The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (8 page)

The horns bellowed in response, roaring in his ears. He blinked and his nostrils flared, sucking in metallic air. There was a massive hand opened to the sky emerging from the center of the lake of blood, seeming to try to seize the moon. It was a bright scarlet, likely made of skulls like everything else here, he reckoned. That wasn’t there before, was it? Nothing made sense here. Maybe he’d missed it searching for other survivors. Maybe the pain had blinded him.

The texture of the skull mountains surrounding the lake was changing. A shimmering network of ropes rose from out of their grinning mouths, sinuous and connected like a man’s veins. Walter willed his remaining eye to focus at the swirling liquid he thought might be moving through the ropes. It couldn’t be.

“Blood. What is this?” His lips trembled, his chest feeling as if it was being crushed by an anvil. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He understood now that no amount of pain would rouse him from what he had hoped was a deep slumber.

Walter rose onto his hand and knees, his hand sinking to his elbow through loose bone fragments under the blood. He looked up as a nude woman floated down from the opened palm. She drifted towards the lake, as peaceful as a summer cloud. Her skin was a yellowy white, hair a vibrant green, eyes violet and bright as the sun. Her legs were pleasantly long, hips wide, and arms slender. The demons backed away from where she would land, giving her a wide girth.

She stared at Walter as she descended like he was a maggot to be toyed with. He had never felt so insignificant, so empty, and so hopeless. Every boil of self-doubt he thought long lanced and healed came roaring back into the forefront of his mind.

He was weak, not enough to protect his family and friends. He scoffed. He wasn’t even capable of protecting himself. His hand traced the scar around his neck from Asebor’s chains. He remembered them sawing through his flesh, the blood spurting out, his world going black. He was dead. He was bound here forever in the cruel irons of eternity.

He thought he might have been able to find a way out of here. Her presence said that hope was a mistake. Even the light of the bloody moon seemed to avoid her, shadows caressing her form where there should have been light.

As she drew closer, he saw her hair wasn’t hair at all, but hundreds of writhing snakes. Her chest was narrow, breasts pointy, nipples dark as brewed elixir. Her body was as hairless as a new babe. Her graceful toes softly slid into the blood, tainting her perfect skin. Walter thought he might have seen her smiling behind the brightness swelling out from her eyes.

“What are you? What do you want?” he croaked. “The Shadow Realm was supposed to be a place of rest.”

“You are an inquisitive mortal. I am the Shadow god. I am the hate in the heart of man. I am everywhere. I am in you now.” Her voice was as soft as a lover’s breath, tinged with pleasure. He felt compelled to go to her, to please her. The light burning in her eyes dimmed, allowing him to look at her without shielding his.

He rose onto his knees, torso sagging, abdomen muscles trembling. He looked down at the twin pair of shattered bones and mangled flesh protruding out his right arm. Where was Stormcaller? It was supposed to be there. The bones were splintered at the ends, muscle and tendon dangling out like sprigs of hay. He looked back at the Shadow god, eyes vibrating. He screamed at her, wanting to rip her apart for what she had done.

Her smile twitched at one side. She lifted an elegant leg and stepped towards him. A beast with tens of stubby human like arms shuffled out of the way. “I am ruler of this world. The land of man awaits my return. My most devoted followers are granted a sliver of my strength. Necromancers, I think you call them. Once the soul has left the shell, the body is free to use.”

Walter swallowed. His idea of reality fractured. The loosely sewn seams of his concept of the world were sliced and pulled apart. The walking corpses that had marched on the Silver Tower must have been led by a Necromancer. Juzo had said Terar was a Necromancer, hadn’t he? Perhaps there were others. Maybe Asebor’s generals, the Wretched.

“How many men do you know who have returned from my realm?” She continued, swirling her toes along the blood’s surface.

It couldn’t be true. There had to be rest for the dead.

“Men are such sad creatures. Your kind will fabricate any manner of lie to avoid facing reality, the hard truths of life. This,” she gestured with a bare hand. “This is all that awaits you in death.”

“Liar.” His voice felt hollow.

Asebor had said he was the one true god. Who was she to him? He to her? The questions hammered through his mind. Walter’s brows knitted together. “What… what have you done to my mother?”

