The Lady writhed on her soft bed
of light. Her realm had shrunk further, the multi-hued sky
darkening, the bright glow of her pearly land dimming. If she did
not relinquish her weakening hold on the Overworld soon, the light
realm would be in danger.
"No, Bane," she murmured.
"Think! Hurry!"
Bane reappeared above the
clouds, where golden power poured down in torrents, its touch
making his skin crawl. The Black Lord screamed as it tore through
his shadow form, releasing Bane, who tried to hold onto him.
Arkonen's substance thinned rapidly in the light, and Bane's hands
sank through it. Arkonen Moved, taking Bane with him, and they
reappeared where they had been moments before, beneath the black
clouds.
Arkonen staggered back, shadows
leaking from him like tendrils of smoke, his form warped and
translucent. Bane lunged at him, trying to renew his hold and take
the Black Lord back into the light, but Arkonen leapt aside. His
Gather drew substance from the darkness, thickening his form. He
shouted, and Bane whipped around as four earth demons rose behind
him, fists poised to strike. He dived aside, a glancing blow
sending him sprawling, then rolled and sent a lash of shadow at the
fiends, reducing them to dust.
Leaping up, Bane swung around to
find Arkonen standing a few yards away, his shadow form restored,
if slightly smaller and more slender. He held Mirra before him, his
hands caressing her throat. She was awake, her eyes blank and
sleepy.
"That was quite clever, boy," he
grated. "But ill advised. I am surprised it took you so long to try
it, but it only served to annoy me and make her demise more
painful."
"Leave her be," Bane said.
"I think we have established
that you cannot defeat me, idiot boy. That being the case, why
should I?"
"I will take half the Overworld
if you kill her."
"You will have to do that if I
let her live, otherwise she will perish anyway." He shook his head.
"No, it is time for her to die."
Bane stared at him, a dozen
futile offers presenting themselves, all of which he knew would be
useless. The Black Lord could not be trusted, any bargain he made
he would break, and he would not agree to a deal that required him
to fulfil his side of it first. Anguish filled Bane's heart as
Arkonen's hands tightened around Mirra's throat. His claws dug into
her skin, not hard enough to choke her yet, but enjoying her agony
and using it to torment Bane, as he had promised to do. She seemed
to wake from her stupor, her eyes widening, and she clawed at the
Black Lord's hands.
Bane charged
towards them, intent on flinging himself at Arkonen and tearing him
apart with his bare hands. A wall of dark power shot up in his
path, and he rebounded off it, stagger
ed back and collapsed, stunned by the impact. Mirra's
screams tore at him like barbed hooks in his flesh, goading him
into a blind fury. Belatedly he realised that Arkonen had employed
the same tactic as before, with identical results, using Bane's
concern for Mirra to lure him into rash acts he would otherwise not
have committed.
Bane struggled
to his knees, shaking his head to try to clear the stars from his
eyes. Raising a hand, he pawed at the blood that ran from his nose.
Pain pounded through his skull, numbing his brain. Arkonen laughed,
and Bane whipped around as he sensed danger behind him, finding two
earth demons rising from the ground. He waved a hand at them,
turning them to dust with a lash of unfocus
sed power, then fell sideways, struggling to shake off
the dazedness that fogged his mind. Mirra's screams ripped at his
sanity, and his weakness mocked him. Her cries became choking
sounds.
"No," Bane groaned. "No."
The Demon Lord
got to his knees again, then staggered to his feet and stumbled
forward. He encountered the barrier, and his hands slid over it,
f
ound its edges and tugged at
it. It held firm, and he hammered at it, pain shooting up his arms,
then laid his palms against it and Gathered, the seven runes on his
chest flaring to yellow brilliance. The barrier wavered under his
onslaught, but remained solid. Shaking his head again, he looked
up, his blood spattering the wall of shadow.
Arkonen fed
the barrier with a conduit of darkness, counteracting Bane's
Gather.
