The Undying God (15 page)

“Exploring.” Nishka would hardly
consider this grim setting ideal for sightseeing. She suspected
this road paved the morbid way to the slums. Perhaps its former
inhabitants had been silenced by disease. A tremor nearly dislodged
Nishka’s footing. She staggered and accidentally grabbed Arxu for
support.

“Did you feel that?” she said. A murmur
seemed to emit from far below the streets.

“Not particularly.”

A jagged scream pealed through the air,
chilling the blood in Nishka’s veins. They swerved toward the north
end of the street. A man ran toward them, his mouth contorted in a
scream.

“It’s killing everyone in the temple!
Someone stop him!” He fell to his knees in his frantic attempt at
escape. “Get out of my way!” he cried, and only then did Nishka see
the trail of blood.

“
The murders in Sepulzer!”
she exclaimed. “It’s happening here, too!” She grabbed Arxu’s arm.
“Arxu, can you stop it? Someone has to do something to end
this!”

Suddenly, the streets shifted under a
violent pulse. Without warning, an imposing building shattered like
glass.

A hulking arachnid burst from the
cityscape, staggering into the streets in front of Nishka. She
halted in shock. A cascade of debris showered the streets as the
siege engine reared its hideous head. It swerved to regard
her.

Twelve red orbs were affixed to its
head, several of which studied Nishka. Words escaped her as she
took in the full form of the demonic-looking device. Eight spindly
limbs stretched forward to thunder against the stones. It looked
like a horror conjured out of the hells, a wretched contraption
compiled of forbidden magick. Perhaps more disturbing, the machine
moved like a living beast.

Arxu lifted his staff and gestured
frantically with his hand. His incantation failed to affect the
gargantuan creature, leaving only one solution left.

They fled in the opposite direction.
The mechanical spider immediately flung itself forward, hobbling
over the uneven streets. For a split second, Nishka feared it was
related to the temple murders. She glanced at Arxu, and she knew
even he couldn’t protect her from this. That thought made her
stomach clench with despair.

They tumbled out of the narrow street
and emerged into the city square. They were surprised to find the
plaza empty. Arxu and Nishka didn’t realize many of the city’s
inhabitants attended the amphitheater games at this hour. With a
groan, the siege machine burst from the slums, sending Arxu
slipping forward.

“Arxu!” Nishka cried out. An enormous
fissure splintered through the streets and a tremor almost cost
them their balance. The crevice widened and branched off into
several smaller veins.

“South!” Arxu commanded, cutting to the
right.

“What are we going to do?” Nishka said
as she caught her breath. “We can’t destroy it!”

“We have to keep moving. We can’t stay
in Azia-Nocti anymore.” With those words, he took hold of Nishka’s
hand and plunged into an alley. They barely glimpsed the oligarchs’
palace beyond the narrow passage. Suddenly, the buildings
overlooking the alley tilted. A snarling fissure blistered under
their feet.

Nishka and Arxu raced into the plaza
and spun around as the buildings collapsed.

A sudden crash sent them spinning on
their heels as the arachnoid siege machine landed behind them.
Nishka screamed at the unexpected appearance of the spider. It
stood still for a moment, taking in the environment. Two mechanical
appendages overlooking its mouth wriggled.

It lashed out and tried to impale Arxu
with a barbed leg. The Nightwalker leaped back and swung his staff
in vain. The mechanical spider skittered backward
excitedly.

Its fangs suddenly retracted, folding
inward. A jutting drill studded with curved blades slid out from
between its mandibles. With an anguished sputter, it began to
revolve. Soon, it was turning fast enough to shear through more
than just the chainmail Arxu wore beneath his shirt.

He threw himself to the streets as the
siege machine scrambled forward. He desperately crawled out of the
path of a pointed leg, tucking his body at the last second. The
spider released a mechanical scream like needles burrowing into
Nishka’s cranium. It was a sound of harsh disappointment, outraged
that Arxu had somehow escaped.

It meticulously rubbed its mandibles
together, contemplating what to do next. It regarded
Nishka.

Seizing her crossbow was the furthest
thing from her mind. Before she could even act on that impulse, she
saw Arxu strike its hind leg with his steel staff. He barely dented
the surface, but it was enough to send the spider into frenzy. It
scrambled away with the hysteria of a rabid animal.

“North!” Arxu cried. Together, he fled
with Nishka toward the local bazaar, winding through the bowels of
alleys strewn with rubble. Nishka cast one look over her shoulder,
and she saw the siege machine dexterously navigating the ruins. It
leaped from the horizontal surface of a building to the street,
scrabbling over vendor booths and launching itself onto an
overhanging arch.

It shrieked from above, taunting them
with its insidious chant. As long as it didn’t plunge on top of
them, it could screech to its heart’s delight—or whatever device
was keeping it animate.

“What is it doing?” Nishka asked. She
noticed it had become still, dominating the skyline. Its eight,
wandering eyes reflected the burning sun.

“Studying the city layout,” Arxu
muttered. As if to contradict him, the spider scurried away with a
burst of speed. It scaled a palace, one of its legs plunging
through a window, shattering glass into millions of little
diamonds. From there, it leaped into space and alighted nimbly in
the city plaza.

Nishka staggered and fell to her knees
as the water bridge convulsed. The thunder of mechanical footsteps
sent a tingling through Arxu’s spine as he tried to retrieve her.
As Nishka lay on her knees, she peered over her shoulder to behold
her demise.

They were alone.

They could still feel the aqueducts
shiver from its omnipresent weight. Suddenly, it reared over the
side of the bridge, causing Nishka to shriek. Several tons of metal
outstretched on the aqueducts, blocking the city
entrance.

