Phoenix Ascendant - eARC (28 page)

Chapter 42

Tobimar realized he, himself, must have the same expression as he saw on Virigar’s face in that instant: a paralyzing, stunned disbelief…a disbelief that was founded on a vastly stronger, bone-deep
belief
, for that deepest part of him
understood
, and he heard Poplock and the Watchland both murmur “Of course,” next to him.

Kyri Vantage detonated in golden fire.

Virigar was flung away like a doll, the flood of power so immense that it was clear that all he could do was
blunt
it, even with his soul-consuming Hunger. He was blown
through
the mountain of rubble that had been the Retreat, to fetch up against the trunk of a massive tree, staring up as a mighty red-gold firebird rose into the sky…and then transformed into the blazing symbol of the Balanced Sword, a symbol from which walked Myrionar, Kyri Vantage burning with the power of a newborn god.

The world was silent for a moment then, save only for the subliminal hum of absolute might that vibrated from Myrionar, potency vastly greater than any Tobimar had sensed, save perhaps only that of Sanamaveridion himself, dwarfing even the power of the Golden-Eyed God. Virigar rose slowly, eyes wide enough that Tobimar could see the whites against the darkness of the false-Watchland’s face.

Then a smile like lightning burst across Virigar’s face, and he threw back his head and laughed, a laugh like a man told that his lost children had come home, that his daughter had become a hero of the land. Tobimar stared in confusion as the laughter continued, and then Virigar shouted in a voice that shook the earth, “
MAGNIFICENT!
Oh, magnificent, wonderful, superlative! To play the game across time and space itself, to make the trap of the hunter your own creation and salvation!”

Virigar spread his arms wide, as though to embrace the sights before him. “My plan is entirely destroyed, for you are a
new-born
god, and none of the connections you had forged before exist.”

“Exactly,” she said. The voice was still that of Kyri Vantage, but more powerful, more certain, and the energies of the god seethed about her weapon, energies much harder to drain when the god was aware and incarnate.

He shook his head. “Still, I can barely take in the
perfection
of the plan. And once more, your
timing
! Your
symmetry!
To have made
my belief
the final trigger of your apotheosis…MY belief, my realization and certainty of the truth, making you stronger, oh,
vastly
stronger in every possible way than you could have been otherwise.” He chuckled, still shaking his head in admiration. “This wasn’t just Myrionar’s work, oh no. Khoros
must
have had a hand in it, and the Wanderer perhaps. Terian, almost certainly, and maybe even the Golden-Eyed God.”

“The Wanderer, certainly,” Tobimar said slowly. “He knew…knew what
was
to come. What had already happened, in Myrionar’s future.”

The King of Wolves nodded, rubbing his hands together as though anticipating a most marvelous present. The whole scene sent creeping chills down Tobimar’s spine.
He seems surprised, yet happy. This can’t have been his plan!

“And,” Virigar went on, “as you have just been born, created here, you are
native
to Zarathan, you exist here and
only
here. The ban of the gods does not apply. Oh, I say again,
magnificent
. Not in a thousand thousand
centuries
have I been so completely gulled, so maneuvered by others while maneuvering myself.” He bowed deeply. “My compliments and admiration to you and your fellow artists, for this is art of the
highest
degree.”

Then he transformed to his true form. “All I can salvage, then, is to take the soul of a pure, newborn god!”

“Not even that,” Myrionar said, and her voice reminded Tobimar of what she had said, that Myrionar’s voice seemed both that of a stranger and utterly familiar.
Of course it would. We do not sound to ourselves as we sound to others. So she spoke to herself, secure in the knowledge that she would never imagine it was her own voice
.

“Not even that,” Myrionar said again, and raised her sword. Light blazed across her body, transforming her armor so it shone pure silver in the sun. “For how could I have arranged this, gone back to the beginning of my faith and founded it, if I were destroyed here? Your ending is foreordained, Virigar. You have only the choice of flight or of death.”

Virigar tilted his immense, alien head with its impossible crystal maw, and then smiled, a fearsome and eerie sight. “Oh, now, not at all.”

The world shuddered as he raised his arms, talons a foot long standing up from his curled fingers, and a darkness swirled about him. “Think you that you understand what you face, little godling?” Virigar said, and though he spoke softly, the words carried the force of a Dragon’s shout. “I am the Godsbane, Myrionar New-born, and even
time
has no hold on
ME
, paradox is neither barrier nor threat! Ask your heart, born from the ashes of your defeat, ask your allies, call for Chromaias’ word, ask the wisdom of Terian, and they will tell you that the outcome is far,
far
from certain.”

Tobimar rose. The shock had worn off now, and he had regained High Center. Even around Virigar he could see the weaving of peril and possibility—terrible peril, miniscule possibility, but even there, even there against the legend of the death of legends, there remained a spark of hope, a chance of victory. And about Myrionar, the weave of strength and will was still strong. “She will not be your only opponent, King of Wolves.” He called up Terian’s power, and wove it into his body, through his swords, but not outside himself, where the Werewolf could easily reach it. On his shoulder, he felt Poplock—pained, broken, weary—lift his tiny sword defiantly.

