Realm Wraith (49 page)

There was nobody to answer that for him. The ground shook as it started to melt into the fiery rivers, and he had to fight to keep his balance. He gripped his head in his hands, gazing up at the dark sky overwhelmed by flames.

“It’s too much,” he gasped, shaking. “It’s too damn much! All these unfathomable thoughts! Why are they in my head?!”

He punched the ground with a fist, and the resulting tremor sent him flying, as the ground tipped slightly, and the ice floe slowly sank into the fire. He knew if he stayed here much longer, he would die. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Nothing felt real anymore. Everything from the moment of his death seemed like one long, horrible nightmare, where he no longer controlled his actions, merely an observer to some instinct that turned his soul into something he didn’t recognize.

For a while, he just sat there, as the ground beneath him became less and less. Even the tall pillar started to melt, while flaming geysers burst through the ground. His tail slipped into the melting ice, which swiftly refroze, trapping him. He grabbed and pulled, trying to yank it free again. Then he stopped and looked up, as he heard something else amidst the sounds of cracking ice and roaring fire. It sounded almost like footsteps.

He wondered for a moment if Azaznir had come to finish him off himself. With Gabriel gone, he’d lost his servant. Rayne hadn’t forgotten the fire god’s threat. He dared to look out into the distance, where he saw a dark shape moving against the crimson light. Its footsteps were not those of a man, but a beast, its body hunched, walking upon four legs. A great, black dog stepped into view, its three heads low to the ground as it noticed Rayne lying there, and its lips drew back as it growled. Rayne stared at the creature, too lost in his own emotions to grasp any logic right now. He knew this beast, he felt that. Not just because they’d crossed paths before. There was something more distant, a forgotten memory all reason told him was false, yet he could not shake that there was some truth to it.

“Kueyin?” he whispered.

The beast raised its heads, and for the first time, Rayne saw what looked like eyes hidden beneath matted black fur, a blazing purple in color. He gulped as the truth suddenly dawned on him, and a violent, icy wind rushed past him as the creature’s form exploded outwards, growing larger and larger before his eyes, blocking out the skies like a dark mountain. Frozen tendrils lunged from the shadows, slamming into the ground around Rayne.

“
How do you know that name?!
” Tomordred roared, hostile as ever.

“M-my mistake, I thought you were my old d-dog.” Rayne went numb.

“Your
dog
?! You think of me as some pet?!”

“No! I mean, it’s just a misunderstanding! You were a dog just now, right? Have you been stalking me?”

Tomordred’s eye narrowed. “It is you, isn’t it? That cocky interloper who decided to turn this world upside-down, and interfere with my peace? You seem different.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly been having a stellar evening.”

“Why are you here? Have you come to gloat in my last hours? Did you do this? You couldn’t defeat me, so you had Azaznir do it for you?”

“No! Absolutely not! I would never serve that overblown gasbag!” Rayne clenched his teeth. “But the fire is my fault. Azaznir found out the truth. He decided to do away with this place.”

“You told him?!”

“No! It wasn’t me! Somebody overheard us! But you’re here now, right? You can fix this! You are the master of this realm!”

“I am not the master! I never was!” Tomordred bellowed. “Since Nen’kai vanished, I have been guarding this place from Azaznir’s flames. But this time is different. His fire is unrelenting; he’s putting all his power into melting this world. I cannot stop it.”

Rayne’s heart sank. “You’re just going to sit here and do nothing?”

“There is no place else for me to go. This was my home.” Tomordred’s voice shook, showing emotion Rayne had never heard from the colossal beast before. “I failed him. It is only fitting I die here.”

“But—that’s not right! Surely your god would want you to save yourself!”

“There is no point in going on without him.” A heavy tendril suddenly wrapped around Rayne’s torso, squeezing him uncomfortably tight. “You were stupid to come here. Perhaps I should just eat you. One final morsel before I perish.”

