearly seen upon the shaft of each staff, glowing brightly with magical energy.

Faster than either Bryce or Decker could move, the staves struck the congressman, burying themselves in his chest. Decker screamed in agony as lambent energy played across his body, flowed into the jutting staves, and shot out into the darkness beyond the chamber. Decker collapsed, but the energy continued to dance along the metal rods formed from the Carredon's own body.

"Now, priest," the monster laughed, "perhaps I'll let you watch as I flay the skin from Tolwyn's bones."

"No, spawn of hell, I'll not let you hurt her!" Father Bryce screamed across the chamber.

The Carredon chuckled, and the sound was frightening. "And what will you do to stop me, stormer?"

As the dragon and Bryce glared at each other, Tolwyn stood up. The fear was still with her, but she was fighting it, pushing it away.

"I am tired of hearing the word 'stormer', Carredon," she said. Her voice began weak, but grew in strength as she spoke. "Would you like me to call you worm?"

"But that is what you are, Tolwyn," the Carredon said. "You are worms. You are stormers."

"We are storm knights!" she shouted, drawing her saber from its sheath.

"You are dead, little woman. Look around you. Your companions have fallen, like that last time we battled so many centuries ago. History repeats itself, and I see that you have failed to learn from it."

"I have learned enough, worm!"

Tolwyn launched herself at the dragon, slashing away with the saber. Her intensity drove the dragon backwards, but it would soon realize she was unable to truly hurt it. Then it would strike back. The last time she fought the Carredon she had her sword and armor, and even those magical items were not enough to stay the dragon's claws. Now all she had was a dress saber and the images of her friends falling: Rick Alder, whom young Coyote called a cop; Kurst, a shapeshifter from the cosm of Orrorsh; Dr. Hachi Mara-Two, a young woman who was a scientific prodigy come to save this cosm from the horrors that almost destroyed her own; Andrew Jackson Decker, a congressman. Only Father Christopher Bryce, the priest, remained standing, and he would fall quickly once she had spent herself.

"Enough of these games, Tolwyn!" the Carredon yelled. It swung back at her, driving her away step by step with mighty swipes of its claws. "Lay down your weapon and I will make this death quick."

"Like you have done for Decker?" she said, referring to the glowing rune staves jutting from his chest. But while it looked as though Decker should be dead, his chest continued to rise and fall with breath. "Never shall I simply surrender, monster!"

She fought on, intensifying her attack. She used every move she could think of, every half-remembered skill that her body could call upon, searching for an opening. But no matter her skill and daring, she knew she could only last as long as her strength held out.

And the strength of the Carredon was far greater.

Behind her, Christopher Bryce stood before the stone that Decker called the Heart of Coyote and listened to its song. There were no words to the song, and he could not hum the melody, but he knew it as a song nonetheless. It was a song of life, like the song of nature you could hear in a breeze, in the babble of a running brook, in a peaceful forest. But this song, while akin to those others, was louder, more intense. It sang of possibilities, for that was what life was. As long as there was life, there were endless possibilities.

And suddenly the stone filled his mind with one possible outcome to the battle that raged behind him. He reached out and grasped the stone.