He had no hope of
draining it, or of going around it, since it would always remain
between him and his foe. The dark power filled him, soon he would
have to shed some of it or be consumed. He considered hurling it at
the clouds, but he had tried that before, without success. Now he
had no time to enter into another stalemate, even if it forced
Arkonen to relinquish his hold on Mirra. It would not win the
battle, and would leave him vulnerable to another demon
attack.
Mirra's plucking hands dropped
to her sides, one still swaddled in cloth, and she sagged against
the Black Lord, her eyes closing. His fiery maw stretched in a
triumphant grin, and his raucous laughter bellowed forth.
Soft words
echoed through Bane's mind in a voice of lilting sweetness.
In your darkest hour... no one can
stand alone always
.
Remembering the blue mage on the
Isle of Lume, the Demon Lord sank to his knees, raised his arms,
and shouted, "Lady!"
As the tormented cry was wrung
from him, he unleashed his fire at the Black Lord. The dark power
poured from him in a fury of hate and rage, striking the barrier.
The Black Lord flung back his head and laughed again.
Lightning struck the ground all
around them in a barrage of crackling brilliance, and thunder
roared through the clouds, shaking the earth.
Bane's power turned blinding
white. It mantled the barrier in a flash of coruscating blue,
shredding it with the pure fire of the Goddess, then flashed
through it and struck the Black Lord. He screamed as the pearly
light engulfed him, mottling his form with shades of grey and
brilliant blue as the two powers warred in a fury of raw, unbridled
energy.
His shadow form recoiled as the
fire tore it into dark tatters that dispersed and dwindled,
swirling around him like smoke in the wind. The bat wings shredded,
stripped from him. Two arms shrivelled and twisted, their substance
burnt away. The ground beneath his feet glowed crimson as he sucked
more shadow from the earth in a desperate bid to counter the white
fire. He could not Move, for the light impaled him, holding him in
a mighty fist that crushed him with a power greater than his
own.
Bane burnt, his cry of pain
unborn in his throat as the fire coursed through him in a river of
unbelievable agony. Searing tears leaked from his eyes and ran down
his cheeks in crimson trickles. The Black Lord's roar thundered
across the land, hammered the hills and echoed through distant
mountains. His yellow eyes flared to incandescence as he looked
down upon the instrument of his doom. The Demon Lord knelt with
hands outstretched, his blood-streaked face raised to the sky,
twisted with pain.
"No! You cannot do this!"
The Black Lord
flung Mirra aside and raised his remaining arms. Dark
fir
e poured from his hands,
met the pale power and drove it back in a wall of brilliant blue.
His Gather turned the soil beneath him molten, forming another
Source that caused the ground to sink into a glowing pit. Bane
gasped as the power that flowed through him grew hotter, burning
his blood and charring his flesh. His hands blackened as it poured
through his skin, yet he could not stop it. The Lady held him
transfixed, at her mercy.
The white fire crept towards the
Black Lord again, whose shadow form remained weak and tattered,
unable to recover while all his power was required to hold the
onslaught at bay. The light reached his hands and consumed them,
then moved up his arms, turning them to blue fire. It flared,
leaping across the gap to eat away at the shadows of his chest,
spreading out to mantle him, ripping his form asunder.
"You are evil! You belong to
me!" The fire that shredded him tore Arkonen’s shout.
Bane's lips drew back in a
snarl. His agony prevented him from replying, but triumph shone
through the pain in his eyes, which burnt brilliant blue, lighted
from within by the power that poured through him.
The Black Lord's howl of rage
ripped from his shrinking form. "I will rise again! I will destroy
you!"
The white fire engulfed Arkonen,
consuming his shadows, driving them away with the pure light of
Eternity. The beacon of his destruction bathed the clouds with
silver radiance, casting every hillock and rock into sharp relief,
like a flash of lightning that did not end. The brilliance hurt
Bane's eyes, forcing him to close them, and even then the light
shone red through his eyelids.
The last tatters of Arkonen's
shadow form tore away, revealing the pulsing crimson light of his
soul. With a silent scream that ripped through Bane's mind, it
vanished downwards, drawn back to the Land of the Dead. The
seething ball of pearly light remained for an instant longer, fed
by the twin conduits that poured from Bane's hands, then winked out
with a massive thunderclap that shook the ground.