“Wait,” Rayne squeaked. “I don’t understand. Why were you following me around? Why did you get so upset when I used that name? Who’s Kueyin?”

“
I am Kueyin!
”

“But your name is Tomor—”

“That is my name now!” Tomordred’s voice lowered to a menacing whisper. “Nobody has called me Kueyin for a very long time.”

Now Rayne understood. “Kueyin was your mortal name.”

“Do not speak that word! Nobody is allowed to know that name but myself and my god!” Tomordred’s other tentacles slammed against the ice, and the one around Rayne threatened to crush him into paste.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

The tendril loosened, dropping Rayne on the ground again. He pulled his tail free from the ice, surprised as Tomordred withdrew his tentacles, his eyes closing. Were it not for the black shadow silhouetted against the fire, Rayne could barely tell he was there.

“Go,” Tomordred said. “Before I change my mind.”

“You’re letting me go? But—”

“Do you
want
to be eaten? Get out of my sight! I want to die in peace.”

Rayne
felt a strange chill creeping through him. He knew he should run, but something held him here, a forgotten truth his mind screamed for him to understand. The idea forming was too much for him to believe.
But before he could speak, the ice cracked sharply beneath them, and he heard Tomordred cry out as his form suddenly plunged into the flaming river, the small chunk of ice too small to support him.

“
Kueyin!
” Rayne screamed. An emotional storm filled him. The past he’d sworn was a lie felt more real than the lost memories of his childhood. He saw black tendrils flailing in the fire, tendrils that had tried so hard to crush him. He remembered how much smaller they’d once been. So frail and fragile, like the thin strings of a jellyfish. Rayne ground his teeth as the weaving black limbs sank into the bubbling river.

Without even thinking about it, he held up his hands, cold, mangled hands that bore so little resemblance to human ones. Frost formed in his palm, and he felt the land around him, as if it were part of his own body. This realm he’d found so beautiful, so peaceful, was dying. How dare Azaznir destroy that beauty. He would pay for this. Rayne felt a cold heat in his eye sockets again, a dash of color that turned his vision purple for the briefest instant. He could feel the fire melting the ice, like his own skin was being scorched. He gestured, and brushed it away. And the land responded. The skies cracked wide open as a relentless frozen storm chilled the falling fire into icy shards, and the flames burning beneath the ice shrank against the sudden cold, and seeped away into the darkness.

The tempest raged overhead, healing the skies and cascading watery torrents upon the land. It filled the cracks and froze solid, joining the ice back together. Rayne gaped, shocked at how easily it came to him, every gesture commanding the world itself. He raised his hands, and roaring geysers burst through the ice, screaming towards the sky, catching fallen souls along the way as a deathly chill radiated from within their cores, turning water to crystalline stone. And just like that, the land was renewed.

A flat, unbroken expanse lay before Rayne, a sea frozen by eternal winter. He heard nothing, not even a heartbeat, even though his own anxiety should have been deafening. He stretched his hand out, and with a great
boom
, a massive crack split the ice apart. Tomordred burst free, waving his burned tendrils. The singed limbs regenerated, and Tomordred focused his three great eyes on Rayne, his shock clear. Rayne was certain his own face has the same disbelief written all over it.

His back ached, and the screaming in his head threatened to tear him apart. He leaned down and touched his hand against the cool ice, connecting himself more deeply to the land. Frost crawled over him, and the six decapitated limbs on his back straightened up. From each wound, countless black serpents poured fourth, weaving over each other, knitting together to heal flesh and bone as they reshaped into much larger snakes, and restored his body to its former state. Each head screeched in exhilaration, echoing Rayne’s own emotion. Only their eyes were no longer black, no longer hollow. A blinding violet light glowed in every socket, and as Rayne noticed, that included the two upon his own face, a fallen god’s power resurfaced.