“No, she will not,” the Watchland said. He bent down, reached into the rubble, and pulled forth Earaningalane. “The Sword of the Watchland is returned to me, thrown forth from the wreckage in the moment of your plan’s dissolution, and it will strike at least a blow or two for our true patron…and truest daughter.”

Aran said nothing, and neither did Bolthawk, but both brought up their hands in readiness.

Myrionar smiled and gestured, and into all of them poured gold-fire power. “If you would stand with me, then you will not lack for speed and strength…nor for health,” she said, and rose from the ground on burning-gold wings, preparing to strike from above.”

“Ooo, now
that’s
gonna help!” Poplock said. “I fight lots better without broken bones.”

“So be it,” Virigar said, his smile undimmed, his teeth growing and shrinking with each word, serving in a macabre way as lips. “But it will come to the two of us in the end, little Phoenix who was, Myrionar who is, and I have slain more gods than you could count.”

“It will end here,” she said. “Justice demands it.”

The monster said nothing. For a moment, all of them were still as statues, knowing that the next movement would signal the beginning of a combat that would decide the fate of Evanwyl and beyond.

Then, without so much as a twitch of warning, Virigar streaked across the ground, a howling wind of death.

Even with Terian’s power increasing his speed and strength, Tobimar would have been dead in that instant, except that—just as on that far-off day in which Thornfalcon had nearly taken his head—the web of possibility had drawn to a single point of certainty. The swords forged by the Spiritsmith crossed before him in the very instant two mighty taloned hands slashed down, and caught the crystal claws perfectly. In the same moment, Poplock sent a fountain of silver coins into Virigar’s mouth. The Werewolf King gagged, but his immense strength shoved Tobimar away, sent him rolling down the slope of broken masonry.

That, however, had slowed Virigar
just
sufficiently. Bolthawk and Aran each caught one of those mighty arms, and the Watchland proved as good as his word: Earaningalane’s silver blade struck hard and true in a powerful overhand blow that carved through the crystal-fanged head. Myrionar appeared above, and drove her own sword down, straight into Virigar’s body, six feet of Sauran-forged, silver-alloyed metal.

It wasn’t enough.

Tobimar had just that tiny bit of advance warning to throw himself flat before the mangled body gave a gurgling roar and
stripped
every ounce of power from those surrounding him—save only Myrionar, and even she wavered in the air, pulling back in consternation as Virigar’s head and body reformed. Tobimar felt the extra energy gifted to him vanish, and even part of Terian’s strength faded.
He…he
is
something completely different, on an utterly higher scale, than we have ever faced.

He saw the same expression on Myrionar’s face, and knew that she, too, was not sure they would leave this place alive.

Chapter 43

She was not sure how to think of herself now; a part of her was still firmly Kyri Vantage, but there was a new, vaster part that was Myrionar, that saw farther, saw
more
, understood more, could
do
more than Kyri had ever imagined possible.

And it still might not suffice.

The living Hunger of Virigar tore at her strength, at the power that was her essence; it was a battle of her will against that of the Godslayer, and even as she was—for the moment—winning the battle, still she was going to lose the war if she could not find another path to victory.

“Oh, come now, Myrionar,” Virigar said, and gestured an invitation for her to land. “Let us complete this saga.”

“It seems you cannot
fly
,” she said. “Why, then, should I not stay up here, beyond your reach, and shred you with silver borne on my fire?”

Virigar raised a rough-furred eyebrow at that. “I
could
point out that I could finish your companions, and force you to land that way. But…”

Abruptly the monster’s form wavered, twisted, and launched skyward, a bat-winged, crystal-fanged nightmare, Virigar in the shape of a Dragon. “Cannot
fly
? Child, child, I am the Unseen Death, the Shadow within Shadow. There is no shape I cannot take, no power you can use to escape my pursuit. Face me on the ground, face me in the air, face me within the seas. It matters not, for in all places I remain the Lightslayer.”

Forced to confrontation, she reinforced the silver armor she had created about herself, and met Virigar’s charge with a head-on strike.

A shockwave blasted out from the point of impact, blowing trees flat for a half-mile around, hammering her friends down, and she realized that mere
proximity
to this battle could—and would—kill them.

But the impact, with the strength of a newborn god behind it,
had
been enough to send Virigar sailing back, flaring his wings to recover, and that gave Kyri-Myrionar a moment to gesture, to send healing life and shielding power to cover them. She was still unsure of the extent of her capabilities, but such a shield would protect them from the simple consequences of combat.

Nothing
would save them from Virigar’s direct assault. She had to win, she had to defeat this monster somehow, even though the more she thought, the more she wondered if it was even
possible
. In that blank glowing-eyed grin she read the simple truth of the King of Wolves’ words: he
had
been the death of many a god before, deities experienced, aware, knowledgeable of what they were, what they could do, had consumed every energy, every power, every thought, every trace of their souls, their
selves
, and made them part of the King of Wolves.