“My brood sought you for a time. You’re elusive, the first true dual-wielder born in the last eight-thousand man-years. The prophecy required that the mother of a male dual-wielder would provide the soul essence for my new creation.”

“This is madness, madness,” he whispered, shaking his pounding head. What was her brood? The blood lake was receding at the wall of skulls, leaving a congealed mass of blood behind. He realized the veins running along the skulls were sucking it up. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing was real. Was he inside a living creature? “Why am I here?”

“To find your mother, of course. She came to us and fell into our trap when she knew you were here. You are the reason your mother ceases to exist.”

“No. It’s not true. You’re a lying bitch!” he barked. It could have been true, though. Deep inside, he knew it. The shame he felt at leaving her to the Cerumal flooded back. He remembered her screams. The memory of her blood on the kitchen floor flashed across his mind. It stained all of the walls and no amount of scrubbing would remove it. He did this to her. It was his fault.

“End. Me.” He said he two words through throbbing teeth. It was over for him now. He had fought well. He didn’t have enough time to leave a legacy and that was all right. He was a farmer and would fade away like any other hewed elixir vine. You had to reasonable about these things.

“Oh. Well, it’s not that simple, dear.” The Shadow god crossed her arms, her nipples now pointing at him like a set of fleshy eyes. “You are still needed. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. It makes things interesting, don’t you think?” Her lips parted in a vicious smile, splitting at the corners, lines of flesh ripping up her cheeks on each side.

Walter flinched at the sea of fire in her mouth. He was transfixed by the light, tongues of fire engulfing his vision. Within the fire, people endlessly screamed, writhing in the eternal burning. They tried to pull themselves free by pushing down the heads of their squirming neighbors. It was an endless cycle.

He had seen that place before. It was in a dream many moons ago, while traveling with Baylan and Lillian for Midgaard. He had been there. A Black Wynch had opened his neck to the world with its talon, waking him from the nightmare. If this was a nightmare, he would have woken some time ago. His mind wanted to deny this place. His heart had unshakable veracity.

The souls of men do not die. They do not rest either. She has taken them into her womb and into the plains of burning,
a voice that was not his thoughts echoed in his mind. His eye locked onto Lillian’s, her arm imploring to be pulled from the liquid flames.

“Lillian!” he shouted, started to reach for her and the world of black returned.

The Shadow god closed her mouth with a slurp, her snake’s tongue lapping at a drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. She dipped her hand into the lake of blood and raised it up over her head. It spiraled around her arms, pattered onto her shoulder, wound around her breasts. “I bring forth my new princess to rule by my side. Time ravages us all, even gods.”

He wanted to tell her she wasn’t a god, but a dying demon. He chewed the insides of his cheeks, forcing his lips to stay closed. He knew who the true gods were. He felt them there, deep inside his chest. The Dragon and the Phoenix were alive. They hadn’t left him. He saw now that they were always there, even as a child. He just didn’t know what it was then.

“My princess of shadow rises!” The Shadow god clasped her hands together like a child expecting honeyed candies. She looked up towards the massive outstretched hand. There was another human-like figure there, peering down at them, still as a statue. Her body was covered head to toe in armor, wine red and gleaming with the light of the moon. It seemed to be part of her, no plates or seams visible. Her eyes and mouth were exposed and her skin a deep olive. Her arms snapped out, spreading a pair of leathery wings attached at her sides. She dipped her body and leaped from the edge of the palm, soaring down like a hawk in flight.

“Isn’t she lovely?”

Walter stared up, numb. The princess drifted over his head and he met her eyes. They were Nyset’s eyes, big and colored like almond skins. “No. You’re alive.” He breathed. “You can’t be here, can’t be.” He reached towards her with his mangled arm and tried to flex open the fingers that weren’t there. Pain, his constant companion, sparked up and into his shoulder, pushing tears from his eyes. He grunted and jerked his arm to his chest, protectively holding it with the other.

Walter ripped two bloody strips from his pants from ankle to waist. He cinched the first tight around his arm just below the elbow. He bit into the bloody rag, securing it while he tied the knot with his hand. He worked the second strip around the back of his neck and between his jaw. He tied a knot in it and slid it up over his forehead, pushing the knot into his butchered eye. His chest heaved as he worked, every movement like being wounded all over again.

