Phoenix Ascendant - eARC (26 page)

Chapter 38

Tobimar had barely recovered from the shock of learning their true enemy’s identity, and then having his power snuffed out like a small candle in a breeze. But the name
Voorith
brought him to his feet immediately.
Terian’s Name…that
Mazolishta
Demonlord has a direct and personal grudge against Poplock!

“Now, Voorith, I want you to keep them
all
busy,” Virigar said cheerfully, waiting as Kyri forced herself to stand. “The Phoenix and I have a private little war here, and I want it to
stay
private.”

“By ‘busy’ I hope you mean ‘dead,’” the nightmarish head buzzed.

“Dead is perfectly fine, if that’s what you wish. Just keep my guests entertained.”

Voorith nodded, and with a single gesture, a cloud of biting, stinging insects appeared about him. They flew towards the others, driving them back, ignoring blows, curses, even a few abortive attempts to use fire merely redoubling the attack. Tobimar realized that the whole purpose of this assault was to get them out of the room. He sprinted across the floor, forcing more strength to rise up from his mind, and caught up Poplock. A buzzing rattle warned him that the swarm was after him, too.

“
Drought
, this is bad!” Poplock said as he grabbed tightly onto Tobimar’s shoulder.

“Bad enough.”

And getting worse, he realized; they were heading for a solid wall, and behind the rising sound of the swarm were swift, inhumanly hard and sharp strides.
Voorith’s after Poplock above everything else. He’ll get us too, but he wants my friend first!

“Don’t slow down!” Poplock snapped. The Toad threw a crystal sphere ahead of them, calling out “
Come forth!”
The sphere shattered into a prismatic cloud and a small, stocky, reptilian form entirely composed of rock materialized just before the wall.

“Open the way!”
Poplock shouted.

The creature…
melded
with the wall, and the wall abruptly parted like water, a gap just large enough for Tobimar to dive through. Scarcely was he through than the wall was whole again.

“That was…a
Light
-good trick, Poplock!” he said; finding one of the corridors he thought led out of the complex, he kept running; he was under no illusions as to how long that would balk a
Mazolishta
.

“Got good connections with nature, we Toads,” Poplock said, without quite his usual self-satisfied tone. “Lucky I had one that was Earth; I’d been arguing with myself that I should drop that one and get another Salamander. I—
look out!”

The very air before them had coalesced into the figure of Voorith, crouching low to fit in even these high corridors. Rather than slackening his pace, Tobimar dove forward, swords extended, and slid right between the reptile-scaled insect legs, his weapons forcing his opponent to jump away—behind them—or be impaled in a
very
delicate location. With a swift roll, Tobimar was back on his feet.
Got to keep my senses tuned to their highest pitch.
He needed to get to a position where he could
focus
for a moment.

A howling, whining swarm of black bees with the heads of giant warrior ants screamed out of nowhere. Poplock answered this attack with a fan of orange flame that momentarily parted the hungry curtain.
Is that a door?
Please
let it be to the outside!

Bursting through the door, he found that it did…in a sense. They were in a pleasant, green courtyard, probably one of several spaced around the core of the Retreat. High above them, the Balanced Sword stood, an ironic witness to the unholy below it. Grasses and bushes dotted the enclosure, with three trees planted at the corners of the generally triangular space.

Almost at the same time Tobimar realized where they were, a door across from them flew open and the other Justiciars—Bolthawk, Skyharrier, and Silver Eagle half-dragging a screaming Aran Condor sprinted into view, with the Watchland stumbling along behind, pushed by a pale Mist Owl.

“Oh,
Balance
, we’ve been herded,” Bolthawk cursed.

“Precisely, Justiciars,” Voorith said, in a voice like howling winds and swarming death. “I am nothing if not…
reliable
. I made a pact, and I will ensure that none of you interrupt our host.”

On cue, the entire
complex
shuddered, and Tobimar thought he heard a high, chiming sound over that, the sound of the Spiritsmith’s art clashing with crystal claws.

“Quick, back inside!” Silver Eagle said. “We need to…”

He trailed off. Tobimar, who’d had the same thought, saw why: in an instant, the stone of the complex had simply…erased the doors. Nothing but solid, featureless stone surrounded them.

They were trapped in a courtyard no more than fifty yards across.

“To the sky!” Skyharrier shouted. His armored wings whipped out, and the other Justiciars nodded.

