Darksiders: The Abomination Vault (15 page)

“You have spirit, girl. Given a few centuries of experience, I’d be honored to face you in
real
combat.”

As for his purpose in coming here, disposing of a weapon that harmed only demons, while it sat in the middle of the White City, was simplicity itself. A few moments of study, and War located the hidden controls: a sequence of those spinning hexagons of slightly darker hue, each sporting a faint angelic glyph.

No expert in the language of Heaven, even War knew the numbers well enough. A bit of fiddling and poking, and finally they began flipping, one after the other, in a very specific order.

The flash, when it came, was blinding, clearly visible across the breadth of the White City. It was all the more disturbing for its utter silence, and for only the faintest rush of air, barely even felt.

The sacrament bomb was gone, and so, too, were War and Ruin, having stepped once more through the membrane between worlds. The Horseman’s last thoughts, before he once more found himself in the void, were that he would do well to avoid Heaven for some time …

And that this, hopefully, was the last time one of Creation’s major factions would devote its attention to any sort of doomsday weapon.

T
HE
A
BOMINATION
V
AULT,
” D
EATH SAID AS HE FINALLY
concluded his recounting of recent events, “is one of the greatest surviving secrets of the Nephilim. And also one of the most vile.” His voice was oddly distant, almost unfocused. “I’d hoped never to hear or speak of it ever again.”

He stood, back straight and head unbowed despite his obvious discomfort with the topic, before the triple-idols of the Charred Council. His normally cadaverous skin glowed ruddy in the flickering, infernal light.

Although he faced the great visages of fire and stone, his voice was pitched so that everyone present, even those behind him, might hear. And a good thing they did, for they each, with various expressions of fascination or simmering resentment, hung on his every word.

War stood farthest from him, near the stairs that led back to the cracked earth below, arms crossed over his chest. The same illumination that granted a false vitality to Death’s pale flesh also reddened War’s white hair until it blended with his enveloping hood. He had grumbled, initially, at being summoned back so soon after completing his prior mission—a task whose details Death had not yet heard, and wasn’t certain he
cared about—but his eldest brother’s tale had swiftly captured his full attentions.

Between those two, her eldest brother and her youngest, Fury stood with left hand on hip. Her eyes, gleaming bright but framed in black tattooing, were narrowed in contemplation. Skin of near ivory white, paler even than Death’s but also far healthier, stood in sharp contrast with hair almost the color of wine, and to high-collared leather armor and a slit kilt of a violet darker still. Beyond these, the only other hues to stand out were the gold trim and piping along her armor’s edges, and the sharp, almost blinding crackle of the whip—made, apparently, of something that could only be described as a distant and unloved cousin of the lightning family—hanging coiled at her waist.

And speaking of black sheep, the last of the quartet leaned almost indolently against the ring of jagged rocks marking the edge of the Council’s platform. Armor of formfitting, gleaming steel encased him entirely, its sleek lines broken only by the heavy cloak that came very near to matching his sister’s hair. His own hair, black and haphazardly shorn, framed a cold-eyed face that seemed capable of few expressions that were not some variant of a sneer. He wore a pair of pistols, and under his left arm he carried a grim helm, its full-face visor sinister, predatory, almost insectile in aspect if not in detail. True to his name, Strife appeared irritated by all Death had said, though whether this was a genuine reaction or merely his typical contemptuous demeanor remained unclear.

Above them, his presence condoned and even insisted upon by the Council despite Death’s strenuous objections, Panoptos flitted side to side like a child listening to an exciting campfire tale.

“Funny that
we’ve
never heard of it,” Strife said. “Can’t have been all
that
important, can it?”

“Just the opposite, brother,” Death retorted. “You’ve never heard of it because we kept its existence hidden even from most of our own. Only the Firstborn generation of the Nephilim were aware.”

Three frowns greeted that pronouncement. “And after the Nephilim fell?” Fury asked him. “Why not tell us then?”