The princess landed beside the Shadow god, draping her red arm across her mother’s chest and pressing herself against her side. She cocked her head at Walter, looking at him with Nyset’s eyes. “Mother, I am free.”

“Yes, dear,” the Shadow god crooned, nuzzled her head against her daughter’s hairless head.

“Nyset?” Walter took a tentative step towards her.

The Shadow princess tilted her head then tapped a gleaming finger on her chin, just like Nyset always had when she was deep in thought. An icy chill washed down his neck and down to his toes. It couldn’t be her. She was alive. The princess inched closer to the Shadow god, wrapping her leg around hers, their legs intertwining.

“Asebor. My brood returns!” The Shadow god pushed away from her daughter and clapped her narrow palms together.

A violet line cut through the air, hissing and burning through the blood lake. This could not be. “The gods have no mercy,” Walter whispered. He dropped to his ass, slithering away from the opening portal. It twisted around counterclockwise, opening and spilling out the light of the sun.

“The world of man?” the Shadow princess asked.

“Yes, dear. However, you are not ready.” She caressed the face of Nyset.

The sky was a bright blue, dotted with spiraling clouds. Walter felt a grin pull at his face and he raised his hand as if he could capture its radiance in his palm. The demons crept further back, murmuring, some anxiously barking. A figure stepped in front of the portal’s entrance, blotting out most of the light. Asebor flashed him a jagged smile as he stepped through.The portal snapped shut as if never there.

Walter closed his fist then opened it, staring at his palm, hoping he captured some of the light. The light of the world of man. There was only blood though, thick as honey and sticking between his fingers.

“Mother,” Asebor rasped, stomping through the blood. His tattered cloak hung limp over his shoulders, drifting over the lake. He stopped before the Shadow god and she brushed his face with the back of her bloody hand, smearing red streaks like war paint on his shadowy mask. “She is ready, I presume?”

“Why else would I have summoned you?”

Walter felt laughter bubbling from his lips. “A regular family fucking reunion, eh?”

Asebor whipped his head to Walter. Asebor was in front of him in an eye blink. Lines of blood parted behind his boots and became small waves from his speed. He was faster here, much faster than Walter remembered. “Why does his soul persist?” Asebor hissed into Walter’s face. His breath was like burning sulfur.

“He is needed,” the Shadow god said pleasantly.

Asebor growled, letting out a deep rumbling.

“Do what Mother tells you, dog.” Walter said, lips curling into a sneer. He would not perish begging for his soul.

“Once it is done, can I end him, Mother?”

“Yes, dear.”

The shadow princess backed herself into a wall of skulls, the forearm of the giant palm. She grinned with Nyset’s mouth. Dimples formed in the corners of Nyset’s lips. She lifted her legs and wrapped her arms under her knees. The burnished carapace-like armor split apart at her groin, yawning open like the mouth of a Sand Buckeye.

Walter turned his head. He couldn’t watch. They couldn’t hurt him anymore, he told himself. More lies. He wanted to feel numb, empty. It wasn’t Nyset. His jaw crashed down onto his tongue, hot blood spilling into his mouth. A hoarse grunt penetrated his ears.

When he looked back at the Shadow princess, Asebor was on top of her grunting, ramming his hips into her, cloak fluttering through the air. Nyset looked past Asebor and into his eyes, smiling broadly. She was enjoying this.

They could not hurt him, could not.

Asebor tore at her chest and the plate came apart, revealing her firm breasts. Her flesh puckered with goosebumps. Those were his. He remembered feeling their softness pressed against him. Asebor wrapped his dark talons around her breasts, squeezing them between his fingers. Asebor grunted harder, his heavy leather armor scraping against hers. Nyset moaned, her eyes rolling back, her pink tongue lapping at the air.

He was supposed to be her first, not this, not him. Not a fucking demon’s child. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He rose to his feet on legs that weren’t his. He saw a demon snarl at him from the corner of his eye. Felt another inch closer, felt their tendrils, claws and pincers tensing.

The Shadow god lifted her chin and flashed him a knowing smile. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She sighed contentedly. “How delicious, wonderful. I feel it all over. Your love for her. Hate for us. Her pleasure. Pain. Life and death. All here to enjoy before our eyes, the core nature of man before the eyes of your god.”