But maybe that gave her a chance. Lythos had once said to her, “The greatest swordsman in the world does not fear the second-greatest. But he may well fear the worst, for the worst swordsman may do something so foolish that the greater warrior would never expect it, and so be felled.”

I don’t know what in the world I’m doing as a god. So just maybe, I’ll make a decision he doesn’t expect.

She flew higher, circling, evading Virigar’s hurtling assault, then dropped back to the earth.
I know best how to fight here; the only battle I’ve fought in the sky was against something the size of a mountain, not a power-draining monster that lives by stealth, misdirection, and guile as much as by sheer strength.

And the silver was helping to protect her. She could feel, as his claws missed her by inches, that the glittering armor she had created was refusing his Hunger, preventing him from reaching within and tearing her soul out.

Another passage at arms, another detonation that stamped the earth down as though a giant’s club had struck it and sent shattered trunks of trees flying. Virigar, having resumed his accustomed form, skidded to a halt, circled her again. “A fine duel on a fine day, Myrionar. And how clever you are to gird yourself in silver.” His head tilted. “Yet…perhaps not clever enough.”

He pointed a clawed finger, and his Hunger tore at her—

No! Not at HER…

At the
armor.

And the silver faded away, replaced with the red-gold pattern of the Phoenix. “Ah,” Virigar said cheerfully. “
Much
better.”

He sprang with the speed of thought.

But she was a god now, and though she was only barely beginning to grasp what that meant, still it gave her speed beyond speed, enough to bring Flamewing up and parry the diamond blades that sought her essence. But to her consternation she saw those water-clear claws
gouging
Flamewing—small gouges, but still damage,
cuts
into the edges of the invincible.
He can—he
will
—carve apart the rest of my armor and even my sword if I cannot stop him!

But he had dismissed even the silver that had protected her, as though it hadn’t existed, as though her power was, literally,
nothing
to him, just…just another meal, an amusing chase before the kill. Virigar was the cat, and she, god or no, was nothing but a mouse trapped in a wide, open field.

Another clash, sparks flying a thousand yards, energies of conflict shattering the outbuildings of the Retreat. Virigar spun away, the cut she had managed through his guard healing at visible speed, and she had felt a wave of weakness pass through her.
He’s using my own strength to recover from any blow I land.

Hopelessness warred with determination and rage and the desire to be avenged upon this unspeakable monster, destroyer of her friends, her family, her
faith
, and she found another surge of power, flashed across the ground, slammed into Virigar and hurled him across the land, towards the Balanced Sword, lying flat across the heaped remains of the Retreat.

The Werewolf King twisted his body at the last instant, rolling across the silver instead of being impaled by it. Smoke and vapor sprang out from his form at the contact with so much of the sacred metal, but his speed carried him past and clear, to the other side of the wreckage—and out of her sight.

Oh no
.

She moved as fast as possible, yet by the time she reached the other side of that hill of broken stone, Virigar was nowhere to be seen.
He said he can assume
any
form
…

The thought solidified just one split-second too late.

One of the blocks of stone nearest her transformed, lashing out a taloned arm the size of a small tree-trunk, batting her aside like a rag doll, Flamewing flying away into unguessable distance and her armor shattering. Even as she tumbled to a halt, the King of Wolves was upon her, catching her once more about the throat, dragging her to a halfway-upright position, as Virigar towered up above her. She felt even her new-born power now running out of her like water.

“And
now
,” Virigar said pleasantly, with a twinkling of water-clear blades for a smile, “
Now
it will end, Myrionar. Not with a final clash of blades, nor with a cry of vengeance, nor of mercy, nor even the calm certainty of justice. Just with the fading of your strength, the quiet of the grave, and the silent thrill of your power becoming
mine
.”

And he was right. She couldn’t speak, could barely keep herself half-standing before the monstrous figure, as he drained her power,
drinking
it like the freshest, coolest water on a hot, hot day.

No.

Anger and hopelessness combined with outrage and desperation and suddenly she was calm,
calm
in a strange way, feeling herself like chilled steel, like the silver of the distant moon, high and distant, above all things, seeing them in its light equally.
Justice must be done.

How many thousands—hundreds of thousands,
millions
—of lives had the King of Wolves claimed?

How many homes destroyed by the war he had designed for Kerlamion?

How many children screamed for their parents, parents cried for their children?

How many defenders watched helplessly as all they sought to defend fell?

Justice must be done.

But her power flowed away, her will only slowing it, not stopping that impossible, implacable drain. She
was
Myrionar now, she could not
tolerate
this failure, yet even
silver
had failed her, been erased as though her power was…

And then she remembered a long-ago conversation, the Spiritsmith leaning over his forge, and talking of the creation of metals and the reason for his work, and knew there was one last possible chance.