He saw all three of Tomordred’s eyes grow wide, the fire within bursting and melting into insane patterns. But demonic beast’s fear, rage, and complete and utter bewilderment spoke volumes to the being before him, who drank in the sensation.

“You had me worried there,” Rayne whispered.

Tomordred shook like a rippling pond. “Is it really you?”

Rayne stared at his hand, the six heads on his back cackling madly. His memory reached out farther and farther back in time now, and he began to feel very strange as it overcame the memories of his former life, bringing a mind-set completely alien, yet achingly familiar to him.

“It’s me, Kueyin,” Rayne whispered, overcome by the truth. He could feel it within him, the malevolent and ancient entity that stood at his very core, something far darker than anything he ever dared to imagine, something he had been repressing for a very long time. The mortal shell that had once trapped him became more of a distant memory with every passing second, and he felt a growing fear as he grasped the horror of what he truly was. “I am Nen’kai.”

Chapter 16

When the shock faded, Rayne went limp on the ice, staring blankly ahead, as this new understanding settled in his mind. He passed his hand over the ice, but it didn’t feel cold to him.

“My lord, what happened to you? Your form is so small. Like one of those humans,” Tomordred said.

Rayne whirled around as Tomordred loomed over him, his massive form dwarfing him by many orders of magnitude. Rayne’s eyes flashed, unfearing.

“How could you fail to recognize your god?!” he snapped. “You tried to eat me!”

“I’m sorry!” Tomordred’s tentacles covered his eyes as he cowered. “Your presence was so small and weak! And you were so convinced you were mortal! How was I supposed to know?!”

Rayne’s expression calmed, and he ran a hand through his hair as it danced in the still air.

“I know,” he whispered. “I wanted to see you cower. A little payback for hunting me. You were so blinded by loyalty you couldn’t even recognize me in a broken form. But you sensed something, didn’t you? That’s why you took the form of a dog, and followed me around?”

“I didn’t know what I sensed. You kept coming back here, and I decided you were a threat to my peace.”

Rayne’s hand dropped over his eyes, and his shoulders shook as he chuckled. “This is completely mad. I must have lost my marbles.”

His arm itched, and once again he reached down and scratched. He’d felt a faint tingling sensation for a while now, and it was intensifying. Something made him stop. He felt a lump there, right where the itching was. There was definitely something pushing up from under his skin, something that made his face pale as he brushed his finger up against it. The lump jiggled somewhat at his touch, and to Rayne’s horror it started to crawl up his arm. Another bump pushed up on his forearm, and began to move as well. He narrowed his eyes and dug into the lump with sharp fingers, tearing his skin open. Blood spurted out, along with unimaginable pain, but he ignored all feeling.

“What are you doing?!” Tomordred cried.

Rayne stared with wide, haunted eyes as something writhed within his blood. It was long and thin, and moved with slow grace. He reached out a tentative finger and touched the thing. It slithered out of the wound, winding its way down Rayne’s arm, a small blood drenched serpent. Two more snakes crawled out of the wound right after, and all three wormed down his arm. Then Rayne felt them, many more of them, crawling right underneath his flesh, all over him, from his tail, to right up on his face, the horrific sensation of a something slithering right below his eye. At least, it should have been horrific, but in the wake of everything else he’d been through, it wasn’t nearly as shocking as it should have been.

“It’s like my entire being is nothing but serpents,” he laughed, a little madly. “I really do belong here.”

“You are the lord of all serpents, after all,” Tomordred said.

“Am I now? You know, you could have mentioned this before.”

Rayne slid across the ice, his tail leaving a winding trail in the frost behind him. His thoughts were a jumbled mess. There were flashes, tiny peeks through the window into a life that was almost unrecognizable to him. Something held him from probing deeper
, a stirring, inhuman emotion deep inside. It frightened him to feel this way. His inability to understand his own self saddened him, but there was also a faint tinge of anxiety. He feared losing the person he knew, the human ego he had grown so accustomed to, by embracing this demonic part of him.