“Because there was no need. The Vault was hidden away, and I wanted it to remain that way.”

“But why would—”

“Enough!”
The flames roared high, as though to emphasize the demands of the Council—or at least, its leftmost visage.
“You waste time bickering over the unimportant! Speak, Death.”

The eldest of the Horsemen nodded. “It was at the beginning, brothers. The early years of the Nephilim’s ride across Creation, in search of a realm to call our own, long before the four of us split from our people to serve the Council. It started, in fact, on the very first of the worlds we destroyed.

“I doubt you recall much of it. To most of us, it held little importance or meaning, save that it
was
the first. What the Firstborn never told you is that we chose that particular realm as our opening gambit for a reason.”

Death, normally so impassive, so unshakable, began to pace.

“They were called the Ravaiim, that people. Never a numerous race, they were some of the eldest of the Old Ones. Related to Makers, but they were
not
Makers. They were … something different. Something more primal.”

“Dramatic,” Strife muttered.

“The Ravaiim,” Death continued, undaunted, “hailed from an epoch so early in Creation that life itself was more fluid than it is today. The lines between craftsman and craft were blurry. The Ravaiim didn’t create tools the way the Makers do;
they
sculpted
them of their own flesh and bone. It was a process of months, even years, but with proper training and focus, one of the Ravaiim could remold a hand into an osseous blade, or weave a sculpture from shed strips of his own sinew and skin.

“Perhaps because of their, shall we say,
personal
bond with their creations, the Ravaiim weren’t just powerful, but
imaginative
. Many Makers had shaped portions of their realms around them, creating life and sculpting geography to their whim. But the Ravaiim were the first to attempt to shape an entire
world
for themselves. The first to develop a true society beyond a few small villages. Eons before the Makers’ Realm became what it is, before the White City, in a very real sense they birthed the concept of civilization.”

“How very scintillating,” Strife muttered behind his hand, through a deliberate yawn. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I—”

“Assuming you don’t want your tongue used for raw materials the next time I have to resole one of my boots,” Death said cheerfully, “I suggest you stop moving it.”

Strife’s face went cold at first, then red at Fury’s snicker and the curl of War’s lip, but he did, indeed, shut his mouth.

“Continue.”

“Of course. The point I was coming to is that the Ravaiim had great power—but more than that, great
potential
. And we … harnessed it.”

His pacing ceased but he remained at one edge of the court, staring out across the fiery landscape.

“We knew the Ravaiim could never stand against us. They would prove an easy first victory, but an important one. A powerful symbol, to the Nephilim and to all those other realms and worlds that we would eventually trample into the dust. But we would also make them a
tool
of that conquest. We knew, even then, that many would rise against us, and some might succeed
in matching our own power. We needed every advantage we could acquire.

“And so, when the Ravaiim were no more, a few select Firstborn gathered all that they had left behind, and used it all for … parts. Raw materials,” he added, with a brief glance back toward Strife.

“What resulted were the Grand Abominations. Tools of slaughter, of genocide. World-killers. The most powerful, most terrible weapons you can conceive.”

War started briefly, as though disturbed by a sudden thought or memory, but Death chose to ignore the reaction.

“Lamentation,” he named them. “Anathema. Black Mercy and White Anguish. Gravesire. Bleak Tranquility. And several dozen more, the weakest of which made any of our prior efforts—Harvester,” he said, with a vague gesture toward the scythe, “Affliction, all of those—look like the first student fumblings of Maker children.”

“I’m not certain I follow,” Fury admitted. “If the Ravaiim had technology to make such devices, why not build them for use against us? I know some of the Firstborn Nephilim were skilled crafters in their own right, but I doubt seriously they could build anything out of the same resources that a society of Makers could not.”

Death nodded. “You’re right. They couldn’t. But they didn’t build the Grand Abominations out of Ravaiim technology alone. That made up only a minor portion of their resources.