But only Skyharrier rose into the air. The others leapt…and fell back to the ground. Even the
Valkyrnen
Justiciar seemed to rise slowly, with effort, not with the smooth speed that Tobimar had seen from Kyri.

Oh, no.

“Did you think that your patron would continue to support you with power when you had betrayed him?” Voorith laughed, a hideous sound like a hundred dry sticks scraping on stone. Then the demon gestured.

Skyharrier’s wings beat desperately, but the black swarm was faster to climb, rose above him—and came down. Tobimar turned his head away.

“That…was the second time…I left my father behind.” Aran was turning towards Voorith, and his face was dark with rage.
“He was dying again, and you made me leave him!
”

“No, don’t—”

To Tobimar’s astonishment, Aran actually
reached
Voorith before the
Mazolishta
reacted; perhaps it simply didn’t expect anyone to do anything that
stupid
. Aran’s fists slammed heavily into the demon’s leg at the knee—and though his false-Justiciar power was gone, still he was wearing the Raiment of Condor, and the gauntlets on his hands had been forged by the Spiritsmith.

Voorith gave a steel-ripping shriek of pain; his taloned arm lashed down, caught up Aran Shrikeson, and hurled him away with such force he flew
over
the wall, to crash into another part of the complex with an impact audible in the courtyard.

The others, Tobimar with them, began their own charge.
He’s hurt, we’ll never get a better chance.

But even as they started forward, Voorith’s leg straightened, and the praying-mantis head with wide-flung mandibles turned towards them, fanged mouth sneering behind the carapace. “You have no advantage, little creatures.”

Tobimar felt himself grabbed, held. The grasses had darkened, lengthened, and were twining around his legs. Nearby, a bush uprooted itself, rose higher, and began to shift from a harmless leafy shape to something of thorns and rough, wirelike stems. Farther away, he could see the trees themselves starting to twist and move.

Poplock gave a terrified squeak as he realized that Tobimar couldn’t move, and he didn’t dare jump down. Vaguely, Tobimar could hear his friend muttering a rare heartfelt prayer.

“I am
Mazolishta
, mortals. I am more than
demon
. I am a
god
, one of the five, Voorith, Yergoth, Windego, Zaoshiss, Uluroa.” It picked up Silver Eagle despite all the man’s desperate struggles, like a man grasping an insect, and then tossed him aside. The black swarm dove and caught the false Justiciar, and Tobimar was glad the swarm was so thick he could not see what happened. The swarm had dropped Skyharrier, and when the Raiment of Skyharrier hit the ground it came apart, filled with nothing but bloody bones, the skull fixed in a scream.

“I am the Bender of Nature, the Shaper of Life. There is no escape from me on any living world.”

Bolthawk’s face was blotchy with white and red, horror and fury and shock warring for control, while Mist Owl’s
Artan
visage was possessed of the unnatural calm of a man at the moment of his execution. The Watchland was slashing desperately at the vegetation around him, but it was a losing battle. Tobimar had managed to hack himself free for a moment, but that was but a short reprieve.

I have to find a way out soon, or we’re all dead
.

“Throw me away,” Poplock said hopelessly. “He’s after me first. Maybe…”

“I will
not
do that. He’ll kill us all anyway.” He remembered staring at a Dragon the size of a mountain. Though almost infinitely smaller, Voorith
radiated
power, power perhaps as great as that of Sanamaveridion.

But he’s a demon.

Suddenly he remembered the demons he and Xavier had met, and other conversations across the months.

Maybe…

He reached down within himself, even as the monstrous gaze was turned upon him.
I had not drawn upon nearly all of my power before. Maybe…

Glittering deep within him he could see with his heart and mind a blue-white star. Ignoring the Demon’s deliberate, lethal strides, he reached out, in, down…

Starfire of silver and sapphires exploded around him, turning the warped grasses and approaching corrupted plants to ash. Raising his head, Tobimar extended his swords and then brought them up, parallel across his chest in the same pose that he and Xavier had been taught.

And Voorith halted in his tracks.

“Come then, Demon,” Tobimar said, and lifted his gaze to the faceted orbs that now held a trace of doubt. “But know that I am Tobimar Silverun, Seventh of Seven. I have faced an Elderwyrm and I still live. I have fought a Demonlord before, and emerged the victor. I am the Heir of the Lords of the Sky, wielder of the Light of Terian. And,” he lifted the swords a hair, “I have been trained in the ways of
Tor
by Konstantin Khoros.”