The threatening spider reared up and
raised two legs in the air. It couldn’t possibly regard the city as
its lair, yet it wouldn’t stop stalking them to the border. It
seemed eager to kill them by any means—or kill anything that moved
in its sight.

Arxu stepped forth and placed himself
between Nishka and the machine. His efforts would be in vain,
Nishka knew. The abomination uttered an ominous noise and slowly
approached.

Suddenly, a spindly figure darted from
the edge of the bridge to stand beside Nishka. Hrioshango smiled
mischievously and acknowledged her. She was befuddled by his sudden
and unexpected appearance.

“What the—?”

Hrioshango lifted his arms and faced
the sky. Suddenly, there was an awesome flash and colors inverted.
The surrounding city blazed with purple, blue, and white. Dusk was
awash with blinding green and the sun became a black hole in the
sky. Hrioshango was emblazoned against the surreal void like
lightning, an apparition of purple with arms reaching for the
heavens.

Howling wind filled their ears and the
clouds swelled. The waters below churned furiously and spiraled
into a maelstrom. The vortex of chaos glistened preciously, like an
entire universe being congealed into a dense and violent nexus. It
growled voraciously, imitating the bellow of thunder.

Without warning, an immense weight
descended upon the city. A droning ambience filled their ears, the
most terrifying noise to ever invade Nishka’s mind. It was like an
otherworldly groan that permeated the streets, rising around them
and billowing to a thick bass.

Buildings on the perimeter of the
district strained and flexed under an invisible force. Stone spires
shattered in seconds. A palatial tower exploded like a blossom of
dust.

The city around them was
imploding.

* * *

Worshippers screamed as Margzor stepped
over the fallen. He approached with his blade clasped tightly in
hand. He didn’t even flinch at the cries of the dying.

No amount of violence could possibly
sate him. A tribute of gold wouldn’t banish this killer from their
midst. Unlike most criminals, he did not seek wealth, slaves,
political power, sanctuary from the law—none of it appealed to
him.

He was not a man without conscience,
far from it. In fact, it was his conscience that required him to
kill them. He was a man of vision, that much was true, and his
vision could only be achieved by force.

One scream melded with another, a
continuous cry for mercy. He did not listen. At last, none of the
living remained.

Margzor collapsed to his knees,
breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his chin in its hypnotic
drip-drop
rhythm. An expression of rage marred his handsome
face. He stood above the corpses, breathing hard from exertion. His
heart throbbed madly from the ecstasy of the kill. He only felt a
depraved sense of accomplishment, one step closer to his long term
goal.

Choking for breath, he staggered to his
feet and stepped over the bodies. The doorway behind him glowed
with brilliant sunlight. It vaguely resembled a portal to another
world, a brighter, more perfect afterlife.

One step at a time, he emerged from the
macabre sanctum. The city outside the temple was devastated, the
street shorn completely from the structure. The street outstretched
from the colonnaded portico like a precipice above the waters
below. A frothing maelstrom snarled like a beast unleashed beneath
the city. The weakened ledge would not support him for much longer.
He couldn’t return to the temple and he couldn’t remain in
Azia-Nocti. He sighed in satisfaction.

Margzor stepped forward. He plunged
from the remains of the street into the frenzied waters
below.

* * *

From above, a crater spread across the
city, corroding everything at its edges with destruction. Like a
tide of decay, it washed over streets and enveloped them in
darkness. In the center of that crater, Hrioshango still raised his
hands toward the sky.

Nishka watched with amazement as the
siege machine sank under a crushing weight. The steel limbs groaned
and slammed against the ground. The drill protruded at a bizarre
angle as the top of the structure flattened.

The remains of partially collapsed
buildings pelted the streets, and Arxu scrambled to evade the
debris. He pulled Nishka to the ground and sheltered her with his
body.

Another seismic wave ripped through the
city, racing through the streets and colliding with a tower. An
explosion rocked the plaza as the edifice shattered like bone. Dust
and debris oozed into the streets as though the tower could bleed.
The shadow it cast elongated as the edifice tilted drunkenly and
collapsed in the streets. Arxu shielded Nishka as dust washed over
him like an oceanic wave.

Upon opening his eyes, he saw the
mechanical spider flailing on the bridge. It clawed frantically at
the splintering chunk of masonry as it loosened from the
aqueducts.

The machine plummeted through space at
a terrifying speed. Water exploded on impact, arching into a mighty
wave to consume the arachnid. The water bridge quaked and its edge
began to crumble under strain. As it teetered on the brink of
collapse, the three foreigners ran toward land.

Suddenly, Arxu’s foot plunged through
empty space and the surface beneath him seemed strangely absent. To
his astonishment, Nishka seized the end of the staff in his hands.
She cried out for help as she attempted to pull him to
safety.

“Help!” she shouted for the darkling.
Hrioshango scampered to a stop and spun around.

“He is disposable!” he
yelled.

“Help me!” The thrashing of the
maelstrom began to grow louder. Horror seized her when she saw the
milky white eye of the maelstrom, swallowing everything within like
a black hole. “What the hell have you done?!” Nishka screamed at
the top of her lungs. Hrioshango’s reply couldn’t be heard over the
roaring phenomenon.

“Never mind! Help me!”

“Humans...” Hrioshango murmured under
his breath. He seized Nishka by the leg and pulled. Arxu barely
managed to claw his free hand onto the ledge. They reached the
outskirts of Azia-Nocti as the bridge collapsed. A rumble pulsed
through the waters below and reverberated through the surrounding
earth.

Arxu slowly backed away from the
maelstrom. The sight was breathtaking.

“What did you do?” Hrioshango met his
eyes with a mischievous expression.

“Hrioshango make the sky fall,” he
gleefully replied.

“You could have warned me.”

Hrioshango grinned.

Chapter 15