“The Nephilim constructed the Grand Abominations from
the remains of the Ravaiim themselves
.”

Fury looked vaguely sick; War bordering on outrage. Only Strife seemed relatively unperturbed by the announcement.

And Panoptos might actually have giggled, though Death could not be certain above the crackling fires.

“How else do you think we could create relics so potent?
We are not Makers—normally our own crafting skills would never have been sufficient—but the peculiar nature of the Ravaiim made the process
so
much easier … Flesh, bones, organs, all of it went into the forging of those weapons. And with it, an element of the race’s essence. All the magic and strength that they devoted to Making, all the vicissitudes of their own bodies. More than that, even, the strength of purpose and the
potential
of the Ravaiim—all the power and glory and magnificence that they
would
have created, had they lived—were funneled into the Abominations. They’re not just organic; in a very real sense, they’re
alive
.

“Not sentient. They don’t think in any way we recognize. They don’t communicate with their wielders, save through emotion and impression. But they’re capable of a base level of judgment—and more than that, they
hate
. Oh, they hate, as even the demons of the foulest Hell can only imagine! For everything that was done to them, everything that was denied them, everything they should have been, they find solace in murder, and nothing else.”

“And the Vault?” Strife asked. He sounded far more polite, now, cowed either by Death’s threat or by the enormity of the tale.

“Ah. Right, yes. Even the most bloodthirsty of our brethren knew that such weapons could not be set free in Creation without safeguards. It’s why we never even told the rest of you about them, though I’m sure some of you must have heard rumors of at least a few of the weapons, given how often some of the Firstborn used them.”

War grunted in affirmation, even as Fury nodded. “We suspected some secret,” she said. “Some object or rite of power, but nothing like
this
 …”

“My brothers who created the Abominations included a fail-safe,” Death continued. “Some very specific means without
which even the Nephilim themselves could not fully awaken the weapons. Some were completely nonfunctional, some could only be partly roused and a fraction of their power unleashed, but without the proper knowledge, their full potential was utterly inaccessible.

“And even that, we decided, was insufficient. So some of the same Firstborn who forged the weapons set out to create the Abomination Vault—a depository that nobody but us could possibly access. The Vault occupies its own separate dimension; a ‘hollow realm,’ if you will, utterly unconnected to anywhere else save for one single entrance. We moved that entrance over time, as the Nephilim advanced through Creation, so that we had access, but only the Firstborn ever knew where it was, or how to enter.

“And now, only
I
know.”

“Then it remains only for you to tell us where it stands. From that point, we can ensure—”

“No.”

Never had the flames within the great stone idols burned so hot or so high. The Horsemen each took an involuntary step back, flinching from the raw power—each of them, save Death.

“Remember how many of your gifts are ours, to give—or to
reclaim
—as we choose! We do
not
take disobedience lightly, Horseman!”

“I do not disobey lightly. But I will not reveal the location of the Vault, or how to bypass the weapons’ safeguards, not even to you. So long as only I know, I can be sure the secret remains safe. Punish me if you will; sap my strength, strip away my powers. Strike me down if you must. You only ensure my silence all the more.”

The fires roared until Death’s hair and clothes literally smoldered, and the others couldn’t look directly at the visages
of the Council. Three godly voices boomed as one, promising the most vile of fates. Yet even the threat of Oblivion itself would not sway Death’s resolve.

The Charred Council finally fell silent, perhaps deliberating the proper penalty for such open defiance. Death, too, said nothing, allowing his masters to come to whatever decision they would.

But not everyone remained so calm.

“Tell them, brother!” Fury appeared beside him, a pale white hand on his arm. The rustle of crimson and the clatter of armor announced War’s arrival on Death’s other side a moment later. “You’ve been gone half a millennium. We’d rather not lose you again.”

“I appreciate that, sister. But if the Charred Council decides that all my potential use to them is not worth the right to keep one secret to myself, then they must act as they see fit.”