Voorith took an involuntary step back.

Tobimar instantly lashed out with both swords, mind and spirit focused to perfect and implacable intensity.

A shockwave, a symmetric double-crescent, of raging blue-white fire streaked outward from the twin blades. Voorith’s black swarm of demonic insects was instantly before its master, but the power of Terian incinerated them almost without notice.

Voorith threw up its arms with a demonic invocation and ebony fire enveloped the
Mazolishta
a split-second before a blaze of azure-argent light momentarily erased the world with a shockwave that knocked Tobimar flat and blew down two of the three walls surrounding the courtyard. Poplock was thrown from his shoulder, tumbling away end over end.

Tobimar forced himself to his feet; he saw the Watchland and Bolthawk doing the same from within the wreckage of part of the complex.
They’re tough, those two, and Mist Owl seems to have simply evaded the shockwave
. But he kept most of his attention focused on the cloud of smoke and dust.
Did it work? Or did it fail?

The obscuring veil was suddenly blown away by a shrieking wind, and Tobimar felt his spine turning to ice more cold than the peaks of the Khalals.

Voorith emerged from the smoke and ash. The
Mazolishta
was far from unscathed; one clawed arm was gone to the shoulder, and the other was scored deeply with black burns, and the smooth stride had become a dragging limp; more, the wounds did not seem to be healing swiftly.

But the eyes burned with a yellow-green flame. “Oh, mortal spawn of the Light, you have achieved your aim; now, surely, I shall slay
you
before that accursed Toad, and he shall witness every moment of your pain!”

Chapter 39

Virigar. The King of Wolves.

Disbelief warred with absolute terror within Kyri. Only her training, her bone-deep experience of battle, kept her circling, cautious yet watching for an opening.
Godsbane, the Soul-Eater.
The monster before her had those names and a dozen more, all names of shuddering legend.

She drove the fear back with sheer will.
I have to control the battle now, or he
will
end me.
The only thing protecting me right now is the silver in my armor and weapon, what little there is, and the fact that for some reason he’s still not really
trying
.

“Why the elaborate ruse?” she asked.
He likes to talk. Maybe if I can keep him talking I’ll find out something I can use.
“Playing at being Viedraverion, manipulating the King of All Hells, setting country against country…all while you claim your real goal was
here
? What possible point was there to killing the Sauran King, or arranging an attack on Skysand? You’ve no real interest in politics; you and your people are hunters and killers, not conquerors.”

Lightning-fast claws struck; she parried them with desperate speed and Lythos’ training, and even together they were barely enough. But her opponent was grinning, a wall of sparkling death that spoke. “I suspect you guess some of it; but I am afraid you have made something of an error in your evaluation.

“It is true,” he said, and once more there was an exchange of claw and blade that sheared off a part of the Phoenix’s Raiment as though it were pasteboard, “that my
people
are, in essence, lone hunters, generally uninterested in the motions of the prey beyond that needed for safety. But that, you see, is because I
want
them to be that way. The more of them that develop a taste for rulership, the more start to wonder if perhaps
they
might be better suited for ruling our people. This causes me inconvenience, so I…discourage it.” The shining, cold crystal smile left her no doubt as to
how
he discouraged such behavior. “But
I
have many interests beyond the hunt.

“In particular, I have an interest in
destruction.
I enjoy it—done artistically, done well. Assisting Kerlamion in bringing such destruction, such
coordinated
destruction upon the world? Now,
that
was most worthwhile effort.”

It’s a
game
to him. The wiping out of the
Artan
was just another amusing move. What a complete monster.
She used that fury, the outrage against the injustice of this thing’s very
existence
, to push herself into concentrating solely on Virigar. She saw an opening, feinted and then dove and swung, nearly chopping one of the huge legs, but Virigar leapt swiftly over the stroke, and the diamond-bladed kick nearly carved her in half.
Balance, he’s fast. And my strikes…he’s already healed all the damage he’s taken from everything. I need to hit him harder, with something that has more silver…and I don’t have anything.

“But you aren’t terribly interested in the generalities of destruction. You want to know why my
main
plan seems so convoluted. But really, it isn’t, if you follow it back far enough.” He was now suddenly back to being a copy of Jeridan Velion, evading her blows with unsettling ease.
Is he really that much better than I am?
“Still, why should I tell you at all?”