Bane's head bowed, and he
sprawled face down on the ground, his scorched hands spread on the
dry soil.
The Lady sagged back against the
radiance that cradled her. Her eyes fluttered shut and her hands
sank down onto her lap. Her realm had shrunk and darkened
considerably, the sky almost black, the land a dull grey. A soft
sigh escaped her as she fell into the blackness of unconsciousness,
drained by her final, supreme effort. Her pale lips parted to frame
soft, sighing words.
"I am sorry, Bane."
"Goddess!" Ellese recoiled,
clutching her eyes as a white flash flared from her glass. The
other seer shrieked and fell to the floor, pawing at her eyes.
White light bathed the land outside, pouring in through the windows
as if a gateway to Eternity had opened. It lasted for several
minutes, then winked out, plunging everything into darkness.
The Elder
Mothers jumped and cringed as a massive thunderclap shook the
abbey, crack
ed windowpanes
and made dust jump off the beams. After a moment of stunned
immobility, two healers groped their way to the whimpering seer,
trying to soothe her with soft words and reassuring hugs. The
others stood transfixed, wondering if they had been struck blind.
Ellese sat immobile, her hands clamped over her eyes, certain that
she had.
The chanting
from the chapel had stopped, and faint screams and cries came from
outside, men's voices raised in shouts of alarm and confusion,
women and children wailing in terror. Echoes of the thunderclap
rolled back and forth across the land, rebound
ed off distant mountains and reverberated deep
within the earth. The abbey shuddered, and the bell pealed in a
mournful, discordant chime. Nobody moved as they waited for the
echoes to die away and the earth to stop shivering. The vibrations
filled the air with a muted rumble, and ornaments fell from tables
and shelves, smashing or clattering on the floor.
Distant crashing sounds mingled
with the terrified screams of the people outside as windows broke
and walls collapsed. Horses whinnied and the villagers' animals
bawled in panic. The healers clung to the walls or furniture and
whispered prayers that no one would be hurt. The deep-throated
grumble faded, and the vibrations died away, leaving the air thick
with dust in the darkness. The cries outside stopped at the same
time, and a deathly hush fell, as if the world had ended. Then
several of the women in the room coughed, breaking the spell. One
of the Elder Mothers found Ellese in the gloom and gripped her
shoulder.
"Are you all right?"
Ellese nodded. "I am blind, is
all. Bane. Mirra. We must find them. Hurry! Help me."
"Surely they could not have
survived that?"
"Perhaps not Bane, but Mirra...
she must be safe. The Lady would not harm her."
"We will go. You cannot
see."
"No, I am coming."
Two Elder Mothers helped Ellese
to her feet and guided her down the winding stairs to the hallway
below.
Tallis raised her head, making
sure the rumbling and shaking had stopped before untangling herself
from the knot of young healers who had clung to each other when the
tremors started. She coughed in the thick dust that hung in the
air. The others lifted their heads and looked around, their cheeks
streaked with tears. Cracks ran along the chapel's walls, and the
few tiles that had survived Bane's purge lay smashed on the
floor.
Fearful that something might
have happened to Ellese, Tallis pushed through the throng and
headed for the door, emerging into the inner courtyard. Soldiers
picked themselves up off the ground, helping their comrades and the
few healers who had remained to tend them. Cracks ran along many
walls, and windows gaped emptily, their glass shattered on the
ground beneath them. The sound of women and children weeping came
from the direction of the villagers' camp beyond the abbey's
walls.
Tallis headed for the stairway
that led to the room where Ellese scried with the temple's Elder
Mothers, then spotted her coming down the steps, two women aiding
her. Tallis hurried over to her and gripped her arm, dismayed by
her tightly closed eyes that leaked tears down her cheeks. Ellese
patted her hand as Martal trotted up.
"Are you all right, Elder
Mother?"
"Yes, I am well, just blind,"
Ellese replied. "Take us out to the site of the battle, Martal.
Hurry."
"Is it safe?"