Kyri stopped trying to strike; she might be able to speed up again, but she needed to figure out how to really
hurt
her adversary, here in the middle of…

In the middle…
They
were
in the middle. The
center
of the complex.

If I can somehow manage this…Myrionar, guide me!

The important thing was to keep Virigar amused, talking, angry only when
she
needed him angry. “Yes, that
is
the question. Why should you? Why are you even wasting the time talking to me?”

The so-human smile widened a bit.

“Poplock said you’ve planned
everything
. But I can’t believe that. You can’t
possibly
have known every single thing we would do. I don’t believe you could have predicted that Poplock would show up to meet Tobimar, and both of them would come to rescue me just in time.” She ducked under a clawed attack from a suddenly monstrous arm, risked slamming into the otherwise-human form with her lowered shoulder; the impact actually sent Virigar tumbling away for a moment, but she didn’t quite dare follow up with a charge; she’d seen how fast the monster was, and she had a larger plan. “You couldn’t have known that we would defeat Sanamaveridion, let alone
how.
There are so many ways your plan could have failed.”

She continued to circle, but out of the corner of her eye she was marking locations, places where the flow of battle would have to take her and her opponent if she was going to have even the smallest chance of victory, and once more focused on Lythos’ teachings:
Speed of East, Guidance of Spring, Light of South, Circle of Summer, Wisdom of West, Flow of Fall, Hardness of North, Cleansing of Winter
. “I don’t think you have a perfect oracle,” she went on, feeling herself trembling on the edge of the Ninth Wind, and knowing that to
think
about that would lose her that chance. “So there have to be things you don’t know…or things you’re improvising.”

The false Watchland laughed approvingly as he rose to his feet. “An interesting gambit to open, Phoenix. It is possible, of course, you are underestimating me; after all, while I am not generally accounted a
god
, when one has killed and consumed the essence of enough gods, one
does
gain some advantage from it. And I do, as it happens, possess an oracle which is, indeed, perfect…although quite perilous for me to consult with any frequency.”

She gave a sudden, full-power lunge, directly for Virigar’s chest, but that incredible speed took him
just
out of harm’s way, causing her to smash into and partly through the wall. Only an instinctive reverse-roll kept her from losing her head, as diamond blades slashed the air and then finished the job she’d started, tearing a huge hole in the wall.

Virigar continued as though there had been no interruption at all. “But you are correct…and so is Poplock. I planned much of the entire sequence of events, but I did so with many, many contingencies, as I am sure Tashriel must have told you, and often the precise
details
did not matter at all. I didn’t need, for example,
you
—Kyri Victoria Vantage
—
to become the Phoenix; I needed
someone
to be chosen as the final Justiciar by Myrionar, to have the god commit fully and finally to one representative. In point of fact, I didn’t know that the Phoenix was
you
until I examined the aftermath of Thornfalcon’s defeat. I had other candidates higher on my list, but once I realized who you were, well, I knew you were a perfect choice.”

This time Virigar leapt at her, transforming instantaneously into the hulking, clawed monster that was his true form. She instantly called on her power for speed, and
more
speed, and it was just barely enough, as the King of Wolves bit, slashed, stomped, sometimes nicking her armor, often ripping great holes in floor or walls, but always, always coming within hairsbreadths of death.

But he’s just
physically
attacking. He could try that distance-draining thing again at any time. Why doesn’t he? I’m stalling for time, yes, but is he? Is my plan…part of
his
plan?

How many layers do I have to think on?

“But you did systematically destroy the faith of Myrionar. Why not stamp it out entirely?”

“Ahhh, why indeed? Instead, I was pleased to see you performing miracles in a manner that created
new
temples. Why is that, Phoenix? What am I accomplishing? Come, come, don’t make me tell you, why don’t
you
tell
me?”

The last sentence ended with the false Watchland grasping and hurling a gigantic piece of rubble at her; she cut at it with both strength and Phoenix-power, shattering the missile and a twenty-foot length of the far wall. “I’m finding it a bit difficult to think while you try to kill me.”

“Just another challenge.” He smiled at her, a sunny, cheerful smile that seemed utterly without malice, and she shuddered.
If I ever lost sight of him, how would I ever be able to know if I was facing Jeridan Velion…or Virigar?

As his next strike jabbed at her, she took a terrible risk, caught the outstretched arm, amplifying strength and speed, and then threw Virigar into and through the nearby wall.
Building’s really taking a beating…

But he wants me to solve the riddle. If I keep thinking about it, he’ll keep staying not-quite-serious about this fight. That’s about my only chance.
“All right, I accept the challenge.”

He bowed. “Then say on, Phoenix.”

Vaguely from outside she heard a tremendous explosion, and the floor shook.
Please let that be Tobimar attacking, not Voorith.
She drove that worry from her head too. “All right. What have you accomplished? That’s got to be the clue. You wiped out all of the other temples. Until I went to Kaizatenzei, as far as I know Arbiter Kelsley’s temple was the only temple of Myrionar left in the world. Now there’s at least two others, one in Jenten’s Mill and one in Valatar.” During this speech they had traded some blows, but it was clearly just for formality; neither came close to injuring the other.

“I will confirm that you were correct in your surmise that there was indeed no other temple of Myrionar left in the world until your journey to Kaizatenzei.”

She leveled a blow at Virigar that he once again ducked easily, but though the sword carved through stone again, she wasn’t disappointed. It was all a matter of keeping up appearances. “It can’t just be for Myrionar’s power as such, because most gods—including Myrionar—gain more power from more worshippers, more temples, more
significance
…” She trailed off with a sudden chill of understanding.

Her arm blocked the lightning-fast stroke with nothing at all to spare; as it was, the Raiment on her arm was torn to pieces and she found herself sliding painfully across the floor, face scraped by dust and fallen stone from above. Somehow she was on her feet, Flamewing pointed at Virigar, halting his follow-up charge.

But the monster was still smiling. “And? You seem to have had a thought, Phoenix.”

“Worship,” she said, and felt the blood draining from her face. “You’ve…your plan, my course across the world…the way I confronted the Watchland and revealed the False Saints…the temples in Kaizatenzei…”

“Ahhh, perhaps you
do
begin to understand!”

She remembered that moment of rebirth. “Even Arbiter
Kelsley
isn’t thinking of the Balanced Sword now when he prays. They’re all thinking about
me
. And that means that if I die, with Myrionar focused entirely on me
…
”

“…there is truly
no way
for Myrionar to be reborn. Ahh, excellent reasoning, Phoenix Kyri,” Virigar said, changing once more into the massive black-brown nightmare shape, facing her casually from the center of the room. “That is, after all, one of the problems of facing a god; unless the god be incarnate on this world, they have…an anchor, even if they throw all that they are into the assault, a connection to the realm of the divine which can be rebuilt if their worshippers remain true.” He chuckled. “But if the worshippers are focused overly much on the
vessel
and not its
contents
, then that belief…dissipates, and the god is well and truly lost.”

Kyri glanced towards the door. “But now that I know, Myrionar knows. It will not commit so much of itself as to be destroyed.”

Virigar shook his immense head slowly, his smile lethal with crystal blades. “You know better, Phoenix. Your own words have told me that Myrionar swore you this chance in the name of the very power of the gods. Myrionar can no more go back on that than you could forgive me and walk away, leaving me to my other work.

“And you, too, dare not leave this confrontation. Once we have parted ways, once I am no longer in your view…how will you know whether the friend you speak to is your friend…or myself?”

Kyri stared at the monster for a moment, as he simply smiled wider and waited, perhaps for her to charge, perhaps merely to watch all the emotions play across her face.

Virigar was right. She couldn’t turn back. And Myrionar would commit everything it was to this attack. “You’re right. So you intend to destroy
everything
that Myrionar was, not merely wound but obliterate the god. Which leaves me only one choice.” As she spoke, one of her hands dipped into a pouch at her side.

Virigar began a slow, pacing walk forward, claws lengthening. “And that is…?”

“Win.”

As she spoke, Kyri hurled a handful of pure silver coins at Virigar—and sent her power raging
through
the coins, vaporizing and pushing the vapor of the metal
ahead and within
her assault.

This time Virigar could not simply absorb the energy. He was driven back against his full strength, the silver-touched fire ripping and blasting his body, momentarily stunning him. And as he halted, she raised her sword and the Phoenix-fire shattered the ceiling overhead, tore outward, found what she sought, and touched it just enough to guide it in its fall.

Virigar’s face was a burned ruin, eyes flaring red and green with fury, as he shook himself. Masses of stone fell around them both, but abruptly the King of Wolves’ gaze snapped upward.

Just in time to throw up his arms as the point of the Balanced Sword drove straight between his eyes.